Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story

by Jewel

  There seemed to be a buzz building about my music. Mike Halloran had kept his word and played one of my acoustic songs on his station. Between that and word of mouth about my live shows, I noticed tonier folks showing up to my little shows. I remember Daniel Lanois drove down. Someone in the crowd recognized him and told me he was the producer for U2. I introduced myself and asked him if he could help me make my system sound better. He looked at me a bit puzzled, but we fiddled with the knobs awhile, before he was kind enough to find a gentle way to say the system didn’t suffer from the wrong EQ settings but from a lack of quality. It was just a sucky system. He stayed for the whole show and we grabbed tacos afterward. I picked his brain about his creative process and the bands. I was surprised that he treated me with so much respect, asking me about how I wrote and whether I kept journals.

  Ike Turner came in one night. The movie What’s Love Got to Do with It had been out not long before, and the coffee shop was abuzz. In the room, dead quiet apart from my own voice, he commented loudly on my singing to his friends. At one point, I stopped in the middle of a song and asked him to kindly be quiet. The regulars were expecting me to, but still, when I did, a bit of a ripple went through the crowd. Ike nodded as if he was impressed, and didn’t seem to mind the extra attention in being shushed, but instead of settling in quietly, he stood up and handed me a signed eight-by-ten photo of himself. After the show I looked at it. He handled being illiterate with flair, “signing” his glossy with a stamp that said, What’s love got to do with it? Not a damn thing! Ike Turner.

  seventeen

  imperfect, full of mistakes—but honest

  The song I had played for Mike at 91X was requested so often by folks calling in that it made it to the top 10 countdown. Record labels spend a lot of money to get their artists in the top 10 and they all began wondering who this girl was with nothing but a guitar getting played between Nirvana and Soundgarden on one of the biggest stations in the country. Suddenly I felt like Cinderella. Limos began showing up outside the Inner Change. Men in suits sat conspicuously out of place next to the surfer, beach-town crowd, and if they dared to get up halfway through the four- or five-hour show, I would call them out. It was a lot of fun. Afterward they would take me out to a dinner that cost more than I had made in the last two years combined and then ask, “Where can we drop you off?” “Oh, here . . . is good,” I would say. They had no idea I was homeless at the time. Nancy would get calls at the coffee shop from executives asking her to save them a seat for that night’s show. When she’d find out what label they were from, she would put it up on the marquee: “The Inner Change proudly welcomes Sony Records.” She was so excited for me I thought she would burst. My whole crowd was. We felt like one big family: over that last year we had all cried and laughed and grown together and suddenly here were labels that thought I had something. Two women execs came in one night, which was a nice break from all the males. They introduced themselves as Inga Vainshtein and Jenny Price. Inga managed a local band on Atlantic Records and Jenny was the secretary for the band’s A&R. They had heard about me and driven down from L.A. The next week they brought a big music lawyer named Eric Greenspan. He fell asleep halfway through my show and was woken to the chuckles of fans who were enjoying my improvisational song about his head on the table and his little snores. Eric is still my lawyer today and I have never let the poor guy forget about falling asleep the first time he saw me sing. Inga became my manager and Jenny brought the legendary Danny Goldberg down, who would end up signing me to Atlantic. Jenny would be promoted to be my A&R.

  Before I made a decision about which label to sign with, I was flown all over the country to meet with RCA, Sony, and Warner Bros., in addition to Atlantic. It was surreal. Right before it came time to sign my contract, I hesitated. I went to the beach and tried to really think it all through. My mom and I had often taken walks by the ocean, talking about the dream that my music might one day be discovered. On one hand, I was so excited by the opportunity. On the other, I felt there were two significant things that could potentially be damaging for me. I had just begun to turn my internal life around. I was getting happy and finding peace. I was worried the pressure of the business might not help me in this area. I knew I was deeply flawed, and as I studied what I thought fame was, it looked like kerosene that accelerates or ignites the natural insecurities you already have. I had many. I also feared for my art. My favorite novelists wrote their best work in their fifties, but most songwriters wrote well only into their twenties. I felt lifestyle had a lot to do with that. Fame is a path that many people lose their footing on. I had already lost my footing, and what ground I was gaining I was not eager to give up for the long shot that I might be able to make it one day. That day I decided to sign, but also to develop a plan to help me avoid losing what was so important to me.

  Someone gave me a book called All You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald Passman. I learned about mechanicals and royalties and that an advance is really money you borrow and have to pay back. There was a bidding war over me and I wound up being the biggest signing of the year. I was told I could have gotten a million-dollar signing bonus, but remembering that hard wood grows slowly, I turned it down, opting instead for the largest back end any artist had gotten at the time. I knew what music was played on the radio and that I sounded nothing like it. I knew my music was a long shot, and that if I cost the label a lot, it would drop me if I didn’t make that money back quickly. By turning down the advance I was betting on myself, and taking the pressure off my music. I hoped to have a cult following like John Prine or Tom Waits. With hard work and touring, maybe I could make this my livelihood, and if my record ever did break and sell big, then I would have earned whatever money was coming to me. I only asked for the label to pay rent on a small house that my mother, younger brother, and I could live in, and for the money to buy my mom and I each a used car. They both had come back to San Diego after I had called home to share the news.

  I had told Danny I was a simple singer-songwriter and he believed in me and was very respectful in suggesting producers to help me make my first album. I met with about twenty different producers but none seemed quite right. Many of them heard my six-minute songs and wanted to shorten them. I was not interested in this. I knew nothing of radio, genre, or rules, and I did not want to learn. I wanted to be myself. One day Inga and I were listening to Neil Young’s Harvest and we turned the CD over to see who had produced it. Neil Young and Ben Keith. Let’s call him, Inga said. I met with Ben and knew within five minutes he was my guy. He never once asked to edit, shorten, or change me. He never mentioned radio, singles, or genre. He talked about my lyrics and the story and then about musicians he thought would be a good fit for me. He wanted to use the Stray Gators as my band, who had all played on Harvest and Harvest Moon. Kenny Buttry on drums, who had played with Dylan. Tim Drummond, who had played bass with James Brown. Spooner Oldham, a legendary Muscle Shoals player. We recorded much of it at Neil Young’s ranch in Northern California. Being able to record there was not a favor to me even remotely, but to Ben, for Neil loved him dearly. I arrived to stay in a guesthouse at the ranch and was absolutely on cloud nine. Neil’s studio was in a log cabin and was a museum of artifacts and gear: Elton John’s rhinestone boots sitting on an organ, Hank William Sr.’s acoustic guitar on a stand in the corner. I had just died and gone to musician heaven. I was extremely nervous, however, as I had never played guitar with a band. My rhythm was not that even, and so I asked Steve Poltz to come up with me to play guitar, as he could mimic my style well on songs like “You Were Meant for Me.” I had less than zero confidence, and when I would ask Ben if a take was good, he would always ask me how I felt. Everyone seemed to be from the old-school tradition of being there to support and rally around the songwriter and the songs. They kept asking me what I heard, what I wanted, but it seemed so backward. They had more experience between them than I would ever have. Tim is the one who came up with the
cool groove for “Who Will Save Your Soul,” and the natural country swing on “You Were Meant for Me” thrilled me. Neil’s wife, Pegi, came and sang backup for me on some tracks as well. But overall I got very few songs with the band that I felt really let what I did shine. I just didn’t know how to sing and be as emotional with a band, so I made the decision to record most of the album live back in San Diego at the coffee shop where it all began for me. Before we left, we had a big dinner at the ranch and the band came over. Afterward I went to sit in the living room and was surprised to hear the piano behind me being played. I turned around to see it was Neil. I was starstruck. I had no idea what to say to him, but felt compelled to say something. I had always regretted that I did not play piano, and so reaching for some conversation I asked, “Is that a C chord?” Neil said nothing. He simply stood up, closed the piano cover, and walked out of the room. His daughter, Amber, about eight years old then, happened to be in the room and she came up to me and said, “Don’t worry. He always ignores you when he thinks what you say is stupid.”

  • • •

  IT FELT GOOD to be back in San Diego. How quickly my life was changing in such a few short months. My local fan family came out and I recorded two shows. It was an amazing feeling to have the support of that room. Those folks gave me all their heart and all their love and I swear it can be felt in that recording. I sang more like myself when I was live in front of an audience. In the studio my throat tightened to the point I almost sounded like someone else. Someone else famous. Someone else green. Yes, on tracks like “Who Will Save Your Soul” and “You Were Meant for Me,” I sound like Kermit the Frog. You need to set this book down and go listen. I’m proud that the label and Ben allowed me to be myself. Pieces of You is a perfect time capsule of exactly who I was. It’s imperfect, full of mistakes and guitar flubs, but it is honest.

  eighteen

  will she fix her teeth?

  If you’re a young, unknown artist in a highly competitive field, you have to find an edge, not only in the larger scope of the business among literally thousands vying for the few slots on the charts but also at your own label. There are hundreds of artists at any given time fighting for a piece of the same budget. The label can’t invest in every artist at the same level, and like horse races, executives begin to bet on their favorite to win. They might prioritize someone they’ve signed personally. They might favor someone who seems easy to work because they are radio-friendly. At this point, Danny Goldberg had left Atlantic, and I needed a new champion to protect me and fight for me. The person who stepped in was Ron Shapiro. He had seen me sing at a showcase in L.A. He believed unwaveringly in my talent and our careers became inextricably entwined. Although having an ally was not everything. I still had to work the system, within the label and outside it.

  I took on a tremendous workload, as my only real secret weapon was live performances and my ability to outwork anyone. Because media didn’t really care about me yet, I couldn’t get on TV. Atlantic thought up crazy schemes to get me in front of people. I swallowed my pride and made it my job to make the best of any situation, to make people listen, and to make them remember me. And I tasked myself with making sure I didn’t compromise on integrity or artistry. No excuse. Never once did I phone one performance in, or accept being treated as background music, no matter how hard the gig was to conquer. I was frustrated a lot, and it wasn’t a lot of fun, but my competitiveness was rewarding. I was one gritty, mean, lean working machine. Fear of ending up on the street again was a powerful motivator. Danny Buch in the radio department came to me at one point with the idea to circumvent national radio. He was an excitable and passionate person, and he nearly spit whenever he talked, his enthusiasm spilling out of him. “Hey! Jewel! I can buy an hour on shortwave radio, channel 540 AM, and we can go down to Broadway and we’ll have a mile radius we can broadcast to! Do you know how many people there are in one mile of Manhattan?!” Me: “But how will people know to tune in?” Danny: “I’ll have interns walk around during rush hour wearing signs that say, ‘Hear new Atlantic recording artist Jewel on 540 AM,’ and we’ll have you stand on top of a van with a speaker system singing live for folks on the street, and we can broadcast the whole show out to the cars around you!” It sounded like a long shot, and like zero fun. There was no way to sing louder than the honking horns of New York City traffic, but I sang my little heart out standing on a white van, taking in the sights when I had the courage to open my eyes, interns walking around the block with their cardboard signs. Earlier that same day I’d sung at the opening of a shoe store in Times Square. In these instances and others I learned more about how to make people stand still and pay attention to the fact that I was an actual living, breathing person in the room, not a soundtrack pumped in. I would hold notes. I would yodel. I would say shocking things or make up songs about people as they walked by. Whatever it took to make eye contact, to make them stand still and listen. If I could get them to listen, I could get them to care.

  I also participated in something called Earth Jam in the morning because they helped fund the tour. They had a rental van and sound gear and the sound guys, so I had free transportation to my own gigs, but I had to perform in the morning at high schools where they first did an environmental educational component and then I’d sing. On one occasion I was in Detroit, and there was a rapper named Jewell trying to break around the same time. I remember using the restroom, and as I was in the stall, I could hear one girl saying, “I’m so excited! Jew-ell rocks. I love the way that girl raps.” Insert record screeching to a halt. What? The way she raps? I had a bad feeling. I had long hippie hair and was wearing a Pink Panther T-shirt and baggy jeans. I walked out, the whole gymnasium chanting, “Jew-ell!”—and the hands stopped in midair. Silence rang with deafening weight. I took it one step further, as I was already a flop, and started with “Pieces of You.” She’s an ugly girl, does it make you want to kill her? She’s an ugly girl, do you want to kick in her face? She’s an ugly girl, she doesn’t pose a threat. She’s an ugly girl, does that make you feel safe? rang out and emptied the place in half a song, the teachers actually exiting students row by row exactly like in a fire drill. The principal was spitting mad.

  I did an insane amount of traveling and tons of shows. I remember trying to count: Between radio station visits where I played for listeners who’d won a chance to come in, local record stores (remember those?), opening for someone in the evening, doing my own coffee shop show at midnight, and then one more at a high school at 9 a.m., I probably averaged six shows and often two cities a day, driving zigzag through a state to cover as much territory as I could. I never took breaks. There were many comical moments where I locked my guitar in the car, or my stoner surfer driver-friend drove us to the wrong city while I slept, but boy did I learn the ropes. I had to settle out for myself, which means getting paid by the promoter and getting my piece of any merch sales. I was cheap, cheap, cheap, and every time someone at the label said, Hey, my artist is more important than Jewel, let’s drop her, my supporters could say, She costs us nothing and works hard. That took the fight out of the equation. There was no risk in letting me work my brains out.

  Around this time, in 1995, I got my first TV break. Conan O’Brien and his team always had a fondness for new music and I found myself booked on the show. I remember I was exhausted and wearing the same outfit I sang in every night. I had no money for clothes and wore the same thrift store outfits I’d put together in San Diego. I knew nothing about glam squads and my label was in no hurry to tell me about the miracle of hair and makeup and clothing stylists. I think I was wearing purple polyester pants with a black T-shirt and a tacky belt with a rainbow buckle that I loved. The performance was a huge break for me. For some reason, when people saw me sing, they had a stronger reaction than when they just heard me sing.

  Soon after this performance I went home to Alaska for a short rest. It felt so good to sink my toes in the dirt and smell the cottonwood tre
es and ride my horse and recalibrate. I’d gone from being a strong, tan outdoorsy kid to a pale anemic musician who never drew a breath of fresh unregulated air. To sleep, stare at the sea, and just write all felt good.

  My dad was building another cabin and so I stayed in its unfinished cinder-block basement, but it was dry and free. I helped haul water up from the creek for the garden and for washing. There was no running water, but there was electricity and a phone line. One day my dad came to find me, saying, “Jewel, you must be getting some kooky fans out there in the Lower 48. Some guy just prank-called and said he was Sean Penn.” “No shit,” I said, chuckling. “What did you do?” “I hung up on the weirdo,” my dad said. I knew I was making some die-hard fans out there, and had a few stalkers even though I wasn’t famous. There were people in need of help who seemed to cling to my lyrics and music thinking I would save them somehow. Maybe prank calls were par for the course. Dad walked back up to the cabin to find the phone ringing again. The person on the other end managed to convince him before he hung up a second time that he was indeed Sean Penn, and he had seen me on Conan and wanted me to write a song for a movie he was directing. My dad set the phone down, put his boots back on, walked over, and told me to come to the phone. I pulled on my own boots, walked several hundred yards across the meadow, taking in the beautiful light as it reflected off Kachemak Bay, and made my way to the other cabin, where the phone was sitting on the counter. It must have been ten minutes of waiting for whoever was on the line. The voice was unmistakably Sean Penn’s. He had seen me on Conan and was working on a movie he’d written called The Crossing Guard. He wanted me to compose a song for it. I told him I would and he said he would meet me anywhere to screen the movie, I could name the day. I gave him my cell number and figured I would never hear from him again.