Interview by Ray Rogers
Photos by David Barry
(My apologies for the scan quality on the pics.
Interview is produced on newsprint and doesn't
scan as well as a photo or slick mag, or even video.)
A B R A C A D A B R A
There's no wand in sight, but blossoming singer/songwriter
Abra Moore's major label debut is casting a musical spell
on an audience with a wish to connect.
Abra Moore has a sweet, goofy, wide-eyed way about
her - much like Edie Brickell, another starry-eyed
singer/songwriter, whose charm and hippy-dippy ways
took the pop world by surprise in the late '80's.
Moore is fond of the phrase "You know? and habitually
cranes her twiggy neck out to flash her twinkling
buggy eyeballs right in your face when something excites
her - which is often. She's an expressive person guided
by the whims of her emotions.
Nowhere is that more apparent than on Moore's Arista Austin
debut, "Strangest Places," a record that tours the highs and
lows of her heart's country and, musically, crosses many borders:
Snappy pop songs are colored by country sway, folkie strums,
and occasional steps on the distortion pedal. Maybe it's the
climate of her current home, Austin, Tx., or all those years
growing up in the Hawaiian mist, but either way the
twenty-eight-year-old's upbeat tunes and breathy vocals
have caught listeners off guard. "I'm just so happy people
are responding to it," Moore says, a look of wonder on her face.
"After Alanis and all that, I'm going in like, "Hi, hope you
don't mind another girl."
When Moore and her current band made their New York City debut,
no one else was around to do the honors, so I ended up
introducing them at the Roseland Ballroom, where they were the
support act for Matthew Sweet and That Dog. Though the
headliner wasn't scheduled to go on for another two hours and
the hall was still sparsely populated, Moore played as if it
were a full house and she were the main attraction - and if
her "Four-Leaf Clover" single continues to bring her good
fortune, she soon will be.
RR: It was a pleasure to introduce you tonight. You sounded
great, but I understand you weren't feeling too well.
Something about some spider bites?
Abra: Yeah, I got them in Vermont - the first time I slept
without a shirt in a hotel bed. Usually I put socks on
and have my little bed uniform for the hotel. {laughs} And
I got attacked by the little killer spiders of Vermont. The
poison's just entered my glands. They're all swollen and my
body aches and I had a fever, but I feel better at the moment.
The poison's moving along, so I can say it's over here now - no,
it's down here, or up here.
RR: This is actually your second record, right? But it's your
first for the world at large.
Abra: Yeah, this is the first one that has a little spotlight
on it. The one before was titled "Sing," and it had the songs
that I'd been carrying with me from ten years back.
RR: What's different about this album? What is it that brought
you to a new level?
Abra: The difference is just where I am now. The first one was
like that chapter in my life, tunes I had written when I was
eighteen. And Strangest Places is the next chunk. It's a
constant transformation.
RR: You've traveled all over - busking on the streets of Paris,
working at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City, and now making
your home in Austin. What was the thought behind the title of
this record?
Abra: It really expressed a side of me and the strangest places
in my mind; how we get ourselves in situations that are also
the stranges places - like going home with the drummer in the
band, or waking up in some boy's T-shirt and wondering, How did
I get here?
RR: Why do you think people are reacting to this bunch of songs?
Abra: Well, maybe they're feeling some connections. Walking
away from it, I felt very satisfied, like I'd captured some
honesty and a vision, which is all you hope for.
RR: Your single, "Four Leaf Clover," seems to be speaking to
a lot of people.
Abra: Well, it feels like a hopeful tune, a positive message.
I actually wrote that while making the album. I was feeling
the wake of just growing up and being alive in the world.
This feeling of "It's all just a little too much now" landed
on me, and the song was born: It feels like a really nice
spring day.
RR: This record has several songs about contentment. What
make you an optimist?
Abra: My childhood was very colorful, and I developed an optimist's
sense of humor at an early age. There was a lot of loss and
trouble in my younger years: I lost my mother when I was four,
and I had an autistic brother. I spent a lot of time singing
to him, trying to make him happy, and he cried a lot, so I guess
maybe that's where the seed was planted.
RR: Is your brother still around?
Abra: Yeah, Pepe Joe lives in Hawaii - he's great. We were both
born too early and had to be incubated.
RR: Do you have an underdog spirit because of that?
Abra: Underdog?
RR: Someone who's small and has to fight.
Abra: Yeah, the struggle, you know? We moved to Hawaii when I
was five. My father and my stepmom raised us all in an old house
with no electricity that sugercane workers used to live in.
I grew up in Hawaii with a generator and a stereo - no TV - for
the first several years of my life. So music just comes naturally
to me. It was nothing I decided to be, just something I always
did, always making up songs. I grew up with everything: Chet Baker,
Billie Holiday, Steveie Wonder, Aretha, the Rolling Stones,
Bob Dylan. All the '70's, '60's, the Beat era.
RR: Your folks had good taste.
Abra: Oh, they were artists, you know. But growing up there was a
struggle - I mean, watching my father trying to support us and
touching up cars on the side. Seeing that, I was always like, I
want to go be a secretary or something, because the arts are intense.
It's a blessing, but trying to raise five kids?
RR: Did you have to fight for your own space.
Abra: I became a mama to my siblings.
RR: What was growing up in Hawaii like?
Abra: We had sea turtles - my Uncle Charlie has six of 'em in a huge
pool that's connected to the ocean, and I'd get to ride 'em. I'd
come home from school every day and scrub their backs and feed 'em
fresh fruit, and ride the turtles.
RR: That's amazing. What island did you grow up on?
Abra: Hawaii, the Big Island - that's where all the hippies went.
RR: So your folks were hippies?
Abra: Nah, kind of Beat, but they're from that era.
RR: Do you feel like a modern-day hippie?
Abra: No, a modern-day gypsy. A modern-day dream, a modern-day
ostrich. A modern-day bird? A turtle?
RR: Can you remember a time when you realized, "OK, I'm a songwriter,
and that's what I'm here to do?"
Abra: I think while I was traveling and making up little ditties
and storing them up in memory bank. In high school I had a guitar
and would play Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs. It was something
I connected with.
RR: On your first record you wrote the title song (Sing) for your
mom, right?
Abra: Yes, it was dedicated to Elizabeth Ann, my mother.
RR: When did your write that?
Abra: A while back. It was Mother's Day and I was working alone,
and all my girlfriends went out with their moms and I just stayed
home and wrote it. It's just about the yearning to connect.
RR: Is songwriting how you communicate?
Abra: That's how it started. It was an outlet, the way some people
build houses or farms. It was just something I had to do ever
since I was a child; it was my sense of expression, singing and
making up songs and expressing myself. Even if I don't continue
in the record business, it's part of my soul, it's part of who I am.
I'll be singing to my grandkids, you know?
RR: Do you think you were meant to do this?
Abra: Yeah, that's my gift, my calling. Sometimes I don't really
give myself enough credit for who I am - "Do I deserve this?" - You
know that syndrome. It's all a hustle, man.
RR: And do you allow yourself to enjoy what you're doing?
Abra: Yeah, I've come full circle. It's all about the present; it's
not about chasing. I really enjoy just having fun, keeping it
honest, keeping the circle flowing, as New Age as that sounds.
{makes pained expression} Oh, spiders. The poison's trying to move
into my neck.
RR: What do you think your songs do for people?
Abra: I hope they give them something.
RR: What do they give you?
Abra: How can I answer that? I'm a giver. I express myself when I
sing. People receive it, and they say, "You really helped me through
a hard time," and that's all that matters, that's what it's for.
RR: Do you feel comfortable on stage?
Abra: I'm feeling more comfortable. The more I do it, the more I
grow. This thing's a treasure, you know? It's captured time.
9/97 Spin Mag text
10/97 Visa ad
9/97 People Mag text
Back to Abra News
Back to Abra Home