Shannon Stephens is a singer-songwriter based in Seattle, Washington. In the '90s, at a tiny Christian art-school named Hope College in Michigan, Stephens played in a folkie band called Marzuki. She wrote the songs, and a multi-instrumentalist named Sufjan Stevens fleshed them out. After the band broke up, each went solo. Stephens released her debut solo album in 2000, then went into hiding. Stevens became an alternative music superstar, releasing a countless array of albums. Nine years later, Stephens has returned with a second LP, The Breadwinner, on Sufjan's own Asthmatic Kitty label.
Interview: 4 August 2009
When did you first start making music?
“I started writing songs as a little kid, and when I started playing the guitar as a teenager I just instantly started writing songs on it. I never had these aspirations of being a career musician; writing songs just came naturally. Then, when I moved to Michigan at age 19, I made some friends and got into a band and started thinking: I could do this for a career.”
Has performing come as naturally to you?
“I feel really comfortable; there’s something about that really communal feeling that just sits well with me. It really helps my performance to play in front of people. But when I’m playing by myself at home it’s extremely uncomfortable. I’m always thinking: ‘how am I going to make this sound good?’”
Was there a period where you stopped performing?
“Well, yes! It started nine years ago! I took this enormous break; my heart just wasn’t in it. I think I’d just pushed myself too hard for too many years to try and make a career out of music, and I hadn’t achieved really any success. I was working full-time at an office job, and then after work always had this long list of phonecalls to make and packages to send and shows to book. I just got really exhausted and started feeling like there was more to life. Around the same time, I got married, and just felt like hiding for a while. So, I hid for about nine years.”
When did the desire to hide away begin to thaw?
“Four years ago my daughter was born, and it was about a year or two after that. The first year of having a baby is so brutal you don’t have any time to do anything else. When they start to grow up, you get a tiny bit of time, and start asking yourself ‘what did I used to be interested in?’ I’d been depressed about music for a long time because I felt like it was a wasted effort. But I started realizing it was part of me, and I needed to do it. So I started writing songs on a really personal level, just for me. Then I decided to record them. And now I’ve just started performing them.”
So you haven’t done a lot of shows?
“I haven’t. In fact, it was a struggle to get my album recorded. I spent more time practicing my songs than I did recording them; I feel like I had to learn to play guitar and sing all over again.”
Has it felt different, making music, this time around?
“In some way it has felt different. Because my motivations are different this time. Last time, I was this kid who felt entitled to success, and felt entitled to recognition. Now, I’m more of a grown-up, and I’m looking at it more pragmatically than that. I know there’s a lot of hard work ahead of me, and people aren’t just going to hand a music career to me.”
Is that sense of pragmatism reflected on The Breadwinner? Its title suggests so.
“Definitely. One of the major life lessons I’ve learned in recent years is just how hard you have to work to make a living. I’m trying to look at music that way, with a certain desperation. Like, you have to throw everything into it, and if this isn’t going to work out, you have to try something else. We have to make ends meet. My husband and I are still working just as hard at our gardening business whilst we’re seeing what becomes of this music ‘career’ of mine. That definitely is the foundation of the songs I’ve written recently, the sense of pragmatism about making a living.”
Did writing about that come naturally, in that you were just talking about your life, or was it a subject that you thought was worth writing about and endeavored to address?
“It was definitely autobiographical. Because those are things I think about every single day: the divide between rich and poor, the difficulty in making a living. I’ve though about it tons over the past few years. So, it's only natural that winning bread seems to be a uniting theme for the songs. I was afraid my album was going to be this bitch session about economics, but it didn’t turn out that way. There’s a lot of love songs on it, too.”
Back in your college days, did you have any inkling Sufjan was on his way to superstardom? Or has that been an amusing surprise?
“I don’t think anyone was surprised that he achieved great success, because Sufjan is so talented at so many things. I guess the surprise was through what would he attain success: His fiction? His poetry? His knitting? His music? What was it going to be? I wasn’t surprised that he hit it so big.”
How did it feel seeing Sufjan be so prolific and successful whilst you were hiding away from music?
“I felt really jealous. I felt jealous of a lot of my friends in the industry that were making it, to greater or lesser degrees. I had this knee-jerk reaction of jealousy, and then have to remind myself that I was taking a break for a reason, and this is what I had chosen. I wasn’t a victim of it, it hadn’t just happened to me; this is what I wanted. That’s how I came to terms with that sense of jealousy.”
What kind of hopes do you hold for The Breadwinner?
“I hope that this record comforts people. I hope that the songs comfort others in the way that it’s comforted me to write them. And I hope that it sells well. I really have no idea what will happen when the record comes out, whether anyone will care. Personally, I hope to be able to quit my gardening job and just focus on music from hereon out.”
You don’t see another nine-year hiatus in your future?
“No! Not any time soon. It’s so huge, this time around, that I have my husband to help me with the business side of things, because last time I just felt so alone. I think that’s part of why I burnt out last time, and why I stepped away for so long.”
