I stumbled across Lili Haydn when the front men of Led Zeppelin kicked in a tour back in ‘98. As she walked demurely on stage, violin in hand- I thought perhaps that she had gotten separated from an orchestra and was trying to find the pit. Then her band came on stage and BANG. This music wasn’t just Rock and Roll, this was a sound you would have heard around Gypsy campfires if they had discovered crunch. Much of her work branches far beyond easy description, encompassing Trance, Dance Eastern and Electronica, always with a nod to the Classical music on which she whetted her prodigious violin talent. Haunting, captivating and heavy, there is a sense of condensed emotion being kneaded and stretched beyond it’s natural bounds. It is hard to contemplate this much passion and power packed into her delicate and enchanting form.
Raised by her mother comedienne Lotus Weinstock, her first career was as a child actor, financing a degree in Political Science at Brown University with acting jobs.
Lili’s amazingly diverse background includes stints with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Rolling Stones, Sting and a veritable army of musical luminaries.
Her most recent project is a uniquely captivating disk: Light Blue Sun. This work is strongly Trance with a World Music edge, topped off of course with tantalizing doses of Lili’s virtuoso violin work.. There are strange nuggets of intensity nestled among this highly listenable material. You can pick it up at Amazon or go to Lilihaydn.com.
T. Virgil Parker: In addition to your considerable musical talents I notice that you were on the cast of the New Gigets television series. So I guess that the only thing that the Gigets have in common with Porno for Pyros is you.
Lilly Haydn: I’d have to say so, though anyone with an idea- people who try to put their imagination into the world- have a connection. Anybody with a vision is coming from the same tribe I think. I like to think of myself as one of those people.
TVP: You strike me as a rather unique amalgamation of psychic components. You grew up in a commune?
LH: My name was Cherub until I was 12.
TVP: Do you think that gives you a broader world view than a more linear upbringing?
LH:Every vantage point has its advantages.
TVP: You seem to approach composition from a number of perspectives at once.
LH: As a musician I’ve played with so many different kinds of people that I’m influenced by them.. It does all emanate from one place within me ultimately. Melody for me comes from the heart. The imagination takes over and elaborates from that point. Then I do pull from Electronica and Dance, and Rock and Eastern and all that.
TVP: You have an impeccable sense of translating emotion into sound. That particular gift you seem to share with two other people who worked with Quali Master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Joan Osborne, and Jeff Buckley.
LH: I respect both those artists quite a bit. Working with Nusrat was one of the greatest experiences of my musical life. He combined inspiration with skill in the most powerful, disarming way.
TVP: You get into a studio and you’re confronted with all these machines and doodads. How do you find an organic center in the midst of that?
LH: I start with then center. Then in the studio the machines are a bed to lay the ideas on. The essence has to come first or it really is easy to get lost. I’d like to think the essence is obvious in Light Blue Sun. There is a lot of production, and that may or may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but I made an effort to keep melodic content and the emotional power up front.
TVP: There’s a chiaroscuro of dark romanticism and optimism that’s coming directly from the violin work.
LH: I’ve always been attracted to the Romantics. I’m not sure about darkness. Some people will find the pathos in what I do and others will see the optimism. You found both I think of it as a richness rather than a qualitative term.
TVP: I guess I’m trying to define a quality of passion that pushes on the walls of form.
LH: The passion is what I hope will link my first record with this one, and the next one, and the work with my band or with Parliment Funkadelic. I’m always trying to be the best version of myself, but I’m always trying to make sure I know where my heart is. I always try to come from there.
TVP: Your first album was definitely Rock and Roll. Did the process of growing lead you to more of a focus on melody?
LH: Part of it was the people I was playing with. I was surrounded with these really heavy players, so I was hearing those colors when I was playing with them. Then, later I didn’t feel the need to be rocking out. Because of what I’m doing now I suspect that the next album will be contemplative and rockier; a mixture of both. It’s like Map Quest. You get the location, then you get the overview, then you zoom in.
TVP: You’ve said that life is a metaphor for love.
LH: I don’t know if that is as clear as I could have been. As we explore that concept, everything that we come across is a way of getting us to the big love. All of our attractions of people are sparks of the divine that ultimately brings us to the consciousness expansion that is either a revelation, or death. Ultimately we are reassumed into the big love.
TVP: That is like your music, it leads from a melodic theme that zooms into an elaborated conclusion. Music from the stone age on has been used as a means of accessing divinity.
LH: It’s a way of relating both to a sense of community and to the divine. It is simultaneously grounding and elevating.
TVP: Are you consciously aware of that sense of unity while you create?
LH: I think so. Sometimes I get too conscious. I’m in the process of writing right now. Light a candle, all those things, and then just let it happen. Try not to be too consciously aware- that can be too alienating.
TVP: You were a child actress growing up. Do ever feel that sense of a secondary persona that you use externally?
LH: I think because I’ve done so many different things I have these threads of understanding for compassion when I meet people. I can pretty much understand what a person might be going through. Being an actress I got to try on different characters. I think its just more to call on when I’m channeling advice or offering a shoulder to cry on.
TVP: You recently performed on the Amnesty International Human Rights Compilation?
LH: Human rights is really my passion. Bringing the music and inspiration to people when there challenged gives me a sense of purpose. I’m honored to be a part of that project.
TVP: Any human rights issues you find particularly important right now?
LH: There are so many. It is important to act in your community. Early education, head start, anything where kids are empowered to be the fullest versions of themselves. On the grander scheme, the more empowered people are, the more compassion they’ll have for other people; a trickle down for empowerment. My mom used to say that the most oppressed minority is the individual. Besides spending time for homeless missions, I’m a big proponent of stem cell research. Also, it’s a very important time to get out the vote. Its more than a little appalling how much money both sides are spending. That’s just the way it is. I guess the important thing is to tell people to vote. And in the mean time, be nice!
My mom also used to say "Love you neighbor as you love yourself. But if you don’t love yourself your neighbor’s in trouble." So be nice to yourself, be nice to others, and vote!
TVP: Your mother was engaged to the comedian Lenny Bruce? He had that same sense of humanism, with a barb.
LH: Yes. She was engaged to him during the last year of his life.
TVP What can you tell me about the track Wounded Dove? It seems so simple, but it carries cart loads of emotional content.
LH: I a family on the news doing a vigil around the bed of their seven year old child who had been shot in a drive-by. It sort of struck the chord of "What is the role of the loved-ones when spirit at that crossroads, in the place between places?"
I had really felt that it was my job to keep my mom here as long as I could, even if it seemed a bit selfish being an advocate for this side.
TVP: You’re a person naturally drawn to profundity. Is it a trip to find yourself on stage next to George Clinton?
LH: It is, though he is pretty far out himself. The craziness and the recklessness and all that- He’s playing with an illusion, and he is very aware that it is all an illusion. He’s just incredibly playful and wonderful.
TVP: What can we expect from you next?
LH: Be on the look out in the next month for the Amnesty International Compilation. And I’m writing, so another disk is in the wings.