Rock country singer/songwriter Sean Wiggins, not too long after playing Market Days for the fourth time, will come right back to the Windy City for an upcoming show.
To promote her new CD, The Kitchen Sink, Wiggins, a lesbian with a passion for storytelling and having fun, will play at T's Sept. 28. Wiggins has had her voice compared to Melissa Etheridge and Bonnie Raitt.
The show will feature Wiggins, guitarist Paul Houston of her band Lone Goat, as well as Chicagoan Chandler on drums.
Windy City Times spoke with the soulful singer about when she fell in love with singing, her dream duet and a strange encounter with a goose.
Windy City Times: You tour a lot! You were just here for Market Days. How many shows do you do per year, do you think?
Sean Wiggins: I figured it out to be over 150.
WCT: Do you enjoy life on the road?
SW: I don't get on the bus and stay out for a long time. I go out wherever I'm going, come back, then go out again. I can put 3,000 miles on my car to get out to California for a weekend. [ Laughs ] .
WCT: That's ambitious.
SW: That, or I'm just nuts! I don't think I plan well. [ Laughs ] I actually enjoy it. I don't mind being in my car and driving and pretty much all I really like to do is sing.
WCT: What got you started in the first place?
SW: I started in high school, basically. I was singing in the bathroom and somebody from the jazz band…heard me and said, 'Why don't you sing with the band?' I started singing with the band and I never stopped. It was totally different singing. I was singing standard jazz tunes like Ella Fitzgerald and stuff.
WCT: At what point did you realize that you wanted to sing for the rest of your life?
SW: Almost at the same time. Unfortunately, my parents were not happy.
WCT: You've done other things besides music, such as having been part of the traveling cast of Sordid Lives. What kind of experience was that like?
SW: That was wild. …We were playing in theaters with 2,000 or 3,000 seats, and they were often sold out. I had to start the show off singing the theme song. I would come out in the beginning of every act and sing a song to start the act off, and then I'd show up at the end of it and wreak a little bit of havoc. But playing to 2,000 people like that, where I have no microphone and I'm just walking across the stage with a guitar was a very different thing. It was just thrilling. I was scared to death, but it was so exciting, it was wonderful.
WCT: I know, in terms of your music, your influences come from a wide range of genres, but what are your top three?
SW: Bonnie Raitt is somebody I just love. And somebody I never really bring up, but vocally is a big influence is Annie Lennox. Then probably writers like James Taylor, Billy Joel—really songwriters that write stories. I like to write more visual songs, not just a feeling but actually a story.
WCT: If you could do a duet with anybody, who would you pick?
SW: I'd have to say Annie Lennox or Bonnie Raitt. Annie Lennox would just rock!
WCT: Were you raised on country music and influenced by rock 'n' roll? How did you get that country feel to your music?
SW: My family originally was from the South, but I was born and raised in Manhattan, so I really grew up listening to jazz, and then the rock. Then really, I got into R&B. Really, my roots are more soul and R&B—it comes really [ naturally ] to me. When I was writing, it sort of went towards country because white girls don't sing R&B. Now, it's kind of changing, but it didn't used to be that way. You couldn't get signed as a white R&B singer.
…Also, it's just plain fun. You can sing about whatever and be silly and stupid. It's just good bar music.
WCT: What is your songwriting process like?
SW: Well, usually it's in my car, because I'm in my car all the time, sort of looking around the world or delving into my own thoughts. An idea usually pops into my head, and it usually comes with a melody. I then call my machine at home, and leave the idea on my machine at home. [ Laughs ] But now I can record on my phone! I'm not that mechanically inclined, so that was a big discovery for me.
WCT: Since you are on the road so much, do you have any road trip horror stories?
SW: …I have lots of more funny ones. I have the 'Canadian Goose' story. I had a gig in Mammouth ( Mammouth Lakes, Calif. ) , and it snowed about 100 miles outside of Mammouth, which is doesn't do here. I'm trying to deal with driving in the snow.
…You can't see anything but desert around you—no houses, no nothing, just white, and Joshua trees covered in snow that look like giant cacti. It looks really weird, like the moon. All of a sudden there is a Canadian goose standing in the middle of the road walking my way. I stop. I try to drive around the goose, but he gets in front of the car. I get out of the car to try to shoo the goose away and he comes at me like he's going to attack me. Suddenly, these people come out of the desert, clacking these pieces of wood together, saying, 'Don't kill our goose!' They come and clack the goose off the road and off into the desert. In the snow. There is no house, no car. I don't know where they came from. It was like an X-Files episode! And it's the truth.
The show will take place Sept. 28 at T's, 5025 N. Clark, at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $5. See www.tsbarchicago.com or www.seanwiggins.com for more information. The following day, Wiggins will play a show in Saugatuck, Mich.