By Mike Leonard
The Herald-Times | October 12, 2006
When Lisa Germano was invited to play in John Mellencamp’s band in 1987, she had the chops – but not the coping skills for what she knew she’d encounter touring with a major rock artist.”
I was agoraphobic,” she recalled in a phone interview last week.
“I couldn’t imagine flying. I couldn’t imagine a lot of what went with that commitment. But I couldn’t say no.”
Simplistically put, agoraphobia is the fear of experiencing an anxiety attack in a situation where there seems to be no good exit. It’s not rare. But it can be paralyzing. And it’s not helpful if you’re a musician and performing artist.Germano sought therapy. It helped tremendously. And the Mishawaka native and former Bloomington resident gained acclaim for the rootsy fiddle voice she contributed to outstanding Mellencamp albums including “The Lonesome Jubilee,” “Scarecrow” and “Big Daddy.”
She moved to Los Angeles, worked with artists including Simple Minds, the Indigo Girls, Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Neil Finn (of Crowded House), Jewel and David Bowie.And now she’s performing for the first time in years back where her professional career started in groups including the progressive country band, Frank Haney and the Farmers, and the acoustic jazz/swing band, Pink and the Naturals. Touring to support her newest album, “In The Maybe World,” the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist will perform at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater Tuesday, accompanied by guitarist and producer Craig Ross in an 8 p.m. program featuring opening act, The Fireworms.
Recalling her Bloomington days makes Germano rhapsodize on the benefits of psychological therapy. “Therapy is so cool because it’s a process of stripping away what seems to be the dramatic thing and getting to what’s really going on,” she said.That process not only helped Germano personally – it sparked her musical creativity and remains central to her composing technique.
“My songs started going through that process … I could never finish a song before that. I didn’t see the point,” she said.
Actually, she said, she used to fantasize about being a master side musician like Jackson Browne’s longtime guitarist, David Lindley.
Over time, she learned that writing and performing her own songs was tremendously gratifying. “Once I started writing my own music, it was so much more than the little fairy tale world I live in,” Germano said. “The songs became stories that weren’t about me at the end of the day.
“If critical acclaim were the equivalent of money, the 47-year-old artist would be living in Beverly Hills instead of keeping a day job at Book Soup bookstore on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. The praise comes from mainstream and alternative media equally. Typical is this quote from Magnet Magazine: “She’s a first rate musician who switches between guitar, piano, keyboards and violin, playing them all with a sharp, brooding intensity. As a writer, there’s no one else like her when it comes to crafting barbed, brittle songs of yearning, loneliness and betrayal …”
Germano can laugh about the yin and yang of being known as an inside-your-head, intensely personal artist. “If you’re having fun doing sad music, it can have a great ending,” she said. “But if you’re sad doing sad music, it can be pathetic. Believe me, I’ve gone there.”If she has, it doesn’t show up in consistently adoring reviews. And words, no matter how laudatory, still don’t pay the bills. “
The reason I rarely tour is I have no money,” Germano said. “I’m grateful to be able to make music, but unless your name is attached to a writing credit on a hit, you pretty much live a day-to-day existence as a musician.”The supporting artist and studio gigs available to musicians 10-20 years ago are harder to land these days, she said. “People don’t use what I do anymore,” she explained. “They have Pro Tools (computerized music manipulation), they can sample violin and mandolin parts. Plus, (studio musician opportunities) is a network I’m not in. I’m available. But now that I do my own stuff, people figure I don’t do other stuff. It’s a little frustrating.”It’s not that Germano is complaining. In her music, in her interaction with people and the entertainment media, she’s always seemed compelled to be deeply honest and true to herself.
Her appearance in Bloomington comes in the middle of a U.S. tour that will be followed by a series of European performances. “I feel that if you put out a record, you should try to support it if you can,” she said. “What I try to do is hope for a very atmospheric, magical show, not a show-off show. I want it to be a come-in show. It can be magical even if it’s not all about fun, you know?”
Featured Image: Lisa Germano (Courtesy photo)