20 Burning Q's with Musician Tracy Bonham

The 'Mother, Mother' singer/songwriter/virtuoso joins MUTHR to chat about the making of her new album Sky Too Wide and, among so many other things, the wild career advice she got from Laurie Anderson.

Singer/songwriter/virtuoso Tracy Bonham and I go all the way back. We met in our tender twenties, running amok around the 90s Boston music scene when it was my job to promote her debut EP, The Liverpool Sessions, and her first single, “The One.” Soon after, Island Records scooped her up and she released her debut album The Burdens of Being Upright. Her hit single “Mother Mother” shot up the charts, and she took off to tour the world.

Ever since, we’ve enjoyed the fruits of her labor. The Burdens of Being Upright topped the alternative charts and scored her a couple of Grammy noms. Her second record, Down Here, came out in 2000 but she parted ways with her label, deciding instead to go indie. She gave us more music with Blink the Brightest, (2005), Masts of Manhatta (2010), Wax & Gold (2015), and Modern Burdens (2017), a reimagining of The Burdens of Being Upright.

And yay! Tracy has a gorgeous new record on the hopper called Sky Too Wide, an emotionally poignant, elegant evolution of her musicality. I recently attended an intimate live performance/video recording of said music and can attest, it’s gorgeous.

Photo: Me

But finishing the work was much harder than it should’ve been (more deets in our interview below) because Tracy was hit with a breast cancer diagnosis that took her out of the game for a minute. It took some time but she’s recovered and is in fighting shape now, but Sky Too Wide really needs our help to see the light of day. So, if you’ve ever fancied yourself a patron of the arts and you dig Tracy’s work, please consider donating to her Kickstarter (CLICK HERE) so she can put the finishing touches on this bad boy and get it into our hungry little earholes!

Not one to let a musical genius slip through my (or your!) fingers, I asked the genius behind “Mother, Mother” to join your MUTHR here at MUTHR, FCKD for an in-depth chat about making Sky Too Wide, mothering (DUH), and, among so many other things, the wildest advice she got from Laurie Anderson. Read on!

MUTHR, FCKD: Over the years, you’ve evolved from an indie pop rock singer-songwriter to a sophisticated composer, leaning into these elegant, less conventional song structures and more complex instrumentation. Please tell me a little bit about when and how you recorded Sky Too Wide.

TRACY BONHAM: Over a year ago, I went up to Woodstock, NY with Alvester Garnett and Rene Hart and went into Applehead Recording studio. I made Wax & Gold at that place, I love it there. The engineer Chris Bittner is awesome. I wanted to get the love and the feeling and the camaraderie that the three of us have onto the tape. I wanted that magic to be inside the music, it didn’t feel right to have some kind of a daily session where Alvester would have to drive in from Jersey. I wanted us to stay there, I wanted us to have our meals together. It was four days of bliss, it was so magical and fun. We got the basics done, and the plan was to go back and mix and then do all the things you need to do to finish an album. We were about to schedule the mix, which would’ve been so nice to do right afterward but the month after, I got my cancer diagnosis. That required me to put a spin on things in a different way. Regardless, we were able to mix it, but it was months and months later.

MF: You had to put that on pause and take care of yourself.

TB: We had so much planned and I wasn’t going to cancel any of it, I just had to wedge it between surgery, treatment, and all of that.

MF: I’d love to talk to you about that more here, and we will. You’re putting this record out yourself. What would you say are the biggest benefits of doing so?

TB: The benefit is, you are your own boss. You get to decide what goes on the record. When I was on a record label years ago, I would always have to double-check with people, someone always has an opinion and it would kind of change the vibe. Even back when I was on Island Records, unfortunately, they had some say in what I was doing. For instance, I hate my second album cover. I didn’t want it to be the album cover but they were like, “Show some skin! Be sexy!” And I didn’t fight it, you know?

MF: UGH. That was so typical of the time, too.

TB: Oh, so typical. If I had my druthers, it would’ve been cooler and artsier and it would’ve just been more of what I do now.

MF: More YOU.

TB: Right.

MF: They’re always like, “Now this is a single!” Everyone’s got notes. Plenty of notes.

TB: It forces you to think about commerce, which is hard for an artist. We know we need it, but I just want to make my art.