“They’re handing out hopes and dreams and schemes at the entrance to your gym:” A discussion with singer/songwriter Jennifer O’Connor

The brilliant New York-based singer/songwriter Jennifer O’Connor has been authoring tremendous albums of hope and longing for more than twenty years. Her newest release Born at the Disco is a remarkably effervescent, contemplative and moving personal inventory of the things that form us first and the ways we can evolve. On the precipice of her forthcoming American tour, I spoke with Jennifer about the new record, the challenges posed by the pandemic and the reasons to carry on.

(Full disclosure: My band The Paranoid Style has been playing shows with Jennifer for over a decade and is opening the 4/8/22 show in Durham, NC! If you are anywhere in the range of the research triangle, please do come out to the show.)

EN: Born at the Disco is such an evocative album title and such a rad song. Can you explain what that phrase means to you and why you chose it?

JO’C : Well, most often when I write songs, the melody and the lyrics all come together at the same time. And “Born at the Disco” was the first line of the song and that just kind of popped out of my mouth. And I realized as I kept writing that I liked the phrase because there’s so many great “Born at the-” songs or “Born in the-” songs, and what it meant was how music was this very formative thing for me and has been this through-line through the whole journey. But specifically, it does actually sort of have to do with disco, too, because that formative experience happened around the time that disco was happening. My older brother was in high school when I was in elementary school and he and his friends were often dancing in our living room to Diana Ross and Donna Summer and the Bee Gees and all that kind of stuff when I was a little kid. I really looked up to him and started buying 45s and stuff around that time and it was really just like falling in love with the whole thing.

And this song in particular is a reflection of how I was exploring new sounds with synths and my computer because I wasn’t really playing with a band and I didn’t have my band around.

EN: So were you writing more with electronic instruments and less with a full band in mind because of the pandemic?

JO’C: Well, it actually started before the pandemic. My drummer Jon lives in California so I guess I was looking for ways to have “drums” without him being around necessarily. I also really like hip hop and dance music a lot, so I just started messing around with programming drums. This was in 2017 and I just was making these little instrumental pieces and I created like, hundreds of them, because I was really just trying to learn how to do it. But because I write songs and would write a lot on the acoustic guitar still, I started mixing the two together and realized that I could probably make a whole record if I could figure out how to turn some of these little sketches into songs.

In the spring of 2020 I planned a little tour to test how to perform these songs, and then everything happened. I canceled it. And I just decided to try to actually finish the songs and make a record, and I recorded a lot of it at home and then I took it to my producer Tom Beaujour to help me finish it.

EN: Nice. So you’re playing all the instruments?

JO’C: Yeah. This is my first record that doesn’t have anyone else playing on it.

EN: I love the song “Crimes” so much, it just crushes me. It could be on Joni Mitchell’s Blue. This is kind of a weird question, but how do you overcome the inherent vulnerability of something which is so stripped down and feels so revealing? How do you manage to sort of linger in the moment without becoming overwhelmed?

JO’C: There are just certain songs that, for me, are more effective with almost nothing there. With a lot of this record I tried to be deliberate and surgical almost about what instruments were used and what wasn’t. And I think it’s just natural for me to gravitate toward intense emotional songs. It’s just who I am, but that song was really hard to do. At points during the recording it became too intense for me and we had to stop. But we came back and I decided I really wanted to do it.

EN: I know from working with Bar/None on my own new LP that the process of making a record coming out of COVID and whatever other factors has become a complete goatfuck of complications. What challenges did you encounter in putting together this amazing release? I know that the wait for vinyl is interminable and for us just making sure we felt safe in the studio caused a lot of delays.

JO’C: Well, yeah, being safe in the studio was a huge concern. And my release date was November 5th 2021, but I didn’t actually get the vinyl until February 2022, which kind of didn’t matter because I didn’t feel safe touring right when Delta was hitting. I think it’s been a really hard year just managing expectations. Album releases and tours are built around very structured timetables and that’s all been thrown out the window. Everybody’s just overwhelmed. There’s a million things you wouldn’t ever normally think about in a traditional album cycle. So it’s been challenging, but at the same time a global pandemic really puts things into perspective.

EN: In addition to recording and releasing great records, you also run a label and own a record store. Since you have the unique perspective of wearing all these hats can you give your assessment of the overall health of the industry, especially for smaller acts? I am bound by obligation, of course, to get your views on streaming and what you think it has meant for independent music.

JO’C: Yeah. So, the industry as a whole is really all over the place. I think vinyl records are more popular than ever, as far as my store goes. New, used, people are really into buying records. I think in some ways, because of the pandemic, people got even more interested in buying and listening to physical media. I wonder what’s going to happen to record sales as people are able to go out and do more. But now that the pandemic is winding down hopefully, artists are also able to tour again. I know a lot of bands that make their living touring. I’m fortunate that I have all these other jobs, because it’s been really hard to keep the artist thing going. It would have been hell for me. This has been really challenging for a lot of artists and everybody’s had to find new ways or additional ways to make a living.

Navigating the industry is always a hustle especially for smaller artists, which is why I have two other jobs, but I’ve always kind of been that way. So I don’t know if I’m just built that way. There’s a line in one of the songs on the album where I say, “I’m always spread too thin.” That’s me. And I do worry that I could be doing a lot better at one job if I wasn’t doing three of them every day. 

And then streaming, first of all: I think that listening to songs on a streaming service sounds horrible. But as far as the business model, I don’t think it’s going anywhere. And so I do wish and hope that artists will actually get paid, but I don’t know how that is going to ever change. It’s all run by these giant corporations that don’t care about the people that create what they sell.

At the end of the day, I’ve always thought streaming is a good discovery tool, but there’s also too much. We’re all pulled in so many directions. How do you place a value on anything? If I can have everything all the time, I can’t concentrate anymore. It’s just too hard.

EN: You just mentioned a lyric from your song, “Less And Less,” which is an amazing track. It’s such a catchy tune and such a beautiful character study — I adore this couplet “Everyone loves you/ And you’re such a mess/ But baby what they don’t know/ I can guess.” That feeling of finding someone who sees through the mirage of our public facing selves is so powerful. It’s something you and Paul Westerberg are the best at I think. Anything you can tell me about writing and recording this?

JO’C: Well, “Less and Less” is one of those gift songs that got written in, like, ten minutes. Maybe I was subconsciously writing it, but one day I just sat down with the guitar and the whole thing was just there. I think I had been thinking about the things you mentioned – outward-facing selves, how we’re all expected to behave a certain way and how that kind of pressure is exhausting. It makes me sad and angry and those feelings just came out quickly.

EN: Tell me about touring? Are you excited? Trepidatious? Do you think it will be weird?

JO’C: Yes. All of the above. I feel a little bit like I’m in training for a fight right now. I have to get in the right mindset for it because I haven’t done a tour in a really long time and I’m doing this one completely on my own. I think it’ll really be good for me but also a challenge. I’m nervous about it. I’m excited about it. But it’s going to be great.

EN: I want to ask you about one more song. “Tell the Truth” is such a cool, stripped down performance and it feels to me like this hard self-inventory, almost like something from John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. There’s this idea that I love in the song, which is that a lot of times when we are truly honest with people, you risk disappointing them, which is so fucking true. Can you talk a little about writing and recording this?

JO’C: It was Tom’s idea to do it live in one take, just me and the electric guitar. He heard a Billy Bragg vibe in the song and we went for it. I like how it stands in contrast with the rest of the record.

I think I’ve always been an honest person in my songs, but not necessarily completely – more on-the-surface honest about myself and some of the people closest to me. And that song’s about not being a people-pleaser anymore. Like, you can do whatever it is that’s right and for you and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re trying to hurt someone. It might, but at some point you have to let your life be your own.

Buy Jennifer’s record here or here! Check out her tour dates here! And also below.

April 5 Boston, MA Atwood’s Tavern
April 6 New York, NY Mercury Lounge
April 7 Silver Spring, MD Quarry House Tavern
April 8 Durham, NC The Pinhook
April 10 Atlanta, GA The Earl
April 11 Tallahassee, FL Smitty’s Taphouse
April 12 New Orleans, LA Gasa Gasa
April 16 Austin, TX Captain Quack’s
April 18 Phoenix, AZ Thunderbird
April 19 Los Angeles, CA Hotel Cafe
April 20 San Francisco, CA Amado’s
April 23 Portland OR Turn Turn Turn
April 24 Seattle, WA The Vera Project
April 27 Denver, CO Hi-Dive
April 28 Omaha, NE Pageturners Lounge
April 29 Des Moines, IA Lefty’s
April 30 Davenport IA Raccoon Motel
May 1 Milwaukee, WI Cactus Club
May 2 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle
May 3 Indianapolis, IN Healer
May 4 Columbus, OH Spacebar
May 5 Pittsburgh, PA The Government Center