Susie Asado came to exist in 2007. It started as the solo project of Josepha Conrad and it was to become an outlet for her poetry and a way to search for her own voice. Since the beginning she stayed true to herself and performed the type of music that was deeply personal and closest to her heart, and to this day it would be hard to find an act that sounds anything like it.

Susie Asado, now a full band, is set to release new album titled Traffic Island. The first word that springs to mind when you think of Susie Asado’s music is “weird”. Don’t be discouraged, in this case “weird” is “good”. The arrangements on the latest release are meticulously put together to form a soft landing for her original lyrics and unique manner of singing. Heavily set in blues with jazz elements the album is a delicious treat for the soul and mind.

I met up with Josepha and talked among others about the new album, the band and how she likes her tea.

You started performing in Crazy for Jane and then later you decided start your own project Susie Asado. What was the immediate reason for you to do that?

I was very curious about being able to perform solo. I was very scared about doing that, and I felt that if I were to do that then I would need to do it in some kind of a disguise. I wouldn’t be able to do it as Josepha. I would also need to perform songs that have nothing to do with Crazy for Jane because I didn’t want to make anybody feel like I was leaving them out. I wanted to write songs where the words could really stand on their own and be weird. It was an attempt to make something where I didn’t have to think about someone else. I just thought it would be nice to have a solo project. It’s funny that it grew into a band. It certainly wasn’t the intention. I’m excited that it grew into a band, that it grew into anything at all. I don’t think I was thinking beyond one or two shows. It was just this thing where I thought “I wanna dare myself to perform solo, and I’m going to have to dress up for it because I can’t do it without dressing up”.

Do you remember that first show?

It was at Antje Oeklesund, and I performed with Skirt and Music for Your Heart. I was really scared, and I was embarrassed about my guitar playing because I’m a lousy guitar player. I was sure everybody was going to find me out. The interesting thing was that the show was actually great, and I remember the songs standing out. It felt good.

The name Susie Asado comes from a Gertrude Stein’s poem under the same title. You mention on your website that at the time you didn’t understand completely what it was about. And now? How do you interpret it?

It feels like a map to me now, and I feel like it works on a level that isn’t just intellectual but is physical. It almost feels like a DNA structure or some kind of rhizome that sort of twirls around attaches and reshapes something.

So Susie Asado is not a person then?

I mean there are different speculations as to who Susie Asado is. It could be a person, it could just be a moment. For me it feels like a code to something. If I allow myself to be in the coloring of Susie Asado, I can operate on a different level. If I could choose a different DNA, I would choose that DNA, and because of that I can be in that world.

So you feel safer when you play as Susie Asado? More confident?

Yeah in that world I could do things that I can’t do as Josepha and I certainly can’t go on…I mean, I can go on stage and sing songs but I’m not really interested in that sort of authenticity. I’m much more interested in something that is a little more artificial and more articulated crafted.

What does Josepha Condrad and Susie Asado have in common?

I guess it’s the moments between songs. If I’m performing often, I sort of drop it between songs, sometimes I don’t. I experiment. Sometimes I just kind of let it go, and I allow silence, and I allow myself to reconnect to my more human parts. I think there you would see it the most, between songs.

Tell me about the new album. It’s been three years since your last one. Tell me about the process of creation, how long it took you etc..

Hello Antenna came out in 2008, and since 2009 we’ve been in some kind of process of making this.

When you say “we” who do you mean?

I mean Tomi Simatupang, Marko Hefele, and Jason Levis. At first we tried to find a way of recording it, and we had different ideas. We worked with different people, and we needed to figure out solutions to different challenges. For example, suddenly we were working with percussion which made it much harder to record live with us all together in a room. So we started isolating the instruments, but the sounds that came out of that were hard for me. I come from a much more lo-fi background, and when we tried to make something more articulated I realized that I didn’t really like articulated sound. So after having recorded a bunch of sound, we threw out what we made. In a way it was actually a painful process, but what we found was that we really do like recording live and that we like sitting all next to each other. We don’t want to be isolated in different rooms or just hear each other over the headphones. Once we figured out how important that was, making the album was real fun. We recorded it last year with Norman Nitzsche who also mixed the album, and then we had it mastered. So it was kind of a journey of finding out of how we can make something that’s more carefully arranged and that has a little bit more intention but that still has an approachable sound or something that’s intimate and not too articulated.

Did you end up using any of the first recordings?

Basically there were three main attempts of trying to record the album and not always with the same songs. There were some songs that sort of got dropped off, other songs that got included. It wasn’t until the third time that we felt that the arrangements were better, and the way the recordings sounded was better. What was really great about this whole process was that we became better musicians. We played together more, and through that we got to know the material better.

Were most of these songs performed before?

We’ve played most of the songs live which is really great but it’s not the way, I guess, more well known artists do it. They hoard their new material and then have this big coming out. Traffic Island isn’t like that at all. It’s really songs that we’ve been playing out, that we’ve arranged in different ways and then just sort of came to record them in some particular way.

I think there are a couple of surprises on the album for people who haven’t seen us play live lately but not that many. Deservedly the songs that people often asked for and wondered if we had their recordings, to which I would say “Oh we’re working on it”.

What does Traffic Island stand for?

It symbolizes the urban life and also maybe where urban life has a possibility for pause or reflection or for yearning for non-urban life. The Traffic Island is a sort of a stopping point. It’s also a point where nature can reclaim something or we can reclaim ourself in someway. I love this idea of standing on a Traffic Island and pausing and not necessarily crossing over right away but hanging out in the middle of cacophonous traffic.

Traffic Island features songs in two languages. How come?

I think it’s because it’s more of a reflection of what we were doing live. I felt like I needed to have some songs in German, because of touring in Germany so much, even though it doesn’t come to me naturally to want to write a song in German. Nevertheless I made myself sit down and write some songs in German, and I like how they turned out. People really enjoy it, when we tour here. I also noticed that when I played in the States and I would play some german songs, people would like that.

I guess it’s just a reflection of who I am. I am happening in more than one language, and then sometimes in my mind things get really messed up, and I like this idea of also writing some songs that could reflect that. It seemed like it would never seem right for me to do a German album or an English album. That would just seem weird.

If someone would have never heard your music how would you describe it?

I would say it’s song with more words than you’re used to, and with less melodies than you’re used to, [laughs] but it’s songs.

Who would you say influenced you most as far as your style?

Certainly Gertrude Stein, but I’m also very influenced by Prince and Madonna. Stevie Wonder I feel very influenced by, and I’m super influenced by my friends. It’s something you can notice if you come to the Open Mic or Four Track On Stage. There is a resonance in the community. Even though we may not totally sound alike, there is something that resonates, and maybe there are some similarities. I think some of that may just be story telling, staying pretty simple. On the other hand many people say that Susie Asado has a very unique, different sound. I know what they mean, but it’s not my intention to sound weird. [laughs] I’m just doing the best that I can.

Basically, it comes straight from your soul?

Oh I hope not. [laughs] I don’t know what the soul is. It comes from what I’m able to do. It’s coming from my capabilities, from my limitations.

Do you rely on people’s opinion about your music?

Totally. [laughs] Absolutely, it would be very easy to crush me. All I would need is a group of people to tell me very crushing things. I try not too take it too personally, but I’m certainly not above criticism. What was your question again?

Do you rely on people’s opinion?

Let me just rephrase it. I probably don’t rely on them completely, but i’m certainly influenced by what people say. There are some people who have really thick skin, and they can just kind of motor through their artistic stuff, and are pretty free of what people say about it. I don’t feel that way. I feel very influenced. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m also making something in a world that I feel pretty unsure of. For example the writing that I do. I feel very strong about it and I know what I’m doing, but I’m combining it with an element that I feel really unsure about, and the only thing I have to connect the two is that I sing. Somehow that keeps the whole thing afloat, but the elements that I’m using are actually frail elements. Like I know very little about music and that makes it frail in some way. It would be fairly easy to expose me in some way or to expose what I’m doing.

You mentioned earlier that you’re afraid of flying. What else are you afraid of?

Probably similar things to most people. I’m afraid of crossing the street. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of shadows. I’m afraid of fucking up my life in some way by making poor choices. I’m afraid of being alone, being left alone. Actually probably the scariest thing is to make a poor choice or judgement and the whole life to turn out weird because of that. [laughs] That’s such a nightmare. That would be a big one.

Do you find that music helps conquer those fears?

Certainly it helps to navigate fears. A song like the “Little plastic figure” for example on the album is a song to helped me not be scared at night anymore. [laughs] Even now just thinking about it, I feel better. I don’t have to even sing it anymore. I’ve written some pretty gloomy songs that helped me express something that I was feeling. It’s amazing to have something like that. It’s almost like creating a musical photo album of my life. I have songs about the different people I care about. I have songs about different things, objects that I think are awesome or moments that I want to remember. I’ll write a song about them and that’s my way of remembering them. I used to keep meticulous photo albums, but since I’ve been making music I actually don’t, and I think it has something to do with it. The songs become a sort of story telling and retelling, and some songs get sung so many times. It’s a way of constantly retelling an event or reflection. Especially with Crazy for Jane, I feel like it created this whole dialogue between me and my brother, where we suddenly had a whole vocabulary of events that we could refer to just by singing a song. Super cool.

Do you find that it’s easy for you to connect with the audience? Are they an attentive audience?

I feel like I’m really lucky. It probably has to do with the places that we perform at, but actually the experience of the audience sort of turning their back or not being attentive is fairly rare, and it’s pretty traumatic I would say. Considering that my music is a little strange, it should happen probably more often, but it doesn’t actually happen that often. The evenings when it really doesn’t work end up standing out, but I would say most of the concerts we feel like we connect with the audience in some way.

Do you still write letters?

I do.

It’s unusual these days.

It totally is, and I probably don’t write as many letters as I used to. Email is really cool, and it is letter writing in a way. There are so many words that happen in email. Yeah I do write letters, and I love snail mail. I go to the post office, I would say, three or four times a week.

Do you get many letters also?

Yeah. Not like a ton, but I probably send out a lot more stuff than I get but it’s not about that. It’s awesome when there is a sort of correspondence. I’m also not great at sending a letter right back. I’m not necessarily great at that, but sometimes I can really get into it. I also write a lot of letters that I don’t send. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. [laughs] I write some things as letters, and it’s not important that someone reads it. You articulate it, and it’s probably better not to send it.

When did you pick up the ukulele and why?

That happened when writing for Susie Asado. I was in Chicago, and I wanted to play a new instrument for Susie Asado. I saw this lovely Hawaiian ukulele. It sounded super pretty, and I thought about Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley and I just thought “Yeah! Ukulele”. Also it’s easy to play, it has four strings, and that appealed to me. Back then I actually had some problems with playing. In my ambition of becoming a better instrumentalist I hurt my hands. I got some inflammation from playing guitar, and so the idea of playing an instrument where I wouldn’t try to be very ambitious, appealed to me. The ukulele was something that no matter what was happening with my hands, I was still able to play.

How do you like to take your tea?

I like it really hot.

What kind?

I like green tea very much, and I like it just like that.

Traffic Island comes out on 9^th December. The release party with support from Spring Break, will take place Dec. 8th in Schokoladen.

If you miss that one, you can still catch her on 22^th December at Harzer Str.119.

Interview & Photo: Olga Baczynska

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