Hear our full chat on my podcast “Beyond the Fame with Jason Fraley.”
The Annapolis Songwriters Festival returns to the Maryland capital this Thursday through Sunday.
The festival kicks off with Michelle Branch live at Maryland Hall in Annapolis on Thursday, followed by Blondie at Annapolis City Dock on Friday, Marty Stuart at Maryland Hall on Saturday, K. Michelle at Rams Head On Stage on Saturday, LeAnn Rimes at Annapolis City Dock on Sunday and finally Patty Griffin at Maryland Hall on Sunday.
“If I have my way, I will be fangirling [for] Blondie and Patty Griffin and singing every song from side stage,” Branch told WTOP. “I was asked last minute to do it and when I saw the lineup, I was like, ‘Yes, sign me up, 100%.’ I’m pumped to be in town and play among such great songwriters.”
Modeled after the Key West Songwriters Festival, which began in 1995, the second annual Annapolis Songwriters Festival will celebrate the art of songwriting, which remains an elusive, ineffable and fascinating skill to hone.
“If you find out the secret of it, will you tell me?” Branch said. “For me as a music fan, I always connect with things that have an emotional pull to it, so that’s kind of the space that I always try to write from. Songwriting is one of those things where you can spend years doing it, but then out of the blue, an idea will literally fall from the sky and that becomes the thing that people gravitate toward, so it’s really just kind of magic in that way.”
Born in Sedona, Arizona, in 1983, Branch started voice lessons at 8-years-old and got her first guitar at 15.
“I remember writing songs as early as like 8 years old,” Branch said. “I remember sitting in my backyard on the swing set just humming melodies, making up words and not realizing that what I was doing was writing songs. On family road trips with my parents and my siblings, my dad had this game where we’d rewrite funny lyrics to existing songs, but ironically, Patty Griffin, who is playing on this same bill, was one of my really early inspirations.”
While producing her own indie record, “Broken Bracelet,” Branch began uploading songs to Rolling Stone’s website as a precursor to Myspace. Her big break came from a special out-of-town guest visiting Arizona.
“My mom’s friend worked at a timeshare resort nearby and she got this guy in to do a tour and … he said, ‘I’m from Los Angeles in the music business,’ so she called me and said, ‘Get down here,'” Branch said. “I was home alone, didn’t have my driver’s license, my parents were at work, so I borrowed my neighbor’s golf cart and drove down to this resort. I was waiting with a tape; I literally cut my photo out of a family photo and stuffed it into the tape!”
Turns out, this man knew the boy band Hanson, who invited her to open for them at concerts in Los Angeles. There, another record executive came backstage and signed her to Madonna’s Maverick label in 2001.
“My A & guy who worked at the label had told me, ‘Oh, don’t bother with that one, leave it off,’ but I just couldn’t get it out of my head, so I played it for [producer John Shanks in studio] and he was like, ‘No, I think we should work on this,'” Branch said. “The next thing you know it was a massive hit and I’m really grateful that John could hear through my little original idea to let it become what it became.”
The same album also featured the smash hit “All You Wanted,” including a “Pop Up Video” on VH1.
“That one’s one of my favorites,” Branch said. “I wrote that in my bedroom in Sedona, Arizona. That was a fully-formed song that I brought in when I went to record and it was just young teenage love. A lot of the record was written before I had even had a real boyfriend, so it was me sitting in my room imagining what relationships would be like. That was probably written about me pining about some boy in my math class or something.”
“I’m just so sad because the category of Best Female Rock does not exist with the Grammys anymore and I just want it to come back,” Branch said. “There are so many women who are making rock music, I feel like we should all petition for it to come back. I was very inspired by a Nine Inch Nails song that had this amazing synth sound. … Most people would be surprised that Michelle Branch based ‘Are You Happy Now?’ off a Nine Inch Nails song.”
In 2005, she shifted from pop-rock to country by joining Jessica Harp to form the amazing duo The Wreckers.
“I was out on tour with The Dixie Chicks prior to making The Wreckers project and I am such a fangirl for The Chicks and I was so inspired by them,” Branch said. “Jessica Harp was out with me on the road singing backup and we were singing harmony all the time just wanting to make music like The Chicks, so that was really what inspired me to take a pause on my solo career and start a band. It was such an inspiring run for us.”
The Wreckers famously earned a Grammy nomination for their smash single “Leave the Pieces.”
“It had been cut a few times by several artists, [including] Little Big Town, but it never made it onto anyone’s record,” Branch said. “We were sitting in a pitch meeting, Jessica and I, listening to songs. I knew within two seconds of hearing the song that it was a hit. It was written by Jennifer Hanson and Billy Austin and had been circling around town for a while. I fell in love with the song. It was one of those things like, ‘Aww, I wish I wrote that!'”
“She really wanted to have a minute to work on her solo music, so we pushed pause on The Wreckers,” Branch said. “Initially we were like, ‘Let’s just leave it where it is,’ but now as the years have gone on, we’re like, ‘Aww, maybe we should work on another record.’ … We sang for a St. Jude charity in the last year. When we sing together, the hair on your arm stands up. It feels really special, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we work on more music at some point together.”
Until then, catch her at the Annapolis Songwriters Festival to see why her lyrics have inspired megastars.
“The biggest compliment is when someone says, ‘I picked up the guitar because of you,'” Branch said. “To me, that will never get old. I’m 40-years-old now and it’s been a while since I’ve heard that, so hopefully that happens. … Taylor Swift has told me before, ‘I was such a huge fan and you made me want to write songs,’ so that’s how that goes, it trickles down, it’s all just one cool kind of chain and I’m honored to be a part of it.”
Hear our full chat on my podcast “Beyond the Fame with Jason Fraley.”
