Singer/songwriter Tristan Prettyman

It seems like acoustic guitar-based music has become really popular lately. (I don't know if it actually has, but since I've recently been listening to it a lot I am going to go ahead and say so.) That sort of music has a quality you can't really find elsewhere. Of the artists in this genre, I am particularly taken with Tristan Prettyman, whose music is honest and incredibly appealing, and I am incredibly fortunate in that I am able now to present to you readers an interview with her.

Tristan?
Hey!

Hi, this is Keely. How are you?
I’m doing good. What’s going on?

Hm…. I’m interviewing you.
[laughs]

How are you?
Doing good, doing good. Right now I am in Birmingham, Alabama.

Ooh, Alabama. You've been on tour for a while now?
Yeah, we’re in our sixth week right now so. We’re done Sunday. Next Sunday. We're on the home stretch.

Any particular favorite places from the tour?
Um, Jeez, honestly… everywhere! [laughs] Let me think. We started in San Diego and then we kind of went up the coast. Hold on, I’m looking at the calendar. Um, we just played Orlando last week and we had a really fun show there; that was pretty awesome. Minneapolis was really good and now we’re in Birmingham tonight and New Orleans Thursday. And then we go to Texas—Houston, Austin, Dallas. Texas is super fun too. I love Austin. It’s a great town

Yeah. And then next month, you’re going to be going to Japan.
Yep, yep, yep.

That sounds really, really cool. Have you been to Japan before?
Yeah, This’ll be like the thirteenth time I’ve gone.

Thirteen?!
Yeah, the first record twentythree did well there so I found myself there a lot you know just doing press and doing tours there and festivals so I’ve spent a lot of time there, so it’s nice now because when I go I can recognize and figure out where I am and it doesn’t feel so completely overwhelming. But, yeah, I love it over there.

So you’ve spent a lot of time in Japan. What’s your favorite thing about going there, then?
Um, one of my favorite restaurants is actually there and it’s called Kai Ka Ya and it's down this like brick, like, cobblestone alleyway like if you hang a left and go down another little alleyway… It’s probably one of my favorite restaurants ever, in the whole world, so I really try to hit that up. And there’s so much to see there. Everything from the markets and the stores and the people are so nice. The culture, it’s just a really beautiful culture. The Japanese take a lot of pride in where they come from and their country and they’re really genuine and very, very sweet so it's nice. Definitely a special treat to go get to tour over there.

Have you found yourself being musically influenced by there at all?
Not too much, no. I mean I’ve gone a lot, but I’ve never spent a ton of time there. When I go to Japan I’m just in awe, like wide eyed, like wow! [laughs] But no, definitely doesn’t influence the music or anything.

Well then… other things that have influenced your song writing?
Um, I think it definitely changes. Like, they say you have your whole life to sort of write your first record so a lot of my first record was written between the ages of like 17 and 23 so it’s like from coming out of high school to going into college and learning to play music. There’s just a lot going on. So there’s definitely a lot of everything before that—I was influenced by everything that influences your whole life up to that. You know, so that record was more about experiencing first loves and just being 15 or 16 and having crushes on people. And I listen to that first record and in a way it’s just very basic to me and it seems like, did I really write all of that stuff? It seems so childish in a way, you know?

Right.
I think for this last record, though, it was written obviously in a shorter period of time and it was influenced by things that happened in a two year period. I definitely went through a lot of growth. I moved out on my own. I was living by myself. I had like a year where I took to just get to know me and figure out who I was and what I want to represent and how I can be a role model and there was just so much stuff going on and so much growth. And a lot of the inspiration for the new record also came from just observing and… Being on tour for so long with the first record, I didn’t really have a chance to write at all so when I came home off tour everything kind of came flooding out, you know? And I kind of just sorted through everything and there was a lot of reflection going on and going into the second record. You know, there was a lot of that. I think these days more than ever like to just sit back and observe the world, you know, my life and my friend’s lives and the world and all the different places that we go and I think that definitely gets in there. And then having toured with some of these musicians you know like the John Butler Trio and Chris Isaak… When you’re on tour with somebody for a month, it’s inevitable—sort of like if you’re hanging out with a friend for a long period of time you kind of start talking like each other, or something like that. So I think this record definitely has like bits and pieces from all those bands on tour that definitely kind of opened my eyes to different kind of sound and way to play—and you're just seeing them day in and day out, their personality and on and off days and all that sort of stuff.

So no literary or film influences or…
I don’t think so, no. Especially, I don’t think I’ve ever thought to myself listening to other music thinking "I really like that artist’s song; I want a song like that." It’s just never something that’s conscious for me. I think music is something totally separate and sort of sacred for me. It’s just this thing that sort of happens, you know?

Right. But in terms of free time…
Um, let's see. I don’t know… I don't really have time for anything! [laughs] I’m reading a Joseph Campbell book right now, The Power of Myth, which is a pretty amazing book. My boyfriend actually turned me on to Joseph Campbell. Just the whole idea of mythology and how everything just kind of relates to myth and everything comes from somewhere else, and in different cultures there are different stories and different beliefs but they all come back to one similar story. There’s always a similar story that kind of connects every culture and everything. So I’m reading that right now and it’s really great. Music wise, let’s see. I just bought Mika Miko's—she's from Los Angeles; she’s really rad. The Avett Brothers we listen to a lot in the band. They’re pretty great. They’re from North Carolina. I don’t know though. Honestly, I have no time for— [laughs] I've been reading this book for like 3 months and it’s like I only ever get to read a couple pages because it’s been so crazy with the tour and the press. All that sort of stuff.

So, I wanted to—before you were a musician, you were a Roxy model, correct?
Very short lived. [laughs] That was for like five minutes

Wait, it's mentioned everywhere!
God, I know. No, I was on the surf team and they came and did this interview thing where they interviewed all the girls on the surf team and they were gonna pick two girls to be their new Roxy models and I got picked for one of them so I did a photoshoot and then I quickly got the boot because they found this other girl that was some Hawaiian. They used her. It was really like short lived. I don’t know, it’s in everything and I’m like, "Ehhh…"

[laughs] Oh god. Apologies for asking!
No, no, I like when people ask that so I can correct them because it always gets written up and I’m not trying to be like, "I was a Roxy model!" You know?

Well, you set me straight.
[laughs]

But you have been a surfer since junior high, though, right?
Yeah, I’ve been surfing since I was like 10 or 11.

So in terms of taking advantage of living in California…
You know, I don’t know because I was born and raised here. I was born and raised in San Diego. I mean I honestly didn’t start surfing until I was in the 6th grade and that was just because I was going into high school and we got a list of electives that we could take when you’re in high school and surfing was one of them and I thought, "Wow, there aren’t a lot of girls surfing. That would be cool to do because it’s not popular like softball, baseball, football and that sort of thing." So I just did that for me because it was different and I remember coming home and telling my parents because at that time I was playing soccer and I was ice skating and I was doing weird activities. I was like in girl scouts and I remember saying "I want to learn how to surf," and my Mom said, "Well your dad used to surf, when I met your dad he surfed." I was like, "Woohoo!" And—my dad used to surf and he was in construction so he just kind of lost touch with it, but then once I wanted to learn he was like, "That’s pretty cool," and it gave us a chance to have like a father daughter thing. So, you know, he got back into it and my brother was surfing in Northern California and then a couple years later my mom was like, "Well shit, everyone else is surfing, I want learn too!" So she got lessons for herself and next thing you know the whole family is surfing. So growing up it was never… we grew up near the beach and stuff and we’d go to the beach but… I don't know, I don’t even remember life before surfing because it seems like now it’s such a staple within our family. But San Diego definitely lends itself that sort of environment.

And it's interesting that it especially happened through your dad because I heard you first got interested in playing the guitar because you borrowed your dad’s guitar.
Yeah, it was in the guest room, the junk room, and I just saw it and I was like, "Huh. I want to learn how to play that." I was like, "That’d be really cool. I’d get so many guys if I learned how to play the guitar."

[laughs]
I was so fuckin' nerdy in high school and junior high, I was like the odd, weird girl, so I was like, "Hm, maybe it’ll make me cool if I learn how to play that!" But it was over time because I probably found the guitar when I was thirteen or fourteen and then I just kind of taught myself off and on for 4 or 5 years, but it wasn't really until 18 or 19 that I was actually writing songs and playing something that actually sounded listenable.

[laughs] Yeah, I’m beginning to teach myself the guitar and I get distracted really easily.
Yeah, it took me a while and it wasn’t something that I was like, "I’m going to learn how to do this," or devoted every day to learning it. It sort of took a long time, but then one day it sort of clicked. I was like, "Huh, I get it now." And I would just write songs. You’ll probably get to that point soon, where you’ll just be like, "I got it now," you know, and you’ll be playing all sorts of stuff.

Yeah. In the meantime, though, I end up frightening the cat every time I try to mess around.
[laughs]

So you've already mentioned differences and growth between your first and second album but let's just talk about that a bit further.
I think that honestly it has a lot to do with touring. You know my manager is very adamant about being a touring musician and being able to have that to fall back on because it’s sort of like—and I’ve seen it. I mean, the guy who assigned me to Virgin isn’t event there anymore and half my team that I worked with in the beginning isn’t there. Things in a major label can change so fast that you really do have to have a backup, you know? And I think our approach is just to tour and do as much as we can do on our end without having to depend on anyone. The touring—I was on a tour for about two and a half years on the first record and in the beginning of that I had done maybe five or six tours, but I hadn’t ever toured consistently for a really long time. And I think just being on the road and going from just playing by myself to adding a drummer and a bass player, and just how that’s kind of evolved—that all happened in those two and a half years. I went through all those stages, and when it came time to make the second record it was like I was so polished and such a better singer and such a better musician and I was finding my voice—it's just like what they say, practice makes perfect, you know? So I just think I just grew a lot and when it came time to make the second record… we recorded it all pretty much live. You know, there was no going back and redoing vocals or redoing guitar takes because I was already so warmed up from all the touring I did. It was pretty awesome. We were just able to really focus on the music and the songs and how they made you feel and the vibes. It was just really, really fun. You know, in the first record everything was so new to me and I was new to being on a label, I was new to being in a recording studio, I was really new to the recording process, like the way that we were doing it with like the whole band and the whole shebang so it was a lot of learning going on and a lot of first experiences on the first record. I don’t know, I’m really… it’s really crazy. I remember a lot of people in the beginning before I made the second record asked me, "Do you feel pressured to make a second record?" Your second record can be the hardest because you don’t have 16 years to write it and how do you top the first record? But I never really felt the pressure from me on myself or from anybody else and I kind of just took a deep breath and said, "Let’s see what we can do here." It just came together really nice, you know? But I think it had a lot to do with the producer. You know, I got to go to London and the whole process of it from the very beginning just really felt right. In my heart and in my gut it just felt like we were on the right path and doing the right thing and the songs just kind of came and I was just very, very, very inspired throughout the whole process, so that definitely helped a ton.

I’d also like to ask about another project you’d supposedly been working on with other song writers Anya Marina and Greg Laswell entitled "Lindsay Goes to Rehab"…
[laughs] Um, that happened after a long night of wine, and… we went back to Anya’s house and we just started singing silly songs. Greg, Anya and I have known each other for a long time—Anya was one of the first musicians I met when I kind of started playing out in San Diego—but these things were just really silly and just sort of happened. We have nights where we’ll drink and we’ll go down the circle and tell each other one nice thing about each other. [laughs] And we're like, "I love you because you write great songs." We always get so silly. But that just happened randomly one night. Lindsay had just gone to rehab and we just all started singing it and next thing you know we were recording it and Greg was singing background vocals and all that sort of stuff.

And you've also said that you have a fascination with cameras and film.
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I have no time for anything anymore, but I’ve always—I really just love photography and taking photos of whatever: people, the ocean, just light. And I especially really love black and white. And it’s really hard to take a good picture—I don't know, I’ve always been kind of fascinated with it. And when I was in London I got an old Cannon film camera from one of the flea markets and I started experimenting with black and white film and color film. You know, in our world today everything is so digital and you lose so much of what's beautiful. I don’t know, there’s just a different quality to it, you know? So, I have my camera and my camera guy in San Diego taught me how to use it better, and… it’s another slow hobby that’s taking place over time. But nothing that I've ever—and I haven't really gotten to take any photos on this tour…

So what's coming up for you?
Well, after Japan we have these really rad events with the Surfrider Foundation and Barefoot Wine. It kicks off in Montauk, New York. Basically, it’s called the Barefoot Beach Rescue Project. So it's Barefoot Wine and the Surfrider Foundation and they’ve come together to kind of… it’s just raising awareness in your community, whether you live near the beach or you live miles away, about how everybody can do their part to keep our oceans and waterways clean. You can actually go to barefootbeachrescue.com and you can find out the night they take the first hundred volunteers and Montauk is going to be the kickoff so they’re going to have a big beach clean up and then they have a little party afterward and it’s like free wine and then I’m going to play a short set. It’s just kind of like getting the community together, raising awareness, and just kind of keeping the beaches clean. And growing up in San Diego, it's something that I’ve always done all my life anyways and we’d always have beach cleanups and still to this day I’m always stuffing trash if I see it on the beach. So there’s four of them all summer long. Montauk is May 31st, and there’s two in July, in Austin, Texas, and at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. And the fourth location you can actually vote on. So it’s pretty rad. I’m really psyched to be a part of it and spend my summer on the beach.

Well, I would technically not be able to partake in the wine part, but… [laughs] So thank you so much for talking and for doing this interview!
Oh no worries, no worries. Take care.

Tristan Prettyman is something else, and so is her music. To check it out, visit her MySpace or her website.