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| ALANA DAVIS Speaks about New York City, women and music, her new album, and being babysat by The Village People by david beebe (published in
venice magazine, Oct. 2001) Elektra recording artist Alana Davis has a funky style that is all her own—and the 25-year-old singer/ songwriter couldn’t be happier about it. Davis is currently touring to promote the release of her latest album, Fortune Cookies, which hits music store shelves October 30th. Consisting of eleven soul-inflected, acoustic pop songs, infused with stylish mixes of jazz, funk, and folk, Fortune Cookies contains some very personal tracks, many written by Davis herself. Hip-hop super producers The Neptunes even stepped in to produce a track. The New York native arrived on the music scene in 1997 with her debut album Blame It On Me, which featured the hits "32 Flavors" and "Crazy." The album introduced her earthy and sensuous voice that fans have come to love. She also took her truthful lyrics on the road, participating in the now defunct women’s musical event, The Lilith Fair Tour. Two days after tragedy struck the United States, Davis sat down with Venice Magazine to talk about her music and to share her thoughts on the current state of affairs in America, women in society, and growing up Greenwich Village, New York style. Venice: Let me start off by asking you how you feel about America’s being attacked. Alana Davis: It’s a weird time. I’m lucky not to know too many people who work in that area, but I do know people who have people in their families who do, and they’re still looking for people. It’s pretty scary. I have a friend who is an EMT and has been working since this happened. Some of the things she’s seen she’s had to describe to me because she’s had to get them off her chest. So, it’s been pretty real. My mom is also stuck in her home because they’re not letting people come or go out of her neighborhood. But she’s always been the type to stock up on everything, so she’s ok. What part of New York are you from? Well, I’m a Greenwich Village girl from New York City, common USA. That’s a place that is pretty much known all over the world for pumping out freaks. It was a great place to grow up. A couple of the guys from The Village People, believe it or not, were my babysitters. They used to bring crazy clothes over to the house, and had stuff made of leather, plaid bottoms, red leather boots; it was the late 70s and early 80s, kids we’re looking pretty freaky in lots of places, I think. It allowed me to be my frizzy haired self without too much fear about people judging me. How did you get involved in music? Well, I was going to college for about a year in upstate New York and I was taking nothing but math and science courses. Somewhere along the way, I had a conversation with a teacher who asked me if I really wanted to do this, and I was like, no, I really don’t. I got my first acoustic guitar that same year and I could have left the guitar sitting on my bed, and maybe gone full force into math or something. Oh, I can’t imagine that. I have to find [that teacher] and thank him. I’m so glad he asked me, because I can’t even imagine doing that kind of work. What happened after that? I went upstate and started hanging out with my country cousins. All of a sudden there were campfires and bluegrass music, and I was like, what is this? It was fun; people were having fun. They would sit outside at night and sing out loud with their guitars. My cousin would have like sixteen people over to the house. They would bring everything from banjos to basses to mandolins, and everyone would sing. It was mostly country music and, as a city girl, I had maybe judged it, but then I found it very inspiring. It got me going and got me wanting to play. Then I just started playing around on the guitar. I wish now that I would have gotten some guitar lessons, because the style I play is totally my own; it’s messed up; it’s sort of my own technique now. It’s my freaky little style, but it works for me to write and sing to. What kind of people do you think connect with your music? I think it’s a bunch of different people. I think it’s a lot of people who are outcasts, people who don’t fit in, and probably a lot of disgruntled females who don’t feel that they have enough room in this place to be who they are. In this industry, or any industry, I think women are told to be sex symbols before anything else. It’s like, ok, be hot, and then decide what you want to do. But first be hot and look good in that dress, and make sure that you’re sexually desirable. I think that makes a lot of girls waste their time focusing on things that are not important. What’s your opinion on why girls think like that? It’s big in the media right now to show beautiful women who all look the same, and it doesn’t represent at all what real women look like. I think that there are a lot of females out there that are trying to find their way to fit in to that imagery who will hopefully gain something from the music I am playing. I’m definitely one of those girls and I’ve never fit in to those images and I’ve tried very hard most of my life. I’ve wasted a lot of time when I could have been doing things that were fun, or I could have been learning or growing, but instead I was busy looking in the mirror wishing I was someone else. It was such a tremendous waste of time. Do you have a favorite song on Fortune Cookies? Well, it’s interesting because it changes all the time depending on the situation. But there’s a song called "Under the Rainbow" that means a lot to me. It’s where I’m kind of talking on an individual level to a bunch of different groups of people and I’m sort of assessing for myself if I’m the only one that thinks if things could be better. Sometimes it feels like you must be the only person who thinks this is wrong, or else things would change. And that song is really important to me now, especially since someone just bombed my home. Are there other artists that you’d like to work with? I have this crazy pipe dream of maybe doing a song with Stevie Wonder. I’m totally moved by him and I have been since I was a tiny, tiny, tiny girl. His songs mean so much to me. Some of the songs he wrote twenty, twenty-five years ago mean a lot now. He used to talk about revolutions and stuff and it seems like every twenty-five, thirty years there is a cycle in music and people are trying to force change. And some of his songs seem ultra poignant right now. There’s also a guy named Derek Trucks who is a very young guy, and we’ve met on the road a few times, and his music comes from a very loving and spiritual place. I’m hoping that he and I could do something musically together at some point. What’s next for you? Well, to be honest, I’m stuck in Los Angeles right now. I was supposed to be playing in Chicago tonight, sort of showcasing the record, and then I’m supposed to play somewhere else tomorrow, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. But then I’m going to go on tour and, hopefully, just play the record everywhere and play some old songs, too, because some of them have new meanings to me now, so I’ve got to keep singing them. |