INTERVIEW: CORTNEY TIDWELL

Feb 22, 2008 - 14:02 PM PST



Cortney Tidwell is disturbed. It’s really no secret when you listen to her debut ‘Don’t Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up’, a 12-track ballad of stomach-twisting hollow echoes and stunning female vocals. Possibly, her background is to thank (or blame): a Nashville girl born and raised in the music industry, her experience growing up with an explosive, manic-depressive mother inspired her to begin writing music by herself after experimenting in a couple bands prior. Wherever her motivation comes from, Tidwell has an irresistible effect on the listener. You can only imagine the amount of listeners she inspires to make music about their own pasts.


Being compared to artists/legends like Bjork, Leslie Feist and Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star -- as you have been -- can bring up and down opinions and affect artists very differently. What’s your take? How does an honor like that affect you?

I’m very flattered by the comparisons. These are very talented women. However, I do find it sometimes aggravating that people must make comparisons -- but I understand. I mean, I grew up listening to some of these artists and I’m flattered to be thrown in with them. Just please add Loretta Lynn to the list please… after all I’m a Nashville girl.




With so many musicians today being the products of record labels, it’s so refreshing to know you as an artist are truly a product of your past and what seems to be everything you’ve become. With your success so far and the promise of more in the future, are you grateful for your background – even though it involved living some seriously traumatizing years?

I was born into music, yes. My earliest memory is singing with my mother. Music comes from my father and my mother and their parents. I am third generation musician on both sides, and, yes, I am extremely grateful to be brought up in country music. I grew up with Nashville ... I just grew in another direction. Music was a source of joy and pain in my home growing up ... I wore headphones for ten years to drown out the yelling around ... everybody yelled at home ... ironically over music and the pressure. I just put headphones on and listened to everything I could get my hands on - it was the only way to cope with trauma.

It seems you barely let yourself get into music, after possibly being turned away from it by your late mother. What was it that really influenced you to start writing and playing how you were feeling instead of finding a different art-based outlet to express it in?

Well, I’ve always been a musician. Unfortunately, it became a subject of such sadness. Her aspirations got the best of her, along with mental illness and I watched her break down so many times because of music. I was, therefore, afraid of the same thing in my own life. So I shied away for a time, but the pull was too great ... and after her death, ironically, it was the only way I coped. I couldn’t cry. I just wrote songs on her piano.

Especially early on when you began to write music, did you have musical influences that you felt you could relate to that may have had similar backgrounds or expressed emotion?

I’m a music fan. I love all genres of music ... but there is a sadness, a vulnerable side of country music and no doubt it rubbed off. I mean, you listen to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash all your life. What do you expect? I just got into synths so much as a teenager. I loved what was happening on the other side of the pond ... I got into The Clash and Joy Division early on and now I suppose it's coming out ... the influences all smashed together…

You’re in the studio in Nashville recording right now. How is that going? Will your deep roots ever let you record anywhere else?

I love Nashville, but I want to make the next record in Berlin. I love Berlin, Germany. Time for a change ... and oh what a change it would be. Nashville and Berlin seem like they’re on opposite ends of the universe - I love it.


Visit Cortney Tidwell right HERE on her very own quarterlife profile