Duncan Sheik

MAXIMUM INK recently caught up with singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik hoping to break away from the panel discussions at the Sundance Film Festival to take in some snowboarding. Eleven years earlier Sheik found himself navigating an entirely different slippery slope. The single, “Barely Breathing,” from his self-titled debut stayed a record-setting fifty-five weeks on the charts and made him a Grammy-nominated pop star. A role, he admits, he was ill-suited to play.  “Call me lazy,” Sheik says, “but at the end of the day I prefer to be sitting in the audience than performing on stage.” Not satisfied continuing with the personal love songs of his debut, Sheik moved to narrative songs packed with elusive introspection, subtle themes and smart literary devices. At the same time he was feeling he was having less and less of an effect on his audience. Being in the spotlight was just not a natural setting for Sheik and yet his desire to create remained strong.

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Jill Sobule

After a series of near failures with the record industry, Jill Sobule scored with the heavily played tongue-in-cheek MTV hit “I Kissed a Girl,” and followed up with “Supermodel,” which appeared on the Clueless soundtrack. Her first album was produced by Todd Rundgren, and she recently played lead guitar in Lloyd Cole’s band. The Denver-born singer/songwriter/guitarist has penned songs about such diverse subjects as the death penalty, anorexia, shoplifting, reproduction, the French resistance movement, adolescence and the Christian right, but a lot of her songs are about love. Sobule’s music secretes an aura of love, so instead of asking my heartthrob a bunch of questions that she has probably been asked a hundred times before, I asked her to ask herself the five questions that she has never been asked in an interview, that she always wanted to be asked, then answer them…

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Tegan and Sara

Canadian twins Tegan and Sara Quinn went from their high school graduation to a summer tour opening for Neil Young. Since then, their songs have been performed by, among others, the White Stripes and Ryan Adams and prominently featured on movie and television soundtracks. 2010 finds them touring America to promote last fall’s strong, sixth album, “Sainthood.” In preparation for the band’s appearance at Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater March 25th, Tegan Quinn talked to MAXIMUM INK about Sainthood, song-writing and happiness.

MAXIMUM INK: What separates “Sainthood,” from your previous efforts?
TEGAN QUINN: It was completely opposite from, “The Con.” For, “Sainthood,” there was a lot of pre-production where the five piece came into the studio and recorded live off the floor. We are all stronger players and writers since, “The Con,” and we wanted something that translated easily into a live setting. “The Con,” had lots of post-production with layers of overlapping tracks where, “Sainthood,” had very few overdubs.

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