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Indigo Girls were in Eugene shortly before their new album Shaming of the Sun was released. Shaming is a continuation of the vein of political awareness but without the hard edge of their earlier years. The topics of their music have changed and are becoming both more political and retrospective. Songs such as "Get Out the Map" and "Hey Kind Friend" sound as if the Girls are trying to reconcile with the circumstances of the lives that they've chosen. Tunes like "Leeds" address political issues such as the recent southern church burnings. This new album is the first release since the Indigo Girls releasedthe double-live 1200 Curfews album with Epic in 1996. The Indigo Girls are in a spare dressing room after sound check at the Hult Center. They're on their first real tour since their massive Honor the Earth Tour in 1995. The tour was 16 benefit concerts in 21 western states raising money for Native American activists working to protect the remains of Indian land base and culture. It was the largest single fund raising effort in the history of Native American activism. Their show was more like an affirmation through music than a cut and dry concert. The Indigo Girls seemed to have mellowed out a little and started concentrating more on their music. They've just come off a year- long rest and their relaxed personalities show in their easy smiles and thoughtful looks.  Amy Ray spent her year off pursuing other political movements, such as the Zapatista revolutionaries and working on her independent label Dameon Records. An Atlanta based label, this project shows signs of Amy's strong connection to the Folk Underground. Emily worked on other projects but took the year off as an opportunity to get her fingers and toes back in the dirt. It was a much deserved break after spending years playing festivals, touring, and recording. The most immediate impression of Amy and Emily is how well they work together. Amy has a speaking voice that could just make a person melt. Her tenacious political nature is clear. She is easy-going and talkative, beautifully complementing Emily's more thoughtful presence. Emily is so down to earth it's like she's got an inside line with Mother Nature. Together they create a classic duo whose lyrics seem to immortalize the hearts of their fans and who's activism serves as inspiration to all. OV: Amy, you once said that you and Emily lead different lives but come up with the same music-you end up writing about the same subjects. Why do you think that is?Amy: Yeah, I think what I was talking about was when we had just had all this time off. We really were separate most of the time and didn't see each other that much. When we came back together to hear each others' new songs and stuff we were writing about a lot of the same things. We had been through a lot of the same experiences, obviously, the year before we were off, so I think it was just that we had both reflected on that and wrote about it. But, I thought it was interesting because it pretty much happens every record. There ends up being themes.Emily: Well, if you think about it, a lot of our experiences come from being on the road. We may interpret or express differently, but we're observing a lot of the same things. In the case of the tour, like Honor the Earth for instance, that's so powerful and profound and we're learning so much. We're around all these really cool environmentalists and grass roots activists, Native Americans . . . We're both hearing the same stories and learning the same facts and sort of synthesizing internally the same experiences. OV: What did you do after the Honors Tour?Amy: We went to England, oh my God.Emily: Ohhhh, Yeah. Amy: It's like we finished. We did this massive political tour, environmental tour learning about the effects of colonialism, colonization and imperialism and then we go to England where everything came from, so it was kinda weird-it's not the same people obviously. We love England but, . . . . Emily: At that time it was a very strange juxtaposition. . . . Amy: It had a very odd impression on us to be in, to be hanging out with all these Indian activists and then go to a very Anglo place. It was hard, but we love England so we just kinda worked through it. With Honor the Earth it was like every single day we had politics and press conferences. That's a lot, so it's hard to do anything after that . Emily: We took a year off. It ended up being a little bit more then a year actually. Amy: We went to a live record that came out, and spent a lot of time putting that together, more then we thought we would-a few months actually. Emily: We were trying to make the grade there, so it was a mix. We really picked through things carefully. Amy: I have a record label and I've spent a lot of my time on my record label. . . I sang a lot, played a lot then, and saw other people besides Emily. Emily: I worked on my house a lot y'know, just cause I had boxes and boxes and piles and piles of things that I hadn't gone through in years. I just sorted through those things. . . tried to get reacquainted with people. Amy: It's hard for people to imagine when we say a year off it seems like such a long amount of time but it's not really. . . Emily: It went so quickly. Amy: We're writing, we're practicing, we're planning other things. Emily: You lag behind too, when you go on the road, things that you can't really attend to at home for obvious reasons. And then when you come back it's like "Whoa, people went through this stuff." OV: Yeah, there was a song on Shaming the Sun, I can't remember the name, it was talking about friends that had left or had gone and you had missed them. . .Emily: "Hey Kind Friend."OV: Yeah! But, it left an impression.Amy: Being on the road has its problems. I mean, I love travel, it's just that when you're mostly away you miss funerals and weddings y'know. And it's like births and deaths. I mean everything, you miss a lot of things. You miss your family and your relationships.OV: Do you think that your music outweighs those experiences that you're missing?Emily: You mean is it worth it?Amy: Is it worth it? Yeah. Yeah it's worth it. Emily: It's definitely worth it. It's just like every job has its drawbacks, and those are some of the major drawbacks of the job. But there are so many things that are good, we get to have so many great experiences. OV: What political movements would you like to draw attention to on this tour? Or are you trying to at all?Amy: Some cities we go to we'll set up a table in the lobby, like the National Commission for Democracy comes to mind, and the Chiapas recently too. We've done a lot of interviews recently talking about the Zapatistas and that movement and then also a lot of follow up in different states from the Honor the Earth Tour. But, really the Honor the Earth Tour is a very targeted tour. Other than that it's like whoever's having a tough time of it. We do benefits here and there.Emily: Yeah, stuff comes up and it's everywhere. It's just so much a part of our lives. OV: Have you ever felt that your issues overshadowed your music at all?Amy: It would be hard to be objective, I mean we do. . . . we're not heavy handed in our music, but I think in our lives we kinda are. We go " Maybe this show we should just play music, y'know let's do a tour and not do politics this tour let's just play music. If we get asked about it we'll talk about it but lets not make every show the Earth tour." We never stop writing about what we want or censor ourselves or, if somebody speaks at a show from a certain group, stop them. But, we had no idea if it overshadowed our music.OV: What plans do you have once your record deal with Epic is up?Amy: Well, we have three records left to make.Emily: We had thought about it but we're kinda like "Lets not talk about it." Amy: Yeah, I wanna be independent and Emily said. . . . Emily: You know Amy doesn't wanna be on a major label anymore and I just don't feel that way right now. Amy: I like Epic though, Epic is different. Emily: Yeah, we have a really good relationship with our label. Amy struggles more with the association with the corporate corporation and the selling of music. I don't have the same. . . I'm not. . .I just don't feel as strongly about it the way Amy does. But y'know in five years I could change my mind, or anything could happen. Amy: Or I could. Emily: You could. . .that's a stretch. Anything is possible, we're really just enjoying making music together and touring. Amy: Our label, they support us, we can sing about being gay or pro-choice or. . . Emily: Pearl Jam, Keb Mo,. . . Amy: A lot of good creative artists that determine their own path are on that label. Most people on that label are like " Y'know, you tell us what you want." kind of people. OV: How do you think folk music has changed?Emily: It means different things to different people. There's like traditional folk, the purer hard-core stuff like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seager and even Bob Dylan folk, which is even more the fusion of rock n' roll and folk with Dylan especially as his career progressed. We've been pigeon-holed in. . . well, we won the Grammy for Contemporary Folk but we're in with groups like the Chieftains. . . or Ani. . .Amy: There's Ani [DiFranco] in folk punk. I was just thinking about it, they [mainstream] went through a Pop Folk phase didn't it? And now it's back to more organic folk music. I mean Ani is organic. She may be punky but it's like folky traditional, into politics, folk music. Emily: There's some musical fusion there. . . Amy: Yeah, with hip hop beats. . . Emily: Bass, but the message is there, it's acoustic. Amy: Keb Mo, he's so organic, I mean he's not really folk he's blues too. It feels good, it feels like some of the folk artists are getting back to, well, WE'RE not, but other people are getting back or trying to be more acoustic guitar or sly, the sound of it is not so polished. OV: What is your relationship, or what do you think of Ani DiFranco and her music?Emily: We worship her! We bow down to her. She's awesome.Amy: We're friends. We'd heard of her for a longtime and we've listened to her. Our bass player [Sara Lee] played with her this last year so that was our relationship. I talked to Ani a couple times at Eddy's in Atlanta, we got to know her better, traveled around, see her. Her drummer [Andy Stochansky] played on this record with us on a couple songs. We traded her players, we gave her Sarah and she gave us Andy. We're comrades, I mean in the musical sense and political sense probably too. She's one of those artists that I can look to and say "I have a peer." OV: How do you think that your popularity and exposure has changed you?Emily: I still feel that Amy and I still write our songs depending on what we're thinking about at the time.Amy: I would say that when I was off for so long I just got more relaxed. Everybody thinks-they look at your life and they go "she's home, she's been home for a year, she was gone for so long before that, that must be why she's so different `cause she's been home." But that wasn't it, it was everything else that went on that helped me be different. But they do say I get relaxed. Personally, you get on the road and it's a different way of thinking and life. The scenery is changing constantly, you're in a different city everyday, it's vibrant all the time. Maybe along with that comes some sense of watching your back all the time. So I feel like our last tour season me and Emily were both kinda burnt out. And I don't ever want it to be like that again, I wanna be free of all that. Emily: Now we know at this point, after playing for so long, we know that if we take a year off it's not gonna be the end of our careers y'know. We're not driven by that "Gotta keep goin', gotta keep goin', gotta put that record out on time." Y'know we're not really motivated by things that typically motivate people in the music business. It feels good.
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