Karrie Hopper

Karrie Hopper invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner with her family. She is a talented up and coming voice on the Austin music scene and sometimes she gets really happy about food.






Chief Magazine: Where did you grow up?

Karrie Hopper: I was raised in San Antonio, Texas.

And you live in Austin now.

Yeah, I moved here three years ago, not exactly knowing why. I had an opportunity to move to New York City at the time, but in preparing to leave, I had a feeling I should be here instead. So I came on that feeling.

Sometimes it's good to go with your gut. Do you feel now that you made the right choice?

Definitely. I am certain of it. I had a really tough first year here, but after that, things fell into place in such a beautiful way. They still are.  I had no idea what was here for me, but I've been finding things that have fulfilled that blind feeling I moved here on.

Sometimes things are like that. I've had bad city experiences only to realize later they were all part of the Master Plan.  So how long have you been playing music?

I fumbled around until I was in my late teens. Then I started taking it more seriously. My 14th birthday present was my first guitar. I played clarinet in elementary school. I loved the hymns at church. A little bit of music here and there.

And when did you first come into your own, the moment you really wanted to create and perform your own songs?

I was eighteen or nineteen. I wrote instrumental pieces on the guitar. I wrote the chorus for 'An Unusual Move' at that time, too, but had no confidence in it and left it that way until this year. Once I started writing songs with words, I dug up those old bones.

You say you always had music in your life. Did your parents play at all? Who do you feel are your direct or indirect influences?

Nobody in my family played. My mother loves music, however, and so I heard a lot of good songs. Indirectly, I'd say those old hymns were the start. More directly, I feel most influenced by classical music. I've studied a bit of classical guitar, and that's an important part of my musical sensibility, a language I understand and relate to most.  The songwriters I relate to most are Cat Stevens, Suzanne Vega, Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, Nick Cave... the poets.

I can actually hear some of those artist's influence in your work. You mentioned writing instrumental songs before creating the songs you have now.  Was it a hurdle to get the confidence to sing words with your music?

Well, before I sang words, I would write them. They were always independent of music though. For a long time, I didn't believe I could blend the two because I wasn't interested in writing within a structure like a "song",
but one day without my effort, they found union.  "Inspiration City" was the first song I wrote. I wasn't sure if it was a cheesy pop song or if there was something there so I played it for two people, and they were full of encouragement. They said to keep going.  Once I brought them out of my room and had the response I did from my friends, I felt very comfortable  sharing more.

One of the first things I noticed about your work was your unique song structure. Your songs really tend to go in an unpredictable direction, very similar to classical music. What's your writing process like?

I think that melodies and guitar parts come first for most of the songs, though not all of them. Sometimes they come completely together. Sometimes the words come while I'm on the guitar, and sometimes I sit with them elsewhere for hours.  With a lot of them, I will have to sit with a guitar part or melody for a while before I actually get into writing the song. It has to become a part of me before I can work with it. Otherwise it can seem like forced writing.

Like "An Unusual Move"? you said that song took a long time...

Well I wrote the chorus pretty quickly years back. When I resurrected it, I left the chorus as it was and wrote around that. It was maybe a week or two, finding the story there...  It's a hard thing to talk about because the process changes, and because I am so new to it.

So you still consider yourself new at this whole songwriting thing. Didn't you play in bands before?

Yeah,  I played in three instrumental groups in San Antonio. The first was an instrumental rock band of seven people. It was loud and powerful and we communicated strictly through music and nods and such.
Then two of the members and I formed a classical trio, and worked on songs that continue to amaze me.
It's one of the greatest things I have ever done and been a part of.
We all moved to different towns and are now furthering our own musical voices in different ways. Everything after that feels new.

Do you enjoy playing with other people or do you prefer playing alone?

I really love playing solo. I have played with different people before, and there are very few who, in playing with them, can compare to the pleasure of playing solo. It has to do with getting to say and play exactly what I feel. Playing with other people brings in other styles, and I'm not comfortable playing with everybody's styles. It is very special when I find someone who feels music in a similar way I do, and it is not often.

In listening to your CD, I'm really into your different themes.

A friend of mine said something interesting. He noticed a theme of movement in all of the songs, whether physical movement or personal growth... maybe I'm too close to know... I can't think of any themes at the moment. Which ones do you hear?

A lot of the songs just seemed like "friendship" songs to me...  and I liked that.

I can see that. You're right, they are.

It's just fascinating to me. I knew a guy years ago who insisted that rock music had peaked in the late 1960s... which is crazy really...  because aside from chord progressions and melodies there are all these other challenges, like writing about things other than falling in love and breaking up...

Yeah... finding content that hasn't been plowed over a million times. Though I definitely have some love songs too. I love love.

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Who doesn't!

I guess maybe the broken-hearted.

Yeah, but getting your heart broken feels so good sometimes. Like how feeling depressed in highschool was awesome.

[laughs]

Man, I would put on a Cure album and just sit there.

Well, you're most certainly alive. Feeling is intense.

Disintegration... that was good album.

Yes, I heard it from my "Cure friends". I love my "Cure friends".

I love mine, too.  And my "Morrissey friends".

[laughs.] Yeah, kinda the same crowd.

So the new album... is it out yet?

It is going to be ready next week, but the official release is in mid-January

Where did you record it?

I recorded the CD at my friend's lakehouse. We basically recorded guitar and vocal tracks in one day, went night swimming, then added musical contributions from other friends the next two days.
With swimming breaks inbetween.

That sounds so luxurious. Unlike some recording sessions I've been a part of...  It must be nice to not worry about time and money ticking away.

Yeah, no stresses that come in a studio.

Did you go in knowing what you wanted or did you experiment a lot?

I had ideas of what I wanted. Some were more specific than others, like the violin part on "Twilight Song"; I heard that exactly in my head, then I asked my friend Marcus if he'd play it for me. The song "The Night Game'" was one I wrote with the intention of it being a playground for my friends to explore and add whatever they wanted.  These songs are such that they could be recorded or produced in hundreds of ways. They sound good solo, but if you add a little of this or that they sound good too. I thought about several different options for recording, and even stressed over it, as being something so final. In the end, it made sense to capture the time period these songs were written in by incorporating some of my favorite musicians into the album.

It definitely comes off that way, as a time and place, a moment... Now that you're so close to releasing it, what do you hope to achieve with this record?

My friends love the songs. I am hoping that other people can enjoy them, too.

It's also interesting to be putting these songs out into the music world and thinking that it, in some small way, will contribute to a change or development in music. The change that is the result of many people putting out many records.  This is something I'm aware of. There is a contribution, in a sense, to something bigger.

Where would you like to see yourself in five to ten years?

Five to ten years?

[thinking]

Ok, I will tell you personally, but I have this weird feeling that I don't want a ton of people knowing this...  It's hard to explain... I don't know why I want to keep the plans to myself, but the feeling is there.  As far as sharing between friends, I feel ok telling you. I hope this is not too weird!

I'm gonna need a new closing question...

I want to keep exploring what I'm doing now, guitar and voice but some other musical interests I have are in composing. I feel more like a composer than a songwriter and I'm very interested in composing music beyond just the guitar. Different ensembles. I'm also interested in mixing mediums. Art, theatre, film, dance. I don't know how yet, but I have these intimations and feelings of possibilities. Songwriting would even be made more interesting set with the composition of more instruments. I feel many callings in music, and it excites me.  I have visions in music that have nothing to do with the independent music community, which I guess is where we are now. I think my work will still be approachable and likeable, but I have no idea where it will put me as far as genre goes. In my head, it is all just beautiful music... the genre of beautiful music.

Karrie, it'll be a shame if we can't at least print some of that.  What you just said was really beautiful.

Let me know what you want to keep and I'll think about it.

Okay... well, here... last question... How about something less personal? Like... what is the last thing you ate that was so good your eyes almost rolled into the back of your head? For me it was the cream cheese and pecan topping on the black cherry Jell-O dessert your mom made for Thanksgiving. I honestly think I had four servings of that.

[laughs] I love that stuff so much!!!!

Does she make it every Thanksgiving?

You better believe it. She made it earlier this year, too, because I couldn't wait. [laughs]

My mom makes food I'd kill for the rest of the year, too.  Puerto Rican dishes and stuff...

Yum...

So seriously... the best last thing you ate...

Oh, yeah...

Think.

Okay, there is this place in Austin called Noodleism. They have my favorite soup in the world. Malaysian hot and sour...

Mmmmm.

...And they make the best chocolate cake I've had in my life. Weird combo, I know, but it works so well. My mom and I went there a few weeks ago. So besides Thanksgiving, that was the last time I was so happy
about food.  I was so happy!

Downloads

An Unusual Move.mp3
Twilight Song.mp3
The Night Game.mp3

Websites

www.myspace.com/karriehopper
www.nobodysfavoriterecords.com

Photos

Aasim Syed
Roxane Hopper

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