BRISA ROCHE
photographed by
Andrea Herzog
Styling: Luc Rasori
Brisa Roché is an American singer-songwriter born in Arcata, California, who has spent much of her life residing in France. She is jazz, she is neofolk, she is gospel, she is postpunk. She is now releasing her new album Brisa Roché & Fred Fortuny “Freeze Where U R”.
It never rains in southern California? (Song by Albert Hammond)
It ALWAYS rains in Northern California, where I’m from. The world climate is changing, but it used to rain from November to May :), which is good for the Sequoias and giant ferns. Along the coast it looks as though dinosaurs are just out of view.
One night in Paris is like a year in any other place? (Song by Ten CC)
I spent many nights in Paris that felt endless while I was playing jazz, sometimes sets from 10 pm to 3 am. These nights not only lasted a year, but they were in another time, so much like the 1950’s and 1960’s. I miss that time. I wish getting jazz gigs were easier today than it is.
Who do you love? (Song by Bo Diddle)
When I am a volcano of love, as I can be, the stage is a good place for me to be. Then I am like an eruption of love directed through a diamond (as if on a record player), shooting lava-love into the minds of the audience. I am willing to be too intense, awkward, inappropriate in love/song/stage, like a clown showing people in the audience that they too can accept and survive their own over-intensity and awkwardnesses we all feel.
Don’t want a man? (Song by Brisa Roche)
Of course, as irony would have it, I fell in love while shooting the video for that song. Still, I don’t want a man, but it appears I still want true love and romance.
Happiness is a warm gun? (Song by The Beatles)
I was wondering if anyone would notice that in the song “Window Gun” I’m waiting for a man but with the window cracked wide enough for my gun (so when he comes, I can shoot him before he comes in!). I’m from a hippie background, but I must admit the tension and unfairness between the sexes has begun to make my anger overflow.
Sympathy for the devil? (Song by The Rolling Stones)
I have accepted the role of a ‘bad woman” before, even celebrated it. But being cavalier about feelings is not cool in either gender. On the other hand, if the devil symbolized choosing rock n roll, choosing music, choosing the life of an artist (like when blues men went down to the crossroads and sold their souls) then I guess I would do that/have done that.
You like fire? (Song by Brisa Roche)
I crave intensity. I suppose the extreme situations of my childhood created this taste. But if I had to choose between fire and water I would choose water. I used to always dream of giving myself up the huge ocean waves, and once I stopped fighting the wave, I could breathe underwater.
I’m a writer not a fighter? (Song by Gilbert O’Sullivan)
You must fight to write. Even harder if you’re a woman. I have always written, but in the past two years I have re-committed myself to ‘serious’ or narrative writing. I always feel that song-writing is not serious, even though it draws upon all my experience and reflexes from other kinds of writing. Anyway I recently finished a collaborative novel, and my writing partner and I did indeed fight! I also wrote three children’s stories lately, and am fighting to find publishers for all projects. 😉
Fight the power? (Song by Public Enemy)
In 2017 I started my own label, and April 30 I release the first non-Brisa record by an artist I produced (DUSK by Paddy Sherlock- https://www.youtube.com/watch?
No woman, no cry? (Song by Bob Marley)
I do cry, then I keep on going. Certain songs on this new record “Freeze Where U R” sound like crying to me, or make me want to cry.. “You Were Mine” for example or “Woman with a Star”. In “Woman with a Star” I refer to a sonnet by Edna Saint Vincent Millay (What lips my lips have kissed…) about a woman growing old. I think I briefly felt I was growing old last year, ha!
Video killed the radio star? (Song by The Buggles)
More like STREAMING killed the singer-songwriter.. But this problem seems futile or frivolous today. Except when I wonder how I can possibly even out the money I spend making records, in order to feed myself and my child! I do still believe in taking risks and trusting the gods…
_Uwe Buschmann
