Garage goth rocker Olivia Jean on collaboration and covers ahead of Encore show June 16

Olivia Jean. // photo credit Erica Salazar

Musician Olivia Jean’s career began by dropping off a demo to Jack White, which led to her playing on several of his solo albums and projects the Third Man Records head produced. From there, she went on to front garage goth band The Black Belles, and after that, a solo career, with her third album Raving Ghost out last month on Third Man Records.

She’s playing a show at Encore at Uptown Theater on Friday, June 16, so we hopped on the phone to discuss taking the album on the road and her unique choices for cover songs.

The Pitch: Given the pedigree of everyone you played with on this in the studio—Bo Koster from My Morning Jacket and Jellyfish’s Roger Joseph Manning Jr. on keyboards to name a couple—how are you bringing this to life on tour?

Olivia Jean: Well, it’s a little bit of a puzzle, recreating these songs live. I had a lot of really cool players on the album and I tend to layer a lot of different instruments, so we’re able to work these songs into their own versions live. We just started touring, so we’re getting there, you know.

Every musician takes songs out on the road, and they turn into something new. Given the level of layering and everything that exists on your recorded music, what’s the process for you of turning these into live songs?

I have another guitarist who plays with me. I always bring a second guitarist on tour with me because I do have several melodies going on at the same time, and then it’s kind of like synchronized swimming with our guitar parts. We just have to coordinate.

We write out the parts and switch back and forth who’s playing, what melody, and—this time around the album has a lot more keys on it. We had Roger Joseph Manning Jr. playing keys at the session. He was so great. We used a lot of his work, as well as some of the main riffs, to recreate the songs live. It hasn’t been too difficult. And they’re really fun to play.

One of the things I’ve absolutely loved about your career is the people you’ve gotten to collaborate with. On this album where you’ve got Bo Koster from My Morning Jacket and Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Patrick Keeler from the Raconteurs, and in the past, you’ve gotten to record songs with Elvira and Stephen Colbert. What does getting to collaborate with all of these very disparate musicians do for you as a musician?

Well, I have never collaborated with those people. I’ve written songs that those people have used. And I don’t know. Working with them makes me feel—I guess I wouldn’t say “worthy of their time.” It just makes me feel good that people on their level are trusting of me and like my stuff. It makes me feel confident and gives me a little pep in my step as an artist—to be trusted by people I look up to.

Getting to do a cover of Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” on Raving Ghost seems so left-field, but it works so well. What’s your history with that song that made you want to tackle it, especially in this way?

There are a few songs in my life that, when I listen to them, just move me, make me cry, or make me feel something and I don’t know why, but “Orinoco Flow” is a song I’ve always loved and it’s almost like a hype song for me sometimes. I just think it’s well-written, and if you really strip it down to its bare bones and just listen to the vocal melodies and root notes and everything—I knew that I could turn it into a punk song.

When we went into the studio in LA, and I told everyone that’s what we were gonna do, they all kind of chuckled. They didn’t really know what was gonna happen. I said, “Just trust me on this,” and I directed them on how we would approach it, and when it all came together, everyone was like, “Oh my God, this sounds like a ’60s garage classic.”

I knew the melody was there. I knew it could be done. I like to do obscure covers—things people wouldn’t regularly cover, like “Jaan Pehechaan Ho,” for instance. I like having fun with it.

Your music, despite the gothic visual elements, comes across as if you’re really having fun when you’re making it, and covering Mohammed Rafi definitely conveys that feeling.

Yeah. Well, with the covers, I’m able to have more freedom because it’s mostly sonic. I’m not emotionally attached to the songs to where I’m trying to convey an emotion with them. I’m able to take somebody else’s thing and just plop it down and mold it like I would Play-Doh.

With “Jaan Pehechaan Ho,” I had heard that song so much in my head over and over and over again that I was able to blend the guitar parts with the horn parts and vocal melodies. The guitar parts I’m playing are several instruments combined into one guitar track. It’s just fun. You can just rework things, and you’re not as emotionally attached to the song. It’s the writer. You can take it in whatever direction you want it to go.

Do you get really emotionally attached to your songs?

I get emotionally attached to the instrumental aspect of the songs. I write the music first for all of my stuff because, starting out, I was making instrumental surf music. First, I’ll do the drums, then the bass, then the guitar, then the keys and all that, and then I go in with the vocals.

I’ll hear this music over and over and over again, and I’m like, “Oh, damn, whatever words I put to this” [trails off] I don’t know. It’s different. I do things backwards, so it’s a little more difficult for me to put words to music than it is for me to—I dunno what I’m getting at.

Is it that you get attached to the emotional state you’re in while you’re writing the instrumentals? Is that what makes it difficult to make lyrics fit how the song itself sounds?

Yeah, actually, I tend to write usually more pop-rock-type melodies. A little bit more upbeat, but mentally when it comes to lyrics, I’m a little more on the negative side, so putting my words to music—sometimes they clash, but I think that that’s maybe a cool thing in the end. Say it’s a poppy surf song, and then I’m talking about how I’m mad at somebody? It’s got a cool, weird clash. My lyrical style is different than my musical style, so sometimes that is a challenge to kind of fit things together. I’m like, “Oh, well, these lyrics don’t really fit into this music,” but in the end, I’m cool with how that works out.

Olivia Jean plays the Encore at the Uptown on Friday, June 16. Details on that show here.