The fiercely independent Aimee Mann lives her life by the Groucho Marx credo “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member,” and yet there are many who’d cut off their little toe for one night among her and her cohorts.
The Oscar-nominated singer/songwriter and sometimes actress is not only married to fellow musician Michael Penn, brother of Sean, but she also counts Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, the brothers Coen (“The Big Lebowski,” “No Country for Old Men”) and the elusive director Paul Thomas Anderson (“Magnolia”) as her personal friends or collaborators. Given this sardonic entourage, it’s no wonder that Mann can so cleverly weave beautiful melodies together with sweetly sarcastic lyrics where few cows are sacred.
With her tongue often planted in her cheek one may wonder how she can sing at all. It is this sharp wit and uncanny ability to see the best and the worst in people, however, that make her songwriting unique, mysterious and unsurpassed amongst her peers. Her current record “@#%&! Smilers” is a swipe at people who constantly tell her that she needs to smile more often.
Mann took an afternoon off to share some candid thoughts on the death rattle of the music industry, her songwriting and her funny friends in advance of her show Saturday Sept. 25 at the Variety Playhouse, a favorite stop in her Southeastern travels.
Q: The subject matter in your songs often defaults to darker subject matter. Has that changed any?
A: There are new things that get thrown on the fire, but I don't see my topics changing too much. What I like to write about is people, their whining and why they're so crazy. I just look at the world around me and that is where I get most of my material. I will always think that that is interesting. Musically I think my roots are deep in the classic late '60s, early '70s singer/songwriter genre. You know, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and early Elton John, the kind of stuff that I grew up on. I think there is a semi-Beatle-y, harmonic approach that works for me.
Q: Your songwriting seems so organic, like it just flows out of you, and yet the songs are so well-structured. Why is that?
A: I went to Berklee College of Music but didn't study songwriting. I didn't know anything about music at all. I learned to play bass there and learned some basic music theory. I think learning music theory and why certain chords make sense with other chords and that there's sort of a logic to it helped me with my songwriting, but I didn't take a songwriting class. It's something you learn by doing it and hearing stuff that you like. I learned by doing. And like anything, the more you do it, the better you get.
Q: Your turmoil within the music industry is well-publicized. Do you foresee a change or a backlash to come?
A: I don't think the music industry will ever be the same. I think there will always be opportunists who will find a way to make money off of people who make music. That is going to evolve into mostly manufactured pop where they bring in songwriters, producers, stylists -- where the artist is more of a product and the music is a way to sell the product. Where the money comes in is having all these tie-ins with other products. Britney Spears has her perfumes and clothing lines and stuff. The music helps to sell that as opposed to being what is sold because people just don't pay money for music anymore. Anybody who is in the music business thinking that they're going to make money is crazy. I think the supermanufactured stuff will get bigger and bigger and that's what you're going to hear. The indie stuff just has to be more and more homemade because it's too expensive to make a record with musicians and studio time. There's not much of a middle class.
Q: What’s it like being around so many funny and talented people all the time?
A: Ninety percent of my friends are comics. I love being around them because you can just see that their minds are always working. They're constantly listening and creating and working with language. Being around them keeps your mind active. The good thing is that they don't feel the need to always be on; they're not trying to one-up each other. Patton [Oswalt] is not always trying to make me laugh all the time, which is surprising. He's a really good listener and a good laugher. He doesn't have to be the only funny one in the room.
Concert preview
Aimee Mann. Saturday, Sept. 25. Doors open 7:30 p.m. $30. Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave., 404-524-7354, www.variety-playhouse.com .
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