Family Album 

Interview with Featured Songmaker Lia Ices

photography by Hayley Harper

Chris Clother: Describe your musical influences. Who inspired you to write and perform music? Which singers especially have been an example to you? 

Lia Ices: My parents always had music playing in the house while we were growing up, it was embedded into our days and nights—Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Bach, but something really clicked for me when I was exposed to Joni Mitchell. Her intimate confessional songs, her vocal acrobatics are so specific to her; an indescribable authenticity that continues to be a touchstone for me.  

Chris: Your new record, Family Album, nods to 1970s nostalgia in numerous ways: album artwork/design, film quality, and, of course, the music. What about the aesthetic of this era has attracted you, and how does it support conceptual themes on the album? 

Lia: I am definitely motivated by a more analog sensibility when it comes to my music and the visual world that surrounds it. For this album I leaned into that California freedom feeling that I am still discovering—where collaboration and creating a family network around artwork is the most radical option—this ethos can feel like a throwback way of doing things and making art.  I owe the sound of the music to JR White and how he brilliantly engineered me and my four-piece band playing live in the studio. To me, the reward of using real studios and instruments, and real cameras and film, brings an element of spirit and dimensionality to the work that otherwise gets lost or overlooked in digital. Maybe its imperfection? Or authenticity? But in seeing the gritty grain of real people behind the gear, I feel my work has more humanity. 

Chris: What is your relationship to nostalgia? Does it feel important to you to convey a sense of something lost to time? Do you see anything from your own childhood showing up in this new album?  

Lia: This is a really interesting question! With Family Album I wanted to crystallize the here-and-now magic of that era—the mountain, my new marriage, my new baby—it was such an incredible time of beauty, fascination, heart-outside-my-body vibes. It’s an album that will continue to make me nostalgic for that chapter of my life; embracing northern California as my place, the motherhood/mortality matrix, and most importantly now, the friends who helped make it happen.  

Chris: Family Album explores the emotional landscape of your having recently become a mother. What aspects of this experience did you most want to convey? 

Lia: When we moved to Moon Mountain, I had a sense of freedom I’d never felt before, like I could really create my own reality and a way of life I hadn’t even dreamt of yet. Living amongst towering oaks and fruit trees, reading the California naturalist poets, being so close to the birds and sky. Add being pregnant to this backdrop and I became so inspired by the psychedelic power of the primal feminine—intense grounding feelings, but also complete awe. I was faced with mortality in a way I had never experienced, and suddenly making an album and a baby at the same time led me into a very spiritual creative space, reinforcing the notion that the more real life gets, the more mystical if feels.  

Chris: You’ve released Family Album on your own record label, Natural Records. What prompted the decision to start your own label? What are the virtues and challenges of  releasing music yourself?  

Lia: When the album was finished—it took a long time to figure out what was going to happen and who was going release it—I was all of the sudden completely beholden to other people’s decisions, which was such a strange feeling, because the making of this album and all the choices I made surrounding it were done completely on my own, and I felt very empowered by that. It felt like such an authentic offering. It made sense to follow that feeling of empowerment with my music. It’s a little more work (a lot more work!) for me—but at the same time, if anything goes wrong, it’s all on me. I’m more responsible for everything that happens. Family Album felt different since the get-go. I made it slowly on my own terms, independently. It’s such an intimate piece of work of me and my family, and it felt right to hand-hold it all the way through release myself, and so Natural Music was born. I am also really excited to be cementing a music community around myself and sharing more of my aesthetic and ethos that is rooted in northern California. 

Chris: You attended NYU’s Tisch School for Experimental Theater before stepping into your career as a singer-songwriter. How did this background contribute to your approach to musicianship?  

Lia: I started playing piano at the age of five, and always felt very musical. I was a quiet kid, but at around eight years old I auditioned for my first musical and realized I had a huge voice, I came to life on stage and loved it. Through performance I discovered a part of myself I hadn’t yet been able to access. My time at NYU’s Experimental Theatre wing was instrumental for me—the voice work was based around finding your own voice and creating your own work (example: sing a dream). Another realization happened—which is that I didn't have to sound like everyone else or adhere so strictly to my classical training. I started writing my own songs at the end of college, and all of my separate areas of artistic focus (poetry, singing, piano playing, performing) were finally able to coalesce and coexist.

Chris: Your first two releases, Necima and Grown Unknown, are anchored by your vocal delivery and supported largely by acoustic instrumentation—piano, guitar, and the  occasional lush string section. How did these sonic decisions form and uphold the intent  of your songs? How did the lyrical themes you were exploring on those records relate to the sound of your songs? 

Lia: I write my songs at the piano, so naturally it is a very integral part of the arrangements—the building block for my songs. My brother played an integral role on those albums, creating all the guitar parts with a lot of craft and care. I’ve always been inspired by string instruments and string sections—to me they bring so much emotion and beauty, sometimes even more than the human voice. My work can be very intimate and confessional, and I tend to reference the natural world a lot in those albums, so the timbre and tonality of those acoustic instruments really supports the world and emotion of those songs. 

Chris: Your previous album, 2014’s Ices, was different from your earlier Necima and Grown  Unknown in that it integrated layered electronics, synthetic beats, and loops. What spurred that creative shift, and what lessons from that album did you bring to the recording of Family Album? 

Lia: This album feels like a return to self. In a way it recalls my first album Necima, where I just sat down at the piano and let what naturally happens happen, no pre-conceived ideas about trying to make a certain kind of song, actually no trying at all! Just showing up and hoping the muse would meet me in the studio. For Ices I had a desire to challenge myself, lean into influences—its quite common for artists to need to depart from their precious works or try different processes—but then I needed to come home to myself and go deeper in; being pregnant definitely helped that, as its the most radical spiritual process I’ve yet to experience.  

Chris: Can you describe your song writing process? How do song ideas emerge for you, and how do you translate them from ideas into form?  

Lia: My songs are how I process my experience of being alive. So the ideas and themes are really just what I’m going through or into. I do a lot of creative writing and sometimes words or  phrases stick with me for a while and can unconsciously influence my mood when I sit down at the piano to write. Truly, each song has its own DNA. I love the ones that come out whole and I simply transcribe the text…on the flip side, some are very mysterious, like solving a puzzle. 

Chris: Collaboration has been a feature for you for much of your creative output, from working with Nicholas Vernhes on Necima, to recording with Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) on Grown Unknown, to bringing in Benny Sagittarius and Clams Casino for your record Ices. For Family Album, you’ve worked with “Girls” JR White. How does collaboration help you with your creative process, and what do you look for in a collaborator?  

Lia: For me, art is communal. My works wouldn’t be what they are or sound as they do without the amazing community of artists and friends who I have met along the way. I think working with others is an incredible opportunity to create a shared dream. An ideal collaborator is intuitive,  empathic, and doesn’t let ego get in the way. The goal becomes the art work and transcends the self.  

Chris: You have retreated to semi-rural environments to record your music: upstate New York and now, northern California. How does environment affect the music you make? Do you find that you make different musical decisions when recording in an urban setting rather than a rural one? 

Lia: I am endlessly inspired by the natural world. I find both humility and purpose in my work when I live somewhere that allows me to be more fully connected to the seasons, the sky, the planet.  This is an obvious one, but when I start writing music in a place that is literally quiet, I can tap into a deeper place within. When I wrote music in New York City, it was a way to combat all the people and noise and chaos, like I was pushing against something—writing in the country allows for it to unroll organically and the energy comes from inside. 

Hayley Harper

Hayley was born a fish in 1987 and raised amongst the poppies in central California. The elements that make up our natural world speak the story of everything, and Hayley hopes to capture with her lens some moments from this eternal tale of trees and the moon and the people who live in between it all. She currently lives in Taos, New Mexico where she enjoys painting with watercolors, singing old country songs, and taking very long walks with her camera.