Duchess of Coolsville is back on road again
Music icon Rickie Lee Jones on her long-awaited return to Ireland and why, at the age of 63, she’s decided to tour on her own terms
IT’S been a long time coming but Rickie Lee Jones is finally making her way back to label.Ireland, this time under her own steam and without the help of a record
The 63-year-old music legend is taking a break from penning her autobiography to hit the road for a tour that will hopefully support a second self-released album.
‘I think my daughter was a teenager when I last came to Ireland,’ she says. ‘So I think that would be about 15 years, it’s been a long time.’
For her record The Other Side Of Desire, Rickie Lee went on a solo voyage, away from what she felt were constraints at the time.
‘I think it did well,’ she says. ‘What is well, though? It is a relative term now. We got our money back and made a little bit of money. It was our own record company I guess so that was a new thing that was a long time coming.’
Rickie Lee had been trying, she says, to work on her own terms for about ten years, something which she hoped would afford her extra freedom.
‘People didn’t think someone of my status should put out their own record, in spite of the fact that I would make three times more money,’ she says. ‘So it took a long time for me to finally get everybody to agree.
‘I could have signed with a label but I get paid more this way. And it’s not just that, putting out a record yourself there’s no pressure to do some elusive thing that makes everybody feel like they succeeded. And if you don’t sell enough, those people feel like they have failed so I eliminated them from my work. So that felt good.’
It was an empowering experience and a new way of working that Rickie Lee believes she will continue.
‘It can be complicated and it can be expensive,’ she admits. ‘There is never enough money.
‘I already had sympathy for record companies in spite of how nefarious they can be.
‘They spend a lot of money and their participation is grossly high but then they take all the chances so that was okay. For me as my own label, I am competing with people who have hundreds of thousands to spend on promotion. How do you compete with that?
‘It’s a different world when you are over 50, another world when you are over 60, another entirely different sphere for women.’ Outspoken and sometimes outrageous, Rickie Lee has been a feminist all her life and has fought long and hard for other women. And although she welcomes the sea change surrounding the Harvey Weinstein movement, when it comes to the #metoo movement, she has reservations. ‘Every woman I have ever met has had something happen to them,’ she says. ‘I think the #metoo thing is exhilarating for women as they can now say something they maybe only ever said to their therapist. ‘If they feel better, great but I think like all trends it kind of gave way to some evil bullshit, all kinds of people have jumped on it. When it started out people were talking about being raped.
‘And now we have someone saying, “I don’t like the way he put his hand on my butt when I was getting a photo taken”.
‘Well then, you create a different hashtag because it doesn’t belong in this terrible serious thing where actresses are trying to tell what happened to them when they are trying to work.
‘And I was also sad to see men jump on it. I think it belonged to women. I don’t like trends, I don’t like witch hunts, but I am glad Harvey Weinstein got exposed.’
In her own career Rickie Lee says she was lucky enough to avoid the ‘predators who stand between you and what you want’.
‘I was never assaulted in the course of my work,’ she reveals. ‘There were people there who would have liked to have f **** d me and then given me a chance but I said no because I knew what that would have cost me and I would never get ahead if I do it.’
RICKIE Lee has lived the equivalent of 100 lives in her one, enjoying the excesses of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, battling the demons of addiction, writing songs that will stay in the world forever while taking on President Trump one tweet at a time. And it is something we should all be doing, she reckons.
‘Trump is affecting our nation, he is affecting the world and this is felt as much everywhere else as it is in America,’ she says. ‘He has demoralised us, he has degraded us, he has insulted the office.
‘I don’t think it is sacrosanct, I think it is the civil service but by insulting this office he degrades the world because the world respects the President of America and when you put a a clown and a buffoon in there, a racist, a facist, a self-serving misogynist then the world trembles. It doesn’t know what is going to happen to it next.’
Nowadays, Rickie Lee admits she feels the strains of touring, but bums on seats make it worthwhile, as do the musicians who will be with her in Dublin’s Vicar Street on February 25.
‘I’m 63 years old and I’m travelling a long way to come and sing and it is hard work,’ she says.
‘But there is no greater job than performing for people: it’s exciting, it is kind of a holy job. I am playing with Mike Dillon who is like a spirit, he is a virtuoso, a punk rocker who is really accomplished. Being on stage with him has been invigorating and it set me free.
‘I don’t judge myself any more and we are happy to be there. I don’t think I had that before I played with Mike. Playing with somebody else on stage who is so joyful to be there ends up my own expression as well.’
As well as performing, Rickie Lee is currently writing down those tales of Chuck E’s love story, Tom Waits and all, in her autobiography which she is hoping will be published in the latter end of this year.
‘It’s very hard writing about one’s self,’ she admits. ‘It took me a long time to enjoy writing these stories because I am a storyteller not a story writer so I think I’m doing it pretty well now.’