Review Fix Exclusive: Christine Smith Talks Meet Me on the Far Side of a Star

Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter Christine Smith, who discusses the inspiration behind her new album, Meet Me on the Far Side of a Star.

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Christine Smith: Well, I suppose it all started in 1974 in Queens, NY when my parents wheeled an old player piano down the street to our house. A church in the neighborhood was giving it away and was going to take a sledgehammer to it if nobody claimed it. So that’s where I came in. The hope of music was either lost are salvaged in that moment for that old piano. All the lives it had touched. All the hymns it had held.  Even at a young age, it was clear to me, I had to play the role of the damaged angel of salvation. 

RF: What’s your creative process like?

CS: Chaotic. Inspired. Unruly and unjust and untethered. I usually write in my head, not at the piano or with a guitar. Melodies come first, and I can hear all the chords around it. Lyrics have always been a bit challenging for me, so I’m really grateful to have Victor Camozzi as my co-writer on the new album. But our processes are total opposite. I’m music first. He’s lyric first. 

Victor Camozzi: We clash like goddamn Greek titans. Seas raging against the mountains. And yet. We find our peace. And when the dust settles, we have created something beautiful. 

RF: What inspires you?

CS: Old masters and new ingenues. Recent injustice and timeless truth. Humility and passionate hubris. Being alive inspires me. I may be an old soul. But I’m alive as a teenager in 1924 walking the streets of NYC right now. We are living in radical times. If you don’t believe that, you’ve been numbed by social media. This moment in time is the real deal. This is a moment of modern American rebellion. And people could say, “then why you playing that old 1920s shit?”  To which I would say, “if you had a goddamn clue, you’d know the flappers were the original American “me too” with a good dose of “fuck you” to boot.” And that’s the historic American truth.

RF: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

CS:  It’s America’s past come to haunt the hearts of the future. It’s yesteryear’s masters come to give a whooping to the fool children of today. I am shamelessly nostalgic for a time when people weren’t callous and shallow simpletons. Sensuous wordplay is how men and women truly play. Pull your head out and figure it out, and then maybe you’ll actually find magic instead of just fabricating it on social media. 

RF: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

CS: To hell with how they are different. Let me tell you how they are exactly the damn same. Live shows I’ve been playing solo, piano and vocal, sometimes with accordion. The album is full instrumentation, and I played most of that myself, especially drums, but with a few special guests. But the record is very much based around the piano vocal by design, so that it would translate to solo shows. And that’s exactly what happens. One truth. Two mediums, live versus studio. But the truth remains the same. 

RF: What inspired your latest single?

CS: I put out “Happily Never After” on YouTube as the first single. I really love this song. It’s the first one that Victor and I co-wrote, and the recording features Tommy Stinson on acoustic slide guitar.

RF: What are your goals for the rest of 2019?

CS: World domination. You think I’m joking. I’m not. You think a vocal jazz old school album can’t change the world?  Well guess what? People told Adele “you’re a chubby Brit singing classic soul…how you gonna beat a hot ass trampy American Britney Spears with auto tune?”  Well who is fucking laughing now? I like to believe the world knows better. I like to believe art wins in the end. I believe in the people to recognize true heart. Nothing is off the table.  I’m out for blood. Fuck what the “experts” say.

RF: What’s next?

CS: More production. And more importantly, more solo albums. Now that I’ve found my voice, you can’t shut me up. I’m full of songs. And old school attitude. I think this world really needs a large dose of female grown up fuck you. And I’m just the dame to deliver it. 

RF: Anything else you’d like to add?

CS: I love Frank. And Louis. And Dean. And Billie. And Ella. And every artist in the great American songbook. There is nothing antique about them. Or their style. It’s timeless. And I want to take this timeless American truth, this timeless musical emotion, and bring it to a new era. Not as a throwback. But as something uniquely our own. What I’m doing, this is pure heart, plain and simple.