Divorce, new love sparked maturing of songwriter's work
Her most-famous song is a mushy ode to the all-consuming nature of romance, but Michelle Branch admits that at age 18 she knew nothing about real love.
The lyrics to “Everywhere” — off her 2001 major-label debut album, “The Spirit Room” — are hopelessly idealistic.
“Cause you’re everywhere to me / and when I close my eyes it’s you I see,” she sings with carefully enunciated fervor.
“When I wrote 'The Spirit Room,' I was a teenager who hadn’t really had any serious romantic relationships, so I think that first record was more my idea of what grown-up love was,” said Branch.
The singer, now 34, will perform on Friday during the Fashion Meets Music Festival. The two-day event will take place at Fortress Obetz.
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Branch’s idea of love has been tempered by the dissolution of her 11-year marriage to her former bass player, Teddy Landau.
So has her music.
A sample lyric from recent release “Hopeless Romantic”: “You were my first ever / I wish we’d never met / You drink to feel better / I drink to forget.”
“I feel like the new album is the actual, real idea of what grown-up love is,” Branch said. “It’s messy and confusing at times.”
Branch broke out in the early 2000s after her self-produced record, “The Broken Bracelet,” created enough buzz to land her a major-label deal with Warner Bros. records.
In a blur, the singer-songwriter earned double-platinum status for “The Spirit Room,” won a Grammy Award through her collaboration with Carlos Santana and earned platinum again with second release “Hotel Paper” in 2003.
She married Landau at age 21 and had daughter Owen a year later.
Branch spent much of this period as a passive player.
"Being so young when I first started and not knowing the process, there were so many other people saying, ‘This is how you should do it,’" she said, "and now I’m able to go in and know what I actually want."
Between her second and third records, Branch’s career at Warner Bros. stagnated. She created two albums’ worth of material, only to have label executives turn them down without dropping her from their roster.
“It was terrible,” Branch said.
A chance meeting at a Hollywood party put the songwriter in touch with Akron native Patrick Carney, drummer for indie-rock duo the Black Keys.
Carney signed on to produce the demos of songs that Branch had been working on since her 2015 divorce, and he immediately captured her vision.
The result is a step away from the glossy pop world and into the grimier realm of indie rock.
A hint of her pop roots remain — Branch sounds somewhat like “Call Me Maybe” singer Carly Rae Jepsen — but where she once backed choruses with aggressive guitar downbeats, she now takes her songs a little slower.
The pace matches the thoughtfulness with which her lyrics sort through her unraveling marriage.
“A lot of the lyrics are about relationships and it’s definitely very feminine, but I didn’t want the songs to sound too vulnerable. I wanted them to sound tough at the same time,” Branch said. “That’s why I love the juxtaposition of the drums and bass being the backbone with these romantic lyrics.”
Branch’s voice on the album is softer than the belting she performed during her early 20s, a style courtesy of Carney.
“He said, ‘You know you don’t have to sing so hard,’” she said. “That was a big epiphany for me.”
Another big epiphany: That the man who started as her producer would soon be her fiance.
Carney and Branch started their relationship while recording, and she wrote two more songs — “Last Night” and “You’re Good” — about Carney once they began dating.
The sudden connection between work and family life gave her only one concern.
“The only thing I was nervous about was the potential of it ruining our professional relationship,” she said, adding that she didn’t want to find another producer. “I think it’s the same thing anyone feels who falls in love at work.”
They pushed through, and Carney proposed on July 2, her birthday.
“I think it was pretty obvious it was something we both wanted to pursue,” she said.
The bands slated to perform at the Fashion Meets Music Festival:
Friday
Peroni stage: 5:45 p.m., Kristin Kontrol; 8:15, Tegan and Sara; 10:45, Third Eye Blind. Pepsi stage: 4:30 p.m., Kid Runner; 7, Michelle Branch; 9:30, St. Lucia. Donatos stage: 4:30 p.m., Leaving Cardboard Houses; 5:45, Zoya; 7, Clemens & Co.; 8:15, Joey Hendrickson; 9:30, Liberty Deep Down.
Saturday
Peroni stage: 3:15 p.m., Hank & Cupcakes; 5:45, Cobi; 8:15, Lights; 10:45, DNCE. Pepsi stage: 2 p.m., Harbour; 4:30, Rozes; 7, T-Pain; 9:30, Fetty Wap. Donatos stage: 1:30 p.m., Orion and the Constellations; 2:45, Marwan Maurice; 4, Greg Owens; 5:15, Ex-Nihilo; 6:30, Personal Public; 7:45, Zoo Trippin'; 9, Colin Gawel and the Lonely Bones; 10:15, Lilac Lungs.
joller@dispatch.com
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Who: Michelle Branch
Where: Fashion Meets Music Festival, Fortress Obetz, 1841 Williams Road
Contact: www.fmmf.us
Showtime: 7 p.m. Friday, Pepsi Stage
Tickets: $50 a day; $90 for a two-day pass