TRANSCRIPTION:
Jeremy Baldwin: And I am joined here in the studio in the WEMU studios by Jo Serrapere, who is here live in person in a slightly warm studio B at WEMU. Jo, welcome back to WEMU. It's been quite a few years, actually.
Jo Serrapere: It's been a few years. Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Jeremy Baldwin: I think that actually you and Johnny were in here, and I think you were my very first live in-studio guest on this show. So, it's like a full circle here in 2023. A lot has changed in all those years.
Jo Serrapere: And it's a little sweatier.
Jeremy Baldwin: Yeah, Yeah, it's a little warm. It's a warm day today.
Jo Serrapere: Yeah.
Jeremy Baldwin: Well, so you're coming in because there is a big show happening tomorrow night at the Ark, 7:30. Early Show at the Ark on Sunday night. This is on the 25th. You and your band The Lafawndas are playing with Rachel Brooke opening up. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about that show? And I want to know who all is playing in the Lafawndas.
Jo Serrapere: Okay, well, first of all, she's not opening. It's a split show. We're actually going first because she's louder.
Jeremy Baldwin: You're going to ease us into it.
Jo Serrapere: Yeah, I just I was thinking of how the whole show sounded. I was like, okay, we should go first, because we're more of a Western,swing, kind of country. I mean, we're a little loud. But she's got a lot more rocking stuff, so we're like, "Okay, well, we'll do it that way." So, the LaFawndas now because I sort of rebrought the LaFawndas back during the pandemic when, you know, we were kind of stuck not playing I was just playing with some friends in his yard in Detroit. And he's a pedal steel player. That's Joel Jackson. And I was playing with him and Lindsey McCaw, who's a fiddler.
Jeremy Baldwin: She's so great.
Jo Serrapere: Oh, amazing. They are some of the best musicians I've ever played with, so we were playing in the backyard, and I thought, "Oh, let's revive the Lafawndas." And so, we've got Joel. We've got Lindsey McCaw. She's from also the Corn Potato String Band--
Jeremy Baldwin: Right. Right.
Jo Serrapere: And Aaron Lewis, who's probably the best musician I've ever met in my life. We have Jason Oberliesen on bass and John Devine, my partner of course, and then Stuart Tucker, my longtime drummer and big brother, I call him.
Jeremy Baldwin: So, that's the current lineup of the Lafawndas. So, I'm glad I asked that. So, you guys are going to open up, and you got it kind of a lot of more Western-sounding, swingy, kind of country stuff?
Jo Serrapere: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, most of it is my original stuff, but, you know, we got a little bit more, you know, the pedal steel always makes everything sound more Western swing, and I do some jazzy stuff.
Jeremy Baldwin: Everything sounds better with pedal steel.
Jo Serrapere: It does. It really does.
Jeremy Baldwin: Well, I also want to ask you...well, you got a lot going on, actually. It's been a kind of a prolific time, I guess, sort of during and after the pandemic.
Jo Serrapere: Yes.
Jeremy Baldwin: But you're working on getting ready to release a new double album, right?
Jo Serrapere: Yes.
Jeremy Baldwin: Well, tell us a little about that.
Jo Serrapere: Well, okay. So, it's called "The Beautiful Ones." I'm in the middle of a Kickstarter. I have one week left.
Jeremy Baldwin: Okay.
Jo Serrapere: For the Kickstarter. So, if anybody's interested, we did meet our goal a couple of days ago.
Jeremy Baldwin: Which is so fantastic!
Jo Serrapere: Which is great. But I set the goal really, really low. I took out the production costs and all this because I was checking, you know, you don't get any money if you don't reach your goal. So, I was like, Oh, you know, I got insecure. And I was like, "Okay, I'm going to just lower it so we could use more money. But now, I don't have to worry about getting the album out.
Jeremy Baldwin: It will get out.
Jo Serrapere: It will get out.
Jeremy Baldwin: Yeah, it will get out.
Jo Serrapere: So, the album, there are. 22 new songs there. It's not really country at all. It's a lot. You know, it's more of an autobiography because a lot of the songs that I've written have had characters. They weren't necessarily me. All the songs on this are first person, It's all me, and it's a lot of the styles that I grew up with. So, I have like one song that's kind of based on Nirvana. I have The Cramps, I have a Beatles. But it flows well.
Jeremy Baldwin: Yeah, it runs the whole gamut of your background. And that's two discs. I mean, that's a lot of songs. How many songs on this?
Jo Serrapere: 22. Yeah, I figure nobody's buying single CDs anymore, so why not?
Jeremy Baldwin: Just go for two?
Jo Serrapere: Yeah. Or not.
Jeremy Baldwin: And did you feel like the last few years sort of like puts you in this direction of going deep into the personal, like, or confessional kind of songwriting?
Jo Serrapere: Yeah, well, I've always done that. Yeah, like when I started, like, my first record was, like, half fun and half really deep and dark. And I didn't think it worked on one record, you know? But I've always done that. And so I've always when I've put out records, it's just the lighter stuff seem to be more--
Jeremy Baldwin: Flow up there?
Jo Serrapere: Yeah, Yeah. So there's a couple of songs on here I wrote for a couple of years ago or years ago, so I've always wrote that kind of stuff, but the confessional stuff, unless you're playing. A really small room and, you know, it doesn't always fly.
Jeremy Baldwin: Yeah, right. So, you put them all together onto on double disk or one set?
Jo Serrapere: Well, it's both.
Jeremy Baldwin:Yes.
Jo Serrapere: It's, like, when I went in and recorded it, I did one day where was all the confessional stuff. And then, the next day, I brought in a band and we rocked it.
Jeremy Baldwin: You did Cramps.
Jo Serrapere: We did Cramps.
Jeremy Baldwin: Fantastic. Well, Jo has actually brought her guitar with her today and has promised to play us something. And what are you thinking about playing for the people?
Jo Serrapere: Well, I thought since I'm going to be in Ypsilanti/ Ann Arbor area, and I am, I decide I'm still deciding whether or not to play the song tomorrow because, like I said, the show is a little bit more rocking. But I thought, I want to play one slow song. And so, I thought I'd play this one because I don't get to play it very often, unless I'm in this area. And this is a song that I wrote for Garrison Keillor's show a number of years ago. They asked me to write a song about Ann Arbor. So I said, "Okay!" So, this is the song. It's called "Ann Arbor Days."
Jeremy Baldwin: All right, here's Jo Serrapere.
Jeremy Baldwin: Jo Serrapere live in the studio. That was beautiful, Jo. Gosh!
Jo Serrapere: Thank you.
Jeremy Baldwin: That put me into a nice little space listening to that. Jo Serrapere live in the studio, and you can see her live appearing tomorrow, Sunday at the Ark at a 7:30 show appearing on a bill with Rachel Brooke. And Rachel Brooke is playing with full band, which is exciting too.
Jo Serrapere: Yes, the Rachel Brooke band, which also include some of my members from my band.
Jeremy Baldwin: So, a little crossover going on between sets.
Jo Serrapere: We share some band members, and we're good friends. So we thought, "Let's do a show!"
Jeremy Baldwin: Well, this sounds like a great night of music out there at the Ark. I encourage everyone to think about that one. I do want to ask you before we let you get out of here. You've got other stuff going on, too. Stella has been quite active lately. They have a newish record.
Jo Serrapere: Yes, we have. We've put out a new record on Halloween, which was appropriate because I have a song on there. That's "Mr. Ghost."
Jeremy Baldwin: You have a ghost song on every album don't you?
Jo Serrapere: I do. All of my records are about death--death and sex.
Jeremy Baldwin: But in the afterlife along with death.
Jo Serrapere: And the afterlife. Yeah. I'm kind of into that.
Jeremy Baldwin: It's a great new record. We've been playing that here some. So, Stella is playing around still. And you're playing with the LaFawndas. Any other projects? I mean, I know you're just finishing up this new double record. What's next on the horizon?
Jo Serrapere: Well, it'll be over. But I was going to say I'm playing at the Livernois festival.
Jeremy Baldwin: In minutes.
Jo Serrapere: Yeah. Actually I probably played there an hour ago.
Jeremy Baldwin: Speaking of ghosts, your ghost self is speaking from the past. Well, all right. Well, there's one last thing. You brought in a new song, a special preview of the new album, which, once again, you're still raising money to get it out, although you've met your goal. But tell us about the song.
Jo Serrapere: Well, this song, actually, we'll play this one tomorrow. This is the one crossover song I was trying to think, "What song on my new record could I bring in? But we're also going to play it tomorrow. So this is called "A Glorious Better Day." I wrote it when we were in lockdown, probably the first couple of weeks. You know what? Now I'm thinking about it. I must have written it before I broke my arm because I broke my arm shortly after the lockdown.
Jeremy Baldwin: Good timing!
Jo Serrapere: Yeah, which was great timing. So, this song, it's just about how times looked really, really dark, but I do believe we're evolving toward a deeper thing, a deeper love. Like, I think we don't have a whole lot of time left because we're killing the planet and everything. And what I know is, you know, the nice slow evolution toward, you know, toward a deeper whatever, that's great. But we don't have a lot of time.
Jeremy Baldwin: We need to speed it up.
Jo Serrapere: We need to speed it up. And sometimes, the fastest way to get there is through trauma.
Jeremy Baldwin: Right. Right.
Jo Serrapere: So, this is just...maybe this will take us deeper, and that's what the song's about.
Jeremy Baldwin: Well, let's hope that that's the, you know, maybe the good side of all of this we're going through.
Jo Serrapere: Yes, exactly.
Jeremy Baldwin: Some sort of evolution.
Jo Serrapere: Get your marshmallows out while it burns. And hold tight!
Jeremy Baldwin: All right, well, let's hear it. Here's a brand-new Jo Serrapere for you. Thanks for coming in, Jo.
Jo Serrapere: Thank you.
RESOURCES:
Jo & The LaFawndas @ The Ark on June 25
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