Deborah Martin and Jill Haley Interview With The Final On Vinyl Podcast

I had a very interesting and enlightening conversation about music and the environment with Deborah Martin and Jill Haley regarding their recent release The Silence of Grace. 

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Transcript

Speaker 0:02

Hello everybody, this is Keith "MuzikMan" Hannnaleck The Final on Vinyl Podcast, and today we are with Jill Haley and Deborah Martin, and we're going to talk a little bit about the recent album released on the uh April 23rd this year on the Spotted Packery label. It's called The Silence of Grace. How are we doing, Jill?

Speaker 1 0:24

Oh, I'm doing great, Keith. Thank you so much for having me on.

Speaker 0:28

Oh, thank you for coming on. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 0:30

Sure.

Speaker 0:31

So I really enjoyed this album and um you know the tie-in of nature and music in the new age genre is prolific, I would think, at this point and um interesting. Um years ago, um I got an environmental science degree and uh I I never went into the field because I ran into all the paperwork and bureaucracy that just turned me off totally, so I changed career paths. And uh I just got through watching a David Attenborough um documentary on um the environment that just shook me to my core, it really did.

Speaker 2 1:12

Right.

Speaker 1:12

We're just we're just on a path of the fifth grade extinct extinction at this point, and it's that all ties in and uh the this music just you know really really just reawakens me every time I hear it. And it I was just wondering if that's the way you and Deborah Martin felt when you decided to get together and make this music and and came up with the title and all of the track titles.

Speaker 1 1:41

Well, um my my my personal uh story with music is I I do a lot about nature. I do a lot of uh national park as I'm as I know you know, Keith, because you've reviewed them. Um national national park music. So I'm already very attuned to nature, and of course, I mean you can go back through history and you know, Beethoven wrote the Pastoral Symphony. So much so much of our history of music is connected with nature. Um so there is a huge connection there. When Deborah and I met, um it was actually at a Zone Music Reporter conference and we um chatted and um actually she said I was I was performing there that year and she was um she loved the sound of the over an English horn. So she asked me to work on a project with her. So um the titles were um of the pieces on the recording actually come from several places we visited in the Pacific Northwest. And we went in Fox, um, you know, in just beautiful nature places and places like Green Forests, so like Verdant Sanctuary was one title. And uh Deborah, are you here?

Speaker 3 2:48

I am. I finally got it finally connected me. I don't know what the problem was. That's the most bizarre thing. I've never had that happen before, but here I am. Hello.

Speaker 2 2:59

And I'm so thankful.

Speaker 1 3:04

We were just talking about where the inspiration for the titles came from and the and the title of the album. So I'm gonna just hand it over to you because I've been talking for two months.

Speaker 3 3:14

Oh, that's great. Oh, Jill, that's wonderful. Did you already give him some of the things about it? We were we really just kind of came up with the titles together. There was a couple that Jill was really wanting to have, like from Fire into Water, she was we had gone up to Mount Tabor, uh, that was one of our hikes up there, and because it was an old uh dormant volcano, she said, Well, there's also water here, and because they have a big water reservoir also, and so she thought from fire into water it would be really cool that after the volcano has erupted and calmness comes. So that was really cool, and that was a that was a fun one to work on. Um Verdant Sanctuary was very special, I think, to you, Jill. And please interrupt if I'm not saying that correctly. That she was really inspired by the the greenery of forest. Green is, I guess, one is her favorite color, and so the trees and everything inspired for that. And it really does feel like you're in a a forested sanctuary when you listen to that music. We I I feel very strongly that we were able to capture the energy and the essence of each of those song titles, but yet tell a complete story from beginning to end of a whole existence of a world of nature in all of it the surroundings and how we are a part of that. Uh we evolve as humans, but we have become very heavily imbued with those essences and the elements and the uh just the nature stuff. So each song and for example, Indian Heaven. Um I've worked for many years with uh uh different medicine men, uh mostly of the White Mountain Apache, and they're involved in a lot of the recordings I've done over the years, and I wanted to honor the American Indian and especially the Apache, and Edgar, one of the medicinal, he passed away last year. And so I thought, well, you know, what do Indians think when they go when they go to the next realm? Uh uh what would their Indian heaven be like? And that was really the premise for that song. And one of his daughters died of COVID last year. They're doing an honoring, as a matter of fact, this August at the reservation, and I will be traveling there to be a part of that. But um they uh I wanted to kind of feel what would that be like if i if they were to pass to the next realm. What would their heaven be like for them? And it just started these sounds started coming out and then I had Bill was here and I said, Okay, do your magic with the you know, she recorded an Oval and English horn part and then um I added percussion after that and and just kind of it just felt very otherworldly and yet very respectful and honoring to them. So that's how that song came about. But as I said, they all tell a story of each one um about nature and about if you were just to sit still and be quiet, what would come into your presence or your being to allow you to meld with that. So kind of exciting. We had a lot of fun, I think, working on the project. It was kind of it was a whirlwind.

Speaker 2 6:40

Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 6:41

Oh my god. I can't wait for our next one for yeah.

Speaker 6:46

Oh good, you're gonna do another one. That's great. You know, um regardless of our strong connection to nature and um you know, the the people that have taught us over the years like the Indians, um we're still on a path of destruction. And there's only thirty-five percent left of the wild in on the gl in the globe, the entire globe, which is shocking. And um it's crazy. And it's funny, last night I had a dream that I was talking to a group of people and I was very emphatic in the conversation saying that you know, we should have been sixty years ago should have been uh all set with the sustainable solar technologies that should have been in place back then. And the first electric car was built in nineteen eleven. That was my journey.

Speaker 3 7:44

Wow, that's awesome. But it is very tragic and shocking. Um we really thought about this project, I think, as a as a art form in its truest sense to bring back that understanding, I think, of nature. And and of course the photography and the booklet that we did to accompany that were photographs that were taken from the places we visited. And Daniel, of course, our art director at Spotted Pecquery, he he did a fantastic job of making them look like even another art form, turned our photos into like oil paintings and watercolors to give that sense of a a whole complete artful picture. And uh we really wanted to go back to that, back to the simple, simple times, simple compositions, but yet very deep and very um meaningful and emotional. We were able, I think, to capture those things. And Jill, if I if you don't agree with any of that, please.

Speaker 1 8:43

No, but I just I just want to get back to the the issue of the the climate and the and just I mean it's you mentioned, Keith, that you're you you were shocked. I'm I'm actually not shocked. We are a short term thinking, selfish people and and and I'm not surprised that that this is happening. I'm just very sad about it. And I ten years ago or whatever when I went to Glacier, I w went to see the glaciers before they melted because I knew they were gonna melt and I I just every project I do I see I see evidence of of the climate, obviously affecting the flooding and the fires. I mean it's just it's relentless and and the short-sightedness of of uh of our world, but most and our country especially is just makes me ill. So but yes, doing music about nature as c as Deborah said is one little thing we can do to say, hey, this is still great, guys, let's take care of it, and that's you know, at least makes us feel like we're doing a little something.

Speaker 9:39

Yeah, it's uh music is definitely the universal language of the world and has no borders, no lines in the sands, everybody gets it, you know. And it's a wonderful way to communicate. Um, if you're communicating like you folks did through instrumental works, um there has to be very strong titles to the tracks, and then like you mentioned, uh Deborah, with the artwork portraying different scenes nature, getting that message across and hoping you know, hoping that it sinks in while people are listening and light bulbs go off, you know.

Speaker 1 10:15

Yeah, and if people I think a lot of a lot of people listen to our music are already worried about the climate.

Speaker 3 10:22

They they are and and I yeah, and just in awareness, I think making people more aware uh and if people took more action. Uh I've heard so many folks say, Oh, this is terrible, this is this is just shocking, and you know, all those descriptive words. But then you watch what they do and they're not congruent. The actions are not congruent with what they're saying. So how do you bring that together so that there's action that matches those words? And and that's a hard thing. It really is difficult to make those kind of uh choices. I've I've seen so many changes in nature over the years and it is very sad to me. And I can I can relate to it in the music and hope that people will hear it and say, Oh, this is b we need to protect this, we need to do more to not uh pardon my saying, rape the earth so to speak, and and destroy what we have. Um and what's I've been yeah, I've been hearing in the news a lot of folks are immigrating away from where they're at because of the water. There's no water. Yeah. And and so they're it's it's bad. It's gonna that's our most precious resource.

Speaker 11:38

Right. That's from where once we came, you know. All life.

Speaker 3 11:43

Yes. And and it's gonna be really difficult uh to to come up with some really nice solutions for that. Um I don't know. Not an easy answer.

Speaker 11:55

It has to be in conjunction with nature. Uh we can't synthesize water. We can synthesize a lot of things, but one thing we can't do, right? So Yeah.

Speaker 3 12:04

We have to protect it. We have to protect it and and not and not put chemicals in it and not do things that that pollute it. I mean that's you know, that's hard.

Speaker 12:16

So So you know, y your contributions to that effort is very important. You know, you're doing your part, you know, and hopefully you're doing other things, you know, in your home like recycling. I've been an avid recycler for forever, really.

Speaker 3 12:31

Oh absolutely. And no plastic. We've gotten I've for a long time now I've been an advocate of no no plastic. We don't I we have a remaining stock of some plastic trash bags, but I uh am using them up and I'm using paper. Um and uh when I go to the stores I bring my own bags I have for a long time and they say, Do you want plastic or paper? And I always say neither. I brought my own. And if they say well you can't because because of COVID, they're saying, Well you can't we can't let you bag it in here, I say, Oh that's fine, just put it all back in the I put it back in the cart, I bag it in my car. I've been doing that for for the last couple of years. I was doing it before COVID because I I don't like the you know, there's some states, there's some places where you go to the store and if you want a bag you have to pay for it and I think that's a good thing because that that helps sub that money goes back into efforts of reducing that. Um in my travel in in Nepal or in India, uh they don't use plastic. It's kind of forbidden and if there is plastic bills, they beat it into the ground till it's just gone. Simla is a town that I went to and it there's big signs with a big red line drawn through it with a picture of a plastic bag not allowed. And I think that's a great thing that should be happening 'cause there's just too much of it.

Speaker 13:58

True. You know. Well I'm in a state that's like that. Charge you for a bag and we bring our own bags in, so you know, if everybody starts making it law or, you know, required, then we don't have to worry about it anymore, right?

Speaker 3 14:12

Yeah, we we have to work together. One thing that I have been seeing that I I feel positive about though is there are a lot of companies out there now that are taking recycles or taking plastic and they're making clothes out of them. And I love that. Because they're taking instead of going into the trash, there's clothes. There's things that can be made with it uh that are not harmful, that are completely reusable. It's not going out into the ground, it's being reused in fashions. And I've seen I've seen houses made with plastic bottles, it's amazing what people will do to try and be creative. But it has to be done together globally, I think, to make a difference. Um but every person that does it helps. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 14:57

So it was a lot of fun recording that. Oh, and only two weeks. That's not a very long time period to record an album. So it came together that fast. You just you both partnered in the studio and it's got into a flow and w went and recorded, or was there a a pre-planned thing?

Speaker 1 15:16

Well, what what I what I told um Deborah I like to do is actually not do too much pre-planning. I like to go visit places and see what the what gift the place gives me. So she took took me to the grotto, which is a beautiful sanctuary in Portland, Oregon, where there's just beautiful trees, and that's where I got the verdant sanctuary title from all the trees growing over. And then in the evening I'd go back to her home and uh she has a lovely studio, and I said, excuse me, I gotta go make up some music. So I disappear in there for a couple hours and record some um stuff on the keyboards, and then I'd play them for her, and we'd talk about what what we wanted to use, and then um the next day we'd go out and walk around some more and I'd come back and make up some more stuff, and then Deborah did her I call it her wizardry. She did her magic, and then I added the little old bone English horn, and yeah, so definitely two weeks was plenty of time, and this week uh unfortunately we have to even try to cram it in a week, but I think we also are used to working with each other now, so I think we'll be a little more efficient with our time.

Speaker 3 16:18

Oh yeah, I agree with everything that she said there. Uh it was easy going out one day into nature the next day working on the music. It went together very seamlessly, I felt, and then I just spent a couple days just recording her uh Jill with all the English horn and oboe on every song, and then when she had to leave, then I was able to sit and you know work on the arrangements and take all the parts that we had put together. It was great. It was really nice. I think we'll be quickly able to jump into that space when she's here for the week.

Speaker 16:52

So um maybe next time you can put it out on vinyl so I can do that.

Speaker 3 16:59

Well, we could certainly discuss that. I'll I'll have to talk with my other two label partners and we'll see if we can somehow maybe do both with it. It'll depend on the course the time length and everything. There's you know how that goes. But uh uh different formats, of course, and uh maybe we would be able to, I don't know. We'll that's definitely a possibility. So we'll see.

Speaker 17:23

That would be great. The the music like like like that, that kind of music that you make sounds incredible on vinyl. And you know, if you put it out like on um colored vinyl, you know, 300 to 500 copies, the people snap it up like crazy.

Speaker 3 17:38

So Oh I know, and it'd have to be a green vinyl for Jill. Oh, I like green.

Speaker 1 17:46

Oh, violet might be violet might be good. Yeah. Or two colors or two colors. Right.

Speaker 17:53

I'm just gonna say that. Maybe, maybe violet with green splatter.

Speaker 3 17:57

There you go. All right, Jill, I think we're on to something here. Oh yeah, did you did you mention the song title you came up with for the next one?

Speaker 1 18:07

Oh, Violet Night. No. He said Violet, so I'm like, did she? No, no, no, I d I didn't say anything about the next recording. I didn't know how much you wanted to share about that.

Speaker 3 18:20

So Oh well, you know, well well P uh uh Jill, if you're alright, I'll say the the first title, of course, The Silence of Grace, and we were just talking and it just blurted out of my mouth, so that came that became the title and and the project uh theme. And so the next one I came up with while we were talking on the phone, I had written it down and Jill and I were having a conversation, and I said, I what about this? Into the Quiet is the next title. So by the time we're done, it's like From the Silence of Grace Into the Quiet, and then the next album title that we do will complete that sentence. So it'll be like a trilogy. I already have that, but I'm not gonna say it because I we're we're working on this next one. But Into the Quiet, and then while we were talking, Jill uh said he had already started thinking about some song titles, and she came up with this one to see what I thought, and I love it. Violet night, but it's about the violet plant which is the deep deep fruit. Oh yeah. It's uh got it'll ha that song is gonna ha be a very deep song because of just the depth of the word violet. And at first I thought she said violent, and I was like, What? Violent? No, no, because I misheard what she said. And I said, No, we can't have a violent song. She goes, No, no, no, the plant, violet. And I'm like, Oh, of course. Yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker 19:51

So, you know, it would work well with what you do.

Speaker 3 19:54

No, no, no, it would not work at all. It would totally be incongruent. So but I I just miss her, but she said, I said, uh, violent night? No, no, no, no, no. This is not V for Vendetta, this is gonna be something different.

Speaker 20:09

Well, ladies, it's been a pleasure today. Lots of fun, and we had a really good conversation, um, a very important conversation, I think, about about the environment and your music, and I really look forward to the next project. When would you expect it to be coming out late this year or early next year?

Speaker 3 20:26

Oh no, it'll be sometime in uh it'll be a year out at least, because the label right now we're so full of uh projects that we're trying to get done of of people that are we put them in a queue and then we do one at a time and we want to give it all the attention and everything it deserves. And we'll be working, of course, on the artwork and the themes and everything. We need to get the music done, so it'll be uh for sure next year, I'm not pretty sure, yeah.

Speaker 20:51

Okay. Well, keep me in mind for all the projects you have going on. I would love to be part of that.

Speaker 3 20:55

Well, thank you, Keith. Yeah, thank you so much. And again, I'm I'm sorry I couldn't get on. I don't know what happened, but I'm absolutely glad to be on the phone with both of you. It's wonderful. And thanks for the opportunity. And and Keith, thank you for supporting this all of this music and the artist. It's so important, I think, especially now, to have that support. So we appreciate it very much.

Speaker 21:19

It's my honor to do so, and uh I feel very blessed to be part of this whole music, you know, community that I've been involved with for so long now. And you know, it's people like you that get me inspired all the time. And thank you both for your time.

Speaker 1 21:34

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 21:36

We'll get the word out about this in a few minutes.

Speaker 1 21:38

Okay. Okay. Thanks so much, Keith. Take care, Jill. See you too. Bye bye.

Speaker 3 21:44

Bye, Keith.

Speaker 21:44

Bye bye.