EMILY SALIERS ON 40 INCREDIBLE YEARS WITH GRAMMY®-WINNING INDIGO GIRLS
AUGUST 24
By Anastasia Stanmeyer
EMILY SALIERS sits comfortably in her home in Atlanta, completely content as she gazes at her dog on the couch, a stretch of concerts behind her and a rare summer break before her. She recently spent several days working on a musical in New York City, followed by a few days with friends after Saliers and her wife dropped off their 11-year-old daughter at camp. She can’t believe it’s been more than 40 years since she and music partner Amy Ray first played together. The folk-rock duo met in grade school in Decatur, Georgia, started making music together in high school, then formed the Indigo Girls while attending Emory University. Our conversation travels through the decades, lingering on moments like performing at the historic march for gay rights in Washington, D.C., in 1993, with 1 million people in attendance. We talk about her favorite Indigo Girls albums, her icons, her passion for creating music, and a certain concert she is really looking forward to—at Tanglewood on Friday, August 30, with Judy Collins, Rufus Wainwright, and Lucy Wainwright Roche.
“How beautiful the Berkshires are. How peaceful it is,” Saliers says. “We have friends there who have a couple of kids that our daughter plays with. We’re gonna go and hang out at their house. It's a place that I like to go to find peace and beauty. When you add a show into that whole mix, it doesn't get much better.”
It certainly doesn’t.
The first time I saw the Indigo Girls in the Berkshires was in 2015, on the grounds of Tanglewood at an event called SummerSounds, a two-day music festival over Memorial Day weekend. Many have said that James Taylor wrote the soundtrack to their lives. For many others, the same can be said for the Indigo Girls. And we can’t wait for their return.
Saliers describes the performance at Tanglewood as a sort of mini Lilith Fair. The duo and violinist Lyrus Hung will break away from a tour they will be on with Melissa Etheridge to do the one-off at Tanglewood. They will do a set, as will Wainwright and Collins. Roche may join her brother. “She’ll definitely join us because we always sing together, and we love having her,” says Saliers. “Sometimes in the spur of the moment, when we're all there for soundcheck, we'll come up with an idea to sing a song together at the end of the night. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens.”
Saliers couldn’t be more thrilled about performing at Tanglewood with the others. “I grew up listening to Judy Collins. We’ve run into each other a few times over the many years, but not that often. I'm really, really looking forward to listening to her again and being in her company. I think she's fabulous and has a great sense of humor. I've been a fan of Rufus for many years, and we tour with Lucy all the time. I love when there's different acts, different musicians, and you all get to listen to each other. We all have histories with one another. It will be very joyful.”
Saliers’ favorite Collins song is “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.” She also admires Collins for recording “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell. “I know that Judy recorded that song very, very, very early on in Joni's career, and so I love the alliance of those two women. There's a lot of nostalgia and importance that I attach to that particular recording. I'm absolute fanatic for Joni Mitchell, and I’ve always loved Judy Collins. To look back over the years at the trajectory of their careers and how significant they were in music is very, very important, so I look on that recording fondly, as well as loving the song and loving Judy's rendition of it.”
On performing live
“We have the most incredible people who come and listen and sing along with us. Our community of supporters are just full of love and energy. There are very few opportunities for people to gather in public and sing to their heart's content. That's what they do at our concerts. I can look out and see many people having a very powerful and joyful experience through music. It's exhilarating and inspiring. I've come to appreciate it more at this point in my life than ever before, which has been kind of a surprise to me. I’m just so grateful for every moment on the stage with people out there in the crowd. It's music and it's people together and it's joy. Things are difficult in the world and in this country. To be brought together and to be part of a joining force for goodness and good energy is just really kind of overwhelming, in the best way. I love live shows. It’s totally uplifting. You have to seek out your joy because there's a lot of trouble all around us, and there's a lot of people suffering. It’s just an opportunity to lift something good up and to share it together with people in a moment in time that's only that moment in time. It’s a powerful human experience that I never take for granted.”
On friendship, fans, and social activism
“Amy and I met in elementary school. We became pals in high school and started playing music together. It was very organic. It was basically just the most fun thing we could do, and we could do it as much as we wanted. A career grew out of that, quite honestly. We just stuck with it and had a blast. We never felt like it was paying our dues; we were just playing music, and we have just been fortunate. Then we found—or they found us—our community of listeners. We have met incredible activists and mentors along the way, so we're able to marry our music with our social concerns. Along every life, there's sadness, and we both had losses, but our families have gone through all our milestones together. We’re very, very connected, and our families are connected, and our histories are connected. When you look at a life like that, and a band staying together for 40 years, it's pretty remarkable. There's no way I could have anticipated it. I'm just grateful to still be doing this.”
On incorporating social and political themes into the music
“These are just the things that we're interested in as people. We're both reared in families where we're citizens; we don't live in a vacuum. There are concerns—it could start in your neighborhood, it could be in your community, it could lead to national interests, and then international interests. When we think about the world and we think about what is going on, and how we can be a part of either of a solution or just activating change, those are things that we're passionate about, so they show up in the music. It all goes hand in hand.”
On the secret to a lasting friendship
“I think we have at the heart of it a deep love and respect for each other. I would be so bored if it were just me. Or if it were another Indigo Girl who was like me. Amy and I are so different that it keeps it interesting for me. I love her songwriting. I can't write songs like she does. And I can't sing like she does. So, part of the secret is in our differences—the way we express ourselves, the way we write, the way we sing, what our influences are. The other thing is that we have really separate lives. She lives up in the woods in north Georgia, and I live in the city. We have our own circles of friends. There's some intersection, but we don't hang out. She's got the Amy Ray Band. It's like a second career. Now I'm writing musical theater. I was in the restaurant business, I wrote a book with my dad; she owns a record label. We have very robust lives, separate from each other with full support for each other's endeavors that are different from Indigo Girls. When we come back to work together, it still feels fresh.”
On advice to her younger self
“It's all the basic philosophical tenants: Stay present and in the moment, have faith, and even when things are a struggle, you will learn that they deepen your life, your life experience, and build your empathy. Don't be afraid of having a kid, because until I met my wife and we had Cleo, I didn't know that was gonna be part of my life. Now it's the most profound part of my life. She’s at sleepaway camp, and I miss her terribly. But we'll get to pick her up, and then we're gonna go on a family vacation to Nova Scotia, which I'm also really looking forward to. This is the first summer Amy and I have ever taken off besides Covid, which was forced upon us. It’s a real treat to have time off during the summer. We're also trying to balance our lives more. We’re going to try to consolidate our touring periods into one period of time and then take the rest of the time off. It's become untenable to miss all the events of our children's lives. Amy has a daughter who's ten. We don't want to miss that anymore, so we're just trying to figure out that balance, and it looks like we have a good, solid plan.”
On Jesus Christ Superstar and other musicals
“I acted in musicals and plays in high school, but I don't have acting experience. Amy doesn't like to act. With Jesus Christ Superstar, a friend of ours just wanted to put that together. It was a real motley crew of local Atlanta friends and musicians. I think we had three performances, and then they made an album. It was a total blast, but it was a moment in time. I've always wanted to write for other people, for other singers, for other projects, for film. And then I really became interested in musical theater. During the pandemic, a friend got in touch. She's writing this story with her friend and asked me to write the music. I said, “Yes!” Now, I'm working on three different musicals. The one that has the most forward momentum is called Starstruck. We just had a workshop at a small theater called Out of the Box. That's become a passion for me. I have a great love of musical theater—and theater in general—that has been developing and strengthening over the years. We got a great response with Starstruck; we have interest from some funders and are talking to potential producers. It seems likely that it has a life that's going to continue on, which probably means a regional theater. We'll take it just as far as it can go.”
On her favorite Indigo Girls albums
“I go through different stages where I'll get back in touch with an album, sometimes because we want to learn a song that we haven't played in a while from a particular album. There's a lot on Despite Our Differences. I was going through a very tumultuous interpersonal time, and a lot of those songs are reflective of that. Some of my better songs are on that album. Then, of course, the Indigo Girls eponymous album has such a special place in my heart because it was the first one that we did on a major label, Epic Records. I remember we recorded it in LA and the thrill of bringing great players to play on it. But each album has special memories attached to it because of where we recorded it or who played on it. We were going on this band tour, and the bass player, Clare Kenny, and the keyboard player, Carol Isaacs, were in Sinéad O’Connor's band when we met them at Lilith Fair. Then we started playing with them. John Reynolds used to be married to Sinéad many years ago and drummed and produced for her. He has produced two or three of our albums now, including our last album, Look Long. Those two women—Clare and Carol—played on it. So there's such a personal and musical tie, a historical tie, that I can't pick one because each album has its own story.”
On memorable performances
“There have been so many. One was opening for The Grateful Dead in 1993 in Eugene, Oregon. There were so many people there. It was a whole alternate reality—the people and the way that they were into the music. Jerry Garcia was off the side of the stage listening to our set, which blew our minds. It was just one of those almost surreal experiences and opportunities that you can't even believe you get to have. I still saved the laminate, a backstage pass from it. Another was playing for the gay rights march in D.C. It was so empowering. I'll never forget walking up the rickety stairs to the stage and singing with all those people and feeling the sense of we're all in this together and this is important for change and for human rights. That was very, very powerful. And Lilith Fair was a tremendous memory. We've done shows with Joan Baez that were amazing. We did a show called A Gathering of the Tribes out in the West Coast that Neil Young spearheaded with all these different bands mixing up all the different genres of music that was incredible. We played a show with Stacey Abrams, who was running for governor. There are just too many to list.”
On being an icon of the gay community
“We always stand on the shoulders of people who came before us. I can think of times where you could not be openly gay without extreme persecution, even in this country. There was a women's music movement with artists like Cris Williamson, who really opened the door for outwardly lesbian artists. I went through my own journey about whether to be out in the national news after we had gotten signed. I came out on the other side of it and realized how important and empowering it was to be part of a movement. Obviously, because we are queer, it was the most natural thing to be part of that rights movement. It's just been so gratifying, when you look back to the years when people couldn't be out and teachers lost their jobs. Now it's all our trans community members who are suffering violence and death and persecution and laws. So we're all in it together to support them. There's been a lot of good positive change over the years, but we're still in the battle. We never take our rights for granted, because depending on who comes into political power, everything can change in a moment's notice.”
On the Indigo Girls documentary, It’s Only Life After All (2023)
“Alexandria Bombach, who directed it, did an absolutely incredible job. It's a lot to take in when you see a documentary about your own story, but it's so much about our community, as well. People who have been following us and going along with us through the years just really appreciate having all that insight into the journey that we've been on. It's just such a gift to have that.”
On advice to emerging artists
“There are a lot of opportunities that didn't exist when we were coming up, such as social media platforms. On the other hand, there's just a flux of artists, because everybody can now have an opportunity to post and share their music. Most importantly, you have to do it because you love it. I would recommend against chasing a goal, unless it's a small goal. When we were coming up, we just had the goal of the next best gig and making the next recording that we could hand out to people at a show. Even if it was only ten people, we have something to give them so they could take our music away. So, keep recording, keep making music, do it because you love it, and find other musicians who are like-minded, like-spirited, and support each other.”
Indigo Girls will perform at Tanglewood with Judy Collins, Rufus Wainwright, and special guest Lucy Wainwright Roche on Friday, August 30, at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at bso.org.
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