I first became aware of Cindy Lee's existence when i was living in Irving, home of the Dallas Cowboys (you know, the guys who drink cocaine and snort whiskey and fuck teenage girls and get arrested every other day and occasionally even play some football, although not very damn well lately, and what the hell were they thinking when they let Deion leave for the Washington Redskins, of all places, even if he is an arrogant blowhard with that goofy-ass do-rag, hell the man was at good at what he did, all right?) -- i was wandering around a Sound Warehouse store when her just-released cassette, WHO'S GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD?, leaped off the shelf and into my hands and screamed "BUY ME! BUY ME you worm or i'm going to shave your cat!" So of course i had no choice but to buy it, and when i took it home and played it, it didn't leave my cassette deck for nearly a year. Since then she's released several more records and i've bought them all, and i remain convinced that she is one of American music's best-kept secrets, and undeservedly so. In a righteous world Cindy Lee would rule the airwaves and the charts instead of loathsome toads like Puff Daddy and N'Sync, but we all know that life is a cruel and bitter pill, so i guess we'll just have to be happy that Cindy Lee hasn't thrown her guitar in the dumpster and gone on to something else. On the heels of a self-released "living room tour" CD, she is currently working on material for a new album, and in the meantime was gracious enough to take time out for this swank interview....

SO WHAT DID GARY HANDEMAN WANT WITH CINDY LEE'S SHOES, ANYWAY: DEAD ANGEL INTERVIEWS CINDY LEE BERRYHILL

DA: Your style has always been what critics like to call "quirky." How much of that has been a problem when dealing with record labels, who generally like acts that can be easily pigeonholed and marketed like cans of beans?

CLB: Actually, I've come to see "quirky" as a pigeonhole. Yesterday on the radio there was a story about PETA, that story about the Tofu cream pie, and the announcer said PETA uses "quirky" attention-getting tactics. I'm still not sure what people mean when they say myself or another artist is quirky. Perhaps it means slightly comical. I don't know, really. But I sort of equate it with "cute," like "that girl is cute," not beautiful, which is not such a good connotation. Record labels look for any artist from any pigeonhole that looks like it will make them a profit immediately.

DA: So what's up with the label hassles? You've been on three labels now and are looking for a new one. What's happening?

CLB: I've been on more than three if you count the British labels as well. A few years ago RECORD COLLECTOR magazine made a big point of that in a profile on me. Every album or two it's on to another home. Sometime's it's been their choice, sometimes mine. So now I'm between homes. With small children, seeking shelter.

DA: Do you find that the record biz in general has a problem figuring out what to do with artists who don't fit into a preconceived or easily-categorized style?

CLB: I just think the record business is a business and looking to sell as many burritos as they can put out the drive-up window. But sure, I think it's harder to sell someone innovative than the same lame shit over and over. I think it's important, though, to acknowledge the companies/executives that take those chances, like Dreamworks (Elliot Smith, Rufus Wainwright).

DA: So why is it so hard to do something worthwhile in this business (music) and actually make a living at it? Sometimes it seems like the only people making a good living at it are people whose records I'd never want to own....

CLB: Well, I see people making a living, albeit in modest ways that I very much respect. For instance Patti Smith, my friend Freedy Johnston, my friend Kim Fox -- who is making a very humble living but creating her next album with Dreamworks. I saw my old buddy Lenny kaye of the Patti Smith Group recently and he isn't scufflin'. I think it really depends on what we consider making a living. Myself, well, I'm doing temp work, bookstore work, and even being a receptionist at a flower farm to find a living between shows. It isn't easy being any kind of artist in the US, but I'm inspired by my friends and how they have found ways to stay afloat. Lenny said he tries to juggle a few creative projects like bookwriting, producer, musician, to keep the cash flowing. Listen, I'm still trying to figure this one out.

DA: I remember when WHO'S GONNA SAVE THE WORLD? came out and I was really impressed because it was like nothing I'd ever heard -- it combined elements of blues, folk, punk, and all sorts of nifty stuff in one package. Is that a pretty common reaction among CLB fans?

CLB: Well, I think everyone has a different reaction. I had very good reviews except for one college reviewer that said "This is a blues album that fails miserably -- throw it to Dr. Demento!," and I laughed my head off. When I signed to Rhino there was a producer I was gonna work with that said at the last minute he wanted it to sound polished like a third album. So he had lined up these other musicians (guys from the Three O'Clock) and wanted me to do a cover tune from an obscure songwriter and stuff, and I just said "No, you're fired." I think my instincts were pretty good, and I still feel good about WGSTW. But ya know, I never really listen to the finished albums; that's history, I'm on to the new songs.

DA: Your albums are so different that I'd be hard-pressed to name a favorite. Is there a clear favorite among your other fans?

CLB: Nah, I think everyone has a different favorite. Some say "Oh you are so much better now" if they've just discovered my work. Others say "I wish you'd go back to that sarcastic talky style." I honestly don't pay any mind to what well-meaning folks say -- even record company types -- I mean, I just don't write from analysis, I just can't do it. My writer friend David B. Rudderman said to me recently that I write from instinct and that makes the most sense to me. I just listen to chords and notes and think about feelings and if they're conveying a feeling that I want to express. Sometimes a song is word-driven and sometimes the words need to accessorize the melodic feeling and atmosphere.

DA: Not only are your albums very different, but there's almost a different lineup on every one except for a couple of key Garage Orchestra players on the last three. So much difference does that make when you're writing material, when it's not necessarily being written for a specific combo in mind?

CLB: I don't think about musicians at all when I'm writing songs. I let the song tell me what it wants arrangement-wise as it comes into its fullness, as it grows up. I like having a lot of musicians available for recording, because some songs need a lot of parts. And I love the process of coupling instruments together to create a "new" sound. Like a vibraphone and a guitar playing the same melodic line.

DA: One of the things I like best about your songs is that they're populated with extremely colorful characters, like "Diane" and "Gary Handeman" and so forth. Are these characters, by chance, based on real people?

CLB: Some of it's fiction and some is based on fact; I pretty much mix it up. A lot of songs are both real and imagined characters. Before I started writing songs at 10-1/2, I would write and make up stories to get out of math at school (my teacher would let me keep writing). And, even younger, when me and my Dad would go on long drives and we'd see the funny name of a town, he'd have me make up a story about it to keep him amused and awake.

DA: You had this interesting stream-of-consciousness beat influence thing happening on the first two albums (particularly in "Steve on H" and "Yippee"), but it seems to have taken a back seat on the later albums. Was that out of a desire not to repeat yourself, or does it have more to do with the nature of the songs?

CLB: I don't know, I just take dictation.

DA: How did the whole concept of a "living room" tour come about in the first place? I like that idea. :)

CLB: Yeah, it puts the songwriter back in the driver's seat. The concept began when I had a day off on a tour of clubs. I was in Boston and a member of an internet-based fan club asked if I would do a show at someone's home in the area. My friend Elizabeth Hummel was along for the tour, so we both played our stuff at this Bostonian's home. About thirty people showed up and they treated us like the fucking Beatles. Audio, video, cameras, autographs, creepy but fun. So when I got home I put the word out that I'd be open to doing a string of these and I got a big response. It all revolved around this internet fan club called the Everyday Angels. Elizabeth and I would go from one house to the next, every day a new town, mostly on the east coast and midwest, and there'd be "reviews" just in from the last night's show at so-and-so's house. It was a great way for a lot of these teen and twentyish internet-heads to meet and greet each other. But the sudden adulation was rather daunting.

DA: How did you ever manage to pick out just a handful of songs for the live disc out of so many possibilities? Was some of the selection made more obvious by the fact that it was just you and Renata performing?

CLB: James Cribb, the guy that hosted the show and had the recording made, had favorite songs and I am not good at picking out what I do best live, but if there was a patch of bad chords or a dullish performance, it was out. I think there were about five or six songs left off the CD. Look, this performance was never meant to be an album. James had it recorded well, then later presented to me the idea that he'd like to put it out and so I agreed and it became a sort of official bootleg. This isn't CLB's fifth album, ya know.

DA: So it's just going to remain a "fan's only" kind of thing?

CLB: Yeah, a a fan's only thing.

DA: Have you ever considered putting out your own albums rather than dealing with record labels? It always seems to me that anybody with any kind of following could do that and avoid label hassles. Of course, there's always the problem of $$$ and the time to run it....

CLB: Well, LIVING ROOM 16 is [like] putting out my own thing. But I wouldn't want to take on the big responsibility of putting out my own studio album. There's too much work involved in marketing and promotion and I think I deserve better than my own meager abilities in business; leave it to the pros.

DA: The story you tell when introducting "Damn, I Wish I Was A Man" on the live album is pretty funny. Would I be correct in assuming you've held a wide variety of jobs to support your music career?

CLB: Guess I've already sort of answered this one. Man, I've had so many weird jobs. Including shoeshine girl at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills -- shining shoes of the stars! Singing telegrams for one month -- it was so awful I quit and went to work at Jack in the Box. A few months ago I was a "music columnist" for a tiny local paper (fishwrap and many realty ads) -- they fired me for being too "edgy" and "we weren't sure what she was gonna pull next," ha! Squeezing orange juice for a rich bachelor and friend of Hugh Hef in Bel Air and cleaning up his bedroom (wondered why [there were] so many tissues all over the floor). Now I'm doing clerical work for a flower farm; tons of colorful blooms roll by my door. Bookstores -- a coupla years at New York's great Strand Bookstore. These are just a few of the delightful positions I have held between tours.

DA: I understand you wrote a novel last year. What's it all about and how was the experience of writing it? What kind of reaction has it gotten?

CLB: It's called MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE MESSIAH. My first novel. Just came out last November. Small publisher, Entwhistle Books. You can find it for sale at amazon.com and most stores can order it. It's the memoirs of a 24-year old woman that suddenly becomes a messiah after a bump on the head and it complicates her relationship with her guy and what should a messiah wear, anyway. I'd say the story is sort of a take on modern celebrity. I received a real nice review last month in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, which was so cool -- as I was a big SF reader as a kid.

DA: One of the lines in "Who's Gonna Save The World" is "I understood Kubrick." If that's true, maybe you can explain what happened with EYES WIDE SHUT.... :)

CLB: Hmmm. Well, what happened is that my husband of two years saw the movie and decided that was for him and so he started an ill-fated romance with a married librarian 3,000 miles away and then an asteroid fell in the same fucking place it did millions of years ago, you know in the Gulf of Mexico, and blew her and her blind husband and my ex to smithereens but strangely left the rest of us intact. And now I am preparing for my vacation on Mars, I need a little color and the atmosphere makes for the best tanning possibilities. Meanwhile I'm writing songs of my sordid tales of woe and the great existential beauty of life on the moon.