Business travel: Brandi Carlile is always on the road
— -- Unlike most business travelers, Brandi Carlile spends more time in her tour bus than flying on planes and staying in hotels as she goes from city to city to work.
The Seattle-based singer-songwriter, whose new album, Bear Creek, is out today on Columbia Records, drove more than 35,000 miles and flew 32,000 miles to perform in more than 85 cities and towns last year.
Carlile crisscrossed the lower 48 states several times, performing 114 shows in big cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and smaller places such as Cooperstown, N.Y., and Beaver Creek, Colo.
She squeezed in a road trip to Canada and trips by air to Alaska and London.
"When I turned 30, I started to feel all those miles," says Carlile who turned 31 on Friday and has toured extensively for nearly a decade. "At times, you want to turn the faucet off a bit, but I never want to stop traveling. That's what it's all about — taking the music to the people."
Carlile lives on the outskirts of Seattle in a cabin on a property that's also home to two goats, two chickens, two cats, a horse and a dog, but she's aware of the role the road has played in shaping her music and lyrics.
Her fifth album for a major record label, Bear Creek — named for the studio in Woodinville, Wash., where it was recorded — kicks off with Hard Way Home.
I've wept alone/ I know what it means to be on my own/ The things I've known/ Looks like I'm taking the hard way home.
The road weighs heavily on the album's ninth cut, What Did I Ever Come Here For, which begins with the lyrics, I'd been gone for so long/ And how I missed you/ My heart was aching for home.
Favorite places
Travel can also be uplifting for Carlile, who has spent most of her days on the road with co-writers Phil and Tim Hanseroth, twin brothers who play guitars, percussion and sing in her band.
Carlile says she's excited about traveling to Morrison, Colo., next month and headlining for the first time at her favorite venue, Red Rocks.
She previously was a warm-up act at the spectacular park and amphitheater with natural red-rock formations in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
"Colorado is an oasis, an otherworldly mountain place," Carlile says. "I've played so many shows in Colorado that I think I'm the Colorado house band."
She says she has met many "wonderful" people in the South, particularly in Texas. "It's the southern hospitality," she says. "The South will warm your heart."
New York also is a special place, though she says it "scares" and "always intimidates" her.
"It's full of energy and unlike any other place in the world," Carlile says. "It motivates me and hits me like a lightning bolt."
Internationally, her favorite city may be London, because "its history is so rich," and the city "is so beautiful." Carlile says she once thought Londoners were harsh, "but the truth is, they're so shy, and it takes a few minutes" to understand them.
She adores Australia — "the entire country blows my mind" — and says Bergen, Norway, is "absolutely stunning," because it "looks like a scene out of a snow globe."
Giving back
Income from years of shows made it possible for Carlile and the Hanseroths to found a charity, The Looking Out Foundation, and $1 of every concert ticket sold is donated to the foundation, which funds other organizations that support the arts, women, public health, the hungry and the homeless.
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