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...I'm pleased to have them at this table for the first time.
And some people on my staff are more than thrilled that they are here,
because they're from Georgia by the way.
What is it goin' on down in Georgia with you
and so many good musicians comin' out of there?
You know? There's something in the water down there?
I think it's the earth.
( Charlie Rose ) [ laughing ] It is? It's the soil?
It's the soil, yeah.
( CR ) Tell me your story.
I mean how you guys started together and how you have in a sense
just continued with a loyal fanbase...
in addition to the Grammy Awards and all that other stuff.
Well Emily moved down from Connecticut when she was like nine
and we met in elementary school...
( CR ) In Decatur?
Yeah in Decatur, Georgia.
And we met in elementary school and sort of stayed acquaintances for a while.
And then we got into high school and got into the choir together
and started to become friends and just started singin' together and jammin'.
From that point on it was you know...
we went to seperate colleges for a little while.
She went to Tulane and I went to Vanderbilt
and then we both transferred back to Emory in Atlanta.
And we just played.
We played at bars, we played everywhere we could get a gig.
( CR ) Yeah?
Started writing our own songs...
When did you know this was something you could make a life of?
The first time I picked up a guitar, absolutely.
I mean I came from a musical family and Amy as well
and I started writing songs when I was about nine.
As soon as I held a guitar I started writing stories about young women out on the streets
who were trying to make a living playing guitar.
And it was just kind of my path you know.
Even though I studied to be an English teacher
at the same time Amy and I were building a local following and a career.
And so I just made the decision to go with music and,
but it's the most natural thing in the world.
We all know the story of Dave Matthews...
( Emily Saliers ) He's awesome.
...and how that band is awesome how they got their start simply by letting people
tape them as the Grateful Dead did and develop a strong fan base.
Did you guys do some of the same thing?
Because you did not have the benefit of great radio play.
You're right we haven't. And we've always been open to taping
it's kind of our policy.
Whoever wants to come and tape the shows and share it with fans,
not to sell it but just to share it.
I mean we are a hootenanny band we're a grassroots band
you talk about coming from the Georgia music community,
it used to be we played Little Five Points Pub in Atlanta.
We were like the house band.
Our friends in the audience were musical.
One played flute, one was in a punk band, a whole motley crew.
They used to come up and join us onstage and we'd let people sing their own songs.
That's where we come from so...
sharing music and the whole idea of sharing the experience
whether you're a fan or whether you're a musician that's our philosophy.
So tape as many shows as you want
we feel like it's a good thing.
Where did the name come from?
We were opening for a band in Atlanta and we got this gig
and we used to be called Saliers and Ray and we just were like
'We need to think of a band name.'
so we got the dictionary out and scanned it
and saw the word indigo and were like 'That sounds cool.'
I mean we were twenty years old or something.
( CR ) So it's not *the* Indigo Girls it's Indigo Girls.
I don't know there's always an argument about it...
It doesn't matter...
( Amy Ray ) I have no idea what it's supposed to be.
The notion, the fact that you're both lesbians...
uh...but not together so to speak in a romantic way.
[ pounds table ] Do people care about that?
Do they know about it? Is it part of the appeal?
Does it have any impact at all on your life and your music?
Yeah, it does.
I mean the impact has changed through time, how it impacts us.
But in a way I think the *** community has been so supportive of us
that for that we get a lot of support from the *** community and we appreciate that.
It has held us back in many many ways you know,
but I think it's held us back just on radio and in the media.
But I think sexism has...
( CR ) You mean they wouldn't come and write about your albums? Or?
( AR ) They *way* they write about us
as much as anything else...
( CR ) It's more the personality and the lifestyle
than it is the music, is that it?
Sometimes. Or it's our audience
or it's just derogatory remarks or we can't get a break.
But I think it's sexism as much as homophobia honestly.
Because we're two women that have images that are not as glamorous,
like I'm more masculine maybe and it's not the kind of woman
that you necessarily want to write about
or that is necessarily easy to image.
And so I think in that way it's been hard,
but I think our political outspokenness has been the biggest hurdle.
On what issues?
( AR ) On anything. We're always doing a lot of activism...
( CR ) [ laughs ] Whether it's the environment or Iraq or whether it's...
( AR ) Gay rights or pro-choice...
( ES ) Anti-death penalty...
( AR ) I think it's the fact that we are outspoken.
I think it's women who are outspoken and sort of earnest,
for rock critics that's a hard one, they can't get their head around it.
They can understand Rage Against The Machine
but they don't understand the Indigo Girls.
You both write songs.
And frequently when you have the combination that you have
someone does the music, someone does the lyrics.
Or frequently someone plays and the other
is the vocalist and creates the music.
You two both write songs and both songs end up...on the album.
[ both agree ]
( CR ) There's more to this and help me understand what it is.
[ all laughing ]
Well there's a lot of reasons for it, our sensibilities...
( CR ) I realized I wasn't explaining that very well was I?
( ES) I mean our greatest strength is our differences absolutely,
we're a yin yang experience and...
( CR ) [ laughing ] It's a ying yang experience?
Ying yang experience no doubt.
Amy writes her songs, comes from her perspective,
her sensibilities, her influences, and the same thing for me.
And we also need that private, creative, artistic space.
Writing a song is a very vulnerable thing,
nine times out of ten...
( CR ) Because what you're trying to find the rawness of your own experience?
Exactly. You're putting out these lines
that most of them are terrible at the beginning.
or you're just working, honing it.
I mean for me a lot of times, unless you're doing a co-write
which I've done some of but that's a completely different thing,
you just need that...your own alone time
and your vulnerability of the creative experience.
But what Amy and I do together is arrange the songs.
So once the songs are written
and we know we have a project coming up like a new CD...
( CR ) Right.
...we get together at her house or my house
and we start talking about our harmony lines.
Our voices are in different parts of the musical spectrum so that works out well.
We talk about what instruments we want to play,
how we're gonna make it different
not try to fall back on the same arrangement tricks.
And then at that point after arranging the song
that's when it really becomes an Indigo Girls song.
And I've always felt like what Amy adds to my songs
makes my songs better than they are on their own. So...that's what we do.
( CR ) Do you feel likewise or not?
Yeah. I mean no no, not at all.
That's why we're together still.
That's why it's been twenty-somethin' years.
( CR ) Why?
Because the sum is greater than the parts.
( CR ) Now do you...together...
by this I mean do you hang out together?
Or is this simply you come together musically and then you both have your own distinct seperate lives...
Yeah.
...and don't see each other offstage.
Well we see each other, I mean yeah.
I live an hour from Atlanta in the country
and she lives in the city so we live different lives.
Are you a country girl and she's a city girl? Or is this just...
( AR ) I...Emily's a little bit of a country girl too.
( ES ) I got enough country in me. Yeah, love the country as well.
I see enough city on the road,
I don't want to see it when I get home.
( CR ) So you live on a farm?
I live in the woods actually.
( CR ) What does that mean 'I live in the woods'?
I live in the woods.
I live on a river in the woods.
( CR ) Yeah? ( AR ) You know in a house
it's beautiful.
Land and animals all around and stuff, so...
( CR ) Yeah. Now how many months of the year are you on the road?
When a record comes out we'll tour for a year and a year and a half.
We do it like in three weeks, three and a half week legs
and then we come home for a week and so we do get breaks.
But the touring schedule is about a year and a half sometimes.
We go to Europe. Been to Western Europe.
We've been to Australia.
Sometimes we do that but mostly we focus on the US.
( CR ) In your dreams...uh...what,
where would you want this to go that it hasn't been?
For me the biggest thing...
well I mean it's been... we've gotten so much.
But just in a business way it would be really nice
if something that we do that's more rock could actually get on rock radio.
It's so hard for a woman to get on rock radio these days.
That, in my dream, that's an area
that we've never been able to bust into.
I would love for that to be recognized.
'Cause we do a lot of rock stuff and that's part of what we do.
But as far as just on a spiritual level
or emotionally speaking it has fed me.
( CR ) It's a great ride.
Yeah. I couldn't ask for any more.
In fact it's enough, you know what I mean?
It's enough.
I just want to play music,
and that's what I'm gettin' to do.
And I could do that at any level. So I feel good about it.
( CR ) And who's influenced you the most? Musically?
Gosh we have so many different influences.
But for me the most over time, over the large expanse of time
has probably been Neil Young. The most, yeah.
( CR ) Really? Now why?
Just as a longevity thing.
I've been influenced at different points by Patti Smith or The Clash or James Taylor,
or all these underground bands.
But as far as on the long term I have stuck with him since first grade.
( CR ) Isn't he doin' a new tour that just started in London or something?
( AR ) I don't know.
( ES ) He's always touring, seems like.
And you, same influences or?
No...well I love Neil Young he's right up there.
But early on I'd say Joni Mitchell as far as directly inspirational
as a song craftsperson.
And then as far as emotionally, spiritually, music, and all the elements
I'd have to say Stevie Wonder is probably the one that most speaks to my heart.
( CR ) Because the lyrics?
It's just his lyrics...
( CR ) Or the sound?
...the supreme musicianship
the way his records are all different.
The songs that last for years and years and years.
And I like black-American music
and he's like the king of it to me in a way.
He just brings all the elements together.
( CR ) The following groups are represented on the packaging of your album
what do these groups mean to you how do they get involved?
Listen: Moveon.org, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
Rock The Vote Mtv, Independent...
I'm not sure who Rock The Vote is...that may be...not...
( ES ) They're...
( AR ) I think Mtv has...
( ES ) ...started that.
( AR ) ...it's like a...yeah.
( CR ) Independent Media Center, Amnesty International, Global Exchange,
Honor The Earth, Women's Action For New Directions, Sweatshop Watch,
International Abortion Rights Action League...