Interview with Saint Bernadette – Part 1

In mid-December I met up with Keith Saunders (guitarist, backing vocalist), Meredith DiMenna (vocalist), and Joe Novelli (slide guitarist) of Saint Bernadette at a church before the band’s show at The Court Tavern in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  We chatted in-depth about their new album Cover Thy Neighbor, their blues-based, rock and alt-folk sound, the vibrant artistic scene of their home base of Bridgeport, Connecticut, the varied talents of each band member, and much more.  Saint Bernadette had just hosted and played at the album release party for Cover Thy Neighbor the previous night to a packed and enthusiastic crowd at the Acoustic Café in Bridgeport.

Saint Bernadette started in 2006 and the band released debut album In The Ballroom in 2007.  Two EPs followed, I Wanna Tell You Something in 2008 and Word to the Lourdes in 2009.  Cover Thy Neighbor is the latest creation and is out now.  Check out the official band site at http://saintbernadettemusic.blogspot.com/ and MySpace profile at http://www.myspace.com/saintbernadette

Delusions of Adequacy:  I think you’ve had a turnover of band members for the past few years.  What’s the current line-up now of who’s playing and who’s singing?

Keith:  Well, the three of us are the members who have been on all the records since the beginning.  Me and Meredith and Joe have put out four records together now and have been together for the entire duration of the band.  This is our second album with drummer Dave Valle and we have a few songs and a new record with Tim Walsh who’s played some drums on a couple of songs.  Our bass player is Brian Anderson.

Meredith:  Because Brian’s in another band, we also have another bass player that plays with us fairly often named Tim Edgar.

DOA:   You just released an album yesterday, right, called Cover Thy Neighbor?

Meredith:  We did a limited run of CD copies and we’re going to release it digitally and in some other format, but we’re not sure.  It just might be those copies and digital only.

Keith:  The first 200 copies which we released starting yesterday are all silk-screened and hand- numbered, so they’re a limited edition product.

DOA:  To go into more detail about this album, it’s all cover songs of bands from Connecticut or from the Bridgeport area?

Keith: All the artists that wrote songs for this record are somewhat connected to Connecticut. They’ve lived there or played there a little bit, but are somehow affiliated with the area.

DOA:  And then last night you had the release party at the Acoustic Café in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  I was wondering how that show went. You actually played – it wasn’t just a listening party.

Keith:  We created the show in the format of a Catholic mass.  So we broke it down by each section of the mass and had guest performers come up and some other bands do a few songs. We had some readings, some standup comedy, and then Saint Bernadette played a set and we had a lot of guest performers that are on the record, and friends of ours came up on stage and joined us for a couple songs here and there. It was very successful. We had a great turnout. It was one of the best shows we’ve ever done.

DOA:  Since we’re talking about where you’re based now, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, I want to go into the scene there.  From what I’ve read, it sounds like a lot of the bands are helping each other out.  Does it apply just to music, or is there other stuff going on?  There are certain areas in the U.S., like Brooklyn and Silver Lake, where there’s a lot going on with film also, and art and galleries.  Is that happening too?

Meredith:  Yes, definitely.  We live in a building that’s all artists. We have a gallery in the bottom floor of our building and there’s a lot of collaboration, like visual art.  All of our merchandise is a collaboration with local artists and the silk-screening happens in our building.  So it’s a place where, eventually, all of the artists kind of converge.

Keith:  We work with a lot of local artists to create our visual persona of the band. There are a few art galleries, a lot of new bars opening up, and coffee shops, and restaurants in Bridgeport, and we’ve been there for four years now working closely with the scene.  Meredith and I have participated in producing some of the free summer concerts that the city puts on every year in the park. And really, just trying to work as hard as we can to get the message out about Bridgeport being a very artist-friendly place for musicians and artists to come and do their work.

DOA:  You’ve not only played in that area but places in New York City and the east coast region.  I don’t know if you’ve done other mini-tours or shows in other places in the U.S….

Keith:  Yeah, we have.  We’ve been doing a few regional tours each year.  We play a lot down in Asheville, North Carolina, and go down a few times a year and will set up shows on the way down and on the way back. And we’ve been out to Austin, Texas.

DOA:  I was wondering about that because there’s the SXSW festival and you played that, but I’m not sure when.

Meredith:  Two years ago.  Last year we just went.  Last year Keith and I were producers on a film that was in the film festival, so we went for that and then we stayed and just kind of spent time there.

DOA:  Was the film music-related at all?

Meredith:  Yeah, my brother is an actor and filmmaker and so he does these musical parodies based on The Godfather and two of them got into SXSW, so Keith does the music for it.

DOA:  I wanted to switch gears and talk about your band name and its association with religion.  I know religion’s a touchy subject, so I’m not going in-depth, but your band is named after the French saint and a couple of your recordings have titles with religious wordplay.  I’ve heard a lot of your songs and the lyrics seem to be more about relationships, heartbreak, and “trouble and desire”, to quote film director Hal Hartley (from his film Simple Men), and also about being a person who is strong and in control, but can also have fun.  So I’m wondering if there’s any religious subtext to your songs?

Keith:  I think there is religious context in a broader sense in our songs and in our own alternative take on how religion and relationships and sexuality can all intermingle in a modern age and in an alternative way to what most people are used to and the very antiquated structure of Christianity, the Catholic Church, and other major religions.  I think that in some way our songs tie into our view of a modernized religion and spirituality.

DOA:  This might be a little too personal, but I was wondering if you were all raised Catholic.

Meredith:  We were, but Joe wasn’t, but Dave and Brian were.

Keith:  A lot of the band members were confirmed Catholics…

Meredith:  The drummer of our first record was too.

Keith: …and some of us were altar boys.

(General soft laughter)

DOA: At one time.

Keith:  Yeah, but it was a good way to have access to alcohol when you were a kid.

(more laughter)

DOA:  Going over individually what you do in the band – Meredith, you’re on lead vocals.  I just want to say that you sing amazingly.  You’re very powerful and have a lot of range, but are also nuanced and you have a lot of emotion in your vocals.  I find it interesting that you sound different on each song, or even parts of songs.  Are you always projecting yourself or do you ever take on somebody else, like a character, and you’re singing as someone else?

Meredith:  That’s a good question.  I definitely am theatrical and I do think that I take on characters in some of the songs, but I think that all the characters are parts of me that I’m kind of working out, so I do tend to take a different approach depending on the subject matter too, because sometimes songs don’t need all the “me” that some other songs do.

Keith:  I think that maybe you take a different approach on the new record being that these are all covers…?
Meredith:  Definitely, man, since I didn’t write any of the material, I’m trying to be true to the material, even more so getting into the story of the song.  I really loved doing that record because when you’re doing your own material sometimes your performance is actually designed to obscure your own meaning because you’re afraid of it, or once you realize what it is, you don’t want anyone else to know.  But for this, when it’s someone else’s material, you just want to make sure that it comes across exactly with what you think it’s saying and so that allows you to go much farther into the performance.

DOA:  Is it also a pressure to be true to this material that’s not your own, to get it across?

Meredith:  I don’t know.  I’m just not generally someone who perceives that kind of thing as pressure.  I love it so much I just look at it as “I can’t wait to do this”.  That’s why we picked these songs, because I would hear them and be like “I want to sing that so badly, I can’t wait to get in there and just do that song”.  But I think that, obviously, we have the highest respect for all these songwriters and we definitely want to do justice to their songs, but for me it never gets quantified as pressure.

Keith:  We did carefully choose these songs and put together a group of compositions that we could pour ourselves into and I think we’ve done that somewhat effectively because we’ve already received a lot of feedback, people saying that all these covers integrate totally into our originals and people really feel like we own these songs and that we’re doing them in our own style and they sound like Saint Bernadette songs which, to me, is one of the best compliments to hear after recording someone else’s song, to have people say “Wow, this really sounds like you”.

DOA:  Meredith, just to finish up about your vocals, are you self-taught for singing or have you ever had lessons?
Meredith:  Yeah, I’ve had lessons.  I’ve been singing all my life, so I’ve sung in school and in madrigal groups and, you know, in 8-part harmony with other girls, and I’m pretty rigorously trained as a singer.

Keith:  And a rapper.

(soft laughter)

Meredith:  I’m a self-taught rapper, but I am a trained singer.

(more laughter)

Meredith:  Uh, yeah, it’s definitely something I’ve worked on and studied at and done in various forms, all different types of music.

DOA: Do you actually have to take care of your voice?

Meredith:  Yeah, I do have to take care of it, and the rock ‘n’ roll format is difficult.  I’m in a battle with our drummer right now.   He’s too damn loud. I’m gonna beat him though.  I will beat him.  And the other part is that it’s difficult to stay on the grind of warming up, because your vocal cords are a muscle.  It’s just like it being an athlete, you have to keep it in shape and keep it working.

DOA:  Moving on to Keith, you’re the guitarist for the band, but you’ve also done some slide guitar –

Keith:  Joe is the slide guitar player.  I have done a little bit of slide work on some of the records, but it’s mostly regular electric and acoustic guitars, and I’ve played bass on a couple of our albums, but Meredith has been playing a lot of guitar on the new album and our new live shows.  She’s playing a lot of guitar.

DOA:  So singing and playing?

Keith:  Most people might have a hard time believing it, but Meredith actually sings live in the studio with the band and recorded her vocals and played the rhythm guitar parts all live with the band.

DOA:  Like in one take?

Keith:  Yeah, the whole band was together in a room and the vocals she’s singing and the guitar parts she was playing ended up on the record.

DOA:  Wow, that’s great, because I know that a lot of people these days take this from here, take that from there…stick the best parts together.

Keith:  Yeah, a lot of bands will record the band first and then the vocals after, but Meredith prefers to record her parts live and feed off the energy of the moment.

Joe:  It’s more rock ‘n’ roll.