Like hard-boiled detectives in black-and-white movies, singer-songwriters stereotypically work alone. Arriving on the scene Friday, May 2, Samantha Crain’s seventh full-length album, Gumshoe, finds a new formula, musically and lyrically. The sweet and poppy title track is an ode to the “kind of love that sneaks up on you” concluding, “Forget about gathering facts / You’re the only tough nut I want to crack / I’ll spend my whole life taking notes / On you, my mystery.”
“Melatonin,” meanwhile, recites a list of items Crain brought her partner in rehab: ice cream, cigarettes, hemorrhoid cream. “You got it bad, but you got me,” Crain sings. Fittingly, Crain recorded these songs about community and interpersonal relationships using a more collaborative approach in the studio, giving songs like opener “Dragonfly” a loose rock-band vibe that earned a co-sign from Iggy Pop, who played it on his BBC radio show.
Crain is scheduled to perform 8 p.m. Saturday, May 10, at Resonant Head, 400 SW 25th St., Suite A, with Labrys. We talked to the Shawnee native about her new album, creating the cover art and finding comedic relief.
You’ve released five singles in the lead up to Gumshoe. How have you felt about the response so far?
To be honest, I don’t really pay attention. Once something is out for me, it’s kind of like it belongs to other people at that moment. And so I don’t really try to internalize what people are saying about it or thinking about it. So I couldn’t even tell you.
Did you pick the singles from your album?
I definitely had ones that I had in mind that were like my favorites or ones that I think would connect with people, but yeah, that’s just something I sort of collaborate with and get other people’s opinions on. Just because, like I said, I’m approaching this from a creator standpoint when I’m making something, so I’m not really thinking about how it’s going to be received as I’m writing something or recording it or making it. I try to separate that in my head.
And you made the beadwork on the covers for the Gumshoe album and the singles?
Yeah, I made hand-beaded pieces for the album cover, like the physical album, and then also for each of the singles, they are actual hand-beaded pieces that we photographed. I’ve always admired the beaded pieces from different artisans within my tribe. I’m a part of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and I have friends that are beaders, and I’ve always really admired those pieces. Every time I go to the art markets, I always love running my fingers over all of the tiny beads. It always feels very important to me, like one tiny bead is so small and forgettable, but when you put them together, they become this bigger picture.
And I’m very aware of how much time and skill, like, goes into the making of them, so whenever I had the idea that I wanted to include these beaded pieces as artwork
for the record, I just knew that I wasn’t going to be able to afford that type of artwork from real skilled beading artists. It’s kind of just rooted in this learned industriousness and autonomy that I have. I know that my pieces are going to be inferior to someone that’s been doing it for a really long time, but I just feel like it’s a pretty good example of how I kind of approach not just creative things in my life, but also just, like, everything, which is just to kind of jump in and try it. And so that’s just sort of what I did with the artwork, as well. … The very first piece that I did was the album cover, which I probably should have done last because I definitely got better as I learned and moved along. The album cover is probably the craziest-looking one just in terms of amateurishness, but I kind of like it for that reason, too.
It seems like these works probably took quite some time, especially from someone just starting in this art form, especially some of the more intricate, mosaic designs. In the process of creating these pieces, did you spend more time considering these songs and what they mean to you than you might have otherwise?
I wouldn’t say that I was, like, thinking about the songs while I was beading. The songs tend to sort of take on new and different meanings as I’m starting the tours. I feel like when I’m performing a song every night, that’s whenever it starts to kind of reveal itself.
The press material for Gumshoe says the lyrics discuss your relationship to your partner and your community as opposed to previous albums that tend to be about internal things within yourself. And in the process, the music is also more collaborative than maybe you’ve done before. Is that a conscious parallel, or is that something that just kind of worked out?
With every album, most of the time, as it’s getting put together, as it’s coming to light, a lot of the initial stuff is very subconscious. You’re not, like, consciously saying … at least I’m not, “This is what’s going on in my life right now, and so this is what I’m going to write a record about, and so this is how I’m going to record that record.” … I don’t really go into it like that. I feel like it just sort of reveals itself as you move along. It’s one of those things where, in hindsight, you can see the thing that you were going through and how that informed the recording process and the songs and the artwork and the release of it. I think for me anyways, it’s more like … ‘Well, that’s cool how all of that came together just because it was happening at the same time, and that’s just how it was supposed to be.’ … With the recording of it,
I think that would be the only part that I sort of had a conscious decision of thinking like, ‘OK.
Well, I’ve written a record that is really about trying to connect more with this side of me
that is trying to explore vulnerability and reciprocity within my personal relationships, and so it would be weird to try to make a record where I’m, like, single tracking stuff by myself in a studio. If I’m writing a record about trying to be more connected with the people around me, it only makes sense that I record in a room with my band altogether, so that was probably the only part of it that I was actually pretty clearly thinking about as I was going into it.
Incorporating your own personal stories seems to be part of your songwriting process, based on interviews I’ve read with you, but it does seem like talking about someone else’s story in a song might be something different. Is that something you had to navigate with your partner?
Yeah, and that is why that side of things has been fairly vague, because at the end of the day, I am telling my story. I’m not telling his story. I’m talking about how opening myself up in this way has affected me, but yeah, I’ve tried to handle that with as much respect as I can, I guess.
Talking about buying your partner Preparation H on a song is also revealing of them isn’t it?
I did have to double-check on that one, but I think it’s funny, too. The humor of it sort of dilutes, like, the vulnerability of it, I think, which is what you need in life sometimes.
Is adding comedic relief something that you consciously do to try to relieve the tension in some of your songs?
Yeah, I mean, I think I do. I don’t think people maybe see the humor in it all the time. I feel like I am very aware that I write pretty melancholy and sort of heavy material, and so I feel like it is important for me to throw a line in every once in a while that is, like, kind of weird to kind of, like, snap you out of it. … I think it’s important, for me at least, performing these songs all the time. I need to be reminded that I’m very lucky that I still get to do this, like, 20 years into this. I don’t ever want to take myself too seriously, because the minute that I start doing that, that’s whenever my songwriting or anything that I’m putting out just is, like, missing the mark in some way. Because that’s just not how real life is. Well, at least I don’t want my real life to be all serious all the time. I desperately need lightheartedness and comedic relief in order to get through my days, and so I definitely try to implant some funny stuff in there.
Judging from titles alone, it seems like Gumshoe might be a little more playful than some of your other albums.
I think that’s something that comes with getting older and just feeling more comfortable about being a multifaceted person rather than just, like, a simple idea that people can wrap their head around for marketing purposes.
Visit samanthacrain.com.
This article appears in OKC Ballet Shorts.