Photo by Noah Lenker
It’s a cliche to say that everything has led to this – it diminishes previous efforts as being good, but not great – and yet it’s fair to say that Lily Seabird’s newest album, Lightspheres on Their Way, is the Vermont artist’s crown jewel and, simply put, something special. Seabird recognizes this as well, as she recently told me the day before heading to the UK for a run of headlining dates. The folk-leaning songs are beefier, the guitars noisier, more frayed (ala Dinosaur Jr. and Neil Young), the vocals more upfront. What hasn’t changed is Seabird’s lyrical talent, the songwriter pulling words, phrases, verses, and choruses from the many notebooks she jots in regularly and keeps within arm reach.
This kind of material doesn’t emerge out of thin air, and neither does Seabird. Before Lightspheres on Their Way, there was Burlington, a college town small enough that everyone seems to be in each other’s band at some point which helps the musical community thrive. It’s the soil that Seabird’s songwriting grew out of, and a good place to start a conversation.
How did the Vermont music community that you’re part of, along with Greg Freeman, Robber Robber and Dari Bay, come about?
LILY: When Greg and I first moved here, we didn’t really have any friends for a while. It was just me and Greg, we were besties, and we wanted to play in bands. I think a lot of the others were around too, but we didn’t know them yet. It was through playing shows that we got tight with them. I started a band, and my friend Carney, who plays bass in Robber Robber now, was playing drums with me and Greg. Then Carney moved back to Massachusetts for a bit, and (Robber Robber/Dari Bay) Zach asked to be the drummer in my band. He came to a show I played and said, “I want to play drums for you.” Obviously we’re not all playing in each other’s bands anymore, since everyone’s out doing their own thing, but that’s how we met,playing basement shows, putting on DIY festivals. We all just converged in a pretty organic way.
This was all while you were in college. Now that you’re out of college and have done plenty of touring, have you ever thought, “Time to pull up stakes and find somewhere new to live”?
LILY: I’ve seen the world. I’ve been on tour like eight months out of the year. So there’s not really much of a pull. I’ve talked about moving, or checking another place out, but that’s just not the way life has evolved for me right now. Honestly, we don’t see much of our old scene from college anymore, everyone’s on tour all the time, we have totally opposite schedules. They’re still some of my best friends, but the scene itself felt a lot more active four years ago. Now everyone’s touring nationally. I’m going to the UK tomorrow for the third time. And a lot of the venues here have closed. It’s definitely different. Everything’s like a wave, I guess. Some venues have closed and things are just different in Burlington these days. I haven’t moved because, one, I like it here. It’s beautiful. I live in a house that’s really affordable, where I can practice with my band, and everyone in my band lives here. My bass player, Shane, is from upstate New York, near Rochester, but he just moved to Vermont because his brother lives out in Montpelier. There’s just no time to move. I’ve thought about it, and then suddenly it’s like, “Oh, we’re going on tour in a month.” I have a place to park my van and my car here. I don’t feel like I’m from Vermont exactly. Zach is, but Greg’s left now. My partner’s from here, and I have a lot of really good friends here. It’s not the same as it was in college, though. I’ve got a whole different scene of people in my everyday life now. I live in the New North End, not really near UVM, so I don’t feel like I’m just sticking around my college town. This is just my home base.
I live in Columbus, Ohio and I feel like there is a kinship between bands from here and bands from Burlington. I’ve talked to Columbus bands like Villagerrr and Big Fat Head and they’ve mentioned how you feel like part of their musical family.
LILY: Yeah. Joey, who plays in Dari Bay, is their friend and he’s from there. Joey’s older brother, Chaz, is one of my best friends, and his fiancée is my best friend of fifteen years. They live in Columbus now. I’ve toured with Villagerrr, Golomb, and Saintseneca, all great Columbus bands. So I love Columbus. Burlington is changing a lot. I’ve got an affordable spot through the grapevine, but when the landlord kicks us out, which could happen, I’ll have to move. All the houses around mine have been getting torn down and rebuilt into really expensive ones. I live slightly outside of town now, not even downtown. When that day comes, I’ll probably move, but for right now I have a really good deal, so I’ll stay as long as it allows me to. If I start making more money, maybe I’ll leave, but I’m happy where I am and I’m in no rush. Burlington has definitely gotten more expensive, though. I’m a very go-with-the-flow person. I just take things one day at a time and chip away at what I want to be doing, which is making records. I just want to keep doing the thing: put out this record in a couple of weeks, then get ready to make another one. That’s my main thing.
I do think about moving to New Orleans, I have a lot of friends down there, and it’s cheap, or moving further into the country to find a cheaper spot. But I’m not really a big-city person. I share a room with my partner, so we split the cost, which makes it even better. I like having space. This is a small place, and I’m kind of a small-place person. What I’ve been dreaming of is getting an apartment where I can set up a recording situation right in the living room and I want to get a piano. Sometimes I think about going somewhere else, who knows what’ll happen. I feel like I’m about to embark on a huge new chapter, I’m on the precipice of it, with this record coming out. My band’s ready to go, we’ve got a van, people helping us get shows now, so it’s just going to keep going, chasing that, making another record.
Taylor Swift has her “eras”. How would you describe the era that you’re in with the new album?
LILY: I don’t know if I can give you just one word. If anything, this record is more instrument-focused than any of the others. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a rock era, though it is more rock than the last one. Maybe more experimental. There’s so much music without singing on this record. Playing live is the thing for me, no show we play is ever the same, and I feel like we’ve really been honing in on something great with my band. It’s the feeling of freedom, of not knowing what’s going to happen. I’m a big Grateful Dead head, a “Dead Head,” for sure, so there are elements of jamming. We’re not a jam band, but there’s definitely an element of jamming and experimentation that happened on this record and that’s been happening live. Maybe it’s my tone era, too. We’ve really been locking in the guitar tones. Our amps are good, everyone’s got a bigger amp now. I just got a ’74 Fender Bassman, it’s loud. Maybe it’s a loud experience. I’ll tell you: tone-centric, loud, experimental era.
That’s perfect. It’s funny you talk about being in your loud era because the album opens with “The Pulley” which is sort of a slow burn.
LILY: There’s a harmonium, a lot of drone in there. I’ve really been into having drones all through the music. The record starts and ends the same way, it can fit anywhere in time. There’s a theme running through it, of light spheres, of circles, and that theme inspired a lot of it. I felt like once we’d made these songs, there was the start, the end, and everything else in the middle.
I like that the album is a circle. It makes listening to the whole thing a fulfilling experience. And, the idea that the listener can flip sides and everything just continues is a great way to sequence an album.
LILY: I put a lot of thought into the order and the track listing. I’m always thinking about side A and side B. I also think a lot about what’s the first thing I say on the record, what are the first words, and what’s the last thing I say. I felt good about the choices I made this time. I think I’m also in a very intentional era. I’ve been really honing in on intention in my writing. This record is a lot more intentional than any other record I’ve made, and that goes for who’s in my band, too, and what we’re doing. I think that also connects to something else that’s inspired this record: I write a lot about time. Time is the one thing you never know how much you’re going to have, and it’s the one question that really connects all of us. I’ve been trying to write about that, themes that connect us, that are even deeper than my own specifics, rather than just talk about what happened to me personally.
The first lyric on “Bindlestiff” is “If I wrote you a letter” and I’m just wondering, when was the last time you wrote a letter? I honestly don’t remember the last time I did. Everything is so digital these days. I’ll send an email or text or DM.
LILY: I’m a letter writer. I wrote one last week. I’m a letter writer, a journal keeper. When I write music, I write it down on paper, though I do write stuff on my phone sometimes too. I’m actually writing poetry all the time. I was telling a friend I’d written a poem while on a run the other day, and she was like, “You wrote a poem on a run?” But yeah, I’m writing poems on runs. I’m writing all the time.
While I don’t write letters to people, I do write a lot. I have tons of notebooks and different pens. I find that I have to use certain pens if I’m writing about music, other pens if I’m making lists of things to do, completely different pens if I’m taking notes at work.
LILY: I have random pens all over the place. I’ll write with any pen. But I do really like these notebooks. This is my journal [holds it up to the camera]. It’s almost full, I’m on the last few pages, the spine’s about to break. I wrote “Bindlestiff” in this journal, actually, because my music book wasn’t with me. There are a couple of songs that got written straight into the journal. I’m kind of an immediacy person. I also have to keep my therapy notes in a journal. I’ve started so many of these, they all look different, and half the time I don’t know where my actual songbook is. [holds up more notebooks] These are a bunch of journals that are all actively being written in, plus four full ones and an old songbook. This one was one of my favorites. It came with a purse I ordered on Etsy from a woman in Wyoming, because my grandma told me I needed a classy purse that wasn’t a bright color; my family’s just like that. It came with this little journal made of hemp paper. I have another hemp journal, too, that’s full of a lot of my songs. “Domino,” which is on Alas, that’s the first page in this journal, but I lost the cover somewhere. I’m a bit of a chaos person, I have ADHD, I’m a little autistic. There’s a lot going on in my brain, and I’m not always locked in.
I never fill entire notebooks. Pretty much any notebook that I pick up at home has writing on like the first 10 to 20 pages and then that’s it. Do you start journals and then move to a different one?
LILY: I do but usually it’s just because one’s been in the car, one’s been in a certain bag, it’s whatever’s closest when I need to write something down. I roll with what’s closest. But this one [holds up a notebook] has been pretty consistent, it’s about to be filled, probably today or tomorrow. The green songbook looks just like it, and most of Trash Mountain and Lightspheres on Their Way, and most of my new record, is written in there, except for “Bindlestiff,” which is in the journal, and “Afterglow,” which I don’t have written down anywhere, that one’s only in my head. Some stuff is only in my head. I wrote “Blackstar” on a napkin on tour, and then just remembered it after that, so I’ve got a couple that only exist in my memory.
We talked about “The Pulley” being the slow burn to start off the record. In contrast, “Election Day” is what the kids call a banger.
LILY: Yeah, it is a banger.
It has a Dinosaur Jr./Neil Young flavor to it.
LILY: Dinosaur Jr. is my favorite band. Neil’s one of my favorite songwriters, though I wouldn’t put him at number one. For songwriters I’ve got kind of a five- or six-way tie.
So who are the others?
LILY: Leonard Cohen. I’ve honestly been putting Cat Power up there these days, too. Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed. For lyrics specifically, Robert Hunter, the lyricist for the Grateful Dead. And, oh, Jeff Tweedy, from Wilco. I have my favorite bands, and then I have songwriters I love for different reasons. I’m a big lyrics person, so those are my favorite lyricists.
In the ‘90s, I saw Neil Young with Dinosaur Jr. and Blind Melon opening.
LILY: Wow, that’s a sick show. Didn’t Neil Young take Sonic Youth out on tour, too? I feel like I read that somewhere.
He did, in 1991. You have a song on the album called “Portal to the Past” and I’m wondering, if you had a portal to the past and could go back and see any concert, or hang out in any music scene, where would you go? Would you sit in on a Grateful Dead practice? Would you go see Nirvana play a small club show before they blew up? Would you follow the Neil Young and Sonic Youth tour?
LILY: God, you got me. Probably one of those, honestly. My grandmother sends me newspaper clippings, it’s a very grandma thing to do, and I actually read them. Sometimes I think, “What is this?” She’ll say, “You need to write for Billie Eilish,” and send me an LA Times article about her, she lives in LA. I’m like, “Grandma, respectfully, that’s not what’s happening, that’s not what I do.” She’ll ask when I’m going to play some massive venue, and I say, “I don’t know if I ever will.” But one time she sent me an article about fifty years of the Roxy in LA, and it was someone who’d worked there since the beginning, talking about different shows, including Bob Marley’s live show there, which is also a record. That happened to be the same day my dad was born, and my dad loves that record. The article mentioned that Linda Ronstadt was in the front row for that Bob Marley show in a five-hundred-capacity venue, with some people from the Doors around too. Ever since I read that, I’ve thought that would be insane to see. I think about that show a lot, just from reading that article. There’s also that Neil Young song, “I Am the Ocean,” I think it was produced by someone from Pearl Jam, right around the time he took Sonic Youth on tour. I didn’t know that until I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole while listening to music outside one day. That’d be a cool show too. So, any of the three you mentioned, or Bob Marley at the Roxy.
Here’s what I’d say: don’t discount where you are in your life right now. When Bob Marley and Linda Ronstadt and everyone were at that show, they weren’t the people we know them as yet.
LILY: I know. That’s exactly why I’d love to have been there.
I’m just saying, ten or twenty years from now, somebody might be saying, “I wish I could’ve been at that basement show in Burlington, with Lily and Greg playing, and Robber Robber in the audience.” That could entirely be true someday.
LILY: You never know. I try not to think about things like that, though.
I’m assuming “Pensy” is in reference to Pennsylvania, where you grew up.
LILY: Yes.
If there were a fictional Netflix series based on your high school years, what would it be about? Are you the quiet kid? The one who can’t wait to get out of town?
LILY: Couldn’t wait to leave. Didn’t have that many friends, wasn’t very socially connected. I was just focused on getting good grades and getting out of there.
So not someone who looks forward to reunions?
LILY: No. I can barely remember anyone’s name.
You mentioned you’re getting ready to head to the UK for the third time. What’s that like? Are you headlining, or playing with somebody else?
LILY: I’m headlining. I’ve headlined there one other time. The first time I went, I played one solo headline show in London, and me and Zach, from Robber Robber, were over there playing bass and drums for our friend Lutalo, who also lives here. That was the first time I went, and I did a solo headline show. Last time, we did a full-band headline show in London, played End of the Road Festival, and my friend Beth, who I met because she was playing bass for Nilüfer Yanya when she toured the US, and our mutual friend Lutalo was opening for that tour, became friends with me because we were the two bass players on that run. We kept in touch, and my manager encouraged me to reach out and see if she’d want to play with us. At the time I kept thinking, “Why would I ask someone to do that, they’re not going to want to, nobody cares. Why are you even trying to get me to go to the UK?” He said promoters over there wanted me to come, so I should go, and I was sure it was going to be embarrassing, that she’d think it was ridiculous I even asked. But Beth said, “Yeah, I’d be down, and I can help you find a drummer.” She said we could stay at her parents’ house and practice there. I was so nervous – these people are so cool, what am I even doing – but we had a really good tour.
On the other trips it was just me and my guitarist, Rick, playing as a duo, and those shows were great too, a couple even sold out. We played End of the Road and got really good press from that, on the biggest stage I’ve ever played. Beth had been playing bass for Nilüfer Yanya, opening for Lorde, a month before that, and she told me that the End of the Road was her favorite gig of the whole summer, I couldn’t believe it. She and our drummer both said they’d do the whole tour with us again next time. So when my booking agent over there put this tour together and the offers came in, I just asked if they wanted to do it, no pressure, and they did, so now we’re doing the full band. This one feels like a big step, honestly. I’m renting a van, we’re playing bigger rooms, bigger productions, doing it with my whole band. It’s a little scary. We’ll see.
From a career perspective, does this album feel like a big step up for you? Are the live expectations starting to match the album expectations?
LILY: Yeah, for sure. Like I said, I think this record is more intentional. I’ve grown a lot, I’m a better guitar player, I’ve become a better writer. I’ve been doing a lot of interviews lately for this record, so I sort of already know where a lot of these questions are headed. Someone asked me yesterday how my writing has changed since the last record, and it feels like the scope of what I’m writing about has gotten wider, but the focus has gotten a lot more honed in. I really think this is my best record. I mean, I think that about all of them when they come out, but I think this one really is better.
You released a few singles before the album’s release. Are there any songs that you won’t be releasing as singles that you hope people take the time to listen to? “Portal to the Past” and “Blackstar” are those songs for me.
LILY: Yeah, I feel that way about “Lightspheres on Their Way,” which is the last song and will be the last single. But by the time you get to the last single, as someone who consumes a lot of music myself, it feels different. The first single is right up in everyone’s face, and then some people wait for the record to actually come out before listening to the rest. By the fourth single, people are kind of just waiting for the whole thing. That one and “Portal to the Past” are my favorite songs on the record, they’re both about seven minutes long, which is actually why I made them singles, because I wanted to make sure people would actually listen to them. But I hope people listen to all of them, I love them all. “Slip Switch” is one of my favorites too, there’s not a lot going on in it, and I really like playing it live, usually just by myself.
Can you tell me about the song that, when you hear it, instantly takes you to a moment in time in the past?
LILY: The first one I thought of was kind of sad, so I won’t say that one. The second one, which actually came up recently, is “Amoreena” by Elton John. It’s a really good song. My first boyfriend, in high school, used to play it with his friends, and I remember him singing it. It takes me right back to being fifteen and falling in love for the first time. It does make me a little sad, honestly, because it’s nostalgic. “Portal to the Past” is actually about something similar, about losing connection with people. The first line of that song is, “All the times I said forever, built a portal to the past.” When you’re young you think you’ll be with someone forever, and it’s not like that. Now that I’m almost thirty, and it’s not that I wish I was still with my high school boyfriend, it’s more like, “Damn, I don’t even know who he is now.” I think that’s a pretty relatable feeling. Anyway, “Amoreena” always makes me think of August, almost being fifteen, about to go into tenth grade. I can picture this blue shirt I wore with little flowers on it, kind of a scrunched, puffy-sleeved material, it was all worn out because it was my mom’s. I’d just cut my hair short for the first time, and I remember feeling my hair on my chin. Whenever I hear that song, it takes me right back to being fifteen.
