Swamp Ophelia: An Interview with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls
by Victoria A. Brownworth
Deneuve, November/December 1994
The Indigo Girls, Georgia musicians Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, are one of the hottest young rock duos in the United States. Their song "I Don't Want to Talk About It" was included in the soundtrack of the Oscar-winning film Philadelphia. According to Epic Records executives, their sixth and latest album, Swamp Ophelia, went platinum before it hit the stores. The Girls have just completed work on a new film, Boys on the Side, by veteran director Herbert Ross. Due out next spring, the film focuses on AIDS and homphobia, and features Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore, and Mary-Louise Parker. The Girls have always had a strong lesbian following, and that audience rejoiced last year when they both came out publicly, joining the ranks forged by other pop/rock stars like k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge. During their recent European tour, Amy Ray spoke with me about the tour, Swamp Ophelia, the strong political nature of the Girls' music, their commitment to political issues, and of course, about the fallout since they came out. Ray is the duo's spokesperson. She has a deep, throaty voice and forthright manner that matches her slightly butch, good looks and her Georgian roots come through in her light Southern accent.
VAB: The new album seems different from your other work. Is this a new sound for the Indigo Girls? You've got some interesting people on the album here with you, like Jane Siberry.
AR: Yeah, Jane Siberry was someone whom we really admired. Her voice was more like an instrument. We really wanted that sound on the album; we really like working with her. The album's kind of a new direction, but we're still strong on a lot of the same points. Emily feels that this album is a huge step in the general progression of her songwriting and as an Indigo Girl.
VAB: Some of your songs on this album are very political, like "This Train." Not only do you talk overtly about gays in relation to the Holocaust, but you talk about the Holocaust in and of itself. Not a lot of songwriters are doing that. How is the song being received?
AR: Very positively. I went to the Holocaust Museum and it really affected me. There's a lot now that's being uncovered about the homosexual experience of the Holocaust and how it affected those survivors. At the Museum it's made very clear that although Jews were by far the main victims of the Holocaust, there were many others, too. I really need to write about these feelings. I wanted to talk about human nature [sic]; I didn't want to lay blame.
VAB: Is the audience over there respnding to these songs? How is the tour going?
AR: It's been a real jumping-off place for conversations, like with the German press. You'd think it would be really controversial, but it hasn't been; it's been really interesting. We've been over here (Europe and the UK) five times, but we're very small over here. We're not well known but we play to capacity. It's going well.
VAB: Do you like playing to small crowds, or would you prefer doing Wembley Stadium [in London]?
AR: (laughing) No, we're not waiting to do Wembley Stadium. I mean, honestly we prefer smaller places because of the intimacy, and you know music--the sharing of it--is more important than just the performance, and I feel that when we play the really large places, we feel so distant. In America it's different when you play a big place, because the crowds make it more intimate; they come up and dance and stuff. They're a little more reserved here, so it's harder.
VAB: How did you end up in Boys on the Side?>
AR: The director really liked our music and decided to put us in the movie. We play ourselves in this movie. We're just a band that plays in a local bar that Whoopi and her friends hang out at. We play four or five Indigo Girls songs, and then we back Whoopi up on some of her songs. She recorded some cool stuff like "Walk on the Wild Side." We're the colored girls that go "do-do-do" in the background.
VAB: Indigo-colored?
AR: (laughs) Yeah. She said to me, "You are colored." She's great.
VAB: This is a pretty political movie, though, isn't it?
AR: Yeah it is: It deals with homosexuality. Whoopi's gay and she's obviously black, and Drew Barrymore is running away from a husband that beat her up. And Mary-Louise Parker is like a very straight, sort of middle-class, very naive woman who has AIDS. so they deal with racial issues, homophobia, AIDS prejudice, basically a lot of feminist-type issues, and they don't really know each other very well, so you see the growing-up experience and all the dealings that happen between them. It's a very honest movie. But you know when you're making a film you never know what's going to happen; you don't know if they're going to try to hide some of the gay stuff for the Hollywood thing, of if they're going to try to gloss over it, or if they're going to be as direct as the script is. So we just hope it's going to be as true to the script as it seemed like it was going to be.
VAB: Epic told me you're interested in doing more movies.
AR: Emily is interested in doing more film work. We always have our separate things going, but that won't take us in different directions. I know she wants to write more for films and probably be in them, too. I'm not so attached to the Hollywood-type film; I'm much more into avant-garde and foreign films. I think the limits put on Hollywood are major, as far as what they can and can't do. So I think I'd be frustrated with that. Also, I'm not as good at writing for a particular thing as Emily is. It's not calling my name as loudly as it is Emily's.
VAB: Did you feel any trepidation about doing the film? Herbert Ross is a fine director and has tackled other social and feminist issues.
AR: Herb Ross is such a good director and so well respected, and, like you said, he's always managed to make really good, woman-centered films in spite of Hollywood. He's managed to stretch the boundaries of Hollywood. So, I had no trepidations about that. And the script was really great, and I felt like if Whoopi Goldberg was going to be in something, it was going to be good. I think she's someone who delves into issues in a very subtle way. I felt the way they handled the issues was really good. And after I read the script I was like, "This is really good." I don't think it ever occured to us not to do it; I think we thought it was a great opportunity.
VAB: Swamp Ophelia is the first album you've recorded in Nashville. How was that experience? k.d. lang seemed to have a really hard time in Nashville as a lesbian and as a songwriter. Was that your experience?
AR: It was a great experience. There's a really new, hip scene there, different from the country scene. I had lived there for a year before and it was really terrible. There was a lot of prejudice. But that city goes through phases. This time when we went back, there was more of a bohemian perspective. But you're never going to get rid of what k.d. doesn't like, which is the cliques and the really paranoid atmosphere. You get caught up in that. There are just so many songwriters, so many musicians.
VAB: It seems that there's a lot of political stuff connected to your music, things that many performers have shied away from, like doing benefits for choice and other issues. How important is that kind of political statement to you and to your music?
AR: I think it's not important to our music. I mean, our writing a song isn't depending on our doing a benefit. The political thing--that's just an extension of ourselves. We do it because it's important to us. We do benefits for certain organizations because we feels strongly about the particular issue. In our personal lives we're active and this is our way of being involved, because this is what we have time to do. We don't have time to do long-term projects like be in the Peace Corps. If we believe in an issue, we don't think twice about standing up for it.
VAB: More and more performers are moving away from that, being afraid of being associated with anything political, especially a charged issue like choice.
AR: There's a backlash too. There are people who are just tired of doing benefits; they just want to play their music. Some peole are just scared to stand up for things, too. I mean you're not going to get Wynonna Judd to do a pro-choice benefit, because a big country performer is going to lose a lot of audience by doing something like this. It's not right, but it happens.
VAB: Greenpeace is mentioned in the liner notes of your album. Is this one of your special interests?
AR: Greenpeace is very well organized and they do really good things with their money. They go on the road with us, travel in our bus and we feed them; in return they educate people locally. We've done this for four years.
VAB: So does this political bent mean that you're going to continue to be outspoken on the whole gay rights issue?
AR: I personally have always been outspoken. Emily's gone through periods where she hasn't been. (laughs) I'm an outspoken person. And it's (being a lesbian) the way I live, so I'll always talk about it. I don't consider myself to be a spokesperson. I understand the need for role models, but my music comes first in my life. And in my personal life gay activism comes before a lot of other things. But in my musical existence, my music comes first. I'm never going to be put down, I'm never going to be silent on something like this.
VAB: A lot of performers haven't been willing to either speak out on this issue or be open about their own experience, however.
AR: Well, I think that part of that is because once you start talking about gay issues, people stop listening to your songs. They go, "Let's talk about gay issues instead of talking about music." Part of it is not wanting that to be the whole focus. For some people that's their journey in life. And for other people that's a focus that they maintain in their personal life and they do a lot of work for gay rights, but they want to be a musician outside of that, too. And for me, I don't know how you can do it separately. I feel your life merges at some point and you have to stand up for yourself; if anything is ever going to be accomplished, you are going to have to do it yourself.