(SOUNDBITE OF RATBOYS SONG, "OPEN UP")
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Music can be a bridge between friends, lovers, families and sometimes between two people who've become estranged.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OPEN UP")
RATBOYS: (Singing) Stretch out as big as you can go. I won't say I told you so. I won't say what's right. So what's it gonna take to open up tonight?
SIMON: Julia Steiner sings about that estrangement with her band Ratboys. And their new album is called "Singin' To An Empty Chair." Julia Steiner joins us from Chicago. Thanks so much for being with us.
JULIA STEINER: Hey. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
SIMON: Why do you sing to an empty chair?
STEINER: So this empty chair that I was singing to is meant to represent a close loved one who couldn't be there for any host of personal reasons. But for me, it was a way to have a conversation that I wasn't quite ready to have in real life and kind of get started figuring out what I wanted to say and how I feel.
You're catching me in the middle of this process, really. But I was able to use this empty chair method, which is an exercise that my therapist told me about, to sort of help me figure out how to write a song where I express a lot of my memories and perspective on a relationship that has had many twists and turns.
SIMON: The climax of the album is the song "Just Want You To Know The Truth."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH")
RATBOYS: (Singing) Let's go back to Wolf Pen, long before I pulled away. Wanderin' around construction sites, an open house on Sunday. We were dreamin' of the kitchen...
SIMON: And as you indicated, you're not kind of ready to talk yet or reconcile but want to. What does writing do to that process?
STEINER: I think, for me, writing is a way to sort of clarify who I am. It gives me the confidence to know what I want to say and express myself. And specifically, for whatever reason, songwriting has been that outlet for me. I find that that combination of singing combined with writing lyrics about my life, it just feels really the most authentic way that I can be who I am.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH")
RATBOYS: (Singing) Well, there's a lot that I would like to say to you. I just want you to know the truth.
SIMON: I got to ask you about a song that might have a painful story.
STEINER: OK.
SIMON: And that's "Anywhere."
STEINER: Ha. Well, for me, to be completely honest, this story was not so much personally painful as I was kind of trying to empathize with another's pain.
(SOUNDBITE OF RATBOYS SONG, "ANYWHERE")
STEINER: I wrote this song as a writing prompt after I was paying close attention to Dave Sagan. Dave is our lead guitar player, and Dave's family's dog, their little pet Pomeranian - his name is Tofik (ph). And any pet lover probably has had this experience where you leave the room and you know that your animal is kind of losing their mind a little bit.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANYWHERE")
RATBOYS: (Singing) When you left me on this porch, I felt like I was gonna die.
STEINER: This song is one that I wrote from Tofik's perspective, from the eyes of the little dog about - yeah - not wanting to be apart from your person. And it's really fun to play. It makes me think of him and just that pure, unadulterated love of an animal.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANYWHERE")
RATBOYS: (Singing) I'm going anywhere that you're going. I'll go too. Take me with you.
SIMON: This is your sixth album but you first with New West Records.
STEINER: Yes.
SIMON: Which - among your labelmates now are Willie Nelson.
STEINER: It's pretty awesome.
SIMON: Yeah. So what does country music mean to you?
STEINER: I think it's something that was sort of all around me growing up. I grew up in Kentucky, and we had a babysitter, and she grew up in Chattanooga. And so she would put on music all the time by some of the greats, especially, like, Dolly. And eventually, I got really into Lucinda Williams. And now, looking back, I'm just grateful to have been exposed to those voices growing up.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PENNY IN THE LAKE")
RATBOYS: (Singing) There's a penny in the lake, but it's not what I thought. It's just someone's wish they forgot.
SIMON: Can we hear some of that in a song like "Penny In The Lake"?
STEINER: I would hope so. That's one of the songs that I'm proud of, where you can do a lot with a little. And one of my favorite things about some early country music is that - you know, that old adage of three chords and the truth.
SIMON: Ooh, that's good.
STEINER: You can kind of just play cowboy chords and lay things bare, and the truth will come across.
(SOUNDBITE OF RATBOYS SONG, "PENNY IN THE LAKE")
SIMON: I was pleased to learn that you have a love for show tunes.
STEINER: Ah, yes. Do you?
SIMON: Boy, yes. I'm a Broadway baby, and I got to tell you, sometimes a point of distance for me and certain members of our staff - let's put it that way - who are more conversant in fluent and indie rock and that sort of thing.
STEINER: Hey. You can love both.
SIMON: I agree. So where's the crossover? What show tunes do you think can pull people over the line?
STEINER: Oh, man. I love, love, love the music in "West Side Story." Old classic, but it's something that I realized is more musically complex than you'd realize. And the melodies are at once very, very catchy and really difficult to sing. Or, like, there's just a lot going on there. And those are ones that I often sing during soundcheck.
SIMON: Oh, my gosh. Which ones? Like...
STEINER: I sing "I Feel Pretty," you know? I sing, "Who Knows" and "Maria," and, you know...
SIMON: Yeah.
STEINER: ...All of those songs. Those melodies have just been stuck in my head since I was, like, 5 years old.
(SOUNDBITE OF RATBOYS SONG, "AT PEACE IN THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD")
SIMON: This is an album that has some emotions that are just a little hard to handle. But it does seem to end on a kind of grace note, the song "At Peace In Hundred Acre Woods" (ph).
STEINER: This is one that kind of early on we thought it might be nice to end the record with. When I first started working on this song, my idea that I had going into it was this, like, lyrically verbose campfire song where you're kind of metaphorically offering a shoulder to lean on. It feels at once very kind of like a hopeful point to end the record on.
And also, placing this song in the Hundred Acre Wood, it was an opportunity for me to kind of shine a light on one of my big literary inspirations from childhood, which is the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. The way that they treat each other with so much respect and, you know, a lack of judgment and good humor, it's just a nice model or template for how we could treat each other going forward, and it feels like a nice vision for the future to leave the record with.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AT PEACE IN THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD")
RATBOYS: (Singing) 'Cause when you feel something's wrong but don't know how to say it, I'll be there to give you time...
SIMON: Julia Steiner from the band Ratboys. Their album "Singin' To An Empty Chair" out now. Thank you so much for being with us.
STEINER: Thanks so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AT PEACE IN THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD")
RATBOYS: (Singing) Wood we've found... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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