Diane Zeigler's 1995 Rounder CD "Sting of the Honeybee" was host to an impressive musical cast including Artie Traum, Scott Petito, Barbara Kessler, Amy and Leslie, Jerry Marotta, and Tony Trischka.

After having won three songwriting competitions in 1990 and 1991, Diane had also won more than a little attention from producers and record labels nationwide. The Sugarbush Folk Festival in VT, Columbia Folk Festival in WA, and the Napa Valley Folk Festival in CA all agreed that Diane Zeigler was on the way, and nothing would stop her.

But by the time "Sting of the Honeybee" was gathering rave reviews from music critics, Zig did stop performing . . . to have two children. Jumping forward to 1999, Diane Zeigler has taken first prize at the Kerrville Folk Festival in TX, second place at the Telluride Troubador Contest in CO, and is currently a finalist at the Rocky Mountain Folk Festival in CO, and Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in NY.

With a new CD in the planning stages, a busy website, and a child under each arm, Diane Zeigler moves forward while we have been patiently waiting. The wait is over. . . .

the DIANE ZEIGLER interview

Q: In 1995 you released your first CD on Rounder Records. How did your signing with Rounder happen, and were there other label possibilities at the time?

ZIG: I signed with Rounder after my producer Artie Traum and his management had been shopping me to a variety of different labels, some smaller and some larger than Rounder. Being a folksinger who cut my teeth on the Boston scene, my personal choice from the outset was to sign with the Cambridge-based Rounder, who had supported the early careers of so many of the performers I admired. So once Rounder expressed a preliminary interest in working with me, after hearing some demos and my self-released first cassette, we kind of stopped pursuing the other avenues even though there was interest because that's really where I wanted to be.

Q: Not many new artists have their first CD produced by someone like Artie Traum. How did you connect with Artie, and what lead to his involvement in the album?

ZIG: Well, indirectly I suppose the Kerrville Folk Festival introduced me to Artie, although I didn't meet him there. I first went there in '91, when I was very green and had not written very many songs, but had an intense desire to be a songwriter. And Kerrville is a necessary pilgrimage to make if songwriting is a serious goal, because one is able to befriend so many artists with the same passion. If you let yourself, you'll soak up the energy that the ranch has to offer and it's pretty hard not to come home feeling inspired, and hopefully on your way to being a better writer. In any case, one night at around 2:00 AM, I was standing at a campfire where there were lots of people, and I was kind of waiting my turn to sing but was pretty nervous to do so. I'd been waiting and listening for about 2 hours and kept chickening out. And finally I just got up the nerve to do it. So I sang my song, and it went over really well, and I remember that one person in particular was really excited, and his name is John Herald (formerly of the Greenbriar Boys). Anyway, I gave him a tape, and being as he's a friend of Artie's, he sent it to him, which I knew nothing about. And then in early '92 John called me telling me to come to Woodstock, NY because he was doing a gig with Artie and he'd really like me to do a guest song so that Artie could hear it. And so I came and sang, and Artie and I became fast friends and forged a professional relationship with the goal of getting me a record deal. So it took us 2 years from the time we started working together until the time I signed with Rounder before we started recording my debut.

Also, I had moved from Vermont to the Boston area to become more involved in the folk scene there, and did quite a few gigs in the area during that period. I started developing an audience, etc. and I think folks at Rounder saw all that happen and watched me mature as an artist. So that certainly helped in securing their interest; it didn't just happen by sending a tape in to them, that's for sure.

Q: Do you feel that your inspiration or style of writing has changed since marriage and motherhood?

ZIG: Lots of people have been asking me that lately. Parenthood is a pretty intense journey and it does force you to look at life in larger terms, or at least look at the big picture more than you might like to. My life is so much less about me than it is about them now. And that brings with it a whole new world of experience that I never knew existed before . . . I have to say I'm just not the same person I was before I had kids; my whole framework has changed and things that once were important to me are less so now. So sure, I think I see things I didn't see before, and my whole language of inspiration has been altered somehow.

But the writing process itself is the same old elusive beast that it ever was. I haven't noticed a change in my writing style, although I did stop writing for almost 2 years while I was popping out 2 babies. I just didn't have the energy or interest for it; all of my creative energy went into mothering. I started writing again just before the birth of my second child, and it was like riding a bike, thankfully. Also, I think because I took such a long break from writing, added to the fact that I have no time to do it, I end up craving creative time now. I somehow find the energy often to pull all-nighters just so I can finish a song, because I know that come morning I'm on duty with the kids. I seem to have the same kind of drive that I had when I was first starting out and just learning how to write. Only now I stay up because I have to, not because I want to.

Q: Each of your songs has an incredible instrumental personality of it's own. How many open tunings do you use, and are their any "signature Zig" tunings?

ZIG: No, I don't believe there are any Zig tunings. If you open my guitar case at any given time you will probably find it in DGDGCD - it's an incredibly rich tuning and I'm always discovering something new to do in it. I tend to go on to another tuning when I just have to work too hard to get it to do something interesting, and my goals as a guitarist do not include working hard. I discovered open tunings from my husband Geoff Sather in 1990 when I shamelessly pursued him after hearing him do a song at the Sugarbush Folk Festival in VT. I loved the way he played the guitar and learned that he'd been influenced by folks like Michael Hedges and David Wilcox, neither of whom I'd ever heard before. So I learned some of the basic tunings from listening to their work and seeing them live.

The first tuning I ever tried was open C: CACDCD. Then I just started moving strings from there because I didn't want the next song I wrote to sound just like the last one, so I'd try moving the first string down to a C to get a real dulcimer effect. Then I tried open G, which I didn't like too much because I could never think of interesting things to do. But when I found DGDGCD, quite by accident, it opened up a world for me, and I've written quite a bit in variations of that tuning. Like right now I'm writing a lot in CGDGAD, which I discovered while being laid over in Chicago in February. I was surprised to find out how different a tuning can be just by altering one string - that tuning gives the instrument a whole new feel from DGDGAD, which I've used before. I also use CGCGCD (only once so far) but have never yet been able to write a thing of interest in DADGAD or open D. They're both beautiful tunings but I just can't seem to be inspired by them...probably a question of having to work too hard.

Q: Do you ever use standard tunings?

ZIG: Never. I'm a really terrible guitarist in standard; I hardly know my way around the fretboard. Before I started working in open tunings I had a very boring guitar style and didn't push myself to get better; once I discovered them I loved it so much there was no going back. Although it is a bit ridiculous now - I really should try to do something in standard. Not long ago I picked up my husband's Taylor and strummed it slowly, string by string, for about a minute, and then said, "what the hell tuning is this?" He always teases me about that, because it was in standard, of course.

Q: What can we expect in the future for new CD's?

ZIG: I'll have a new release out by May of 2000. T-Bone Wolk (Hall and Oates, Saturday Night Live Band) is interested in producing. I'm not sure at this point if it will be on Rounder or if it will be an independent release. These days I have to deal with the logistical nightmare of touring and mothering, which really limits me to the number of performance dates I can do. Any future release has to make sense both for Rounder and for me. At a certain point I really have to question how much sense it makes to be on a label if I can't be out there pushing the record the way they want me to, and it's a bit attractive to be able to set the pace for myself and my family by going independent. But there's great arguments to be made for both scenarios; at this point I just have to wait and see how it all unfolds. But in any case, there'll be a new CD available next spring, and information about it can be found on my website, DianeZeigler.com .

Q: In the early '90s, you had a few cassette releases. Will any of those songs ever surface on future albums?

ZIG: I only had one cassette release, and two of my most requested songs from it, "Jack's Belted Galloways" and "The Legend of Enoch Arden" will be on the next album.

Q: Have you done any co-writing?

ZIG: Not a lot of it, but I'd like to try more. I've talked about doing so with Cosy Sheridan and Tom Prasada-Rao recently. I'd love to be able to take a song that I'm stuck with and bring it to another artist to fix or move in a different direction . . . seems it would get me to finish a lot more songs that way!

Q: Where did the title of your album "Sting of the Honeybee" come from?

ZIG: From a song of the same title, of course. But I decided to make that the title song on the first day of recording rhythm tracks, when we walked into the studio and there were hundreds of bees in the control room and the place had to be evacuated so we could call an exterminator. So the first day of recording my debut album had to be canceled. With that kind of auspicious beginning, I didn't see that I could give the album any other title.

Q: You've appeared on numerous compilation CDs, alongside such respected artists as John Gorka, Christine Lavin, Dougie MacLean, Richard Shindell, David Wilcox, Rory Block, and others. Now you have a cut on Christine Lavin's new compilation, "The Stealth Project", available on ChristineLavin.com Records. Tell us about that.

ZIG: Christine Lavin has a long history of being unusually generous and supportive of new artists, and is always eager to share her audience with artists whose music she's excited about. Her latest such undertaking is The Stealth Project CD. I'm grateful to be included alongside such talented artists as Michael McNevin, Lynn Miles, Dee Carstensen, and Gideon Freudman, to name a few.

Q: What is your current guitar set up?

ZIG: I have a Martin HD-35 and a Taylor 812, and I use a Fishman Blender system onstage. I'm trying to learn how to use a tuner onstage; it's very difficult for me because I'm always changing tunings between songs and I usually have a capo on so I can't easily read on the tuner what note I'm at or heading to without doing a bit of thinking on my toes. And I'm usually involved in telling a story or something in between songs, so it's challenging. Over the years I've just trained myself to go between tunings really quickly by memorizing how much I have to rotate the machine head, and using my ear; but I've often settled for playing slightly out of tune, just in the interest of being done with it! Which I've finally discovered is not the best way to present your music. So I'm learning that you can take as long as you need to get in tune up there, people will appreciate it in the long run. But there really is a fine art behind telling a story and getting from one tuning to another, and hopefully the tuner will help me perfect it.

Q: I always try to remember to ask artists how they feel about MP3 free Internet downloads, and how how you think this music format may affect the recording industry.

ZIG: I think it's going to change things considerably for everyone: the labels, both major and minor, and most importantly, the artists. Seems like the labels have a lot to be worried about, as Christine Lavin pointed out in her Billboard column in May. She argues that most artists who record for labels, from the very well known to those just starting out, receive the lion's share of their income from performances and not from royalties. And even though the artists won't receive a royalty when someone downloads an MP3 song, they may have the opportunity to reach a fan they couldn't have before. And that fan may show up at a future performance, where the percentage that ends up in the artist's pocket is considerably higher. I personally would never feel satisfied downloading an album of music I love; I want to curl up with the CD jacket and read it cover to cover. But MP3 might turn some of us on to artists whose music we might not bother to go out and purchase . . . and if it's good stuff, they'll end up getting paid more in the long run. Now the record companies, that's another story. Some people say that the music business as we have known it is over. I don't know about that, but it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

For more information, visit the official Diane Zeigler website at: http://www.dianezeigler.com

Photo credits: Title photo, CD cover art, and Zig with children, courtesy of the Diane Zeigler website. Photo of Zig playing guitar is courtesy of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, taken by Paul Crocco.

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