Raised in small town Michigan, a musical career was not Michelle Billingsley’s intended life journey. As a young aspiring actor, she headed to Los Angeles with stars in her eyes and dreams of leading roles and Oscars. Things did not go to plan and she departed L.A. with broken dreams, and quite distressed. She changed artistic direction and rebuilt her confidence, committing her life experiences to song on her excellent debut album, NOT THE MARRYING KIND. Her tales of dysfunctional relationships, depression, toxic parent issues and heartache are superbly written, often shocking, and occasionally hilarious. Michelle explained the background and history of the album when we caught up with her recently.
Was music a part of your life as a child in Michigan?
No, I didn’t get that storybook upbringing. If the radio was on, it was NPR. I’ve had to do a lot of catching up, which is great fun. I remember hearing George Jones for the first time. I had to look him up. My grandfather said he was going to get rid of the piano he’d bought for my mom and aunt as children, the same one I played growing up. Years later, I asked if I could take it, and he made me a deal – Poppi said I could come get the piano and, in return, when he passed, I had to play He Stopped Loving Her Today at his service.
Tell me about the move from small town Michigan to Los Angeles. What were your expectations and how difficult did that period of your life become?
I remember no one could talk me out of it, I was going. I moved out with some friends from the same small theatre program at University of Michigan, so we were pretty optimistic. Then you go to that first audition where you’re in a hallway full of girls who all look like you but are prettier, younger, sing better, and have better boobs. And you realize what a very bad idea it was being out there without connections.
I had a rough time out in L.A. and ended up in a traumatic situation, which was devastating. I forgot who I was. She was gone. I had to put myself back together, so I left. When I got to Chicago, I started up auditions again like I’d done for years. I used to love doing them. But then I’d have panic attacks and would leave before my name was called. I’d never had stage fright before and I didn’t know how to handle it. I cried in a lot of alleys and parking spots. It took years to put myself back together despite the chorus of doubt that’s now always in my head. That’s what L.A. gave me - doubt.
When you moved from L.A. to Chicago, were you performing live gigs there?
I didn’t start performing in Chicago until I found the cabaret scene. I put on a couple of my own cabaret shows before I realized I hated not having anything to do with my hands. I saw a sign at a bus stop to learn guitar at the Old Town School of Folk Music, so I pulled my guitar out from under my bed and marched over and took every class I could find. That’s also kind of how I got started in songwriting. I decided I wanted to, so I just did it.
How would you best describe yourself as an artist?
It’s hard not to go to a fantastic show and say that’s what I want to sound like. I tried so hard to be everyone else before I gave up and ended up being myself. Which is hilarious advice: stop trying and give up.
I’m not good at lead guitar, and I can’t belt out but I can tell a story and maybe make you laugh. Being in the studio really helped me figure myself out. I liked getting on the mic and telling it all of my problems. There’s that advice in film - make the camera your friend. I figured making the microphone your friend would work, too.
Your album NOT THE MARRYING KIND has hit the spot with us at Lonesome Highway. What was the driving force to look in the mirror and write such personal material?
Since everything’s been locked down due to the pandemic, artists aren’t getting the kind of feedback we’d normally get at live shows. So, I really appreciate hearing how much you like the album. Celebrating an album release with a livestream when I had a whole big release party planned is a big difference. Now, you release it into the void and hope someone hears it.
There’s that old line: write what you know. That resonated with me. I could do that. I’d been in a long relationship that I ended up leaving when a lot of these songs were being written, so there was plenty of upheaval to draw inspiration from. “She’s Gone” is one of those. I realized I wrote that before I even thought about leaving, but it’s obvious now that my subconscious was ahead of me.
We described your writing as poetry in our review of the album. Did you write the songs with any particular melodies in mind or simply get the lyrics down and then consider the music to accompany them?
I write lyrics and music concurrently. They inform each other. If I start with a phrase, there’s a rhythm built in, and I figure out the melody to suit, which then gives me a hint of where to go lyrically from that. I’ve never been able to write just one or the other first.
Did you actually have much interest in what was expected of you in making the album or had you a clear perspective of exactly the sound you were looking for?
I’ve never really been interested in what’s expected of me. I had a hunch that your first album can be whatever you want it to be. It was a wide-open horizon. I knew I didn’t want to recreate anyone else’s sound, so I felt free to let these songs be themselves.
Some I had a lot of fun with like Portia, which didn’t make sense until the last piece was added. There was one song I was specific about - Then I Remember. That poor song. I knew it was going to be a little out there, and completely in its own world. I had to re-cut it every time I went into the studio until it felt just right. We ended up doing that one live, with everyone in a different room. Now ask me about what album two and three are going to sound like, that’s the hard part.
Did you expect the album to shock or amuse the listeners?
When you perform live, people are there to have a good time, they’re a few beers in and they just want a song to dance to. I felt free to write some lyrics that I wouldn't have dared if I thought anyone was listening closely. Then they became part of the song, and now I forget they’re there.
I can tell you exactly the moment I realized that was going to get me into trouble. I was visiting with my dad and grandmother and played them a mix of Mom Jeans. We get to the chorus and I almost die when, “I can’t come, unless my heart’s breaking,” plays for the first time, and I thought “OH NO NO NO.” I’m not sure I even breathed until the song was over. Thankfully neither of them has ever said anything about it.
Do you think you’ve ruffled feathers with the characters in some of the songs?
That’s the downside of writing what you know. I was really worried that my mom would be hurt by what I wrote in Mom Jeans thinking it was about her. It wasn’t, it was an amalgamation of many people, but I can see how easy it would be to make that assumption. Or what if my dad thought that line of Drink ‘Til I’m Pretty is about him. If something resonates with me, I’ll write it, but I do feel like I have to qualify each song before I play it to someone: It’s not about you, I promise.
Your writing and delivery style is quite unique. I can only identify a few other artists, Minton Sparks and Sam Baker, by way of comparison. What directed that approach?
I fell down a Leonard Cohen hole a few years ago, hard. That’s where I saw that the simpler the delivery, the more devastating the effect. And his songs were really funny, but you wouldn’t know until you listen. He doesn’t usually make songs you dance to while folding laundry. I admire that.
I like holding back on my delivery so the listener can slip it into their own story. Especially with Once In A While - I was specifically unspecific on that song. I wanted there to be a lot of space, and I did not want to direct the listener in any way. A good many of us have had that same complicated conversation with ourselves, where you really want a relationship that isn’t working so you think, how can I change myself to make it work?
Are your lyrics ‘first takes’ as ideas come to you or do you revisit and refashion them?
We all wish for those songs that come out fully written in minutes. I’ve had one or two like that, that came out very fast. Most of the time, it’s weeks of me holding a pencil in the early morning before work hoping that maybe today, I can write a couple words. Then it’s rewrites and obsessing over each word. It’s drudgery.
The hard part no one talks about is when you come up with a great line that just doesn’t fit the song. You spend days trying to cram it in there until, finally, you have to take it out and bury it in the lyric graveyard of good ideas in your journal just in case you can use it somewhere else. Those hurt.
Some of the songs are direct with an instantly recognisable message, others less so. Tell me the story behind Kangaroo Court.
You know when you replay a conversation that happened earlier over and over again in your head? And in the rehashing, you make your point so clearly that the other person obviously has to agree with you?
That’s how it started. The narrator of that song is a wronged woman, but not completely innocent (“when she loves, she loves like the back of a hand”). But this is an old story, it’s been done to death. Maybe if it took place in a courtroom, with a Greek chorus, and never allowed the defendant to speak. But in the telling, you discover she doesn’t want him punished for what she knows, but for what he won’t tell her. She gets to the end of the whole spectacle only to discover that what she wants from him is something so small and specific and insignificant. It doesn’t wrap up all tidy in a bow - I liked leaving it open and odd.
Drink ‘till I’m Pretty is also hard hitting, featuring the lines, ‘Old habits die hard, dreams die young, and nothing changes but my face.’ An ‘in the moment’ observation or an ongoing opinion?
Both. There’s so much pressure on women these days to stay young, there are so many industries profiting off of it. We’re all well aware of the clock ticking – we’re reminded all the time. I had the first part of that line down, and it took a while trying to think of the most poignant thing that could be said. It had to hurt. So, when I was brainstorming and wrote down “but my face,” it hurt to write, so I knew that was the line.
Engaging Matt Brown to produce and play on the album was a master stroke. How did that relationship develop and what did he bring in terms of the musical support to your lyrics?
Matt was kind of the whole spark to the album. I knew of him from Old Town School of Folk Music where he teaches banjo and fiddle classes. We were at a retreat in Colorado, the American Roots Program, and one day he asked if I had thought about doing an album. Until that moment, I hadn’t. So, he was there the whole time encouraging me to think larger, to provide a different perspective of these songs that I wrote by myself on the floor in the dark at 5 a.m. before work.
Studio work is stressful but so much fun. Money is just flowing out the door and you’re worried about a million things. Each take feels like life or death, but sometimes an idea pops in your head, and you jump in the booth and lay that down and the smallest addition makes the song.
Final question. How on earth can you follow that album!?
I have no idea!
Interview by Declan Culliton