Brandi Carlile, singer-songwriter: I believe in the separation of church and state

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? the History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts with the European Athletics Championships the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport and the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists More Than The Score from the BBC World Service.

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1:16Hello, I'm Mark Savage, the BBC music correspondent, and this is The Interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. I'm disappointed in him. I dealed that four times and then you go home and you see just attack a nursing home in Kiev. I said, what the hell was that all about? I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was defining me, but I was still 15 years old and I did not know who I was. I love singing and so my goal was always to do better and better at it. Today we are spending trivians on war and peanuts on peace.

1:55For this interview, I met the American singer-songwriter, producer and performer Brandi Carlisle at her record label's offices in London. A country music icon, she's won 11 Grammy Awards as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. You're going to hear about how a breakthrough performance at the Grammys in 2019 transformed her career and saw her go on to work with Elton John and Miley Cyrus and play the iconic Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival. A high-profile advocate for the LGBTQ plus community, she tells me about the impact her sexuality had on the relationship with her mother and how they eventually bonded over country music mother and daughter duo The Judds, going on to form their own tribute act.

2:41Brandy Carlisle was also the key to the rehabilitation of singer Joni Mitchell after she suffered a near fatal brain aneurysm. Brandy organised intimate music nights that she called Joni Jams to help the musician reconnect with her songs. Now she's written a tribute to her friend and shares the nerves she felt the first time she played it to the folk legend. As she releases her eighth album, Returning to Myself, she reveals that for the first time she went into the recording studio without any songs prepared. Instead, she says she had nothing but a whole bunch of feelings. The result is a deeply personal record, covering everything from her childhood to parenthood and politics, including her fears that the ruling that recognised same-sex marriage could come under threat in today's America.

3:28It's essentially been in the back of my mind as a deep-seated fear for a long time. And when I saw that election night unfolding, it just came to the forefront of my mind in a way that I had to sing about. Oh God, it felt so good to get that out. All of that, just trembling fear and rage, just like out of my body and into that psalm. I believe so profoundly in separation of church and state and in the dangers of theocracy creeping into the corners of a democracy are always at the edge of my thinking. Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Brandi Carlisle. I had success kind of later in life than a lot of people do in terms of like you know I got that moment on the Grammys where I got to go on and sing the joke and then from that point on everything was different for me the size of the shows I was playing but I think the most like stark contrast was that I had overnight I had opportunities I just had this river of opportunity that was just kind of flowing into my life and I didn't know how long it was going to last and so I said yes to everything.

4:42And then when I wasn't saying yes, I was brainstorming other projects, how I could form sidebands, how I could do this collaboration. So I wonder if this person would meet me. I wonder if I could produce a record on this person. And I just, I wanted to use that momentum in my life. I just kind of woke up one day and knew I was at the end of it. And that, yes, the opportunities might not keep coming one day. Maybe the phone won't ring, but I don't want to miss like out on my kids childhood or like um on the part of my life when my body and mind are most in alignment you know i don't want to just be so busy and so fragmented in my mind that i can't singularly focus and i guess like i remember watching that performance in the middle of the night in the uk when we're covering the grammy awards and every couple of years there's one performance where you set up and you go oh wow this is there's something happening here were you aware of that feeling in the room itself yeah yeah I was really aware of it and I was aware of the possibility of it going into it because I wasn't a kid you know I'd already been on the road for so long for so so so long and played my music in so many different scenarios that I knew what the opportunity was and i knew i was really ready for it like you know i knew i know how to plug in a guitar and stand on stage and sing a song with from my toes to the top of my head yeah and so i felt like that's all i had to do i just needed one chance to get seen like that and that people would get it did people comment on it immediately afterwards i got phone calls all day long i got thousands of text messages so many emails from like famous people that I couldn't fathom reaching out to me and and everything you know and the reason I wanted to ask about the Grammys is that I felt the exact same thing standing in front of the pyramid stage this summer when you played You Without Me and you know it was what just after lunchtime and that cried is not a quiet cried but they went silent throughout that song and I cried there were other people around me crying parents in particular and obviously it's an incredibly special song to you and it's about your daughter right it was based on one of those moments that you have with your children where you think you know them maybe you even think on some level they're a part of you or that they are a version of you or whatever yeah and and then one day something happens and it could be a big thing or it could be a really small thing where you see them and they've departed you they're just doing something independent of you and it's like it's the voice they're using it's how they move in their body it's what they're declaring but there's something about them that is just not of you or the way that you raise them or they're taking a chance it's not nature or nurture It's them, an individual.

7:41And you can't step in. You can't step in. You're not allowed. It's like behind the veil. And I've started to see those moments. And it's just like, it's soul crushing. But at the same time, you're like overwhelmed with pride. And there's such a funny two feelings to feel at the same time that they had to be a song that everybody can understand. And ever since put that song out, the you without me stories that I've heard from people are just like my favorite part. Is there one that sticks with you? There are so many. I mean, my favorite one that I heard recently was this guy that told me that he was dancing on a dance floor with his daughter.

8:22It was like a big like work thing. And there was actually a really cool DJ. It was Mark Ronson. And it was this big, cool thing happening. And his daughter, who is like nine. nine, found a group of girls that were 14, 15 and dancing. And she joined the girls. And he said he was watching her, watch her body and try to move like them and become aware of her clothes and, and not want him near her. And he was like, that's a you without me moment where you just you're so afraid you want to step in, you want to make sure she doesn't get her feelings hurt. But you're also so proud that she's trying and you know and you've got to stand outside the bubble and watch this moment happen but i think that those transition into huge risks that our kids take into their teenage years the fact that they're gonna leave us really soon and um yeah what about you when you were growing up was there because your mom sang i guess so you must have seen live music but is there opportunity to see other things what do you mean other things like other bands I loved going to we went to a few country concerts when I was a kid actually my first three concerts were the Judds nice I saw them when I was 9, 10 and 12 and it was amazing and it was actually really good for me and my mum because we had a bit of an awkward relationship in what way?

9:50well I think I was already pretty gay right even then and um i think my mom was just young and didn't really know had never met a gay person i'd never met a gay person no and there was so little context at that point on how to yeah navigate that world for an adult parent or for no god you as a 12 year old all the ways she thought she was going to relate to me she couldn't i didn't want to do makeup or learn to shave my legs or have long hair and she was just like what do i do with this child i guess i take her to see music and then the judds being a mother-daughter duo made us decide to like kind of cosplay the judds like we started we kind of dressed like them and sang like them and just and we developed another level of friendship based on that so it's their judds are kind of important You're listening to The Interview from the BBC World Service.

10:52People shaping our world from all over the world.

11:18And in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport. And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service.

11:57Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

12:08For this episode of The Interview, I'm speaking to Brandi Carlisle. I met with her at her record label offices in London, where her guitar case was carefully propped up against the wall. She never lets it out of her sight. We bonded quickly over two slightly strange pieces of shared history. Both of us survived meningitis as children, and at school we were each teased for looking like the Wonder Years actor Fred Savage. Well, with the ice broken, Brandy opened up about all aspects of her life and her career. Let's return to my conversation with Brandy Carlisle. In terms of making this particular album, it feels like there's a lot of new or different colors that you're using like instrumentally the way that you sing nothing like nothing off-putting but it feels like you're you're trying out new stuff yeah and what was that process like how did that happen by accident or were you searching for that i was searching for it and it came naturally because of a lot of this stuff that I'm recalling about my life is the same thing that's happening to me musically.

13:20I was revisiting things that I used to lay on my bed before or cry to, like the Philadelphia soundtrack. And just kind of, I put myself back in that single wide mobile home. And you know, my first instrument was a Casio keyboard from Toys R Us when I was 12. And I had to teach myself to play piano. And one of the best ways to teach yourself how to play piano is to put your keyboard on like a synth setting. This is so funny because I've actually never thought of this. It's never occurred to me. I haven't said this before. So this is like exactly what you were just talking about. And I got this keyboard and I had the Philadelphia soundtrack.

14:07and I would put my keyboard on the synthesizer and play Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen. It was like falling in love with Elton John, demanding a keyboard, and then realizing I was nowhere near as talented enough to learn Elton John songs. So switching into synth and learning to play piano by holding synth chords, which is probably the reason why when I started doing that on this record, I felt 13, 14. and it made me write things differently and do things differently because, you know, I went into the studio with no songs. Which is unusual to you, right? Yes. Really unusual. I've always just worked my songs like clay, play them on the road, test them for our audiences, change verses, cut bridges, everything just based on the way a crowd reacts to me.

14:58Right. Is this working? Read a room, read a room. Like I know how to read a room of an entertainer. and then I would take that hard-earned room read material home practice it it's not waste our money by not knowing what we're doing when you get in the studio and this album was not like that I went in with nothing but a whole bunch of feelings and some weird sense of nostalgia and a midlife crisis and one poem and came out with with an album did writing it in that way give you almost a shortcut to those feelings like because you were right up against them and you weren't refining them or testing them no they were just coming out and i had this huge lump in my throat the whole time i was embarrassed to sing the songs in front of everybody i thought I would cry.

15:49I did sometimes. I just struggled with it in ways that are just like really new, you know. When I finished By The Way, I Forgive You, those songs were deeply personal too. But when I took them out on the road and played them for people, that's when I started to get emotional because I'd see other people in the audience crying and stuff like that. Like I've never like been made to cry with my own lyrics before, like by myself. It's embarrassing. But it was like, that was what happened. They were just coming out. And they were mostly old childhood memories as they pertain to now. And I guess there's this thing that's maybe happening there where that young girl was feeling like an outsider and unsure of herself.

16:43And now that you've got to a place where you have some stability and you've got a sense of who you are, you can kind of solve those wounds for her. And she's still inside you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's a little like, you know, when you're growing older because you're no longer embarrassed of your youth. And then it's one day you look at it and you think of yourself as one of your kids or something. And like, yeah, that's where I'm at right now. I guess it's not very hip, but, you know, that's what 44 looks like to me. Also, I never really have been allowed to be hip, so. No? No, you know.

17:24And I guess that takes us to the song Journey, because there's a line in there where you say, she's a wild woman and she makes me feel tame. No, yeah. She is a wild woman. She'll drink you under the table. Yeah? She's 83, she'll drink you under the table. That's cool. It's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she loves Cadillac margaritas and plain blackjack. And she is a wild woman. And by wild, I just name unpredictable, untameable, unknowable sometimes. And it's amazing. And you say in the song that she doesn't suffer fools and that she won't mince her words. So there must have come a point where you had to play her this song.

18:05and like waiting on tenterhooks for the reaction. I drove up to her house and she was sitting at her desk in her bedroom and looking in an old-fashioned mirror, putting butterfly clips in her hair as Joni Mitchell does and just listening to the song with this furrowed brow just not looking at me and not reacting or whatever. And I didn't know if she would like it or if she would get it. or it's also it's not in time and she's really rhythmically stringent so but uh she just this big smile spread across her face after the first tagline of the last chorus so she made me wait a good minute before she before she nodded at me and grand like this is great that's fair that must have been such a relief yeah yeah because presumably it doesn't go on the album if she says no no it was on yeah yeah all right i was doing it good for you yeah it's a tribute yeah it's a tribute but whether or not she saw it as a tribute was questionable because she had to be in on the joke you know it's like when i when i tell you i love you and you tell me okay you know that's that life we've never talked about that but every time i'll leave i'm like love you john she goes okay i think the thing i was most nervous about playing for her is that you're not supposed to get johnny mitchell she doesn't want to be like understood yeah yeah if you assumed that you do or you profess to, I think you might get an eyebrow raise that nobody wants.

19:36I want to ask about both Church and State and War With Time. Church and State you recorded on the night of the election. Yeah. And it's obviously a very deeply felt song and you're quoting Jefferson in it. What was the set of circumstances that led you to that outpouring? I mean, I knew when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died that there was a possibility that the Supreme Court of the United States would overturn Obergefell and, you know, betray that precedent because they overturned Roe. And I have always been afraid of what that means for me and my family and my kids, you know, my wife. She's from here.

20:19It's essentially been in the back of my mind as a deep-seated fear for a long time. And when I saw that election night unfolding, it just came to the forefront of my mind in a way that like I had to sing about. The band was there. It was really the only time that we just like plugged in and played a song as a band and started like that was the most traditional construction of a song. And. Oh, God, it felt so good to get that out. All of that, just trembling fear and rage just like out of my body and into that psalm. I believe so profoundly in separation of church and state and in the dangers of theocracy creeping into the corners of a democracy or always at the edge of my thinking.

21:16And actually, I had a terrible experience recently where my oldest, Evangeline, she's 11. And I've been talking about, like I said, since Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. That's the other thing I figure you are when you have kids. It's like you and your spouse are having conversations and you think they're not listening and they're listening. And they're drawing their own concrete sheets and you can't get involved and answer the questions because they're not asking them because they don't want you to know they're listening. and so i had been talking about it for years and so for years she's been hearing this and she says the other night at the dinner table she goes hey um she's trying to make light of it all she goes hey you guys if uh if they overturn gay marriage she goes we can just get in your boat right mom and she quote she says quote bebop on up to canada so i'm like like we don't need to bebop anywhere like you know and Catherine's like well if we went anywhere we go back to my home or whatever and then Elijah goes I don't want to go to Canada or anywhere and I go no no we guys you know and before I could say anything my oldest like snaps at my youngest and goes Elijah it's better than not having a mommy or a mama and I was like oh for years you thought that if this happens like we've been saying we think it's going to that it like orphans you yeah that you don't have parents and you have not been asking me any questions about that you've just been carrying this around for years but if this thing happens you're like alone and it was just i felt so ashamed for not explaining it to her and i felt so angry about something that archaic and anacritic even being a possibility in the country i live in yeah let alone legitimately on the horizon there's a lot of power and anger i think and that's what we're seeing Yeah.

23:05Yeah, there's a lot of power in anger you can hear in that song. Well, that's true. I guess, yeah, you've got to get angry back sometimes, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe not a lighter note, a question about AI. Do you feel that artists should be transparent if they're using AI as part of their creative process? I think it depends on what context. I think that artists that I'm listening to, you could tell. Yeah. And you said. But in terms of, you know, pop and electronic music, I don't have an opinion. I think I fall on the side of the line that, like, Rick Rubin is on, where I agree with him that AI doesn't have a point of view.

23:53And your album is telling personal stories. So how can a computer ever do that? Yeah, it can only replicate it. It doesn't have a point of view. It's just a, you know, it's just a tool of synthesis. It's just a data analyzer and consolidator. And data comes from, the content comes from something or someone with a point of view that doesn't have one. So I find it uninteresting in every way. The only interesting thing that's ever been presented to me in terms of like, as an excuse for the possibility around AI that I like, is the possibility of being able to have a song translated in multiple languages, the singer's voice.

24:36Isn't that interesting? That is nice, isn't it? That's cool. The thing I like about it, the thing I like, though, is that Americans, we can get so landlocked and so nationalist that we forget that other languages and other cultures exist. And I love the idea of writing songs that everyone can understand.

24:57Thank you for listening to the interview from the BBC World Service. You'll find more in-depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including episodes with the cycling legend Sir Bradley Wiggins, US President Donald Trump, and education activist Malala Yousafzai. Until the next time, goodbye for now.

25:29If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? the History Bureau Putin and the apartment bombs listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts with the European Athletics Championships the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport and the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists More Than The Score from the BBC World Service.

26:28Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.