Monday, Oct. 14 on WYEP, we had a Live & Direct Session with a Pittsburgh DIY artist who's been attracting national attention with her music. Merce Lemon has a new Americana-influenced album called "Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild", and spoke with Joey Spehar in the WYEP studios.
Set list:
Rain
Blueberry Heaven
Backyard Lover
Foolish and Fast
Interviewer: Joey Spehar
Engineers: Thomas Cipollone, Tom Hurley
Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity:
Spehar: It's Merce Lemon, live and direct this afternoon here on WYEP, the new album “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild” is out now, and it is really, really nice. So, thanks, everybody, for being here today.
Merce Lemon: Oh, thanks so much for having us.
Spehar: If you haven't heard the record yet, I really think you’ve got to check this one out. It’s so good. And it opens with this song called “Bird Seed,” which I think is like a brilliant next-level imagination of what you could do as a bird. I mean, we all think about what it’s like to be a bird, but you took it in some other interesting directions, which I really appreciate. So can you talk about your relationship to the natural world and how it impacted these songs? Because it's all over the place.
Merce Lemon: Yeah. Well, that song I wrote in the deep pandemic when I was at my parents’ house, staring out the window at the cherry tree they planted when I was born, which was fully grown by that point. But I kind of watched it bloom and fruit in early spring, and I watched the birds eat all the fruit off the top that we couldn't reach, which they always do. But yeah, I just… my relationship to the natural world is always inspiring me. I spend a lot of time outside, and I also landscape, so, yeah, too much concentration.
Spehar: There’s also this distinct air of domestic themes going on in the album as well. Pitchfork compared it to a Frank Lloyd Wright house, where there’s this indoor and outdoor living, and I thought that was pretty perfect. So for you, is this because it’s different for everybody, is this an indoor album or an outdoor album?
Merce Lemon: Yeah, I think it’s both. I’m definitely one to get stuck in my room, but I also find a lot of solace outside in the woods. I mean, “Windows at Total End” is an inside song. So I think there’s a little bit for both sides, but I think it’s a good walking album.
Spehar: I don’t walk much, but I’ll try that. This could be good inspiration. But I also wanted to thank you on a personal level for some of these songs because I feel like I could see a bit of myself in there, even though, you know, they’re obviously your stories. But I like the way you tackle these big things and then throw something kind of ridiculous and funny in there, which is something I see in myself, much to the chagrin of my family and relationships. It’s like I always have to throw in a joke and kind of screw it up in some ways. So, do you feel like you have to take the edge off sometimes?
Merce Lemon: Yeah. I don’t want to make the most depressing music in the world. I don’t know if that’s very helpful, and I think humor’s very important in sadness and being alive.
Spehar: And, you know, you put out that song before the album came out, earlier this spring, “Will You Do Me a Kindness?” And I mean, that line, if you don’t know what it’s about, look it up sometime. But for those of us who do, there’s this ridiculous video of this guy making like a Winnebago training video or something, and he just keeps screwing up, saying, “Will you give me a kindness?” So to get a song like that, how does it come together? Is that inspired by something? Are there pieces here and there? How does all that work?
Merce Lemon: That song really started with the title, which I think rarely happens with my writing process. But I was watching that YouTube video, and he said that enough times that I was like, “I really like this phrase,” and I don’t know, I’ve never heard anyone use it. And it kind of spiraled into a song from there.
Spehar: Yeah, it seems very personal to him.
Merce Lemon: So I Googled it, because I was like, “I wonder if there’s any other association with this,” and only the Winnebago man came up.
Spehar: It’s brilliant. It’s brilliant. While we are live and direct this afternoon with Merce Lemon, the new album “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild” is getting a lot of well-deserved attention, and you’re about to find out why. Can we get a couple more songs?
Spehar: Well, if you’re just tuning in, we are live and direct this afternoon with Merce Lemon. New album is out, plus a hometown album release show this Friday night at Bottlerocket. Would you take a moment to introduce your band?
Merce Lemon: Yeah, I'd love to. We have Ben Brody on the bass, Friedman on the guitar, and Pat Coil on the drums and the harmonies.
Spehar: I imagine that’s a really good feeling, being backed up by people like this because it brings so much to the music. So, maybe this is an awkward question, maybe not, but is this an official band? Like, is everybody committed to this? How much of the record sounds the way that it does because of this band? You know what I mean?
Merce Lemon: That is a good question. It’s awkward. I think it’s been two years that we’ve been playing together as this band, and we recorded the whole album together too. I wrote all the songs, but we imagined them as full band songs together, and that was very influential.
Spehar: Does it ever end up differently, like vastly differently than the picture you have in your mind, and then you bring it to everybody, and it takes on a whole new direction?
Merce Lemon: Sometimes. I’m not one to have a full final vision of what a song will be. I often like to figure that out more collectively.
Spehar: Well, you grew up in a very musical household, from what I understand. And for me, that’s really nice to think about because, I mean, there was, you know, music and art in my house, but not at that level. So for you, is that helpful? Is it a hindrance sometimes? I know friends who have very arty parents that are like, “Man, I just wish I would have gotten in trouble every once in a while.”
Merce Lemon: I definitely got in trouble for not doing my homework. But no, I feel very grateful for how I was raised and what I was exposed to. I think a lot of my friends had to find the weird music worlds, and I just grew up in it. And so I missed a lot of the pop culture stuff. So sometimes people think I’m younger than I am because of the pop culture references I miss. But really, I just didn’t have TV, and I was watching like 16-millimeter films my dad was showing instead of Cartoon Network, I guess.
Spehar: Yeah, I didn’t have cable. I just worked in a gas station all the time, so it’s, you know, different for everybody. But was music always the thing for you? Could you have come home one day and said, “You know, accounting is really where it’s at?” Or if music wasn’t a thing, did you have another creative outlet?
Merce Lemon: Yeah, I don’t think I ever thought I was going to be a musician until I started playing again when I was 19. And even then, it was just because I enjoyed it, not because I had a vision of my future with it. But I did a lot of visual art. I think that was my main creative outlet for so many years, one that I kind of miss because I think music kind of replaced that. I want to find a world where they coexist again.
Spehar: I’m sure you’ll find it — keep looking. Well, I do want to bring up a very special and important lady in your life, who I would love to talk about: Moldy..
Merce Lemon: My cat.
Spehar: Yes! Why isn’t she here today?
Merce Lemon: Because she’s a wild animal. I love that, even in the Pitchfork article, they referenced my cat, and I was like, “This is strange.”
Spehar: I mean, I see you're on Instagram, like you had the video the other day where she was climbing this fence and it made me, well…
Merce Lemon: She’s climbing over the other side of the fence.
Spehar: Okay, well, then maybe, like, I feel so bad for my cat who’s not allowed outside. But I’m sure there are pluses and minuses.
Merce Lemon: There was no option for me. She was a terror, and she was also born outside, so she had a taste for it. And yeah, I had to listen to her. She always comes home.
Spehar: Or she pops up on the record, not necessarily in sound, but she’s talked about.
Merce Lemon: I do! I was saying in band practice the other day, I was like, “I want a meow on one of our songs.”