Photo by Heather Holty Newton

Mississippi-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Garrison Starr deserves stardom. She has toured with Lilith Fair and collaborated with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Glen Phillips and Steve Earle. “Superhero,” an inspirational number from her 1997 debut album, “Eighteen Over Me,” achieved popularity. It was featured on ABC’s coverage of Women’s World Cup Soccer. Another song, “Beautiful in Los Angeles,” appeared on MTV’s “The Hills.” Her songs are moving, captivating and skillfully crafted.

Starr’s “Everything You Are Is Beautiful” is featured in an anti-bullying TV spot. She knows how it feels to be an outsider.

After stints with labels like Geffen, Starr decided to release her latest album, “Amateur,” on her own. Fans contributed the funding through PledgeMusic.com. Starr’s new indie career requires adjustments in attitude and philosophy, as well as nuts-and-bolts approach.

Starr’s identification with a fighter is reflected in the cover art for “Amateur,” an illustration of a little boxer. She’s a battler with a beautiful soul. Her music is cathartic for her, comforting to others.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
The ‘Amateur’ album is remarkable. The idea of the fan-funding, was that empowering? Was it difficult to wrap your head around at first?

GARRISON STARR:
Totally. You said it all. It was really hard to wrap my head around at first. Because I come from such a label background, I was worried that that was going to appear like needy or helpless, to do the fan-funded thing. But the more I saw my friends doing it, and the more I saw that that was kind of the way the industry was going, the more I just sort of wrapped my head around being an indie artist, for the first time, really, in my whole career, and what that meant. Then it became very empowering. It’s boosted my social media a lot and it’s helped me grow a lot. The social media thing has been really important. And PledgeMusic really helped with that. That’s for sure.

PCC:
The fact that you didn’t have to deal with the labels this time, was that liberating in itself?

STARR:
Yeah, you know, it’s funny. In hindsight, the more comfortable I’ve gotten in my own skin, as an independent artist, and realizing what it means to be on a label and the freedoms that come with that, that aren’t necessarily freedoms... Now that I understand the way the business works - I hesitate to say this, because you never know what’s going to happen and what kinds of partnerships you’ll form - I can’t imagine being on a label, the way I was back then. I can’t imagine signing a record deal now. I just can’t imagine that anymore. The more I understand my own business and how the industry works and what ownership means to an artist, I don’t know if I could ever do that again.

PCC:
This particular project, ‘Amateur,’ had its genesis in a high school journal?

STARR:
Yeah, totally. When I was in high school, I started writing a book called, ‘A View of Life From an Amateur.’ And I’d been getting my junior high English teacher to help me edit it. So I was going call the record, ‘A View of Life From an Amateur,’ but all the song titles were so long that I decided to just shorten it to ‘Amateur.’ And it kind of has a nice ring to it. And the more I thought about what that project had always meant to me, and what the record means to me, it seemed like a good fit.

PCC:
Did you actual take some ideas from those old jottings?

STARR:
Only the title, and the idea of the title, how fearless I was as a kid, and all the ideas I had and the ways that I was going to conquer the world. Some of those ideas I took, not necessarily the writings themselves. I still hope to one day do something with those, the writings themselves. There’s a lot of them. It’s funny. I have a manila folder full of all these poems and musings, from my childhood. It’s interesting. I’ve got to take some time and go through that stuff.

PCC:
What about this notion of returning to an amateur status, in terms of attitude or perspective, seeing it as a positive?

STARR:
It’s funny. I’ve spent a little bit of time in 12 Step and Al-Anon and one of the things that Al-Anon taught me was the very strong idea of acceptance. The way to move forward is to really come to terms with where you are and where things are in the moment, where my life is now, instead of whatever ideas I had when I was younger and whatever comparisons I was making and still continuing to make as my life and career went along, and how I internalized the disappointments, I’d been trying to compare myself to the person I thought I should be, as opposed to the person I actually am and all the successes I’ve actually had and the ways that I want to move forward. The important thing is to accept my life as it is and where I want to go and the fact that it does look different. I’ve never really had a plan.

Accepting that I have a plan now and that I have a better grasp of what I want and what I want the scenery to look like has helped me to be an indie artist and to understand that I do have full control, relatively speaking, over where my life goes, where the path goes. I have the power to decide how I want that to unfold. I’m so much happier now. I don’t really know what I thought my life would look like in my mid-30s. But when I stand in my shoes today and look around me, at what’s going on and how much I’ve accomplished, it’s exciting, it’s not disappointing. If I choose to compare myself to other people and compare myself to some idea of who I thought I might ought to be, then you can make it into as negative as you want to make it. You can always have more money. You can always have more status. You can always more success of some kind, that maybe you don’t have. You can always imagine that you want those things or that they should be different. But I really think that once I let go... it’s been a long process of letting go of some of the baggage of my history, from my personal history of growing up and my career history. Letting go of those things has been exciting. It’s exciting, when I finally let it be.

It’s hard. In the ‘90s, there was a lot of status that went along with having a record deal. It’s not that way so much anymore, because of the opportunities and the possibilities that exist now. But, back then, it was a big deal to be on a label. It’s what everybody wanted. And, if you had that, then you had something. And if you didn’t have that, well, then, everybody else had it but you... Do you know what I mean? It’s the thing that you wanted.

Now, I think the only real enemy is me. I’m swinging at ghosts now. I don’t have to fight like I think I have to fight. I think maybe back then I did. But I don’t have to do that anymore. And sometime it’s hard to remember that, when you’re so used to fighting.

PCC:
That analogy of being a fighter, which is reflected in the cover art, is that something inherent in you, or a quality you’ve had to cultivate?

STARR:
Well, it’s funny. I think I’ve always had it. And especially growing up in a really conservative, very Fundamentalist Christian environment. That was stifling in a lot of ways. I had to fight to be who I am. I had to fight to get out of that mold that was trying to engulf me. I’m not saying that there’s not a brand of Christianity that I could subscribe to. But the brand that I grew up with is not the way for me. And in some ways, I had to fight to get out of that quicksand.

PCC:
‘Everything You Are Is Beautiful,’ it must have been gratifying to have that song used in the TV anti-bullying campaign. Did you have to endure anything like that? Did you feel like an outsider?

STARR:
Yes, I definitely did. You know, it’s funny, because they interviewed so many people. And while we were doing that, I wasn’t sure what the final product was going to be. I think, if I had known the way it was going to all flesh itself out, I probably would have said some different things.

But, yes, definitely. And I feel that one of the ways I was bullied was in the church. Unfortunately, that whole Christian circle I was in, I feel like I was bullied by that, by that whole idea and that ideal, that I don’t believe in. And I don’t mean Jesus, either. I mean the surrounding religion. That’s what I feel like I was bullied by. Just being gay, I was ostracized from a lot of groups, a lot of churches. And that sucked. It really sucked. It was really painful as a kid, to be told, ‘I love you, but... ‘

And I just think that’s unacceptable. I don’t think that’s what love is and I don’t think that’s what Jesus would say to anyone. I think that a lot of churches and a lot of Christians have gotten that wrong, especially when you’re feeding all the bullshit into a child’s mind, when the child can continue to absorb that stuff and continue to tell themselves, through their adolescence, that they’re not good enough, not good enough to be loved. That’s awful. And it’s sad to me.

PCC:
Were you open about it back then, growing up in the South?

STARR:
Well, no I wasn’t. I wasn’t because, that’s not really a soapbox that I care to be on. I mean, my sexuality, the only reason that I would ever make that an issue is when it helps people. I don’t have a rainbow flag hanging outside my house. I don’t go to gay bars. I’m not putting down anybody who needs that as an identity. But that’s not my identity. I feel like my sexuality was something that I did protect for a long time, because I knew that being open about that was not going to be safe for me. And I found out, later on, that it actually wasn’t safe to talk about. And I kept it very private and to myself, number one, because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. And I didn’t really know what it meant. And I didn’t have anybody to talk to. And, number two, I really wanted to wait until I could get out of an unsafe environment, to figure out what it all meant for me. And I almost made it out [Laughs]. I barely got into college, when my girlfriend and I were discovered. It was a huge scandal. They tried to kick her out of the sorority. My parents pulled me out of school. It was quite a humiliating scenario at the time.

PCC:
So was it near that point that you moved to California?

STARR:
It was. This is actually kind of an awesome story. My friend Bradford Cobb, who manages Katy Perry, he’s managed her since she has been signed to Capitol. Gosh, it’s been almost 10 years now. But Bradford was moving out to Los Angeles to hook up with a management company called Direct Management. At the time, they were managing the Counting Crows and The B-52s, when both of those bands were at the height of their success. And they still are a good management company. They manage Tracy Chapman and Katy Perry and k.d. lang and a bunch of artists. So Bradford was moving out to get to hook up with those guys to get a job, working there. And my girlfriend at the time, we just had to get out of Memphis. We literally just said, ‘We’re going with you.’ And we threw our stuff in his moving truck and we all moved out together. That was in like June of ‘99, I think.

And it’s been amazing. I love L.A. This friend I’m staying with in Nashville at the moment, we went to school together and we were talking about how L.A. is really the only place that’s felt like home to us. It feels like the place you want to be. So, yeah, that was the story. We moved out there with Bradford. And I’ll be eternally grateful to him for that, because I just don’t know what it would have been like, if I couldn’t have gotten away at that time.

PCC:
With all you had to go through, how important was music in helping you get through the dark times?

STARR:
Oh, man, you know, I’m an only child. And, I hate to say this, because I love my family, and I’m proud to be from Mississippi, and I love all my friends there, but there were just certain things about it that were unsafe. My whole life, the deepest parts of myself just wanted to be shared. They wanted to be shared with my family at that time. And they just weren’t. So I put them into my songs and my poems. That’s the gift that God gave me.

Songs like ‘Pretty Good Year’ and ‘Closer To Fine,’ so many Indigo Girl songs, and Heart’s ‘Heartless,’ gosh, man, Bonnie Raitt’s ‘Nobody’s Girl.’ So many of these songs, they were my friends, cheesy as that sounds. Those were my friends. Those were the places that I went to hide and cry to and feel safe with. Those were the places that I went.

I can remember being in college, sitting in my dark dorm room, feeling so lonely and just listening to that music and feeling comforted. Feeling understood. There’s just that understanding there.

PCC:
And can you now get that same sense of comfort and understanding when you’re writing your own songs? When you write something like, ‘You can’t change what you can’t change, but you gotta still try,’ in ‘To Garrison On Her 29th Birthday,’ can you inspire yourself, when you write that sort of line?

STARR:
Totally. I have more tools now. I’ve been through some therapy. You do some self-care [Laughs]. You get older and you realize that the boundaries have shifted and the walls have crumbled, to a degree. And the weird thing about it is, it’s like people evolve, but they don’t really acknowledge that. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like you went through something, but it’s never really acknowledged. You know what I mean? It’s only acknowledged by you. It’s not necessarily acknowledged by other people who were there, for whatever reason. Because they can’t bear to mention it or because they were gone or whatever. You’re sort of left to pick up the pieces, when you choose to be self-evolved.

So a lot of things have changed now. Our world is changing. So many things are changing. So it’s different now. I have a different language and different abilities, emotionally, than I did then. It’s interesting. That trauma, those battles that you fight, they always stay with you.

PCC:
Your song ‘Other People’s Eyes,’ do you always have to remind yourself not to worry about how other people are perceiving you?

STARR:
Absolutely I do. That’s something I struggle with all the time, that my first instinct is to be down on myself, to tell myself, ‘You can’t do this.’ ‘You don’t deserve this.’ But I know that those things aren’t true. They’re just voices that are there.

It kind of reminds me of that movie, I love that movie, ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ I remember there’s that one scene in the movie, when Jennifer Connelly is sitting in front of him and they’ve just been through so much. And she says, ‘I need to believe that extraordinary things are possible.’ She just wants him to tell her that it’s possible. And I feel like that’s really where I am so much of the time. And that’s where I am with my career, for crying out loud. I mean, I only continue in this business, because I need to believe that extraordinary things are possible. And that’s my whole life. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing it. I would have given up a long time ago, if this weren’t who I am, what I feel called to be doing.

PCC:
But again, that idea of being an amateur again, is that just a return to the purity of it?

STARR:
Yes. And starting over, in a way. It’s okay for me to be starting again. For so long, I didn’t want to let go of a lot of the baggage of the past, because I was afraid of what that would mean. I was afraid that it would mean that I had failed, that if I let go of all this other stuff, then that means that I’ve failed. I’m a failure. That’s what everyone thinks, right? I’m a failure. I had a record deal. I should have sold more records. I should have done this. Should have done that. ‘You should be famous, Garrison. Why aren’t you?’

If I had a dollar for everyone who, innocently enough, asked me why I’m not famous, I’d be a millionaire. I hate that question. What the hell am I supposed to do with that question? I know what people mean when they say that. But that can be a tricky, dangerous statement, because I can hold onto that and go, ‘Why am I not more successful? Gosh, I guess they think I should be somewhere I’m not. Well, I guess I should be. I must have failed.’ You know what I’m saying?

So, for me, I had to accept, and I have to accept that it’s okay that I’m in a new place, that I’m starting over from a new place. And it doesn’t mean that the old life is a bad life, that it’s a failed life. It just means that we’ve turned the boat. We’re going in a different direction. We’re going to see what we find over here. And that was really hard for me for a long time. But now I’m excited about it, because I’ve come to terms with what it means. It doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. I’m the one who said it meant that. Nobody else did. And if they did, they’re stupid idiots. I’m the one who perpetuates that picture, that falsehood. I’m the one who has the power to keep that going. Or turn it into something else. And I’ve chosen to turn it into something else, because the other way makes me crazy. And it inhibits me from moving forward. And I really want to move forward.

PCC:
So is part of the process redefining, for yourself, what success is? Just making great music and not caring about the numbers?

STARR:
Yeah. I think that’s what you have to do as an artist. I think what I have to do is to make the best music I can make, to put the best that I have into everything that I do, to be the best singer that I can be, to be the best songwriter I can be, to be of service, in that way, in every opportunity that I have. To be of service. To give of myself. I think I have to let go of the results of those things. I have to take ownership of my goals and my ideas and visualize those things and put them out there and try for them. But I have to let go of whether, ultimately, I’m going to get the things that I want.

So for me, that means I’m not touring as much as I was touring. I’m writing more songs now. And I’m writing more songs with other artists, for TV and film. And I’m just creating more, keeping that creative flow going. And thinking less about, like you said, how many people are going to be at the shows, how much money I’’m going to make. I mean, I know how much money I’m going to make when I go on tour. But I’m thinking less about the end result and more about what I’m putting into each project.

PCC:
With all the collaborations you do, does that inspire you, give you new kinds of energy?

STARR:
Totally. I mean, it feels so good to be working. One thing, as an artist, it doesn’t feel like work. But it is work. My friend Adrianne Gonzalez [who now bills herself simply as AG], who’s going to be on this tour with me and Maia [Sharp], we had talks, we’re both reading this book called ‘Harmonic Wealth.’ And it’s really empowering. There’s a lot of great strategies in there. And we talk about it. And she was like, ‘Look, man, we have to go to work every day. You work every day. You just put your head down and you go to work.’

That’s something that I didn’t do for a long time, because I was sitting around, pouting, waiting on somebody to drop something in my lap. But I’m not waiting on that anymore. I write every day. When I’m home in L.A., I co-write at least three times a week, if not more. I don’t sit around. I work, because it keeps me going and it also takes my mind off things that can distract me from what I want. And it’s great. It’s really energizing just to be creating. That’s what my gift is, a gift to create things. And I feel like that’s my work. That’s my job.

As you get older and you have more maturity, you can say those things. When you’re younger, you just want what you want and you’re pissed off, if you're not getting it. But as you get older and see how it works, you understand more things. And you can put more things into practice. As one of my therapists used to say, ‘If you think about it in terms of the alphabet, that person can only communicate A through H. You’ve got all the letters. You’ve got A through Z. She’s got A through H., so there’s only so far you’re going to get.’

PCC:
One of the most gratifying, magical moments for you must have been when you were performing ‘Superhero’ in Florida and the physically challenged audience members in the front reacted so enthusiastically.

STARR:
Oh, it was amazing! It was magical. I remember I was having trouble singing, because I was crying, because this guy down there was in a wheelchair, signing to my song. And it was really rewarding. And those things still happen in different ways. Even if there’s just a small crowd at a club I play, people will come up and say, ‘I’ve been listening to your music for 15 years. I haven’t seen you play in 10 years. This is how this song helped me.’

Well, I can’t argue with that. Thank you, guys. That’s great, because it reminds me that it’s a bigger thing. Ultimately, it’s not really about me. It’s about how I can be of service, with this gift that I’ve been given. And that’s how I have to think about it, because otherwise, it turns into something that I don’t like. It turns into, ‘How can I get this?’ ‘How can I get to this person?’ ‘What can I get out of it?’ ‘How am I going to do this?’ ‘What is it going to mean to me?’ ‘When am I going to get some money?’ And that just moves me into a real toxic place. I just don’t like how I feel in that space. But I like how I feel when I’m collaborating. I like how I feel when I’m having great conversations with people. I like how I feel, when it’s on a bigger level. So my challenge is to keep it on a bigger level.

PCC:
In its own way, can it be just as satisfying to play intimate venues, house concerts, as opposed to huge amphitheatres, which you played for events like Lilith Fair?

STARR:
I think so. I had played so much, I had played solo acoustic so much that I got really burned out on that. It was like, ‘Oh, I hate playing solo acoustic. I don’t want people to think I’m a chick with my acoustic guitar playing pussy music.’ [Chuckles] I’d gotten to this place where I hated doing it. And now I’m like, you know, this is really who Garrison Starr is as an artist. When I first started playing music, I just played the acoustic guitar and sang my songs. And that’s really what people respond to about me, just seeing me play and sing by myself.

I think I’ve gotten to a place where I’m good with that. I get that. I think that’s cool. People respond and I’m happy to do it. Hell, this may not make any sense, but, as a solo artist, I’ve really had a hard time, because I love making records the way I want to make ‘em. When I make a record, I’d like to produce it and to add all different kinds of instrumentation, because the records that I love... Tom Petty is probably my favorite artist of all time. I just love Tom Petty. His songs are timeless. His production is awesome. The Americana music, in a lot of ways, the Americana rock, that’s what I grew up listening to. That’s what I love. It’s rootsy, but it’s rock. It’s just great. It’s not complicated. It’s just bare-bones, f--kin’ great songs. Great rock songs and great rock vocals. He’s just such an example of an artist to me. He just does his thing. And he’s got this character about him. And that’s really how I see myself. I really see myself as a female Tom Petty or female Bruce Springsteen. So as a solo artist, I’ve really struggled with my identity a lot because I like making full band records. But it’s not always feasible to go out and tour in that capacity.

I mean, I didn’t start out thinking about what my brand is and all that stuff. I didn’t have to think about that, when I was first making records. There were other people who thought about that stuff... and I just didn’t understand it. And now that it’s so important, as an indie artist, you realize, who else is going to think about it, but you? There’s really nobody to help you figure that out and, if you don’t know it, when you’re first starting out, if you don’t have that vision of yourself, so young, it’s kind of a shit show. And it was kind of a shit show for me, in that. And I think that’s one of the reasons why, in my career, it’s kind of been all over the place. It’s been a marketing nightmare, because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. And there hasn’t necessarily been a rhyme or reason to it. ‘Now I’m going to have my hair this way.’ ‘And now I want to do this.’ And ‘I want to make this record, but I can’t afford to take a band, so I’ll play solo acoustic.’

And my name sounds like a band. ‘Is that your real name?’ ‘Is your name Garrison Starr?’ ‘What is it, a band? A guy? A girl?’ It’s been interesting. I’ve had people say to my face, ‘You’re Garrison Starr? That’s a country band, right’ ‘No, I’m Garrison Starr. That’s me. You’re lookin’ at her.’ They’re like, ‘Oh, shit. I’ve heard your name, but I never knew what it was.’

So I’m at a place now where I understand that the heart of the matter for me, and what seems to resonate with my fans, for most people, is me playing and singing solo. I do like playing small clubs. I like to tell my stories. I like to get feedback from people. I like to get that close experience. I do enjoy that.

PCC:
You mentioned that you had a new plan. What do you envision for yourself? Where do you want to take this?

STARR:
Well, if I could have a career, like anybody’s career, I would probably choose to have a career like a Patty Griffin... or an Emmylou Harris. More so Patty Griffin, just because she’s seen more as a songwriter. Emmylou Harris is seen more as a singer than a lyricist. I don’t think Emmylou writes all her songs. But I like how Patty Griffin can go and tour, when she wants to tour, and there’s a nice crowd that comes to hear her play and sing, in whatever capacity she chooses to do that. And she can also not do that, and just write songs and have other people cut her songs. She’s built her catalogue as a songwriter and she’s known as a songwriter. And I think, at the end of the day, that’s who I am. I am a songwriter. And I want my songs to define that path for me. And I think there’s still time for that to happen.

What’s to become of my career still remains to be seen. There’s a new way that’s been opened up for me. And I’m excited to see where it goes. But I would love to be able to get to a place where I play in theatres, for people who have come to hear me tell my stories and sing my songs. That’s really what I’d like to have happen.

For this gifted artist’s latest news and tour dates, visit garrisonstarr.com.