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Fringes, May 31, 1995
"Go Ask Alice"

Interview with Alice Di Micele by Wyly Cunningham

Q: When did you first start writing songs?"

Alice: The first song I can remember writing was at six years old. So I have been writing all my life. It's what I do. It's how I survive in life.

Q: When did you first start performing?

Alice: I started performing in school concerts and choir. I grew up in New Jersey and was fortunate to be exposed to an education that included an emphasis on the arts. Back when it seemed the arts were an important part of the education process.

My first band was called "Eon Ocean", it was an improvisational, rock fusion, strange acid band. It was great! Then, of course, there were the wonderful coffee houses and such.

Q: How would you describe your style of music? What were your influences?

Alice: Influences are easy, describing the style is the hard part, so I will start with the influences: I grew up listening to jazz and Stevie Wonder. The first album I ever fell in love with was Songs in the Key of Life, I played it until I wore it out. Politically and spiritually he is so tuned in, and so vocal about it. And his voice is amazing. I feel like I really learned how to sing listening to him.

As I mentioned I was always into jazz and African American music. I didn't really listen to folk music until I was in high school, but it had a profound effect on me as well.

I guess I would describe my style as the music of my soul. It's folk music because I play the acoustic guitar and I sing, but the influences go beyond just the traditional folk sound.

Q: How does a song come to you? Do you write lyrics first, music etc?

Alice: It's different every time. Sometimes it just comes out of my mouth, like I'm not really the one writing it. It's a sacred process I don't really question that much.

On "Prettiest Jewel" for instance, I was hiking on the Illinois river (in SW Oregon), I looked down at the water and I just started singing that song. It came to me all at once! Then there are other songs that I really spend a long time writing. So it depends. I definitely don't have a formula. I think that I write through grace, the songs are gifts.

Q: Do each of your recording projects represent a specific time period of your life? Do they have a theme?

Alice: Make A Change was my first album, in 1988. It certainly had a theme: changing the world. I would say that it was really an innocent point in my life. I fasted five days before I recorded it. I had no idea what I was doing. People said 'you should record an album' and the next thing I knew I had completed Make A Change.

It's A Miracle was coming from an expansive place, a place of movement both musically and spiritually. Too Controversial was a real angry phase, one that I really needed. Everything just seemed wrong in the world and I needed to shout about it. Searching is more of a celebration. I was in love and a lot of the songs are love songs.

And Naked, my latest one, I feel like it is really coming from the raw places of my soul. Healing myself, really looking at myself and the world. Trying to come from a more whole place inside. (It's really about my Saturn Return, for anyone who understands astrology, which is ending. Thank goodness!)

Q: I definitely felt that Naked was raw, a little more stripped down than Searching. It reminded me of your earlier work. What does Naked mean to you?

Alice: The whole release is about being naked, musically and emotionally. There are a couple of songs: "I Don't Know What It Is" and "If I Could Move the World," that I am just pouring my guts out there. It is about being really honest with my pain and with my joy and not hiding any more. It's about vulnerability.

Q: What is your favorite tape?

Alice: Right now my favorite is probably Naked, but I am getting into the Searching songs again. But you know they are all like my children, it is really impossible to choose between them.

Q: I know that you play quite a few concerts that support political causes? Do you think that music should be dedicated to social change? Do you think it con tributes to social change?

Alice: Music is social. So of course it is going to affect change. I don't feel like every musician needs to dedicate themselves to social causes the way I do. It's not some mandatory thing, you know the musician social services police.

For me it goes hand in hand because I sing about what I care about, and what I care about is social change, justice, the earth, and healing. More than anything it's about healing. I do a lot of things for causes, I feel like it is important to keep that impulse strong. But I am also going through a realization that I need to look inward, also.

For a long time I used my activism as an escape route from my own self. I think that I will be much more effective in the world if I take care of some of my own hurts first. There is a real hard balance there that I have been trying to achieve.

Q: What are your goals as a musician?

Alice: My greatest goal is to reach as many people and touch as many lives as I can. And if I move somebody, then it is successful. You know, this is my life, this is my dharma, and I am in it to do it as long and as successfully as I can.

Q: I have heard you described as and eco-feminist, would that be an accurate description of your philosophy?

Alice: Probably. I think that label often seems very intellectual. Eco-feminism started out as a spiritual movement, and I find myself spending a lot of time debating the theories of eco-feminism when I am really into the practice of it.

I am into the equality of all beings, we are all sacred. I would much rather live it than read dissertations on the academic theories it has started to lean towards.

Q: There is a lot of talk about an environment of sexism in the music industry. Have you met any opposition as a woman musician?

Alice: Oh yeah. But you know I just don't let it get to me. I don't have time to play that game. But it's there and I am aware of it when I don't get gigs because of it.

Q: Because you are a woman?

Alice: A lot of times it's because I'm a woman, more times it's because I'm queer. I'm not in the closet about it. It's not the biggest part of my music. People might have no idea when they listen to my music. It doesn't matter. If someone is getting something out of my music it shouldn't be important, but to some people it is. So I know when I don't get the gigs for those reasons, either for being an outspoken woman, or a dyke or whatever.

I am doing my music to try and bring people together so I don't want to spend a lot of energy on intolerance. We have too many common things to try to focus on. I try to build bridges, try to create an environment where people who come to my shows can feel safe.

Q: What advice would give to other singer/songwriters?

Alice: To be really clear on the path that you are choosing. It's a gift. You've got to just go for it. Try to make a difference. Follow your heart, it's the best teacher. It's a marriage, a marriage to the muse.