Jen Kearney, Amy Petty and Danielle Miraglia are three solo singer-songwriters, who are performing together for a special two-week tour and will make a stop at the Bullfrog Brewery, 229 W. Fourth St., at 8 p.m. April 22.
Miraglia and Kearney were available to chat with the Sun-Gazette about mojo, musicianship and making a living.
APRIL LINE: Danielle, talk to me about your musical background.
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Jen Kearney, Amy Petty and Danielle Miraglia are three solo singer-songwriters, who are performing together for a special two-week tour and will make a stop at the Bullfrog Brewery, 229 W. Fourth St., at 8 p.m. April 22.
DANIELLE MIRAGLIA: I've been performing mostly solo for many years. I enjoy that, but sometimes the creative sparks burn out a bit.
There's nothing like collaborating with performers whose music you love to get re-inspired. I love both Jen and Amy's music. Learning their songs, singing harmonies and providing guitar accompaniment is a great way to approach the craft from a different angle while being challenged and learning new techniques you wouldn't otherwise.
AL: Jen, tell me about your Uncle Sal who taught you to play piano by ear when you were four.
JEN KEARNEY: Uncle Sal's not around. He was definitely a huge musical influence and was really patient and he taught my brother and I a lot. My mother was a musician - Uncle Sal was her brother - so they were a brother-sister team and they would play shows. My mother's side of the family was [musical], and my dad's a good writer, so I guess I pulled from both sides on that part.
AL: How does the mojo between the three of you work?
DM: We all have a love for different types of soulful music - R&B, blues, pop. We are all belters, but can also reel it in and elevate one another rather than step on each other. We're just different enough for it to blend nicely.
And not to mention, I love these girls. We have a blast together and end up joking a lot and playing off each other on stage. Sometimes we have to stop ourselves and say "Okay, shut up and play a song!"
JK: We're all, for lack of a better word, really silly (laughs), and the banter between songs is really funny, even though the songs are kind of serious. We've only done like three shows like that, so this is going to be two weeks of doing it every night.
I think we all write honest and soulful songs. We all sort of have soulful voices. We all sing with some grit. Everybody's humble and funny and we have a good time. There are nice, three-part harmonies, and it works really well. We're doing it like writers in a round - we'll all sing harmonies with each other, but sing the leads on our own songs.
AL: Talk about your musical journeys, if you would.
DM: Let's see, the progression went something like: lip-syncing and doing a dance to The Go Go's when I was five, writing cheesy pop love songs when I was ten on [a] one-finger piano (I never learned to play with any more fingers than that) [and] discovering the power of the rock 'n' roll guitar riff at 13.
That's when I picked up the guitar. Unlike piano, I had an immediate passion for it and a bit of a knack. I didn't really want to sing then. I just wanted to rock out leads with a band. After I graduated from Emerson College for creative writing, I started writing "real" songs and singing them out loud.
Went to my first open mic at the now-closed Kendall Cafe in Cambridge, Mass., and discovered this whole scene. It was like finding my tribe. I never looked back after that. I was hooked.
JK: I grew up playing by ear, then learned to read [music]. If you know both, you're a double threat. I started playing in bands when I was a teenager. I went to college at 18 and met a bunch of people who were musicians, so I started writing songs and playing out when I was 19. I met some cool people who were a little older than me and they had this open mic night. The two guys who ran it decided to put together a compilation featuring local songwriters. We all recorded on each other's stuff and we set it up kind of like Motown. We recorded on an old reel-to-reel that one of the guys bought at a yard sale. We did it like the guy who recorded Elvis: one microphone, mono, old-school style. That was my first recording and I haven't stopped yet.
AL: Are either of you recording anything now in your solo projects?
DM: I released "Box of Troubles" in November and have been touring with that this year. We'll start recording the next one this summer.
JK: I'm writing a new album. I'm trying to record it as I go. I'm hoping to release something by the end of the year.
AL: Do the three of you have plans to record together?
DM: We are talking about it. In the mean time, we may be releasing bootlegs of the live shows. We'll have more info on that as it progresses.
AL: What work do you do besides music?
JK: Been playing music full time for 10 years or so. I got laid off from my day job at a law firm and never went back to regular job. When I first had to make a living at it, I had to do a lot of bar gigs with big screen TVs all around and people yelling "Free Bird!" and "Hey, you're a good guitah' playah' for a girl." Nothing like playing four hour bar gigs to get your chops up and make you gig tough. I'm eternally grateful to the people who present coffeehouse shows, house concerts and festivals. These have been my lifeline for a while now.
DM: I teach at a school, it's a day job. I try to gig as much as possible, but it helps pay the bills.
AL: I bet your silliness is an advantage as a teacher, too.
JK: Silliness is always an advantage. If you're too serious, you'll end up just crying yourself to sleep.
