Songwriter Jesca Hoop, a Mormon-raised Californian who was nanny to Tom Waits's kids, operates from the principle that strange is best and quirky is even better – she's the real deal, writes TONY CLAYTON-LEA
IT SOUNDS LIKE something you couldn’t make up. Or else it could be a joke that no one is letting you in on. Have you heard the one about a Mormon-raised woman who got a job as a nanny to the kids of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, and who then went on to release one of the most acclaimed underground releases of 2009? If you have, then you’ll know what’s coming next. If you haven’t, take a pew and allow Jesca Hoop to inform, delight and entertain.
Hoop is holding circumspect court in the lobby of Benners Hotel in Dingle. She is in the Kerry town for the filming of Other Voices, and she is sitting prim and proper in an alt.style version of twinset and pearls. Indeed, she could be a visiting Californian on her way through town as part of a stopover to see the beach where Ryan's Daughterwas filmed. Except she's not – she is here to perform tracks off her lauded second album, Hunting My Dress,which has been critically thumbed-up to the hilt from Music Weekto our own Ticket.
In the company of partner Tom Piper (who, incidentally, is Elbow’s tour manager), Hoop might have a reputation for being ever so slightly abstract, yet she is Californian charm personified. Californian heat, however, has been replaced by north of England climes – Hoop is based in Manchester in order to be closer to Piper.
“It’s hard to remain in love when there is a big distance between people,” she reasons. “It just doesn’t last, and I wanted the relationship to work for a long period of time, so I closed the gap. Plus, I was up for a big change, and I’m happy that I made the change. Ultimately, the decision to relocate was all about love, work and life.”
In tandem with relocation, though, was Hoop's express wish to release Hunting My Dressin Europe. Operating from the principle that strange is best and quirky is even better, Hoop decided to set up her own label in order to have as much control as possible over its distribution in specific territories. Her debut release, Kismet, she says, was made with a person (she won't divulge any names) who "brought me a little bit further away from what is most natural to me". And what is most natural to her? Well, she admits that because of her upbringing in a "strict, died-in-the-wool Mormon family, she is compelled to be naughty". It shows lyrically, she reckons.
“I have an insistence on being, in my own way, somewhat irreverent. It isn’t something that is overt – there’s nothing in-your-face about it – it’s subtler, occasionally subversive. I think I have a real love of the sensual nature of music, and the fact that it allows you to explore topics that are worldly. As a Mormon you are not allowed to be amidst the world. I like to colour things dark for that reason, I think. Or maybe I’m just attracted to the dark side of things.”
Prior to music (and her job as Waits's nanny, about which she is oh so weary talking about), Hoop worked in wilderness rehabilitation programmes for troubled teenagers. Between these stints in Wyoming, Arizona, and her time spent in the Waits household, Hoop was surreptitiously writing and performing songs. Inevitably, Tom Waits took an interest, and made an introduction to a music publisher, who in turn handed Hoop's music to Nic Harcourt (of Santa Monica's KCRW radio station, whose programme Morning Becomes Eclectichas been instrumental in kick-starting many a musician's career). Soon after this, the Waits household had to advertise a position for a new nanny – Hoop had flown the coop. LA beckoned, a new journey began.
If you move to Los Angeles without knowing anyone even remotely involved in the music industry, admits Hoop, it can be as difficult to get around as it is easy to get lost. “It can swallow you up – there are so many different black holes within it. You have to know a lot about yourself before you go there, too, and you have to have some people to help you. So my first champion would have been my publisher, and then after that it would have been Nic Harcourt – when he started playing me on the radio, the reaction was good.”
SO GOOD THATcontracts landed with a thud on the office floor of her publisher; so good that, initially, Hoop suffered from attacks of the heebie-jeebies when it came to deciding which contracts to sign. She confesses that if it hadn't been for the guidance of her publisher (and latterly, Piper) she wouldn't have known how to go about negotiating the tricky path from writing a song to getting it played on the radio.
“I was picking brains a lot. Everybody needs to be taken good care of. There are some people that don’t read their contracts; I do, and I’m aware of what I’m getting into – albeit with the help of a music lawyer, who helps me sift through and understand the legalese that is a language unto itself. They are difficult to understand, let it be said. There can be no room for interpretation.
"My heart rate speeds up whenever I read a contract; the last one I started to read I actually didn't sign. It was a contract to negotiate the release of Hunting My Dress. But I eventually got advice to self-release it, and from then on in everything was relatively plain sailing. It was an extreme sense of relief and empowerment. Being an essentially independent singer- songwriter is a self-fuelled thing, and you have to run on the steam that you generate. I try to keep it as practical as possible, and I know that reaching my audience is a process."
SHE'S A GOODone, is Jesca Hoop. Later that night, across the road in St James Church, Hoop is dressed up to the nines in an evening dress and a hairstyle that could be a prototype for a multi roundabout/split-level/bypass kinda thing. Her short set of several songs is split uncertainly between the fey and the fertile, but one thing is for definite – she's the real deal.
“I have a slanted view on things,” Hoop says just before she heads over for her rehearsal, “and I think I tend to live between worlds – something material and something unseen. My songs definitely come from the place in between, not just stylistically but also lyrically. Essentially, I’m with those people who want to walk a fine line. Thankfully, I’m not alone.”
Hunting My Dressis on release through Last Laugh Records. Other Voiceswill be broadcast on RTÉ television in late January
