Alison Scott: Bringing Chinese Whispers to Fargo

By Jeannette Madden
Staff Writer

What first struck me about Minneapolis musician Alison Scott is how she can rock a pair of jeans.

Then I heard her voice. I almost (but not quite) forgot about her fabulous fashion sense. Alison and her band will be making their first appearance at the Aquarium Friday, October 8, in support of her just released third album, “Chinese Whispers,” a mix of pop, rock, R&B and a little taste of hip-hop, all sewn together with soul.

Since I have already seen Alison live, I can honestly say that it is a must-see and after you see it, “Chinese Whispers” is a must-have. Alison and I had the chance to talk at a coffee shop in Saint Paul and the following is just some of what I learned.

High Plains Reader: Tell me about you.

Alison Scott: The musical side me or the regular side?

HPR: Both.

AS: I guess musically I’ve been singing my whole life and I have a very musical family and so they’ve always been very supportive and encouraged all three of the kids to explore as many instruments and types of music as possible, so I’ve been very involved in it since I was really little. In high school, when I started thinking this was something I wanted to pursue, I was studying classical music and opera and that turned into musical theatre in college. So that was my major my freshman year. I ended up at a school in North Carolina that I wasn’t happy at so I took a semester off and during that time I refocused my love of music and changed my direction and ended up at McNally Smith in Saint Paul. I didn’t even start writing until right about graduation from there. I think I found my style, my niche, while I was there.

And then, as far as the non-musical side of me, I don’t now…kind of boring.

HPR: Do you have brothers? Sisters?

AS: I do. I have two siblings, I’m the oldest of three. Both of them are also very musical but neither of them is pursuing it as a career. My sister is a med student and my brother’s still in school but he’s pursuing engineering. I guess we should call it computer science now because he’s changed his direction.

I don’t know. In some way, music has touched every part of my life and it’s been something I cared about a lot and never knew exactly how I wanted to be involved in it. But now I finally found what makes me happy and luckily all our friends and family have jumped on board. I have a lot of friends, especially when I went to McNally, whose families were not thrilled that they were pursuing music as a career. It’s been incredible to have that as an experience so I’m very lucky.

HPR: When did you guys get together?

AS: Kevin [Bowie - guitarist] and I?

HPR: Yes, and the band. I know you’ve had three albums out so far.

AS: This is the third. That kind of happened in stages. I graduated McNally in ’04 and when you graduate you start getting their alumni email with all of these updates of things you could possibly be involved in somehow. Women In Music Minnesota was putting on their, I think their second annual song writing contest. It was being held at McNally, which is why I knew about it.

I had only been writing for about nine months or a year and I was extremely pessimistic that anything would come of it but it cost $25 so what the hell? I entered a song off of my first record, which is called “Saturated.” The song ended up winning and Kevin was judging. That’s how Kevin and I met.

I went over to his house a couple of times and there were a couple of producers that we were interested in working with, but he definitely had the same vision as I did for where we wanted to go so we decided to work with him. For awhile, I think that the thought was just that he would produce this record for me and then he would send me on my way. But, through making the first record he started believing in the project more and more and decided that he would rather be on full time. So he plays guitar for me. He’s produced the other two records and this live DVD that we have put out, and he and I are more or less partners now.

HPR: Did he help you realize your vision or what you were looking for?

AS: He did, in the sense that when we started working together I was very bad at articulating what was in my head. I could hear it in my head but I didn’t know how to explain it to people. Luckily, he was hearing almost the exact same thing in his head. Through that process I have now learned to articulate what I want but it was definitely a learning experience and I’m lucky that he was on the same page that I was.

A lot of other people we talked to would have taken it in a completely different direction and everything that I love is very vintage-influenced and organic and lots of real instruments. I didn’t want to try and make it too modernized, I guess. He definitely saw it the same way and now we’re at the point where we can both express exactly what we’re thinking and yay or nay each other.

HPR: How about the other band members? I didn’t realize their history or that you were surrounded with such great musicians.

AS: Yes, it’s incredible. Kevin’s big accolade, I guess, is he kind of discovered Jonny Lang, from up north. He brought him down here and hooked up with him and he has multiple platinum records from working with Jonny and then Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Etta James, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Paul Westerberg and all these other people that he’s written for.

But Steve [Price - bass] and Peter [Anderson - drums], we probably went through two or three rhythm sections before we landed Peter and Steve. It’s really hard getting people to commit when you’re not making any money yet. So we went through a few rhythm sections that didn’t want to give up their Saturday night cover band gig or whatever.

Finally, Kevin was like “I don’t know why I don’t just email some of my friends in the business that have been doing this.” I think we just assumed that they would say no because they were busy with other projects. But Peter and Steve loved it enough that they said yes. We’ve been working with them coming up on three years now.

HPR: That must have made you feel fantastic. I know it would have me if I was a musician…to be like “Wow, they like me, they really like me!”

AS: It’s intimidating, too. It was nice in a sense that it made me see that other people were putting faith in me, but the first couple of years that I was playing with those guys it was I was worried about messing up or slipping in some way and proving that I wasn’t as capable a musician as they were. It took me a long time to get over that. Peter is a fantastic drummer. He’s best known for being with the Honeydogs and Polara and every other band in town. We always kind of make fun of him (laughing). He’s a drum whore.

Then Steve, he’s played with Rex Daisy. I don’t think anything on his iPod was recorded after 1975. Maybe that’s why I like it so much.

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If You Go

What: Alison Scott
Where: Aquarium
When: Fri, Oct 8
Info: 701.235.5913