“I’m not interested in placating anyone anymore. I’m just not going to do it,” grunts Spinnerette vocalist/guitarist Brody Dalle, discussing her latest endeavour’s eponymous debut.
Best known for her work with punk rockers The Distillers in the earlier part of this decade, Dalle returns from a two-year hiatus with what is easily her most adventurous, ambitious effort to date. Spinnerette features infectious melodies intertwined with subtle harmonies slashing across a bold mixture of subdued punk heart and straight-up pop/rock. The 13-track affair is nothing less than stunning both musically and in terms of approach; a more palatable evolution beyond The Distillers’ revered 2003 effort Coral Fang.
“I’ve moved on but other people haven’t,” she continues. “I have a very different life. I’m going out on a limb. I find when I don’t censor myself, more original music comes out. When you give a f— about what other people think, it stifles you.”
And to what does Dalle accredit this vast departure from her guttural roots into a more assertive personal pleasure? The same thing that eventually changes most lives: parenthood.
“I gave birth to a child. I don’t care about anyone else anymore,” she shrugs nonchalantly. “For nine months I didn’t feel like playing music. I couldn’t identify with it; wanted nothing to do with it. I picked curtains instead of writing songs. When my daughter was born, it was the most incredible thing but it was all-consuming. I couldn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror so I started writing music again. I’m a different person now, so (creating the album) was an accident that turned into a project that turned into a band.”
While it may seem like an eventuality to us average Joes, for others, becoming a parent has a greater impact when affecting an already-extraordinary life such as Dalle’s. The Melbourne, Australia native has released three album on powerful record labels, toured the world, married not one but two rock stars (Rancid’s Tim Armstrong and Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, her current conjugal cohort), staved off addictions of various degrees, seen her formative outfit The Distillers come, go and morph into current project Spinnerette.
Not bad for someone barely hitting her 30th birthday. Still, as Brody promotes Spinnerette’s release through Canada’s own Anthem Records, she admits to be most humbled by the power of maternology. Conceding that both maternity and music have reinvigorated her own inner-child, Dalle indirectly deems them her greatest muse.
“It changes everything irreversibly and it’s a good thing, especially for me. I miss my family like crazy but this is my job. I don’t know how to do anything else and if I didn’t do it, I’d walk this earth like half a person.”
