IT’S album release day when I connect with Brandi Carlile at her Seattle home, by video call.
The US folk-country singer’s ninth album, Returning To Myself, has just been released globally and the smile across her face says it all.
It’s already been a great year for Carlile, who in April celebrated her first UK No1 album with Who Believes In Angels? — the collaboration with her idol, Sir Elton John.
She says: “I’m lucky to have new chapters — not everyone gets to have a renewal in their forties.
“And I’m really excited about it. I want to keep going. I like getting older — that’s my favourite bit of life so far.”
The singer believes that authenticity has come with age, and that confidence shines through her new music.
It’s also her enduring friendship with Sir Elton John that has helped elevate her profile on the international stage.
She says: “I’m astounded by Elton’s generosity. He could have made an album with anyone — and choosing to make it with me was such a compliment.
“He’s the most iconic living artist on the planet but what that did for me emotionally is something I try not to put on his shoulders, so that he can exist independent of my expectations of him.
“But it did a lot for me, because he is my hero and we have a special chemistry as friends.“
Returning To Myself is a record that allows Carlile to reconnect with her own emotions and finds her in an introspective mood — and there’s even a solo version of You Without Me, previously a collaboration with Elton John.
She says: “It’s a song that’s pertinent to my life and age and there’s been a lot of reflection.
“My career reminds me of what happened in Bonnie Raitt’s career.
“She’d been making music for a long time, living in vans, in and out of clubs and theatres and playing with all these different bands. Then one thing changed, and suddenly it was on.
“When it happens to you, you remember how long it took for the phone to ring.
“Suddenly it’s ringing and you’re just answering and saying yes and wanting to do everything, understanding that it won’t ring one day.
“I stayed in a cycle of that mentality for many years, just attaching to everyone that ever inspired me.
“I wanted everything all at once. Then I just hit a wall. My mind and body give me no warnings. They just shut down one day. It meant I should take time off.
“But what do you do when the songs are coming? You have to listen to that and then take action.”
The songs were coming like a tap was on, and I can’t turn it off once that happens. I just don’t function — I don’t change my clothes, I don’t sleep, I forget to eat, I’m just a dysfunctional person
Brandi Carlile
On Returning To Me, Carlile teamed up with producer Aaron Dessner of The National — who worked with Taylor Swift.
She also brought in producers Andrew Watt, who she worked with on the Elton John album, and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon who helped produce the track Human.
The title track began with a poem Carlile wrote when she was dealing with loneliness while staying at the barn-house guest room at Aaron Dessner’s remote home in upstate New York.
She says: “It came from a place of contemplation, and my discomfort with aloneness. It’s me asking some existential questions.
“The songs were coming like a tap was on, and I can’t turn it off once that happens. I just don’t function — I don’t change my clothes, I don’t sleep, I forget to eat, I’m just a dysfunctional person.
“I wrote one or two out there with Aaron that were really deep and meaningful to me.”
She adds: “I was at Aaron’s the day after Joni Mitchell played the Hollywood Bowl and I was moved by her triumph there and deep in thought about the journey it took us to get there.”
Carlile had helped with the esteemed singer’s six-year journey to return to the live stage — her Hollywood Bowl performance was Mitchell’s first full show in 24 years — following a brain aneurysm in 2015 that had left the singer unable to play.
Carlile had been part of a jam band alongside Mitchell, Elton John, Meryl Streep, Annie Lennox, Marcus Mumford and more.
Carlile had first met the legendary singer at her 75th birthday tribute concert in 2018, then began organising monthly music evenings, called Joni Jams, at her Bel-Air house.
Elton, Sir Paul McCartney, Bonnie Raitt and Harry Styles all joined in encouraging her return to singing.
She says: “It wasn’t getting through to her about how much she was loved and it bothered me. It nagged at me. If only she knew what Lana Del Rey says about you. If she knew that Gracie Abrams had her lyrics tattooed on her arm.
“She is so important to multiple generations of not just women, but all people, and so I got to have the passenger seat to watching that reality wash over Joni as she pulled herself into recovery from her aneurysm.
“I get too much credit for what happened with Joni as she got herself back on stage and retaught herself how to use those instruments.
On Returning To Myself, Joni is one of the standout songs, which pays homage to her heroine.
She says: “Writing a song about her, I couldn’t be sappy because she’s not going to like that.
“Joni has got a great sense of humour. She’s wildly intelligent but I wanted to point out the most profound things about her. I also wanted to show how wild she is and how much she loves a party because she is fun.
“She’s such a reverential character and people have so much respect for that. Some people see her as stern, and I wanted to address that in a tongue-in-cheek way in the song in a way that she would understand, yeah, and she really did understand.”
Carlile believes her work with both Elton John and Joni Mitchell has been life-changing. She says: “It’s everything when you’re growing up and when you get to meet the people that you’ve had on your bedroom walls.
“It’s more than music. I get how important it is to work with these people because I am a f***ing fan. That’s why I champion women in music. When young musicians come up to me and say I inspire them too, I get that as I am still a fan.”
Returning To Myself is a different sound for Carlile — it’s stripped back and self-assured.
She says with a laugh: “When I was younger, I would scream all the time. I was yelling and singing open-chested and I’d tell myself that when I got older, I was never going to be quiet — I was going to stay punk-rock.
‘Oppressive ideology’
“And to a certain extent, I stand by that, but sometimes the lyrics you write don’t ask that. They asked for it on the song Church And State, and at the end of Human, but they don’t ask for it anywhere else on the album.
“It just wouldn’t do justice to the poetry, so I just didn’t do it. That’s not to say I won’t do it again.”
Evangeline, our oldest, asked could we move to Canada if the United States overturned gay marriage. But Elijah, our youngest, is worried she won’t have a Mommy or a Mama — which we are called
The politically inspired Church And State is a powerful song born out of frustration and anger about US President Donald Trump and his challenges to American institutions.
She says: “Activism is important to me and important enough to never dilute it.
“That song is about the separation of the church and state and how important that is to me and my family.
“We are not living in a theocracy. There’s no wisdom creating laws and building walls based on a subjective interpretation of someone else’s faith.
“You can’t use so-called Christian values to enable an oppressive ideology. As a person of faith myself, I can tell you I feel as protective of my faith against the state as I do a quasi-secular person living in the United States.”
A mother of two daughters with her wife, Catherine, Carlile admits recent events have scared her kids.
She says: “I read this morning that the Supreme Court in the US is going to consider a case which would overturn marriage equality in November.
“It’s something I’ve been afraid of for a long time, since [former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court] Ruth Bader Ginsburg died [in 2020].
“I’ve been afraid of us going backward on that sentiment.
“It’s not me and my life that it concerns. I’ve been talking to my wife about this for a long time — and our kids listen to like everything.
“Evangeline, our oldest, asked could we move to Canada if the United States overturned gay marriage. But Elijah, our youngest, is worried she won’t have a Mommy or a Mama — which we are called. She’s worried she won’t have parents — and it made me so angry.”
Carlile also joined forces with Elton John for a joint HIV/Aids campaign earlier this year to try to offset the Trump administration’s cuts to HIV/Aids- related funding.
She says: “It’s desperately important to Elton and [husband] David [Furnish] that it’s not pushed from the sphere of public awareness and we’re able to continue to educate and alleviate the suffering of people.
“And that’s how I found Elton John as an 11-year-old, as I wrote a book report on a young boy who had died of Aids.
“I had already canonised the man as a saint, but because of this report I went to the library and checked out a CD with his song Skyline Pigeon on it because this man had played at this kid’s funeral.
“It was a full-circle moment that later I was able to lend my activism to the person who inspired me to start it.”
Carlile will have a small break for Christmas before kicking off her tour early next year.
She says with a laugh: “I hope the tickets sell. I don’t know how to switch off. I want to be cool and say, ‘I don’t read reviews, I don’t watch the tickets’. But no, I’m going to be sitting there digesting my stomach lining.
“I just want to get out and play. I love this album and am going to play it from start to finish, and I’ve got all these ideas for covers.
“I’ve got a world-class band and so next year is going to be another big year for me — and I’m loving it all.”
- Returning To Myself is out now