Brandi Carlile is in dreamland. The beloved singer-songwriter and activist might have 11 Grammys and a pair of Emmys, but her new album tops the lot. Because “Who Believes in Angels?” is a collaboration with childhood idol Elton John, a meeting of musical minds resulting in a barnstorming blend of her Americana and his rock ’n’ roll piano magic. It shot straight to number one in the UK album charts.
Their friendship goes way back. But this is new territory for Carlile. Here she talks to Big Issue ahead of the duo’s recent show at the London Palladium, looking back at a tough childhood and recalling the inspiration she took from Elton John growing up queer in rural Washington State.
At 16, I had just come out of the closet. I was living in a single-wide mobile home, on what is like a sprawled out council estate in the Cascade Mountain foothills in rural Washington state with my mom and dad and brother and sister. We didn’t have any money, but we were very close. I had never met nor known a gay person. So I was struggling through the awkwardness of adolescence and trying to imagine a way out of poverty.
I was deeply enamoured with Elton John. By the time I was 16, it was a full-fledged musical obsession. I’d connected with Elton when I was 11 years old. In fifth grade, we could choose any book in the school library to do a book report on. I found one by this boy called Ryan White. I looked at the cover and thought, he’s cute. Then I started reading and found out he had died of AIDS after contracting HIV through a blood transfusion. He became a pariah and was ostracised and politicised in really uncomfortable ways. The Conservative Right tried to pull him into being a poster child for the anti-gay movement – because HIV and AIDS were being force marketed as a homosexual men’s disease. But he wouldn’t denounce the gay community.
Towards the end, this eccentric rockstar from England comes into the picture and helps the family. He sang a song called Skyline Pigeon at his funeral, which I found in my local library. After hearing this man I had already fallen in love with based on his activism, it galvanised a shift in my life.
It was difficult for me growing up. I grew up in rural America, which is the subtext for quite religious and politically right-wing. While my dad was and is a political conservative, to my total dismay, I can’t change him. And I love who he is. We get along brilliantly, we fish together, the things about us that work, really work. And the things that don’t… we’ve learned not to touch. But as a kid, I couldn’t get away with that. And it was hard on my existential self-esteem. Because I knew I was on the other side of what he thought was good.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertisement
My mom was politically apathetic – no politics, not much religion, she just wanted everybody to get along. But I don’t think she was fond of my queerness. So you find through lines. My dad loved Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Ellen DeGeneres. My mom loved Steve Perry and Journey and nudie suits and sequins. Even though I wanted to look like a boy in sequins, mom still took joy in glue-gunning them onto borrowed men’s suits for me to wear. So we had these through lines where I could be kind of gay and it was OK.
I already wanted to be a famous singer. But Elton and Bernie [Taupin]’s music lit the path. This is what you do – you learn an instrument, write a song, get undeniably good, and just keep trying. It doesn’t matter what you look like, if you’re gay or if you come from money. That lifted the veil that I think needs to be lifted, where everything in adulthood seems so inaccessible. Something has to come along in the life of an adolescent to light that path and that’s what their music did for me.
There was a movement of eccentricity and flamboyance around queerness that fitted me like a glove. So I never really lied about it. But I don’t think I could have done it without what I have found through the Elton John portal. I fell in love with Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, George Michael. I had this beautiful culture, this family, thrust upon me from across the world. And it didn’t feel like there was a wall between me and that world.
I would let my younger self know that I’m really proud of her for accidentally being so outrageous. It’s not like I made a decision to be a flamboyant or come flying out of the closet from my mobile home. Something else made that decision for me. But I’m proud that I did that. And I’m proud I didn’t end up having to hide or feeling like I had to be something I wasn’t.
I would also ask my younger self not to worry so much about religion. I’d tell her to expand her mind beyond the thin, anaemic version of the Christian text I was exposed to versus the one I believe exists now.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Getting married in 2012 felt like a radical act. It was like a leap of faith or maybe an act of hope. We [Brandi Carlile is married to Catherine Shepherd] were so afraid it would never happen in our lifetimes. It felt so different going from being committed life partners to getting married. The emotional change in our relationship and how we felt about each other that day was unbelievable. Years later, when that marriage was legitimised by the country we lived in when the Defense of Marriage Act was abolished, it felt like another incredible shift. We’ve got two little girls now and we’re very afraid about the future of our union. It’s not a guarantee that we get to stay married in the country we live in. But these questions are a constant for the American queer.
Brandi Carlile sharing the stage with Elton John at the London Palladium. Image: Ben Gibson
Being able to sit next to Joni Mitchell while she recovers from this aneurysm and comes back to music in her own way, in her own time, would be unfathomable to my younger self. Because it’s so intimate, getting to watch this emotional and physical recovery happen so close to me and being allowed to be such an important part of it. Joni Mitchell is a very quiet puppeteer.
I remember meeting Russ Kunkel, the drummer that played on Blue, very early in the Joni Jams. I was trying to explain that something healing was happening for Joni in these jams. But also that she seemed aware of it in a way that felt almost orchestrated. He said, ‘Joni Mitchell always has a plan. You think it’s your plan? It’s always going to be Joni’s plan.’ And that has proven right over the six years I’ve been in this position. Joni wanted the music back in her house and she put me to work as a faithful disciple. Through that I have gotten the most incredible and coveted passenger seat in the history of music…
The thing that would surprise my younger self most is the acceptance and inclusion I’ve got to experience as an adult versus what it felt like to grow up the way I grew up. The total acceptance of who she is by her parents, her children, her wife and by the world. As the cherry on top of the icing on the cake, her childhood hero is now one of her best friends and I get to be musical peers with maybe the greatest that’s ever lived.
My younger self would be so excited to hear Who Believes In Angels? When I was in the studio with Elton – which is almost unbelievable to contemplate, even as I’m saying it now – and was writing lyrics, I was sort of ordering myself to make a transition from my childhood feelings about Elton into a more adult idea about him, accepting him for who he is instead of this person I idolised as a kid. The human version of him is even better. But even angels are deeply complex beings.
It was Elton’s idea to do this album. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to propose it! And we really went for it. At first, he thought it could be like Allison Krauss and Robert Plant. Great idea! Then he wanted it to be like the Eurythmics, with electronic beats. Sounds awesome! Then he says maybe more rockabilly, like Buddy Holly and Patsy Cline. That’s a great idea too! Then finally he said let’s just really be us – make a love letter to the world, an optimistic, uplifting rock ’n’ roll record.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Elton has this forward motion that’s so intoxicating. What’s new? I don’t want to talk about the vintage or anything from the past – what’s new? Where’s the glory? What’s hot? I wrote the words for “Never Too Late” about that, especially for Elton to sing that one specific line, “Fuck off heaven’s gate.” And “Swing for the Fences” is like a theme song of everything we just talked about. It lifts the veil between what is and what could be for the young person, says things will get better – and there’s a little extra kiss on the envelope to the young queer person.
Who Believes in Angels? by Elton John and Brandi Carlile is out now. An Evening With Elton John and Brandi Carlile airs on Saturday (19 April) on ITV1.
