An independent musician to the end

Published 7:00 pm Saturday, January 8, 2005

Songstress Holly Figueroa picks up where Lilith Fair left off.

Some bask in the limelight, others glow in the margins.

You’ll find Holly Figueroa outside the glare, and comfortably so. The island singer/songwriter has built a sustainable career for herself outside the musical mainstream, all the while promoting a larger community of aspiring women performers.

“There’s some amazing independent writers all over the country,” she said, “who get very little press, and no recognition for what they do.”

Figueroa brings her music to Pegasus Coffee House this weekend, showcasing the folk-and blues-inflected tunes of her most recent album, “How It Is,” released on Tacoma’s Cake Records.

For someone you’ve never heard of, she has made a bit of a splash, having been featured in venues as diverse as Seventeen magazine and National Public Radio.

But while slick music industry types come sniffing around from time to time, the 33-year-old mother of two remains content to do business on her own terms.

“I’m happy doing what I’m doing,” she said. “Is (major label success) a goal? Definitely not. I’m happy working at my leisure, and not having to leave my kids for four months at a time (to tour).”

Her current influences include such “alt-country” acts as Wilco and Ryan Adams; she recently discovered the Velvet Underground, the archetypal 1960s wellspring from which most American post-punk rock is drawn.

Figueroa’s songs are sometimes confessional, sometimes confrontational; she is possessed of an expressive and affecting voice, with stylings that suggest a less ethereal Sarah McLachlan, or a less annoying Alanis Morissette. Other touchstones might be Shelby Lynne or Beth Orton.

An intuitive guitarist, she relies on open tunings, and only took up the instrument when her regular guitarist broke his hip pitching a tent at a music festival.

Mastering three chords in three days, she finished the tour as her own accompanist.

“When I play solo, people call it folk music,” she said. “When I play with a band, they call it rock, mostly. The last two studio records have been put under ‘alt-country.’

“It’s not that I’m totally unique, but I don’t fit neatly into any certain category.”

‘Indiegrrl’

Figueroa grew up in Ohio and sang in high school, but her instrumental prowess was limited to the mouthpiece-and-reed section of the band – not exactly the medium of aspiring folkies.

“All the instruments I played required me to blow into them,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to sing and blow.”

After college, she took the mic at a weekly blues jams, giving that up when her first child was born. She and her husband moved to the Seattle area in 1996, settling on Bainbridge in 2001.

During that period she formed a band, which lasted long enough to record one album, argue a lot, and convince Figueroa that she was better off on her own.

“Nobody could really agree on anything,” she said, “and I decided I didn’t want to be a mom to several other people.”

A self-described control freak, she now hires session musicians for recording and live situations that require backup. She has recorded two studio albums and a live set since the band, releasing them herself or on small labels.

“As soon as the CD as a format was inexpensive to produce, you’ve got everybody and their grandma making them in the basement, and putting them out as independent musicians,” she said.

That word – “independent” – cycles endlessly through Figueroa’s discourse, a one-word manifesto for performers who eschew the Faustian bargains of the corporate music world.

“Indie” imprints have been around for years; the college radio scene of the mid-1980s was particularly robust, fed by countless small labels that nurtured such acts as REM, Sonic Youth and the Pixies to healthy followings despite little commercial airplay.

But it is the subsequent development of the Internet as a cultural medium, Figueroa believes, that has really opened doors for non-mainstream music, as even the most esoteric fan can now find a kindred ear somewhere in cyberspace.

Online music-swapping is the norm, and direct sales to fans increasingly so; inexpensive home studios and CD burning for the first time put the means of music production in the hands of the workers. It is a glorious age.

“I don’t know how musicians ever stayed afloat, before they were able to reach people outside their markets without leaving town,” Figueroa said.

Inspired by Sarah McLachlan’s 1998 Lilith Fair, a traveling celebration of the musical power of estrogen, Figueroa started the website www.indiegrrl.com.

Now boasting some 2,000 members, the site acts as a clearinghouse for up-and-coming female musicians to share their work and promote shows.

“Just to realize you’re not alone in what you’re doing is valuable in and of itself,” Figueroa said. “Being able to meet these women in real time is icing.”

Figueroa no longer makes extended tours herself, preferring “long weekend” jaunts to California and the East Coast for performances each time she releases a new disc.

She counts on CD sales even before she enters the studio, essentially challenging fans that if they want another album, they can help pay for it – up front.

Fans who contribute to a project are promised autographed CDs when the new record comes out, get front row seats at shows, and can help pick the setlist when Figueroa comes to play in their area.

“If I don’t get enough money, it means the interest isn’t great enough,” she said. “Then I don’t put out a record until there is enough interest.”

It has worked; she will soon enter the studio to record her third fan-financed album.

To Figueroa, the arrangement makes perfect sense.

“People who seek out independent music, they’re going to buy your record anyway,” she said. “Independent music fans are the best.”

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Holly’s hobby

Holly Figueroa plays at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Pegasus Coffee House, in a benefit for tsunami relief; she will also perform on the island at 3 p.m. Jan. 16 as part of the Ovation! benefit for the same cause.

More information is at www.hollyfigueroa.com and www.indiegrrl.com.