Now starring in her own series on the SyFy Channel, Sanctuary, Amanda Tapping shared her thoughts with us about projects past and present, the best and worst parts of her job now, and whether or not we’ll ever see her again in the Stargate realm.

Given how seemingly every media outlet in the world drenches us with 24/7 celebrity updates, it’s no wonder we envision the life of an actress to be oh-so-sweet. You know: Between shooting scenes, hang out on-set in a posh trailer. After “working” for a few hours, take a limo back to fancy Beverly Hills home, go out at night to party with Hollywood hotties and other celebs, head back home… and then do it all over again.

But for actress Amanda Tapping, such a lifestyle is truly the stuff of fiction. Apart from the fact that she lives and works in Vancouver, Canada — some 1200 miles north of Hollywood — you can forget the parties, the hotties, the limos and the leisure time. She’s much too busy, and too goal-oriented, to bother with all that.

In fact, this “Queen of Sci-Fi” (so dubbed by the fans) has just two things on her agenda right now: family and work. And that short list consumes pretty much every moment of every day, whether or not she’s actively shooting her show, because — as you will find out — Tapping has thoroughly earned her new Executive Producer title.

FROM STARGATE TO SANCTUARY

After 10 years and 200 episodes of Stargate SG-1, Tapping served one more year on Stargate Atlantis as Major Samantha Carter before leaving that universe to create another.

Stargate fans who tuned into her new TV series, Sanctuary, were surprised to see “their” Sam with dark hair, speaking with a British accent and going about her new duties with a wise, almost matronly, manner. (Guys, you’re in luck: The new gal knows her automatic weapons, too.)

Although Sanctuary airs on the Sci-Fi channel, it’s set on Earth, primarily in the modern day, with nary a means of interstellar travel in sight. Still, the program offers viewers a healthy helping of science with its fiction.

LEAVING THE WORLD WE KNOW BEHIND

In the new series, Tapping plays Dr Helen Magnus, a 157-year-old woman from England’s Victorian era who hardly ages due to… well, let’s just call it a little college drug experimentation. She runs the titularSanctuary – a home for creatures great and small, legendary and supposedly mythical, some dangerous… and all freaky. (Seriously: The Loch Ness Monster and Harry Potter’s house elf have nothin’ on some of these beasties.)

These “abnormals” live among us regular humans, and are largely feared because they’re misunderstood, à la Wicked. By housing the abnormals at the Sanctuary, Dr Magnus keeps them safe, stops them from harming the populace — and, since they’re there anyhow, carries out some research and cataloging.

One thing that truly sets the show apart are the visuals, which are magnificent both in style and in scope. This small-budget venture is able to create elaborately-detailed scenes and sweeping views because it shot against a green screen. In post-production, the background is replaced with realistic digital renderings of almost anything the writers and producers could imagine: catacombs under Rome, the middle of the Bermuda triangle, a plane crash on a snowy mountaintop, and the gothic architecture of the vast sanctuary itself.

We had the chance to talk one-on-one with Ms Tapping, and found out how, over the course of a decade, her career has grown from chasing spaceships and System Lords to include babies and balance sheets.

NEW SHOW, NEW SKILLS

Nancy: So, beyond acting, how involved are you with Sanctuary? I know you have the executive producer credit, but this is really very much your project, isn’t it?

Amanda Tapping: Yes. Damian [Kindler] conceived of the show, and when he brought it to Martin [Wood] and me, the three of us just took it and ran with it. So on a day-to-day basis, from being involved with pre-production when we were mapping out the stories for the first season, and now we’re doing it again for the second season, white-boarding all the stories, putting together the crew and the cast and the financing.

That was a big part of my responsibilities — getting that together. Because we don’t have the backing of a major studio, and we’re actually doing something quite unorthodox — creating a high-end product which we’re then selling to a world marketplace, so that’s been a huge job. The corporate end of it is the part of my responsibility, and that has been the least fun.

Nancy: Is that something you’ve had experience with in the past, or how did you end up with that?

Amanda: No, it’s sort of a trial by fire, but it’s been good. I have a good head for business, and I understand the nuance of business, and I’ve certainly been in the entertainment industry long enough to understand the minutiae of how all that works, so, that’s been an education. Then beyond that, with the actual day-to-day shooting — not only being the lead actor on the show, but also I feel like my job on set was to make sure everyone was happy, and that the crew was taken care of and that everyone was respected and heard.

And then post-production: I’ve learned about color crafting shows and doing sound mixes and pulling back and all sorts of things I’ve never had the opportunity to do before — editing. So I’m actually heavily involved, from start to finish, and it’s been amazing. I just feel like, as an actor it’s been a great education, but now as a woman. I’m in my 40s and I’m now looking beyond just being an actor, and this has been a great way to sort of branch out my career.

Nancy: I was going to say it would really help your resume — you could go into all kinds of things at this point.

Amanda: Absolutely, absolutely — and you should get a feel for how the whole machine works, and then pick your specialty, if you will. For me, I love seeing the whole process.

Nancy: Is there any particular element, apart from acting, that just really appeals to you, that is fun, not tedious…

Amanda: I feel I would love to direct again — I like the scope of a job like that. I like the scope of producing, too — going into the office and sitting down with the guys and sort of looking at the overall picture. It’s like having a big wide angle lens on the entire show. I love that. The directing for me is very much the same: You get to take your vision and put it out into every single department, and then put all the pieces together. It’s like putting together a massive puzzle, and so I hope to get the opportunity to do that again.

Nancy: So, you’ve been Samantha Carter on Stargate SG-1 for ten years, and then you had the year on Atlantis. Did you ever imagine actually playing your character there for that long? And do you think you could play Helen on Sanctuary for that long — do you think there’s enough there?

Amanda: I didn’t — I can’t. But you know what’s really funny is I couldn’t have imagined playing Sam Carter for that long, either. It’s amazing how quickly time flies when you’re having fun. It sounds like a lame little old adage, but it’s absolutely true. Stargate was so joyful, and even for all our ups and downs, it was a great show to work on — an amazing family — and so the ten years didn’t feel like ten years. It honestly didn’t, and people go, “Oh my God, you were on that show for a decade!” and I’d say, “Yeah, but it went by really quickly!”

And season one of Sanctuary was probably the hardest work I’ve ever done in my life, in terms of wearing so many hats. It was exhausting, yet at the end of it I was. “Oh wow, that was great!” So you’re ultimately exhausted and revitalized by the amount of work. So can I imagine playing Helen for ten years? No. It could possibly happen — sure — and would those ten years go by just as quickly? Sure, they probably would.

Amanda: You know I’m very lucky in that I’m working with two men, particularly Damian and Martin, whom are my best friends, but beyond that they completely respect and admire women, which is a unique position to be in when you’re in a very male-dominated industry.

They will defer to me, and say, “Well, okay, Amanda, what do you think?” As opposed to, “This is how it’s happening.” I love that! It’s very invigorating, and you must find that to be working in a creative environment with people you enjoy working with. There’s a symbiotic relationship, there’s cohesion of ideas and it doesn’t feel like there’s any one-upmanship. We’ve all talked each other off the ledge, and we also know that at any given time that’s gonna happen, but we’re all there for each other.

It’s been almost three years we’ve been working on this, and it’s not only seeing what you build grow, but the joy of watching it start to blossom.

On the next page: Playing against a blank wall, 100 years of history, and what makes her giddy with excitement

WHY HER SANCTUARY SHINES

Nancy: So what has made you so passionate about this project in particular?

Amanda: Partly the people I’m working with, because I don’t think our company will just be Sanctuary – there are other opportunities for it. Then Sanctuary itself I think is such a cool premise, and such an interesting show, and this is an interesting time to be making it. Because of the technology that we’re using and because of the possibilities we have with the green screen and with the RED one camera (a digital video camera that captures images at more than twice the resolution of a high definition camera).

But at the heart of it, it’s an amazing story and a really, really, awesome character — great women characters on this show. I love a show where the lead is a woman, and one of the other leads is an amazingly strong woman. The back story is amazing to me, the history between Magnus and Druitt, the history that she’s lived. She’s an awesome character, I absolutely love her, and so I can get hyper-passionate just talking about Helen. She’s so cool — she’s so not like me. The challenge as an actress is so cool.

Nancy: Well there’s a hundred-odd years of history to deal…to go back and do that in the context of the show. It must be a lot of fun for you, too.

Amanda: It’s very fun, it’s very fun. We’re actually talking now about spending a bit more time going back and seeing the different things we’ve alluded to — trying to do it without that hammering over the head. This is a woman who’s actually known a great number of presidents and artists and writers and some of the great minds of her time, so there’s a cool back story there that we tap into.

She’s unapologetic and hugely compassionate, but also very reserved, and so I find the dichotomy of playing her — this Victorian era woman living in modern times with a daughter that she works closely with — who’s also a woman who could be killed as a result of the work that they’re doing. There’s all this nuance to her: “Wow, she brought this child into the world. Why would she do that?” There are so many choices she made that sort of question it and you go, “Oh, well, let’s dive into that.” Never dull.

Nancy: Is it hard acting against nothingness and trying to reference things?

Amanda: I guess the best way to describe it — and I’ve said this before in interviews — is that it feels like you’re doing theater. You’ve got a very minimal set, so the focus then becomes the relationship between the characters and your relationship to the words that you’re saying, your connection emotionally and even physically to what you’re saying, what you’re doing at the time. Strips away all the beauty around it, and the beauty then just becomes the moment. It forces you to play absolutely in the moment — no distractions. So in a lot of ways, it’s actually more challenging because you don’t have all of the things around to work with. But in other ways, so much simpler, because it’s just about the words and the work and the connection between the characters.

Nancy: …and that ultimately comes out in the quality of the show.

Amanda: I think so. I think so — I think there’s some really raw, beautiful connections that have been made, and they’ve been made because we’ve had nothing else but the work and each other, and so it’s kind of lovely. It’s kind of doing really minimalist theater. And then you add this really beautiful backdrop months after the fact, and you go, “Oh my God, that’s great.”

Nancy: So you’re still excited the first time you see the end result?

Amanda: Oh God, yeah. Yeah — in fact, it always looks better than I thought it would. You know the first time I actually saw the big pan down shot of the Sanctuary, I was like, “Are you kidding me?! That’s the scene? Oh my God!” The three of us get little “Whee!” moments when our effects house emails us the latest renderings. (laughs) We all pore over the computer and squeal like small children.

Find out more from Amanda about Stargate & her future here!

A TRIP TO ATLANTIS

Nancy J Price: Could we touch a little on your time on Stargate Atlantis – which was going on while you were planning Sanctuary?

Amanda Tapping: Yeah, I actually shot the webisode for Sanctuary before… that was in January 2007 — and I started my first season, which was season four of Atlantis, that February.

Nancy: So you knew it wasn’t going to be a one season deal if Sanctuary took off — or what was sort of the plan there?

Amanda: No — at that point Sanctuary was just living and breathing on the web, so I committed to one season of Atlantis not knowing if it was going to be picked up or what was going to happen next. But Sanctuary was going to be the project I did in the off-season, and at that point we were only doing it for the web. My commitment on Atlantis was for the full season, but it was only for a certain number of days per episode. So if Sanctuary were to continue in the way it was going, there was still a possibility to make it work. It wasn’t in competition with Stargate Atlantis, because it was only on the web at the time we could produce it.

Nancy: How did you like working on the show — especially compared to what you’re doing now and SG-1?

Amanda: It was interesting. It was very different. I love the cast of Atlantis and I’ve known them for a long time — but I was very cautious about not stepping on anyone’s toes about the fact that it wasn’t “my” show. I treated myself more like a guest star than a regular when I first got there, because it’s their show. I mean you’re bringing in this other character from a show [Stargate SG-1] that’s been on for ten years, well-established, and I didn’t want anyone to feel threatened by that. I didn’t want them to feel I was coming in to take over — I was just coming to do whatever I could on what I already thought was a great show.

Nancy: And that sense of being an outsider was sort of reflective of the actual situation, too.

Amanda: Absolutely. That was the thing for [her SG-1 & Atlantis character] Carter — it was really interesting, because the relationship that she had with her crewmates on Atlantis was not dissimilar to how I felt going in. Carter went in saying, “I am going to defer to the expertise of the people on this base, and that’s how I’m going to chose to move this machine, by respecting the people around me and by listening to what they have to say,” and that’s how I went in, too.

Nancy: Right, you played it very differently. On Atlantis, Carter seemed much more stressed, not as exuberant as on SG-1… I’m curious about the combination of actor versus character.

Amanda: I think it’s partly the writing as well. I talked to Joe and Paul about the fact that I didn’t want to go in kicking ass and busting balls — which would be Carter’s bent, I think, in a subordinate situation — but as a leader I think she said, “Okay, well this is the first time I’ve ever had a real command. I don’t want to screw it up,” and “How would I be the most effective leader in a place that I’ve never been before?” So that’s how I approached it with Joe [Mallozzi] and Paul [Mullie]. I wish we had done a bit more with her — gotten back to a bit more original Carter by the end of the first season than we did. But I think that the fact that there were twenty episodes, with all these characters: How do you know how to serve each one and still tell the story, still serve the fans and still serve the show? I had some great stuff — “Trio” for example — such a great episode for Carter and McKay and Keller, and we had so much fun shooting it. They gave me great stuff, so I think had I stayed for another season, then you would have seen a different version of Carter in command. I think she would have gotten her balls back. (laughs)

STEPPING BACK THROUGH THE STARGATE

Nancy: Are there plans for you to work on any more Stargate stuff?

Amanda: Yeah! Absolutely. I’m not signed on as of yet but, I’ve been asked about my availability for both the SG-1 and Atlantis movies so, and I said unequivocally I will always make myself available for Stargate. [Note: Amanda has since signed on for an as-yet untitled SG-1 movie, which will be the third such feature after Ark of Truth and Continuum.]

Nancy: That’s great — I know all the fans will probably appreciate that, too.

Amanda: Yeah, well, it’s family, you know what I mean? We owe a lot to our fans, and I’m very respectful of the fact that the fans have been so supportive, and so many of them have been so supportive of this new project. But I still get a lot of, “You don’t look like Sam Carter anymore, what the hell were you thinking,” with the hair and the accent.

Nancy: But that’s the point.

Amanda: Yeah — that’s exactly the point. But the fact of the matter is you can always go home, and as I said to Brad Wright, and to Rob Cooper and to Joe, “Whatever you guys need, of course I’m there,” because they gave me so much — and I’m hugely grateful for the opportunities that Stargate has afforded.

Be sure to check out part 1 of our interview as Amanda Tapping talks Sanctuary!

Because a combined 15 seasons of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis aren’t enough (no, seriously — that’s really not enough for most fans of the series), there’s good news for the future of the franchise! Not only will there be more direct-to-video movies with SG-1 and Atlantis-flavored plotlines, there’s also a brand new series in the works: Stargate Universe.

TO ATLANTIS… AND BEYOND

Despite its cancellation of Stargate Atlantis at the end of this season with its 100th episode (broadcast in January 2009), MGM have the go-ahead to produce a two-hour movie based on the series.
The extended-play version of the show will reportedly first air on the Sci-Fi channel, and then hit the DVD/download format almost immediately thereafter. This formula has been a great success for the two existing Stargate DTV movies, The Ark of Truth and Continuum. The new movie will be written by Stargate Atlantis‘ executive producers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, who currently run the show on a day-to-day basis.

“We’re excited to tell Atlantis stories on a bigger canvas,” Brad Wright and Robert C Cooper, co-creators of both existing Stargate TV series, said in a joint statement. And, they added, “We have plans for both SG-1 and Atlantis to remain vital as we expand the franchise.”

For those new to the adventure — or who only saw the 1994 James Spader/Kurt Russell feature film Stargate (which, compared to the two TV series it spawned, is light on both gadgetry and humor) – Stargate Atlantis follows the present-day adventures of a team of military and civilian explorers who travel to the legendary lost city of Atlantis, which is far, far away in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Our intrepid little team found the island city not by spaceship, but through a Stargate, one of a series of space portals created long ago by a highly-advanced — and long-dead — alien civilization they call The Ancients. In the never-ending quest to seek out other technology and relics left behind by that once dominant race, the Atlantis team finds new allies, new enemies, new worlds — along with a wide array of unusual devices, weapons and other mysterious thingamajigs. (Click here to see when Stargate Atlantis is on in your area.)

AND ON TO A NEW UNIVERSE

Stargate Universe is the name of the third and latest Stargate-themed series. Here’s how a press release introduced the show: 

After unlocking the mystery of the Stargate’s ninth chevron [an element of the gate's address 'dialing' protocol], a team of explorers travels to an unmanned starship called the Destiny, launched by The Ancients at the height of their civilization as a grand experiment set in motion, but never completed.

What starts as a simple reconnaissance turns into a never-ending mission, as the Stargate Universe crew discovers the ship is unable to return to Earth, and they must now fend for themselves aboard the Destiny.

The crew will travel to the far reaches of the universe, connecting with each of the previously-launched Stargates, thus fulfilling the Destiny’s original mission. Challenges will arise though as the ship comes into range of Stargates placed centuries ahead of the Destiny and the crew is unable to control the ship’s navigational schedule. If someone is left behind, there is no way to go back for them, adding to the drama of encountering new races, enemies and adventures.

“In Universe, we plan to keep those elements that have made the franchise a success, such as adventure and humor, while breaking new ground in the relationships between mostly young and desperate explorers, thrust together and far from home,” say Wright and Cooper. “Above all, we believe the Stargate itself remains an enduring icon with infinite potential as a jumping off point for telling stories.”

The new Stargate Universe will debut as a two-hour movie, and then will assume a regular hourly slot at some point to be announced during the Summer of 2009.

This article was originally posted on SheKnows.com on September 1, 2008

When word broke at the end of August 2008 that Stargate Atlantis, one of the shining stars in the Sci-Fi Network galaxy, was being cancelled with its 100th episode, ardent fans weren’t the only ones who were stunned. After all, the show was only in its fifth season, and was more successful than ever. So what’s the story? I visited the Stargate set in Vancouver, and talked to three of the series regulars as well as the show’s executive producer to find out.

MORE THAN A FEELING

Stargate Atlantis started its fifth season strongly, with solid ratings and a prestigious award. So why is this popular cable series being released from active duty?

Not surprisingly, the bottom line is money… or lack thereof. Rather than producing a full season of 20 or so episodes each year, the powers that be decided instead to continue the Atlantis storyline with one — and possibly more — made-for-TV movies. (Read more about how Stargate Atlantis will live on in DVD format.)

“Going in [to season 5], I had a feeling that this could be the last season of Atlantis, just because of the economics,” says series showrunner/executive producer/big cheese Joe Mallozzi. “The more years you’re on the air, the more expensive it gets to produce.”

The declining value of the American dollar made it all the worse, and was a real issue because the show is produced in Canada. “When we started the series way back when, it was (US) 65 cents on the (CAN) dollar, and that was great — and now for the last year it was practically even. So that hurt.”

Still… it’s one thing to have a feeling that something might happen, and another beast entirely when it actually does.

“One one hand, we knew it was a long shot — but on the other hand, the ratings were up and we’d gotten a lot of positive buzz for season five. I think the stories we’ve told this year have been great, so we were kind of hopeful,” Mallozzi says. “Then we got word [of the cancellation]… we went down and told the cast and the crew, and they were understandably bummed.”

SHOCK AND AWWW

“We were all really kind of shocked,” says Rachel Luttrell, the series regular who plays the strong and sensitive Atlantis expedition member Teyla Emmagan. “We all felt pretty confident we were going to at least have one more season, because we were doing very well and we started of the season winning the People’s Choice Awards. So yeah, we were all a little surprised by it.” Still, she well understands that acting is not exactly the most stable of professions. “You never know in this business. You never know.”

“The thing about this industry is that every year you’re up for renewal. Every year there’s the possibility that it may come to an end,” adds David Hewlett, the man behind the adorably arrogant Dr Rodney McKay on both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. “We got notified a little earlier in the year than we expected — normally it would be November or so. So it was a little bit of a shock.”

“I guess it can’t help but affect us mentally — it is kind of a disappointment,” Mallozzi says. “You kind of want to put a positive spin on it, and you do look forward to the movies, which is great. I mean in the old days, if a show was canceled, a show was canceled.”

The writer/producer doesn’t have to go far to find his inner child’s opinion on the matter. “I’m still bummed about Soap. I used to watch Soap as a kid, and they left it on a cliffhanger, and you never find out what happened to those characters. The nice thing about this case is that though we’ve been canceled, at least we can wrap up the story or continue the adventures in movie form.”

BITTERSWEET SYMPATHY

“On the day [of the announcement], a lot of people were just very philosophical about it and said, ‘Well, it’s been a great five years,’ and that’s how you really should look at it,” says Mallozzi. “But as time goes on and it begins to sink in, you realize this is it. This is the end [of the series], and so it’s bittersweet. Bitter for the present. Sweet, hopefully, for the future.”

Rough-and-tumble Ronon Dex’s alter ego, actor Jason Momoa, describes his mood much the same way. “I’m little sad to be leaving a family of four years behind… but four years is a long time to play a character. So it’s kind of bittersweet.”

“The reality is that none of us — certainly from an acting standpoint — got into this for a regular job,” Hewlett says. “It’s unusual to have a regular job in the film industry…
Five years of gainful employment is a rarity in this industry. It’s definitely going to be sad to see that go.”

“It’s sad, because this has become home for a lot of us. It’s a home away from home. There are a lot of people here who have just become an extended family,” says Luttrell. Clearly making an effort to keep the mood upbeat, she continues, “But change is good. Change is life. It’s hard — absolutely — but most of the time when you reflect upon the big changes in your life, you gain some perspective.”

A SHORT-TIMER’S ATTITUDE

So what’s life on the set like now as the cast completes their last few episodes? “It’s that weird sort of feeling of you’re still at work, but you know it’s done,” says Hewlett. “There’s a weird mix of sadness at the fact that we’ve been doing this for five years, and it’s kind of hard not to get attached.” After a beat, a goofy little grin creeps up onto his face. “But at the same time, there’s a certain amount of ‘Woo hoo! What’s next? Let’s go!’”

by Nancy J Price

Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood — he of the manic, talking guitar — is standing in the lobby as I arrive at the trendy San Francisco hotel where the band is staying. Alas, Jonny isn’t waiting for me, and Ed O’Brien, Radiohead’s other able guitarist and my intended interview subject, is still asleep. Somewhere between San Francisco and Capitol’s offices in New York, wires were crossed, and I got there an hour earlier than expected. “He’s just going to take a shower and will be right down,” their publicist apologizes.

Unexpected wakeup calls aside, things are looking good for Radiohead. Their third LP, OK Computer, debuted at number 21 in the US and easily reached the top of the charts in their native Britain. O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood, together with Jonny’s brother Colin on bass, Phil Selway behind the drums and the owner of the breathtakingly lovely vocal contortions — singer/guitarist Thom Yorke — are Radiohead. The group (who don’t consider themselves part of the “Britpop” movement), has been playing sold-out shows across America, performing at venues with names including words like Theatre, Ballroom and Arena: certainly a step up from the club tours of the not-too-distant past.

This band has been busy this last year: recording, touring, promoting, playing for Tibetan Freedom, and getting favorable attention from the press and an ever-increasing legion of fans. Even before the July first stateside release of the album, the band was getting the kind of attention usually reserved for music legends, fashion designers, and boxers. Face it: when you can count Madonna, Marilyn Manson, Sheryl Crow and members of U2, REM, Oasis and Blur among your fans, you’re either doing something right or something revolutionary… or, in the case of Radiohead, very probably both.

The tourist

At the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco, their tight 22-song set (including four songs over three encores), included every track from OK Computer, half of The Bends, a lone number from their debut, Pablo Honey, and one B-side for the devout. The band’s success would seem to be a natural result of their clear passion for the music, an obvious and mutual creative respect, and the fact that, well, they seem to be having a good time just being Radiohead.

But was recording the songs as much fun as playing them in front of an audience? O’Brien smiles, “We did kind of go a bit stir crazy recording OK Computer, when we were in Bath at Jane Seymour’s house, but we had to go through that. We got to Christmas of ‘96, and we’d been kind of experimenting. The only thing we’d finished was “Exit Music,” because that had to go to Romeo and Juliet for the film. We had started about fourteen or fifteen songs, and it was then that we said, “Right, we’re going to have to start finishing stuff off.” What we’d do is half-finish fourteen songs, and then go on to a new one. We get bored very very quickly. So, by Christmas, it was basically that we wanted an album out by the summer, and we had to finish it off.”

Well-versed in the fine art of procrastination, I imagine it was difficult to complete those songs. Nodding a deep yes, O’Brien says, “It’s all the little bits. We tracked a lot of this album live.” He pauses and searches the air for an analogy, “It would be like building a kitchen. It’s quite easy to get all the wood in and see something fairly immediate — but all those little joints and the hinges, and making sure the drawers and the cupboards open properly, and fixing all the little things — that’s what takes a really long time. Smoothing down the edges. It’s exactly the same when making a record. And mixing… mixing is kind of like the French polishing. It was fairly traumatic at times, because there’s so much going on.”

Anyone can play guitar

Radiohead’s career development has been upward, if not smooth, since their days playing around Oxford as a band called On A Friday. Such progress comes directly from their unwavering dedication to the cause. O’Brien reckons they’ve all known since their mid-teens that they wanted to play together. “There was never any question that we weren’t going to do it, really, in terms of like make the effort to do it.” Although the band was on hold during their college years — re-forming only during school breaks — they maintained that group cohesion, “and [after] Thom finished college, we were signed in about four or five months. Looking back on it, what was amazing was the commitment. Ten years ago, we talked about it. We knew we wanted to do this — there was never any question.”

As most of the members are in their late twenties, it’s been nearly half a lifetime since the band’s humble beginnings. Has the success they’ve finally achieved with the release of OK Computer seemed a long time coming?

“It’s been fine. You know, the big thing was signing at the end of ‘91, then in ‘92 touring around in a rusty white van. It was great to do small shows, opening up for people. 1993 — the first half of the year was really the same as ‘92, then of course ‘Creep’ erupted, and we came over here,” recalls O’Brien. “‘Creep’ was not what we expected. We all thought [the band’s progress] would be slow — we didn’t want any kind of big explosion. We wanted to — each time you do a gig, a few more people come along, word of mouth spreads, make a better record…”

But are they satisfied? “Yeah, now,” he concedes. “We played the Warfield in San Francisco, we played the Wiltern in Los Angeles. We’ve played clubs, and they were great, but we’ve done three [U.S.] tours of clubs and you get a bit sick of them. It sounds better in these [larger] places. It looks amazing — you look out from the stage and there’s a balcony, and it’s very inspiring.”

Of course, as the band’s fan base grows, they’ll start to play larger venues. “Obviously when you get great theaters, it would be lovely to do a residency for three nights, but, America is such a huge country that you wouldn’t have the luxury of that. If you’ve got one night, you don’t want people to not get in. We’ve done that where we played at a way way smaller venue than we should have.’

On the other end of the spectrum, does he see an arena tour in the band’s future? “No, not really… we’ve never thought about it. There’s more talk about it around us — people speculating — particularly in Britain. They all think we’re going to be the next stadium band. Take U2 and REM’s baton,” he scoffs. “If it happens, it happens, but the only way it will happen is if we’re comfortable with that… which we’re not at the moment. And as long as the show’s not compromised.” O’Brien explains, “I know it’s possible to do amazing shows: I saw the U2 Pop-Mart thing. There’s no way you could do that inside — it’s phenomenal. It was very moving, it was very personal at times, and it was extravagant and over the top. And it was fantastic. That’s the way to do those things.”

Lucky

Radiohead are one of a handful of bands who clearly seem to be plugged into the nineties, and even own their namesake domains (radiohead.com and, for Europe, radiohead.co.uk). The website itself is certainly unique with its spartan content. “Stanley Donwood does the website and does the artwork with Thom,” explains O’Brien. ‘We just didn’t want to do one of those websites that is basically like ‘here’s a picture of the band, here’s the band on the set of their latest video, you can buy the video, you can buy the new single out now.’ We wanted something that provoked a bit more of a reaction — you either love it or hate it. People think it’s interesting… and then other people say, “Why can’t I get the chords to “Creep?”’”

Although the band may not visit their virtual home too often, they are, at least, computer literate. “Oh, completely — yeah. Totally. Colin and Thom have got Powerbooks out on the road, Jonny’s going to buy a Powerbook.” So do they do much websurfing? “Yeah,” O’Brien replies, “I find it so boring, though. I personally feel the best thing about the internet is the text. The graphics — it takes so bloody long to download anything. The text is the stuff that interests me.”

O’Brien does, however, attest to the power of the web. “When we’re in the studio — the day after we tracked the songs, there was a website saying the songs we were recording. We have no idea — no idea — how they got the names of the songs. Okay, some of them we played live, some of them we haven’t. There’s no way. Stuff that had been written the night before, been tracked. Really weird. I just have got a feeling that one of the others in the band was going onto the computer about three in the morning and being a mole… and that’s cool, that’s fine.”

There’s certainly a major demand for news about the band in the online world. Radiohead’s internet devotees span the globe — in fact, the UBL (Ultimate Band List) mentions more than seventy sites dedicated to the band, and their high-volume mailing list has over four hundred members… well, four hundred, and, on occasion, another five. O’Brien smiles, “When we were in the studio, we’d occasionally go in on that. They wouldn’t believe who we were. They told us to get off.”

For real-time online interaction, fans will pretty much have to wait for one of the numerous online chats featuring the band, or, as the case may be, the band minus O’Brien: “I always avoid [chats]. I’ve done it once. I’m not that interested at all. You’ve always got some person regulating it, and I don’t want to have just the ‘good’ questions. I want to see what else is being said, and it’s really frustrating to have that ‘We can’t show the band that question.’ If someone says, ‘You guys, you suck, I hate your album,’ I want to retort — I want to respond to that.”

Personally, his favorite aspects of Internet connectivity vary. On the web, he admits to liking “things like typing in a word and seeing where it gets you. I’m also a big soccer fan — Manchester United — so I check out the MU sites, and there are a lot.” And though he has a Mac at home, “on the road, I can’t get any of the world wide web. I do email with a palmtop — you can get text only.” The written word — that text — again is apparently where his passion lies. “I love email, email is brilliant. It changes the way we talk. Suddenly, you’re getting letters on the road. Contact, rather than you sending and it being one way the whole time.”

No surprises

Contact with home and the outside world in general would be vital for anyone on the road, holed up with other band members and crew for sometimes months on end. Still, even when they’re back home, it sounds like they just can’t be apart for too long. “We all live in Oxford. If we’re back for months, we see other friends and chill out, and then by the second week, we’re phoning one another up, saying, ‘What are you doing?’“

That honest, undiluted friendship is the foundation upon which Radiohead have built their remarkable career. It is also what motivates them to move forward. Of the future, O’Brien says he sees the band’s goal as, “fairly simply, to continue making good and better records. And remain friends, really. Remain friends and remain human beings.”

A moment’s pause, then he clarifies, “If for one moment I believed that me and the band as a whole had become rock and roll casualties who don’t get on, who become twisted… you see a lot of these old rock and rollers — unwilling to take the rough, having had the smooth — then I wouldn’t carry on. I’m not interested in compromising our characters or becoming rock and roll assholes. Not interested in that at all.”

by Nancy J Price

For the past five weeks, Snow Patrol — one of the UK’s best and brightest new bands — has been traveling across America on a bus that now shares certain traits with a warm m&m: shiny and colorful on the outside, dark and a bit gooey on the inside. Every member of the band has been hit with one virus or another, and right now, their lead singer can’t manage to shake a bad cold — one that was, in fact, so debilitating that the group had to cancel a gig at a local record store earlier in the day.

They’re so sick and tired, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that they would be ready to go home right about now. Back to Belfast or Glasgow or wherever you want to say they’re from, depending on whether you base that “from” on their city of origin (the former) or their present home addresses.

But instead of moping around and counting down the minutes ‘til the bell rings, these guys are loving every second of it. To be honest, anything America could throw at them at this point couldn’t compare to what the band’s been through already. So bring it on.

Going bananas on the dole

“We’ve sort of been in a band for seven years, but really unemployed for five,” laughs bassist Mark McClelland. “Our first record came out in ‘98, and then we had to wait three years for a second one, even though we had recorded it,” he says. “But we were on a small label [Jeepster] with Belle and Sebastian, and Belle and Sebastian were a hit, so they were throwing all their money into them. They said, ‘I know you’ve got this record ready, and I know you want to release it, but we’ve got to spend all our money on this and this and this.’“

All that “this” meant no album and no tour for Snow Patrol, at that point made up of McClelland, singer/guitarist Gary Lightbody and drummer Jonny Quinn. Undaunted, McClelland and their manager bought a van — one that was just big enough to hold the band and their gear. “And that meant we could afford to go ‘round for nothing. And we just did it. We just did it because we believed in it. We wanted to believe in it.”

Alas, there was little but that faith to motivate them. “Three years went by, and if you don’t release any records, you don’t complete any contracts — you’re totally unemployed, there’s no income whatsoever,” he sighs. “So for three years between that album [2001’s When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up] and this album [2004’s Final Straw], we were just sitting there, going slowly nuts.”

Going nuts — and living together in a flat in Glasgow, a situation that McClelland says actually worked for a while. “But when everyone’s eating beans, and you’re fightin’ for the last can, it sort of gets a bit much.”

Ultimately, the band left Jeepster “because we weren’t happy with that sort of treatment,” says McClelland. Becoming free agents, however, didn’t make an immediate difference. “There was another dry spell before we got this record deal — another two years.”

Although it took longer than they could have ever imagined, that deal, with Polydor’s Fiction label (Interscope/A&M stateside), was worth the wait. Finally, Snow Patrol were in the major leagues.

Half the fun

There are about 30,000 new recordings released each year just in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Of those, fewer than ten percent are actually profitable. Considering that an album with major distribution costs a label upwards of a million bucks, record companies typically remain interested only in what sticks.

McClelland knows the odds were against them. “We could have just disappeared — many bands do,” he says, shaking his head. “We were just incredibly lucky.”

Luck played a part, true. But no more so than talent, faith, persistence, timing… and a whole lot of patience. And when all that finally paid off, it paid off big.

Final Straw, Snow Patrol’s third album (though their first released stateside) hit number 1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart in mid-October. Just over six months after its release, the album had already sold 158,000 copies in the US. And nine months after the February 2004 release of the UK version, it had shipped more than 900,000 copies, certifying the British disc triple platinum.

The band capped the year by appearing on the Band Aid 20 re-recording of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” — a single that also includes Bono, Paul McCartney and members of Radiohead, Coldplay, Keane, The Darkness, Travis, Blur and The Thrills.

“It’s just taken us by surprise,” says McClelland of the band’s hard-won hit status. “By this time last year, we’d already had a more successful album than either of the first two, and we were happy with that… We’d sold 20,000 records in the UK — ‘Woo hoo, this is great!’ And then suddenly with this record — bang,” he says, eyes wide. “Just been trying to get our heads around it ever since.”

A snow job

Compared to the band’s earlier work, Final Straw has a different feel — clearly more modern, and, well, more obviously marketable. Not only was the band coming from a whole different place because the famine was finally coming to an end, it was also the first time the band had an actual producer at the helm. Of the earlier self-produced albums, McClelland acknowledges, “I think our indie ethos held us back a wee bit.”

With acclaimed producer Garret Lee, otherwise known as “Jacknife Lee,” on their team, things would undoubtedly be different. Lee’s client roster included the likes of Eminem, Christina Aguilera and Run DMC. While he didn’t try to turn Snow Patrol into Belfast’s hottest hip-hop band, that’s not to say he didn’t make a few tweaks here and there. “We changed ‘Wow’ just as we started recording it,” McClelland says of the album’s second track. “Nathan [Connolly, guitarist] was messing about and [the producer] said, ‘Well okay, tape rolling,’ and we started — and then he went, ‘What was that Nathan was playing? That was much better,’ so we had to change the whole song.”

Indeed, Connolly’s involvement was another major element shaping the band’s new sound. “Nathan’s the new boy in the band,” says McClelland. “He joined just for this album.” Formerly employed in the stockroom of record store chain HMV, the new guitarist was the final piece of the puzzle. (Lest you think he just lucked out big time… well, he did — but he was also only 13 when McClelland and Lightbody first started the band.)

“At the time when I joined, they had just gotten together with Big Life [management]. Basically, in the space of a day, I ended up in Glasgow,” says Connolly. “I’d say pretty much half the record was already there when I joined, and the other half, we’d just started writing. There were parts that were there, and we changed songs and different things.”

By way of example, McClelland offers, “Nathan did the hook to ‘Spitting Games.’“ Of his contribution to this song, arguably the album’s catchiest single, Connolly shrugs. “Sometimes just someone’s messing about with a couple of chords, you start playing along, and it just fits it automatically — you don’t even know what you’ve done,” he says. “It can be so accidental.”

Smells like teen spirit

Snow Patrol began in Dundee, Scotland, where McClelland and Lightbody met soon after starting university there in 1994. Not only did they share a love for the same sorts of bands (think Pixies, Sebadoh, Soundgarden), they were also both from Northern Ireland. Another two lads from back home — Quinn and Connolly — rounded out the lineup in 1998 and 2002, respectively.

Like most of the best bands in history, the members of Snow Patrol had fairly lackluster starts to their musical careers. None of them were playing sonatas at age three, and there wasn’t a family friend who knew someone that knew somebody in the business. McClelland’s parents did, however, encourage him to pick up an instrument. “My parents made me learn the violin from the ages of 7 to 11, and I hated it,” he says. Only some savvy negotiating tactics saved him from possibly becoming a member of pop string quartet Bond. “My dad was a bass player, and I said, ‘If I take up the bass, will you let me off violin lessons?’ And that’s how it happened. I started when I was 10 — just messing about, taught myself. Dad helped a wee bit. That was it.”

The fact that McClelland played for three or four hours every night helped, too. “I went to a school where not many people from my area went to — they all lived about twenty miles away. I didn’t really hang out with that many people, so I could play the bass all the time. Along to Led Zeppelin, along to the Chili Peppers — along to everything.” He laughs, “I think I actually owe my neighbors some recompense for all of that!”

The people next door probably were a little happier when he joined his first band around age 14. “It was when Nirvana came out — I thought ‘I could play these songs.’“ Soon, he started playing regularly with other people. “I got to play in loads of bands, ‘cause nobody plays the bass,” he laughs. “As soon as you get in a band, it’s miles better — you can do a lot more, you learn much quicker, you learn how to play with other people, you learn to listen when you play — it just galvanizes everything. As soon as you join a band, you’ve got something to rehearse for.”

Connolly first got his hands on his own guitar when he was 12 or 13, but, he says, “I didn’t take it seriously ‘til I was 15 or 16 — I was just messing about.” His first real band experience wasn’t for another year or so. “It wasn’t that great,” he snorts when remembering his first group. “You gotta start somewhere, though.”

Both give Cobain and crew props for having an early influence on their careers. Krist Novoselic, in particular, gets a callout from McClelland. When it comes to grooving along to such a talent, he smiles and shrugs, “It’s just how you learn.”

Highway patrol

“We’ve been touring the UK ‘til we were sick of it — all the same venues,” McClelland laughs. “Now we’re not sick of it anymore!” Nor are they sick of criss-crossing America, even though the group has already completed three of four planned tours of the US in support of this album — not counting a scattering of dates for radio station holiday shows.

“America — it’s an obvious thing, but it’s so f***ing big,” says Connolly. “It’s not like the UK, when you can do like seven or eight big shows and then that’s it. There’s one radio station: Radio 1. Over here it’s just completely different — there are thousands of radio stations.” With all those stations out there, and thousands of bands vying for airplay, he realizes that many of the people watching them onstage are only be familiar with one or two songs. “They’re very attentive, because they’re still listening to the album. Some people might just be coming to the shows to see what it’s about, to check it out.”

While simply curious concertgoers are to be expected, one thing that has astonished the band is that there are loyalists even here — the sort of fans who show up for every gig they can, who wait in the rain to meet them at each in-store appearance, who sing along loudly to every song in the set, and who purposefully mystify the newbies in the crowd by yelling out requests for obscure older album cuts.

The band members seem to be the best of friends, and they’re all having the time of their lives — and that vibe may be what helps them connect so well with their audience. With just a quick glance at the message boards on their web site, it becomes clear that many of their fans thrive on analyzing every detail of television appearances and live shows — clucking like mother hens when they note the band’s looking sick or tired, or maybe have some hefty hangovers. They brood about whether or not their record label is pushing the band too hard, and there’s even talk of bringing the group care packages.

While care packages would no doubt be appreciated — particularly if they contain a little something to give the band one of those aforementioned hangovers — fans need not worry that the label is pushing them too much. Truth is, nobody could possibly drive them harder than the band members drive themselves. That’s because the guys in Snow Patrol are absolutely sure that touring is vital to their career. And by “touring,” they don’t mean playing a handful of gigs or even one six-week tour. These four pretty much want to be part-time American residents.

“We’ve heard so many stories of bands coming over [to the US] and destroying themselves. Playing to maybe 20 people, or even coming over and playing three shows — like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles — and then wondering why they haven’t broken America,” says Connolly. “Bands like U2 and Coldplay are bands that toured their f***in’ asses off.” (Word is that in 2005, Snow Patrol will get to play in support U2 across the states — a lesson from the masters on how it’s done.)

Of his band’s third US tour, Connolly says, “We’ve noticed a big difference from the last time, which is great, you know, ‘cause you can see the record building.” In particular, he singles out Columbus, Ohio, as an example of a particularly memorable gig. “I know it’s a big college town, but the venue was sold out, and it’s somewhere we’d never been.” He shakes his head, clearly still amazed. “We’re all a bit overwhelmed, really.”

If it feels like it works, then it works

The next album is a big question mark — “Can they do it again?” — followed by an exclamation point as a stamp of impatience. Now that the band has a growing following the world ‘round, nobody is willing to wait three years for a follow up to Final Straw.

“Are we working on a new album?” Connolly laughs, like he’s heard this one before. “We’re trying to! It’s just kind of tough on the road. Some bands can do it — it’s just not the way we work.” McClelland explains, “You have to learn how to write again, really, because you haven’t been doing it for awhile.”

“We’ve been on tour really since last August. And especially when you’re on tour, you’ve got to do your press, and then you’ve got sound check, and it’s kind of hard to get time,” says Connolly. “We’ll mess about in sound check and we do have a couple of ideas, but I think we’ll just have to get in a room together for a couple weeks and just start writing them.”

“We get about 30 songs for each album, and then cut it all down,” says McClelland. (“Get rid of the crap,” Connolly interjects.) “At least then you know that you’ve got some sort of quality control.”

Other than that QC check, the two agree that there is no hard and fast rule set that applies to the songwriting process itself, nor is there a particular pecking order.  “It changes, it varies — Gary writes all the lyrics. So sometimes he’ll come in with lyrics or a vocal line, and maybe a rough chorus he plays on an acoustic, and that accounts for probably about a third to half,” McClelland says. “The rest of it is jams, or someone else comes in with a chord progression that is great for a verse. We go ‘round and ‘round and ‘round it for like 20 minutes until everyone’s happy with what we’ve got.” The upshot? “It’s just basically — whatever works. It’s a mystery. Songwriting always is.”

S’now and then

Just before this interview, Snow Patrol played a few songs for an audience of one. (I considered it a sort of personal command performance; they called it soundcheck.) While the band was tight, it wasn’t until the show that evening that they truly became electric. Their power onstage is clearly fueled by the heady combination of finally getting off the bus and doing what they do best, and receiving an exuberant response from the audience for their efforts.

To capture some of that energy, cameras rolled during one of their sold-out concerts at London’s Somerset House last August, and thus a DVD was born. In addition to an hour of live footage, the bonus offerings include three videos, a Japanese tour diary, and some extras the band shot during one of their US jaunt earlier this year. The disc is out now, in stores filed under Snow Patrol Live 2004: Mums and Dads of the World be Patient with Your Children.

That same parental advisory also shows up on each of their albums and on their web site (www.snowpatrol.net). Was this phrase something else that sprung from Lightbody’s fertile imagination? Surprisingly, the answer is no. “It was just something Tom Simpson, our keyboard player, said,” McClelland says. “We were going down to finalize our first record (1998’s Songs for Polarbears) in Glasgow, to do all the artwork, and he just said that for some reason. Even though we hadn’t discussed what it meant or anything, it just made sense to everyone, and we’ve put it on every record since.”

So it’s not about some lingering resentment from having had impatient parents?

“No, the complete opposite — probably for all of us,” says Connolly. McClelland nods in agreement, and adds, “They were very patient with the years it took for any success to come — as long as we were happy.”

“I mean, there was the odd wise word,” Connolly concedes with a smile. “‘Maybe you should think about something else,’ you know…” McClelland joins in, “‘If you played the golf club, you’d get 500 quid — all you need to do is learn these Beatles covers.’“ The two share a look and laugh. “That was a lot of the wise words.”

Fortunately, the band never needed to walk down that long and winding road to cover band purgatory. And whether their plea for patience was truly random or actually prophetic, one thing’s for sure: the members of Snow Patrol will never again need to fight over a can of beans.

“We’ve just been pretty lucky with it,” muses Connolly, smiling as he rocks back in his chair. And the mums and dads? “They’re happy as pie now.”

Snow Patrol were interviewed during the Final Straw tour at the Marquee Theatre in Phoenix Arizona in 2004, where the second photo here was taken. (See more photos of the band from this day here.) This article first appeared on SheKnows.com.

Not surprisingly, being the frontman of a band that has sold 25 million albums has its advantages. After his huge success with Matchbox Twenty, Rob Thomas was given a free pass to make a solo record, which he has called his “experiment.” Turns out his hypothesis was correct: Something to Be debuted in 2005 at number one on the charts, sold more than a quarter million copies in the first week, and the first single hit number one on the charts in fifteen countries around the globe.

Of course, this success was not entirely unexpected. In addition to that multi-million album thing, Thomas had already won three Grammy awards, 13 BMI awards, the Songwriters Hall of Fame Starlight Award, and had been named Billboardsongwriter of the year twice. The cachet of his collaborations with the likes of Mick Jagger, Carlos Santana, Marc Anthony, Big Boi and Willie Nelson didn’t hurt his chances either. Those are some pretty impressive accomplishments for anyone, but are particularly remarkable to find on the resume of a 33-year-old guy who doesn’t really consider himself to be famous.SheKnows.com caught up with Rob Thomas shortly after his first solo album’s 2005 release, and found the man to be more sweet than smooth.

SheKnows: Was going solo what you expected, and was it fulfilling for you?

Rob Thomas: I think the biggest surprise is that nothing that you do is fulfilling, you know what I mean? Because as soon as you do it, you’ve kind of moved through that process, and you’re already starting to think about what you want to do next. And that’s good — I think it keeps you creative.It definitely was received better than I thought that it would be. And it’s been a lot of fun — playing these songs live working with different musicians. But it definitely has ups and downs that you don’t think about going into it. You don’t realize how much the band brings to the Matchbox situation — how much you enjoy having their input and their company. And then you also realize, “Wow, how great it is to be able to go out work with other musicians with a different point of view” — who look at things completely differently than you have for the last ten years. I think you somehow simultaneously are seeing both sides of it as you go through it.

SK: Did you have a hard time telling the band that you wanted to do go solo?

RT: No, we’ve always kind of known that it was going to happen at some point after we got off the road. And this was the only time that everybody was kind of comfortable taking a break. Paul’s working on a project, and Kyle’s working on a project, so I think that this was just the perfect time for everybody to kind of do that.

SK: Was it more stressful than working with Matchbox Twenty, because the weight of the whole project was on your shoulders?

RT: No, I kind of felt that with the fortune I had with Matchbox Twenty in the past, I bought myself the chance to fail. I felt like I could go out and I could do something completely out of left field, and if it went away, then I still have my day gig with Matchbox Twenty. So it was a really a no-pressure situation, which was really nice.

SK: So, what was the best day of the whole album cycle — when you got the recording done, or seeing it hit the charts as high as it did?

RT: I think it was the first time I sat and listened to the whole record – before it was released, but after it was done. And feeling that I thought it was really great. For a month, I felt like I had this little secret. You know — most of my record company hadn’t heard any of the record, and nobody had heard the whole record. So it was mine and [producer] Matt Serletic’s little secret that we had. And that was always a good feeling.

SK: You have said you were surprised that it did so well. What did that mean to you? Did you go out and celebrate?

RT: My wife and I went out with just a couple of friends and we had a nice dinner. And I bought it, too. I was like, “No no no, I got it.” That was the whole idea — that I could buy dinners now, come on! But, yeah, you can’t stay on it too long, because then you have to go out and actually do the work to support the record, and go out and tour, and do the interviews. So it was really something that you could just digest, and it’s kind of surreal to think about. And by the time you really kind of have processed it all, you’re not number one anymore.

SK: How did the other guys in Matchbox Twenty react to how well you’ve done. Were they blown away? I’d think this would have really positive implications for the band.
RT: I don’t know. I’ve only really talked to Paul about it. But Paul and I are best friends, so he’s talked to me a few times about it. He helps me when I have questions about which videos I should go with — we sit down and talk about it. But, yeah, I haven’t gotten a lot of feedback from the rest of the guys yet. I think they probably haven’t even heard it yet.

SK: What, what are some big things in your life that keep you going — keep you trying to be creative?

RT: I mean, I think it’s just my nature is to always only feel as creative as whatever I’m working on right now, you know what I mean? Like I feel like I’ve unlocked the secret key to success — not, not to having it, but to understanding it. In realizing that there are so many great things are successful, and so many really crappy things can be successful. Records that I don’t like go to number one. The Macarena was a number one hit, for God’s sake. So you can’t look at it and say that it justifies anything at all by success on its own. I believe that when I have a song out, and it’s connecting with people and people are incorporating it into their lives, and you see them at a show talking about it, or kind of reacting to it — that feels like a justification, ’cause you feel like what you’re doing is reaching somebody. So I think, nothing that I do can be motivated by the success, because success is kind of a trojan horse — sometimes it can make you feel like you’re on the right track, when just because it’s successful doesn’t mean that it’s true. So I always only feel as successful if I have a really great song coming out of me in the last week or two. I feel like, “Okay, I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing — I’m writing.”

SK: You sound like you’re pretty hard on yourself.

Yeah, I mean, I think you have to be. It’s really easy to have a tendency, if you get some sort of level of success, to take it easy on yourself. You feel like, “Okay, well, I’m here now, so I don’t have to work.” As a songwriter first starting out, you’re working hard and you’re working hard to be understood, and for people to listen to your music. So I don’t think you should ever stop that. I think you should always kind of feel like, “Well, I can do better. I can make a better record — I can make the song that I’m working on now sound a little better.”

Sometimes I’ll have a song that just doesn’t do anything for me, and then one day I’ll play it, and I’ll be like, “Wow, that’s a really special song” — and I’ll do something with it, you know, finish it or spend more time working on it. I just always wait for that song that feels like that — that just makes me feel something. It’s the same thing when I hear a song for the first time on the radio that just makes me go, “Oh my god — what is that? I love that.” I try and get that feeling out of a song that I write.

SK: Do you love touring — is playing something that really gets you going, or are you more of a studio kind of person?

RT: No, I like live — I always kind of feel like that’s the reason you do it, you know what I mean? Like you make records so that people will come see you play it live. Or you have your song on the radio as like an advertisement for people to come see you live. Because I guess all the music I listen to is good live music — everything from Prince to jazz to, you know, to my favorite rock bands — it’s always been kind of about the live show.

SK: So do you consider yourself an extrovert?

RT: I’m not. I feel like I have a famous job, you know what I mean? My private life is still pretty private. And my public life is just really public. So, yeah, I’m definitely not a super extrovert. I’ve never been crazy shy — like painfully shy or anything — but I’m not a big “Woo! Party!” guy.

Everyone who does this has certain moments here and there where they’d probably rather things had gone differently, and usually it’s more because it’s kind of embarrassing. Like if you’re in a situation where you’re out at a mall, and somebody knows who you are and nobody else does. That one person’s just, “Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s you! Do you know who this is?” — and it’s embarrassing. It’s just not what you think it would be after awhile. Not that it’s annoying, and not that you think, “Oh, I’ve got so many better things to do than listen to you” — it’s just kind of an embarrassing thing for people to make a fuss over you publicly. But I think it’s great when somebody just comes up and say, “I’m a big fan, I love your music, I’ve got your records,” or “I saw a show.” I think that’s great.

What really haunted me was the people who jumped from the buildings. I could not fathom what could make them do that.

On the third nearly-sleepless night after the attacks, I was lying in bed next to my 4-1/2 month old son when a concept so complete and powerful and instantaneous hit me that I had to get out of bed right then to write it all down. It felt like the whole story was given to me — downloaded to my brain in a little data burst. It was not created or crafted, but seemed like it just came into existence fully-formed. (Still, it took me a few hours in the wee hours of the morning to type it all out.)

And when it was done, I could finally sleep. I felt like I found some peace for myself, by way of my mind finding a sort of peace for some of those lives lost on that dark day.

Here’s the story as it originally appeared on my former site, Myria, in mid-September 2001. (The editor in me would love to rewrite some parts of it, but I am presenting it below as it was originally told, along with the intro that appeared upon its online publication.)

What was it like after Manhattan’s World Trade Center was hit? Why did the people trapped within make the choices they did? When it comes to those who perished, nobody will ever really know. Yet a question begs to be asked: What would you have done? Here is a fictionalized account of the September 11 attack. Read on for a look at how motherhood touches us, both in life and in death.

Joy

 
Everyone else was in an early meeting. I got to work early to catch up on my correspondence. I was in my own world, in the middle of writing a long-winded email message, when I heard a huge bang and felt an intense shake. I was instantly hyper-aware. That was no bomb in the basement; that wasn’t a lightning strike. Something big – and bad – had happened. And it was close.

Within moments, the overhead sprinklers went off. I heard others screaming down the hall. Nobody came my direction, but a few moments later I smelled smoke. Before I could finish my thought, “I have to get out of here,” I could see the fire blazing not twenty yards from my desk. It roared.

I stood watching in shock. In disbelief. I was transfixed by the flames, which were licking and leaping. They were coming closer. Consuming my secretary’s desk. Blackening and wilting the metal filing cabinets.

The room was suddenly blistering hot. Fear found me for an instant when I realized I couldn’t even keep my eyes open for the smoke and the wall of heat. I turned around and hid behind my desk. A line of fire snaked along my left, and before I could catch a clean breath, the heat cracked the windows and they exploded. Embers danced out through the void, followed by thick, black blankets of smoke.

Air. I had to have air. I moved to the window, driven by instinct. I thrust my head outside and gulped in big, cool breaths. I peeked out below. I couldn’t tell what happened, or what was happening now.

I quickly pivoted my head to look back, and the fire was all around me. It was deep and it was wide. It engulfed my desk, my computer, then my chair. It was creeping toward me. And I was alone. The only sound was the crackling roar of the fire, interspersed with exploding pops.

I didn’t have time to think, “What kind of escape route is a window over a hundred stories above the ground?” All that came to mind was how much it hurt when I skimmed the side of my hand on the hot oven the week before. I didn’t want to burn.

I stood on the ledge and composed myself. That took all of a second, but it didn’t feel hurried. Three thoughts: Swan dive. Close eyes. Think of my baby.

I flew out the window. It was like a dream.

I was surprised that the air was so noisy. No time to think about that. I held my eyes shut tight and rainbows and lights appeared in my mind. Beautiful warm colors. (Will it hurt when I hit? Don’t think don’t think don’t think about that.) My baby. I remembered the moment of his birth, the way he came out of my body in one beautiful, overwhelming push. How he looked when he emerged. My joy. Absolute joy. All pain forgotten and joy in my heart.

I never felt myself hit the ground. It was like I was flying… and then I was… not. I felt strange. I couldn’t breathe. I felt pressure from all sides. It wasn’t pain, it was something else. Force. I could tell it was dark, but I couldn’t open my eyes. Fear. I couldn’t move. Only barely. I could only move my head a little. I moved my neck back and then remembered you’re not supposed to move your neck after an accident. But it didn’t hurt. I turned my head to one side and then the other. It seemed to help. I felt the tightness ease for a moment and then it returned, stronger than ever. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t catch my breath.

Then it was like a curtain was lifted. I knew there was light but I still couldn’t open my eyes… or maybe I was scared to. And then I heard voices. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I opened my mouth and tried to scream, but someone put something in my mouth. I choked, but then it seemed to help me breathe. I must have been bleeding. Oh, what a mess.

But they were taking care of me. How did they have time to take care of me? So many people must have been hurt in the fire. And how did I survive? And did I want to survive like this? Bloodied and barely breathing? I felt myself starting to cry. Was I afraid, or just grateful? I don’t know. I think both. I wasn’t alone. But I wasn’t right. That tightness was squeezing me unbearably across my chest.

I tried to scream again, “Help me!” The words wouldn’t come out. Mercifully, after an instant the pressure was gone. I could breathe! But now I was cold. Cold and wet. I could feel in my palms something thick and damp. Blood, I knew.

Then I felt big, rough hands on my body. I felt naked, small… helpless. All I could think now was “Mommy, mommy, mommy!” This was too much. I wanted my mom. “Please mom, help me!” I tried to say words but nothing at all would come out.

I felt like I was being moved, but I was too paralyzed with fear to open my eyes. I might have lost consciousness for a moment.

Before I knew it, I was warm again. I didn’t know where I was, but all I could think is that it felt like home. Like I was being held close in big loving arms. Like I could just fall asleep there and be there the rest of my life. Warm, smooth, soft. I inhaled deeply, freely. A sweet scent was everywhere. I was finally filled with calm. I finally let myself wonder, “Is this what it’s like to die?”

But I didn’t feel dead. I felt perfect. I felt alive.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. A face filled my view. I saw a woman, one who looked almost familiar (yet I couldn’t place her), looked down at me and smiled wearily. I smiled back and thought, “She must be taking care of me.” But how did I get here? I tried to speak, but still no words would come.

For I don’t know how long, I watched her, and she watched me. I started to forget about what had happened. I was mezmerized by her features. Dark hair. Eyes the most incredible shade of green.

I felt myself drifting off to sleep. My fall, my day – my life – started to seem like it had all been a dream. Around me, I heard several excited voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. My eyelids began to grow very, very heavy. I tried and tried but I couldn’t… possibly… keep my eyes open any more.

Enveloped in comfort, I surrendered to sleep as the voices continued all around me.

“Congratulations — you have a beautiful baby girl!”

“Look — shhh! The baby’s trying to take a nap.”

“What are you going to name her?”

“Joy. We’re going to call her Joy.”

For those few who wanted to see, here are my wisdom teeth — removed on 8/24/11.

You can click for a larger version of the pic if you are so inclined. :P As you might be able to see here, two of the teeth came out intact, and the remaining two needed to be cut and chopped and sliced and diced out.

I was originally going to be completely unconscious, but that plan was scuttled when I stopped breathing. So I have very vague memories of the action — but, surprisingly, was not too traumatized by it!

I think the one on the far right sort of looks like a warped version of a candy corn.

When my daughter had her wisdom teeth out at age 14, here’s the equipment they used:
 

A puffy little hummingbird, a split second before he flew away.