A Lesson From Lissie

“I always thought there was a plan,” she recalls. “Here I was in L.A. and signed to a record label. I had a monthly allowance, I was selling jars of honey in the afternoons and playing my music at night. I wasn’t making lots of money, but I could afford to pat the rent. I felt that at very least, I had enough money to get by. I had some songs placed on television, so I really felt like I was doing things the way it was intended.”

Although her deal with Maverick came to an end, Lissie didn’t let that deter her. “I always found little things to do on the side,” she says. One such thing resulted when a friend of a friend introduced her to Bill Reynolds, a member of Band of Horses. He went on to produce her next EP, Why You Runnin’, which subsequently brought her to the attention of Fat Possum Records.

“Bill is one of my favorite producers,” she insists. “He goes with his initial instincts and strips things down like he has nothing to prove. He taught me how to have the confidence to work quickly.”

Later, Reynolds helped co-produce Catching a Tiger, an effort that garnered Lissie a lengthy list of accolades, especially overseas where continuous touring has brought her an ever-burgeoning fan base and collaborations with notables like Robbie Williams, Ed Harcourt and the band Snow Patrol. She’s since become a radio mainstay, her popularity having stemmed from the success of her single “Cuckoo,” which received continuous play on BBC Radio 2 and Spain’s Heart FM.

“The radio play led to the opportunity to play concerts throughout Europe and the U.K.,” Lissie explains when asked about her European popularity. “The audiences in the U.K. pride themselves on their ability to spot new talent. In the beginning though, they were very reserved, and that for me was kind of nerve-wracking at first. American audiences tend to be a lot more rowdy and make a lot more noise. Even in the middle of a song, you might hear someone shout a big ‘Whoo Hoo.’”

For the time being however, Lissie’s taking time off from touring — she says she’s been on the road non-stop since May — and using the time to decompress.

“I was touring a lot,” she confides. “I knew I needed to take a break and get my energy back.”

So too, with the impending release of Back to Forever, she’s taking an opportunity to assess her skills and take stock of her progress. especially as far as her songwriting is concerned.

“When I wrote my first album, I was reacting to the hurt I was suffering as the result of a really disastrous relationship,” she relates. “But now after so much time gone by, I don’t feel like I have to sing strictly from the victim’s point of view. I can relate to the situation from other points of view. I’m proud of that. It’s as if I’m singing to myself, as well as about myself.”