My Brightest Diamond Interview

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It can't have been easy to make an album better than My Brightest Diamond's debut, but with A Thousand Shark's Teeth, Shara Worden has managed it. It's somehow both epic and personal, now uplifting, now black as silk, and always just as beautiful. Songs like 'From the Top of the World' - one of the best things she's ever done - seem to evoke all the slowing-down sadness of autumn sweetly and softly, with strings fluttering in and out as though their music was written on fallen leaves. I wanted to know more about this remarkable record, and Shara was kind enough to answer some questions.


Hello Shara! How are you?
Great, thanks!

Your new album is really great. Where does the title come from?
A Thousand Shark’s Teeth is a lyric in the song “Goodbye Forever”. In the song, I was examining distances in our personal relationships and using the analogy of the perfect distance of the earth from the sun. We are neither too far nor too near. The sun’s rays might feel like a thousand pin pricks, a thousand shark’s teeth, power that restrains itself from wounding us but instead gives us life.

It's been quite a while in the making - how has it changed from your original expectations?
I started this record before I made the first Diamond album, Bring Me The Workhorse, recording versions of the songs with a string quartet, but as time went on, I wanted to add more and more instruments and became increasingly dissatisfied with the material. In the end, I re-recorded and rearranged most of the album, but the song “Goodbye Forever” is from the original string quartet session we made three and a half years ago.

It's definitely different to your last album - what do you think are the main differences?
For me, the song structures are quite different- more of these songs are through composed, stylistically it is much less rock. It leans more on the classical side of the pendulum and that distinction is what made it easy to split up the songs into two separate records.

Which songs stand out for you?
“From the Top of the World” and “Inside A Boy” make me happy when I play them.

Do you think these songs would lend themselves to remixing like those on Bring Me The Workhorse?
Ha! Are you a prophet? Do you have the Sight? The single will have two remixes, one by the amazing Tim Fite and another by the fantabulous Son Lux. We have more fun remix things in store for the fall.

You recorded part of it in Berlin - what was that like?
I had to chase down drummer, Earl Harvin, in Berlin to grab some time with him. It’s such a raw place, so punk and alive. We recorded for three days at Chez Cherie, the studio of Warren Suicide. It’s an old industrial building that was converted into studios and apartments. We’d record for a few hours then would sit around and talk til 3 a.m. about musical community and string quartet parties.

Dave Longstreth (of Dirty Projectors) has described Berlin as having no equivalent in North America, unlike some other European cities. Would you agree with that?
Yes indeed. It can have no equivalent. The history is so thick there and you are very aware of the weight of it, the internal drive, the free spirit, the passion, the desolation, the sadness. It’s all wrapped up in the concrete.

How many hours of your day are music?
Most of the time, music happens in cycles for me, reflected in an album cycle - making, preparing for a release, touring. I prefer to work on music in large chunks of time, so I can’t usually do business stuff and then jump into a creative space halfway through a day. It is better for me to compartmentalize. I am most happy when I am making things, but even photographs or working on someone else’s record can be that.

If you had your own record label tomorrow, who would you sign up?
Sebastian Krueger of Inlets, Mamie Minch and Jonny Rodgers.

Any more interesting collaborations coming up?
I sang on Tim Fite’s new record and we had our heads pasted onto some animals for his new video. That was super fun. Also I’m working on a tune for the next Stateless album which will be like a love duet, like Miss Piggy and Kermie or Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.

When we last heard from you, you were hoping to work at some point with Jean-Pierre Jeuenet - have you gotten any closer to this?
When Husky sent me the mix of the song Black and Costaud, I wrote back, “This sounds just like Jeunet’s City of Lost Children!!” and he wrote back that he adored Jeunet. He watched Delicatessen three times while finishing mixing the rest of the album, so when I get the final artwork copies I am going to make Mr. Jeunet a package and write him an adoring letter telling him how he influenced this work.

And lastly - what films, books or albums are reigning supreme for you right now?
I have been into watching those Ken Burns’ WWII documentaries lately. I had a history teacher in college that only talked about Pearl Harbor and nothing else for an entire semester so I never got a larger view and have been recently feeling its lack. I also just got the Harry Potter dvd set in the little “suitcase”! Woo hoo! In book club we are reading The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, which is simultaneously awesome and tiresome for all its guilt and royal drama. For psychology I am reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, an insightful read.


My Brightest Diamond - Apples (live)
My Brightest Diamond - Disappear (String Quartet Version)

A Thousand Shark's Teeth will be out on Asthmatic Kitty on June 17th. Read all about it here, and watch an interesting documentary on My Brightest Diamond filmed at this year's SXSW here.