CR 001: Zoe Boekbinder on Using Art to Influence Change
The singer-songwriter discusses social justice, their creative process, and their stunning new album, "Wildflower."
Singer-songwriter-guitarist Zoe Boekbinder (they/them) gained prominence in 2020 when Long Time Gone, an album they co-produced with Ani DiFranco, was released on DiFranco’s indie label Righteous Babe Records. A collection of songs spanning multiple genres and performed by an assortment of musicians, the album (which is attributed to the Prison Music Project) generated significant press for one notable feature: each song was written by a man incarcerated at New Folsom Prison.
The album was the culmination of four-and-a-half years Boekbinder spent volunteering as a music teacher at the prison, an experience they say was life-altering. “It changed me internally. It changed the way I thought about and interacted with the world. It changed the way that I thought about art, and the music I was making. It changed everything.”
Now, Boekbinder is once again using their art to influence change. Their new album, Wildflower, a stunning collection of country-tinged folk songs, was made, performed, produced, and promoted by a team of all women and non-binary people—which, they say now, was a game-changer. “I think this is the best album I've ever made,” Boekbinder says. “We made it in five days. It was incredible. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever go back. I mean, that album was sort of a concept, but I don't know why I would ever go back to the other way. [Laughs]”
I recently chatted with Boekbinder over Zoom about their new album, their time volunteering at New Folsom Prison, and their advice for how to break through creative blocks.
SANDRA EBEJER: I’d like to start off by talking about the years you taught music inside New Folsom Prison. You were already a working musician at that point, and you’d been touring and releasing albums. How did the experience of working with those men change the trajectory of your career?
ZOE BOEKBINDER: I would say entirely. From the first time that I went into the prison, it was something that I felt like everyone should witness. Because whether we like it or not, we are participating in the system, so we should really know what's going on in there and we should have to face it. I couldn't bring the general public in with me, but I thought, "I can't bring people in, but what can I bring out?" At first it was stories; I would tell stories about the people that I met. I was trying to also write songs about it—because that's what I do, I write songs about my experiences—but I was struggling with it. And then a light bulb went off, like, "I'm interacting with all of these songwriters and poets and lyricists in prison every time I go in. I don't need to write the songs about this experience. It's not my experience."
I asked some of the writers I was working with inside about sharing their work and most of them jumped at the opportunity to share their stories. Because a lot of what the people that I was working with were experiencing was not only the incarceration of their body, but also the incarceration of their voice. And having their work leave the prison was like some experience of freedom. I got such a great response and I thought, "Oh, maybe I'll do an EP.” Eventually, as you know, it turned into a whole album.
Going through that process and bringing this writing out, I thought of myself as a microphone and in a way lost touch with my own creativity, because it just felt like what I was doing as a microphone was more important than my work as an artist. The feeling that I had at the time was the voices of these incarcerated people just needed to be heard so much more than my voice. And it took years, but eventually what happened is it gave me courage to start writing about things that mattered more to me, which I hadn't done before. My songs had been mostly personal before. So in that way, it totally shifted my relationship to my art and my music.
You were volunteering in the prison as a music teacher, but I’m wondering if you learned anything from the men there about the craft of songwriting or making music? So not just changing your feelings about things, but actually changing the way you approached art-making?
Totally. I mean, the thing is, my way in was to say I was a teacher, but I never felt that way. I had to facilitate these classes, but what they felt like was workshops where we were all collaborating. And [the men were] some of the best songwriters I've ever met. The best songwriter I have ever met, Ken Blackburn, is someone I met inside prison. He taught me so many of his songs one-on-one, which is just—I mean, what an honor. I learned so much from that, from being able to learn from him face-to-face. His songs are so beautiful.
One of my favorite songs on your new album is “The Rest of His Days,” which I understand was inspired by Lester Polk, one of the men who was incarcerated at New Folsom Prison. Are you still in touch with the men you met there? Will there be any additional projects through the Prison Music Project?
Yes, I'm in touch with some of the men that I worked with at that time. That song is actually about someone I met later. Sam Brown, who wrote “Ain't Trippin’” on the Prison Music Project, introduced me [to Lester]. It was around the time that the album released, and I was wanting to do radio stories for Righteous Babe Radio around the Prison Music Project. Sam had brought restorative justice workshops into the prison, so I asked him about it. And he said, "Actually, rather than talking to me about this, I think you should talk to my friend Lester." He was on the prison phone and Lester was, I guess, walking by, so he goes, "Lester, come here" and just hands Lester the phone. And Lester downloads that incredible story about his experience with restorative justice and one of the survivors of the crime that he took part in when he was 18. It's such a beautiful story that one day I will release as a podcast, but it's sort of like the Prison Music Project where it just feels so big and so important that I need to find the right avenue to release it. But it does exist on the Prison Music Project website in an earlier form, so you can hear that story if you want.
I wasn't planning to write a song about that story. Songs come in different ways and my absolute favorite way that they arrive is when I feel like I'm an antenna and they're just coming through me. And that song was like that. I think I wrote that song in an hour. I had been thinking about their story so much over the months since I'd first heard it, and I'd been interviewing them both and it was very present on my mind, so that song just kind of fell out.
Your new album, Wildflower, was created by yourself and an all-woman team. Why was it important for you to make this album without cis men?
I've been touring and recording since 2005, so I've experienced lots of sexism in the music industry. And it's hard not to acknowledge how the music community is just populated more so by men and those men are getting more of the opportunities. For years, I didn't really think about it. I wouldn't say I played mostly with men, but I definitely recorded mostly with men on the recording end. I was presenting the Prison Music Project at this university in Switzerland and the professor who was hiring me to do this talk wanted me to do another talk. She's like, "What about one more talk on a different topic while you're here?" [Laughs] I didn't have that much warning and I was trying to think of what else I could talk about that I have a lot of experience with. So I thought, "Maybe sexism in the music industry. I've experienced a lot of that."
I started doing research and the statistics are boggling. I mean, it's actually so much worse than I thought it was. It is changing, for sure, but even in the most recent Grammys, women and non-binary people are so underrepresented. It just goes to show that cis men are still really controlling one of our main media languages. Media is such a huge part of our culture, and the way that we learn how to relate to each other. I mean, lyrics and songs inform our culture, and there are so many songs that are really permissible and celebratory of violence against women. And we've grown up singing these songs, and it's awful. When I started doing that research, I was thinking, "Oh, no! I love that song!" [Laughs] Just all these hits that you're like, “Eww! I never listened to those lyrics before! This is about pedophilia? What the hell!”
I think the way we need to change that is not just educating those men about women, violence against women, or feminism, it's about representation in the industry. So I thought, in my small way, I can choose to work with, uplift, hire, and pay the people that I want populating this industry. And I thought it would be a challenge to find a whole team, but it wasn't. It was actually very easy. It was the most skilled, talented team I've ever worked with.
You shared on Instagram that your favorite track on the new album is “Cover Up the Moon,” which is a gorgeous tune. What is it about that one that stands out for you?
Oh my God, a lot. At the root of it, the lyrics—I wrote it about one thing and felt very moved by it then, when it was about that, and now for me it is about something else, which is really interesting. I think, ultimately, it's about our ability to confront the truth and confront darkness and not be avoidant, which is a common theme for me. I'm a very confrontational person. Not in the traditional sense of that word. I just don't avoid information that I find inconvenient. I don't avoid conflict. I don't avoid the truth. I want to face everything; I want to know everything. And I find that to be a pretty rare trait. I'm not trying to boast, either—I'm not saying it's the way to be. But it's certainly a trait I really value and something that I look for in people.
So this song is like my loneliness anthem in a way. At the time [I wrote it], I was talking about conflict resolution in the aftermath of some abuse in the community. But now, for me, it's actually about Covid and how most of the world has sort of repressed what we know about Covid, and the fact that it's still really dangerous. It's still killing and disabling people, and we're all putting each other in danger by pretending that it doesn't exist or that it's just like a cold or the flu now. So [the song] sort of transformed for me, but I think it'll keep doing that, because of the way that it is getting at, are you going to be there in the dark with me? That's the kind of person that I'm looking for.
And I just love the vibe of the production so much. It's exactly my taste in music. My producer, Megan McCormick, delivered everything I love about recorded music. It’s just the dreamiest place to be in. I'm totally transported when I listen to that song.
Your music has such a timelessness to it. Many of your songs sound as though they could be classics from a bygone era just as much as they could be contemporary. According to your bio, you weren’t raised in a musical family, so how did you learn to write songs and play music?
I've always been someone who sang to myself. As a kid, I was always singing to myself and making up songs, and I continued to do that way before I considered myself a songwriter or a musician, before I ever played an instrument. I would write the songs in my journal and put up and down arrows for the melody because I didn't have chords. We didn't even really listen to music as a family. We had maybe 10 CDs, including the soundtrack to the movie Cocktail. [Laughs] Horrible movie, great soundtrack! It was like, Simon & Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and some Broadway classics. As far as only having 10 CDs, I think that's pretty great. [Laughs] I still love all that music. But yeah, I don't know. It feels like it was just in me, and it had to get out.
You used to live in New Orleans, and now you reside in upstate New York. How does your environment change the way you make music?
I would say the thing that changes it the most is whether or not I have an audience. Because I'm still Covid cautious, I haven't been touring. And I found that my creativity with music has shriveled. Even a few weeks ago, I was feeling a lot of grief about not feeling inspired at all to even pick up my guitar. I still sing, but I wasn't writing songs. It has been a year and a half since I've written a song and I'd never gone more than maybe six months before. And even that was usually like, "Whoa, I haven't written a song in six months!" This is just completely unusual for me.
Part of my creative process is having an audience and sharing. I'm not creating this music for myself in a vacuum. And this really just occurred to me in a recent interview, actually. Since then, I've put the word out that I'm looking to play Covid-safer shows because I don't want to lose my connection to that. It's been such an important part of my life since I was 17 when I first picked up a guitar. It really feels like a part of me that I don't want to lose. And two days after I made this post about wanting to play Covid-safer shows and I got some responses, I picked my guitar up for the first time in a year and a half. Just yesterday I played for three hours. I'm so excited to play for people again and have this relationship to music again.
When I asked you prior to the interview to name some of your influences, you were hesitant to list specific people. You wrote in an email, “Everything around me inspires what I make.” Are you an empath? Do you find that you’re highly attuned to the world around you?
[Nods head vigorously.] Yeah! Seven hundred percent yes! [Laughs]
So is it safe to say that no matter whom you work with, there is something that you are taking on from them?
I mean, yes, but it's not just who I'm working with, it's all the input. It's everything around me. It's every interaction. I would say I have been on the outskirts of the musical community forever. I have never felt like I was in it. I have rarely had close friends that are within the music community. I have acquaintances, I have people that I've toured with, but I more so have been drawn to people in the social justice world. And so I would say I'm probably more influenced by my close personal relationships with people who don't even play music, and with world events and the bird that's perched on a branch outside my window. I have such a hard time distilling that into one artist. I don't think that my music is more inspired by other music than it is by that tree, you know?
That makes perfect sense. Part of why I started this Substack was because I was feeling stuck and was looking for inspiration. Do you ever face creative blocks? How do you tap into your creativity if you feel like it's been blocked for a while?
For me, and I suspect that this is true for most creators, it's about sharing it. There's so much that I get from an audience, but the best way for me to describe it is energy. And it really has to be in person for me to feel that; I don't get that from virtual shows. It helps me hone my songs. Because audiences are not quiet. Ideally, they're listening, but my favorite audience is an audience that is making sounds and reacting to what I'm doing. That informs my creativity and helps me decide which songs I'm going to keep playing or decide, “Oh, maybe this song needs more of a build.” Bouncing my creations off of other people is what I need to motivate my art and be creative. And definitely what I recommend to everyone is, as scary as it is, show your art to people.
To learn more about Zoe’s work, visit their website.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You might also enjoy…
