Editor’s note: This interview originally appeared on an earlier version of Chaos Control, with portions presented as separate hypertext pop-ups. Those sections have been incorporated into this archived version, with minor edits for flow and typo corrections.
“I think it’s really nice for all our parents, because to play these kinds of instruments as a kid is a big investment,” proclaims Rasputina’s Melora Creager on the subject of cellos. “The parents are involved; it doesn’t just come from the kid’s desire and the kid’s own money! So for us to get to actively do this as adults is a thrill for our parents!”
Melora has played the cello since age nine and, along with her two bandmates, is now proving that cellos do have a place in pop music. Aside from some drum accompaniment, Rasputina’s music is created solely by cellos. The songs have an ethereal edge to them, especially in Melora’s vocals, but are also extremely tight.
For Melora, using the cello this way came about almost accidentally.
“I had no idea of it as a child,” she says. “I studied pretty hard. It was a very regimented thing; you dread practicing and lessons are really intense. I stopped as a teenager, social pressure, and moved to NY and went to art school. There were so many bands around, and to hear that I played cello when I was a kid, people were like, ‘Ooh, play the cello in my band.’ I also did performance art kind of stuff when I was in my early 20s, and I think that helped form what I do now. I mixed it all up.”
Working with three cellos in a pop context isn’t particularly difficult for her.
“It’s what comes naturally for me because I have limited classical experience,” she explains. “But things like syncopated rhythms and some keys that are common in popular music come very naturally if you listen to that a lot. For somebody who’s very strictly classically trained, it’s really difficult, and it takes almost as much time to unlearn a lot of that stuff. So rhythms that are natural and that I love, sometimes I have to work with the other girls who are better trained.”
Keeping Rasputina’s instrumentation limited was important to Melora, particularly on the group’s first album.
“It was really important to me to have nothing else, especially on this first album. Just as a political statement, the cello can do lots of different things. The cello is our instrument; we don’t look at it as a novelty. We see the word ‘gimmicky’ used in connection with us a lot, where it’s an ancient and beautiful instrument and not a gimmick. But to take it out of context and play it in a new way, that should be a positive thing. But because it’s unusual, people will put that word on it.”
The unusual instrumentation does create some practical problems. Even a bad cello, Melora points out, is expensive, so there is always the fear that one will be broken, lost, or stolen.
“We’re very protective; we don’t even really like anyone to help us carry our cellos,” she says. “I think a lot of people think, ‘Oh, it will be so easy to put these guys on tour, it’s just their cellos.’ But we have the same amount of equipment as other types of bands, amplifiers and a drum kit.”
Playing rock clubs also meant dealing with sound people who weren’t necessarily accustomed to amplifying cellos.
“We have our own sound guy with us now who knows what we’re doing. That’s a great luxury for us. Playing clubs for so long, there’s lots of stuff we know — don’t take the treble off, don’t go direct — and it’s very difficult sometimes getting soundmen to believe it.”
Rasputina recently embarked on their first national tour, opening for Bob Mould. Melora says that she and her bandmates are all fans of Mould, so they didn’t mind hearing his music night after night. It might not be the most obvious musical pairing, but Rasputina likes it that way.
“I like contrast, and when we think of tour pairings I like to think of very contrasting pairings,” explains Melora. “The audience, I think they have no idea what they’re seeing, so they seem a little stunned, but they’re very attentive. But sometimes, as a show, I think it may be weird, too goofy or theatrical for Bob. He has a very white-boys-of-a-certain-age audience. If we can make them be quiet and pay attention, it’s good.”
That theatrical side of Rasputina extends to Melora’s interaction with the audience.
“In the live shows, I do talking between the songs, kind of like introductions,” she explains. “And in my mind it’s jokes, but I don’t know if anyone else sees it that way!”
The group has been around for about five years and has been playing out in New York City for most of that time. Melora says that in the beginning she was so shy about singing that the vocals were nearly inaudible. But the group improved and attracted the attention of a “very zealous A&R” person who believed in them. Prior to Thanks for the Ether, Rasputina’s only recorded output was one seven-inch.
The current lineup differs slightly from the one featured on the album. Carpella joined Melora and Julia in the studio, but she has left the country and has been replaced by Agnieszka, who came over from Poland seven months ago.
“Fresh in the country, she came to an audition and we met her and we started playing together,” says Melora. “It’s very fun to have someone who’s not a jaded and cynical NY musician.”
Melora writes all of Rasputina’s material, and the group’s precise arrangements reflect a working method very different from that of many rock bands.
“I write everything, and I write it all on staff paper, score it out,” explains Melora. “Then we learn it from there. We don’t do much jamming or changing it around. I think that’s just the nature of the instrument because we don’t have frets, and pitch and tone are such delicate things between the three of us. The arrangements are very tight; you have to be in the right place at the right time. We like to work that way, and we find that in popular music that’s a little bit looked down upon, because classical musicians are under no pressure to write their own material.”
Her lyrics often begin almost as research projects.
“It’s very much like setting myself an assignment,” she says. “I’m either a character or I’m inspired by whatever I enjoy reading. And I read a lot of history, so it’s trying to imagine the personality and personal side of history. It’s an enjoyable task for me, and it’s where a lot of the lyrics come from.”
Thanks for the Ether features songs Rasputina have been playing all along as well as more recent material. Melora says that she had creative spurts during the process of making it, so some of the tracks are extremely new. The spoken segments featured on the album came about very quickly.
Melora also created the cover art herself, drawing on her background as a jewelry designer.
“I love to make things with my hands and was a jewelry designer for many years before I started to do this,” she says. “To me it’s similar in that the cello is an old instrument that hasn’t changed much, but it becomes antiquated by putting it in this setting. And needlework, that kind of stuff, is very forgotten as well. It’s very tactile types of things, and the music is like that to me as well.”
Outside of Rasputina, Melora has played cello with a wide variety of bands onstage and in the studio, including Ultra Vivid Scene, Nirvana, Screaming Trees, and Babe the Blue Ox.
Her experience with Nirvana came when she joined the band on a European tour.
“It was very intense, because I think like any tour there was a lot of waiting,” she recalls. “I like the music a lot, and I don’t like a whole lot of stuff, so to go play with music I actually like was good. Everyone involved, from the crew to the band members, the age level was pretty young for a large operation, and everyone was so nice. But there was clearly a cloud hanging over it. Kurt was obviously an unhappy person, and that was very sad.”
The experience also gave her a disturbing glimpse of what extreme fame can do to a musician.
“From seeing them, it was very clear to me the correlation between one human being having fanatical admiration from thousands of people — that’s a twisted thing that most people can’t handle. It’s a scary issue. But the actual playing with them, it was very reaffirming.”
For all the unusual places the cello has taken her, Melora still sees Rasputina’s use of the instrument as something natural rather than a novelty. And while her childhood teacher never got to see where it ultimately led, she suspects word of her career may still have made its way back to his family.
“I just had my one cello teacher, who was an old man when I was a little girl,” she says. “He was from Boston, so in the Midwest he was a very upper-crust, East Coast, scary kind of fellow. But he passed away, though I think his wife is still alive and may be periodically informed of what I do.”
