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Dueling interviews Sherman Baker and Autumn Sky share album-release party, get two-for-one Q-and-A treatment
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Sherman Baker and Autumn Sky, may actually have a lot in common. They’re from the same block, for instance, and also boast new releases this month. by His is Seventeenth Street, a folkie ode to woe, Nick Miller and hers is The Hallelujah Chorus, an indie ni c k a m @ blowout. And Baker and Sky will grace the same ne w s re v i e w . c o m stage this Saturday for a double-album release gig. So, why not a dueling SN&R interview?
Boots” that will probably go on the next record. … I love them more than anyone I’ve ever known, honestly. You both live in Midtown, which definitely influenced Seventeenth Street, right Sherman?
Baker: I lived on 17th near Broadway at the lowest point in my life. There was a lot of drug action, or at least I knew where to find it. … I see things differently these days, because I am healthy and have a better outlook. I think there’s a lot of poverty, despair and addiction in Sacramento, though. That’s pretty hard to ignore. Tell me about the songs, then.
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Sherman Baker (left) and Autumn Sky, two singer-songwriters, two different people, one album-release show this week.
The Sherman Baker and Autumn Sky double-album release, featuring special guest Ricky Berger, goes down this Saturday, June 2, at Beatnik Studios, 2421 17th Street; 7 p.m.
Autumn, you seem eternally optimistic. Sherman, your album’s songs are raw accounts of troubling times. You’re opposites.
Autumn Sky: I definitely won’t deny that I do come off as being a happy person. I am a happy person. I honestly don’t know how I’m not jaded yet; by all accounts, I should be more messed up by now. But I think I either just have a fantastically evolved filter, or maybe I just am easily pleased by the little, beautiful things around me. Either way, I think that what Sherman and I have in common is an overwhelming willingness to overshare about our personal struggles and fears and stories in front of hundreds of strangers. Sherman Baker: Basically, I like to be surrounded by beautiful, talented women as much as possible. Much better than smelly dudes that take everything too seriously. ... As different as Autumn is in personality— and we are pretty much polar opposites—we are very similar in musical background. We like a lot of the same music, and there is an exuberance and dedication that is enviable and something I can learn from. If you were going to write a song about each other, what would it be called?
Baker: Autumn has enough creepy dudes writing songs about her. Ha-ha! Sky: “I Have a Lot of Cats.” And it would be a duet between him and his cats.
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36 | SN&R | 05.31.12
Sherman, I dig your love of cats.
Baker: I have two cats, Tiny Boots and Tony Bologna. I just wrote a song called “Tiny
Baker: On Seventeenth Street, things are obviously pretty dark. I don’t subscribe to the “artists must be tortured to be good” theory at all, so the new songs I’ve been working on are less pained and heartbroken. … [But] I want to avoid romanticism in my songs at this point. I’m in my mid-30s and don’t have time for escapist, Coldplay-type crap. Autumn, your new band is sharp, catchy. I think people underestimate you.
Sky: I think that the trouble with starting out in Sacramento as a very young—16!—and inexperienced musician is that people remember you from way back then, when you were still learning and figuring out who you were. Then suddenly, they come out to a show again and realize somewhere between then and now you’ve begun to take what you do seriously. But that’s OK; I know I’d think the same thing in their place. I like proving myself. ... Challenge accepted. Come to the show. What will they hear at the gig?
Sky: I’ve actually just had the most rewarding spurt of creativity I’ve experienced yet this year; 2011 was personally the worst year of my life, and it sort of shook me to the core. Having to get over the hill and rediscover who I am sort of set this unquenchable fire in me to write it all down. I let go of feeling embarrassed or restrained and just wrote. Random question of the week: Where’s your favorite place for brunch?
Baker: I used to like Lucky Cafe, because it was cheap and I have a moral thing against waiting in trendy lines full of girls with Juicy Couture for eggs—Portlandia episode-esque. I really can’t stand waiting for breakfast. Sky: My heart is wrapped in a crepe from Crepeville. Ω