Folio Weekly

"Married to the Music" - Folio Weekly

Local songwriter Laurel Lee would rather tell you exactly what’s on her mind than beat around the bush with metaphors. Laurel Lee & the Escapees new album, “Eastward Pioneer” is full of the same sort of declarative statements that populated Lee’s 2005 debut, “Why Don’t We Don’t Get Married.” Lee pummels the listener with her ideas from the album opener to the final strum of her acoustic guitar. Noticeably absent from this album, however, are songs about heartache, a dominant theme in her first CD. Lee recently talked with Folio Weekly about chicken bombs and telling it like it is.

Folio Weekly: “Eastward Pioneer.” Is this title song about your move to Jacksonville from Oregon?

Laurel Lee: Yeah, the push and pull of needing to get away, and still really missing them terribly. You know, it’s awfully sad. I miss my sisters a lot.

FW: Is the line, “I don’t expect recycling yet, but the coffee’s pretty good” a poke at Jacksonville’s lack of greenness?

LL: (Laughs.) It is. You know, there are certain social things that I really took for granted in Oregon. I can see (Jacksonville’s) good intention toward recycling, but people largely don’t recycle. Everywhere that I've worked in the last two years has said, “We’re gonna start a recycling project.” But it never gets started.

Now that I’m here, I don’t expect them to have the same expectations I do. They should recycle. I recycle. I support recycling. I don’t necessarily expect that everybody’s gonna be recycling. By the coffee’s pretty good because I’m here in Springfield, and I small Maxwell House. It’s so great. I love that. It’s a great town smell. I mean, that and the paper mill, it’s pretty great.

FW: So you’ll be relocating again soon, in search of friendlier climes? Like Nashville?

LLW: I love playing in Jacksonville. I want y’all to know that. It’s always been a goal (to go to Nashville). I've never been to Nashville. (We drove) from Oregon… and I've never had a chance to visit the neighboring cities. Like, a day’s drive from you can get to so many places. Nashville, of course, is kind of the Mecca of country singers; I’ve always wanted to go.

FW: You have a song titled “Chicken Bomb.” In it, you describe the “milk and chicken bomb” as “the worst thing on the planet.” What’s the story behind that?

LL: The chicken bomb: You put raw chicken in a jar and put milk in it and seal it, and eventually, the bacteria will force the jar to explode. I don’t know the science, but it won’t explode for several months. So, at that point, it’s quite disgusting. And it won’t grow unless it’s in kind of a warm temperature. So, (it’s) been growing in a jar for months, (then) it smells really bad.

The chicken bomb makes people laugh and it makes me laugh, and I appreciate being part of the North Florida folklore. You know, that I get to take part in that is totally cool. And that one was just given to me, so how could I not write it?

When I first moved to Florida, I heard about the chicken bomb from one of our friends, and I was like, “Yeah, right, that sounds ridiculous.” It’s supposed to be a real thing, and I thought it (wasn't). I thought it was a joke to make fun of me for not being from here.

Wouldn't it be great if all wars were fought with something more organic, like chicken bombs instead of nuclear bombs? It would be hurtful, but it wouldn't probably hurt anyone.

FW: Yeah, but the whole world would smell like New Jersey then, wouldn't it?

LL: That’s right. We have to get a little more creative about our vengeance.