In Session: Capital Region’s SIRSY

SARATOGA SPRINGS – How do you keep something fresh after ten years? Twenty? However you do it, Melanie Krahmer and Rich Libutti of SIRSY have certainly found a way. Twenty-four years into the husband-wife band, the two are continuing to go strong, relentlessly touring and writing new material all the time. Renowned for their dynamic on and off the stage, the two just celebrated a local sold-out show at Caffe Lena on Jan. 21.

In a rare bout of downtime for the couple, I took the chance to sit down with them for a proper discussion on their music, their longevity, and more. What follows is our conversation.

Lucas Garrett: Thank you, guys, for sitting down tonight! I’ve known of you for a while but it’s nice to finally meet you. How are you?

Rich Libutti: Nice to officially meet you!

Melanie Krahmer: Good! [We had] a rare two weeks…

RL: Twenty days off!

MK: Without a show. On purpose. It’s never happened where one of us hasn’t had surgery. Writing songs. Taking time to actually be creative. We tour so much.

LG: It seems like you’re always playing somewhere. You’ve been doing this for a while; your first recording came out over 21 years ago!

RL: That’s correct!

MK: Rich and I played our first gig together in the year 2000. This year will be 24 years! That’s insane! Twenty-four years I’ve known this guy.

LG: You’re married and playing out for 24 years. Most bands can’t seem to navigate 5 years, let alone be married to one another. The only other comparison I can think of is Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of Talking Heads. How do you two do all of this?

RL: I don’t know! There’s certainly challenges along the way when you’re in business with your wife; being creative with your partner. We’ve been pretty good at compartmentalizing parts of our life. Inevitably though, they do spill over…

MK: He’s dancing around it. We do fight, for sure.

RL: Hahaha.

MK: I would say, I don’t know if I’d be able to live this life if it wasn’t like this. We have this really lucky situation where basically home comes with us on the road. We try to remember how lucky that is, every time we go out. When we’re working together, writing a song, we’re brutally honest with each other because we’re married. That’s a plus, too. We just tell each other if we don’t like an idea. Usually, the fights are stupid things, like: we’re tired because we’ve been in the van for ten hours.

LG: It sounds like you have the whole compartmentalization down well!

RL: We try!

MK: Or, we’re just really good at being co-dependent! You’ll have to be the judge! Hahaha

LG: Is it a perfect marriage or is it toxic co-dependency!? Who knows!

RL: It’s a fine line!

MK: It’s working for us, Lucas!

LG: The last song you put out was the single, “Hell No?”

RL: Yes. We put out a bunch of singles this year trying to navigate the new world of not waiting for a whole album to release.

MK: It’s interesting because we have been doing this a while. We used to release CD’s, and we’d wait till we have a bunch of songs written to put on an album. Now, that seems less… people don’t consume music necessarily that way. Now, when we’re home and have a moment, we just record and get it out there.

LG: One of the things, as a songwriter myself, I’d like your opinion on is that I’m finding these singles that I’m writing and releasing have nothing to do with one another. They are not sonically similar; they are not thematically similar. Are you finding that because the name of the game for releasing music is different, that the way you’re writing is different?

MK: It’s a good point. We’ve always been a little bit…

RL: Scattered with our stylistics. A lot of the time when we were funneling things to put on a disc, they were so random…

MK: We’d have a rocker, then a quirky pop song, then a really sad ballad. Hahaha. They’re all parts of us, and our fans that come to see us like that our songs aren’t all the same. We’ve gotten feedback from the industry, “We don’t know what box to put you in because you guys are able to do so many styles.” I don’t know if it’s a positive or negative, and I don’t know if it’s more exaggerated when releasing singles. 

RL: One thing I do miss is the arts that went into picking order for songs. You would try to have some kind of continuity. You wouldn’t jerk the rug out from the listener. I felt it was another way to tell the story… and unfortunately, that’s gone. There’s no way that’s coming up.

LG: I grew up listening to albums, not songs. Even now, when I hear one of my favorite songs from a band. In the back of my brain, when that song is over, I’m subconsciously waiting for the other song that came after it.

RL: Me too!

LG: Despite how the industry is doing, it certainly doesn’t seem to be slowing you down! You had a sold-out show at Caffe Lena Jan. 21, and you’ll be back in the area soon after, right?

MK: Yes! We’ll be at the Linda March 9. It’s our first time headlining the Linda! We have this awesome singer-songwriter, Caity Gallagher, opening the show. We’ll be collaborating on a couple songs together. It’ll be a really good night!

LG: Are you writing new music right now?

MK: A little while ago, we finished a song. It’s called “Stupid Little Heart.” It’s a song we wrote about my dad, and my relationship with [him]. My dad has advanced dementia, and it’s challenging to relate to him these days, because he doesn’t know who I am.

LG: I’m sorry. I dealt with that with my grandparents. You don’t have a handbook for it.

MK: It’s rough. I wrote the lyrics for it, and Rich and I played through it yesterday. [We debuted it] at Caffe Lena. It was wonderful! Folks gave us a standing ovation after our new song and at the end of the show. They were all really kind. It was a really super night. [We’re holding] a couple other songs back until the Linda.

LG: I’d like to know, as a songwriter, how you end up deciding “OK, this new song we wrote. This is how it’s going to sound. This is how we like it.” When it comes to recording, how do you decide what goes on it, what doesn’t, and how you play it live?

MK: It’s hard. I like playing live more than the studio. There’s so much pressure when you record in the studio, because that’s how the song will be forever. We have had the opportunity to work with a really talented producer over and over again for the last of our records, and the singles we put out recently.

LG: What is his name?

MK: Paul Q. Kolderie. He’s won Grammy’s and produced famous albums like “Pablo Honey” by Radiohead, and Hole’s “Live Through This”…

RL: And then our stuff!

[everyone laughs]

MK: He’s a big help. Sometimes we struggle with just what you said. Should we present the song this way? Should we strip it down more? Should it be more lush? It changes the vibe and the mood. We try to capture the feeling we had when we were writing it. We sometimes lose objectivity. It’s great to have Paul… he puts a fresh spin on it that we never thought of.

RL: He’s not overbearing. He has a lot of suggestions but he’s not jamming any of them down our throat. At the end of the day…

MK: It’s a collaboration.

LG: How long does it take you to write a song and then record it? Is there a formula or plan?

MK: We’re not good with formulas or plans.

RL: A lot of times we’d have, especially when we’re waiting to do a record, we’d write four or five songs, and be playing them for a year before we got to a studio… that was a very different thing. It’s almost better, for me, to not have to play the song live a bunch of times before we record it.

MK: On the flip side, you record a song, then do it a bunch live, and think, “We should’ve done it that way!” For us, it’s based on necessity and opportunity: how much time we have home; is the studio available; when we have to go back on the road, et cetera.

LG: Whatever plan anyone had in the industry is gone now because of the pandemic.

RL: Of course.

LG: One of the things I really like about your band, and about you guys, is the longevity. Not many people have that. Have either of you ever gotten tired of playing out, and wished you could just be married and not have that other identity? On the flip side, have you ever wished you didn’t have to navigate the marriage, and just worry about the music?

MK: Most of the time, for me, it’s the first thing you said. I enjoy the fact that I get to do music with the person I’m married to and connect with. More often, it makes it easier. When you’re married with someone, or a couple for a really long time, you often don’t have to say everything. You can just give each other a look. Same thing if you play with someone for a really long time. I feel it’s often easier for us to communicate because we’re on the same page in most aspects of our life.

We’re a couple that never fights about money, because we make the same amount, and it’s usually not a lot!

RL: Hahaha.

MK: We don’t fight about free time; where we’re going to be. It’s always the same. There’ve been times where we’ve been fighting and then we have to go on stage. Then, we have to be SIRSY. You’ll have that thought of “I wish I didn’t have this dynamic right now and I could just sing these songs.” We’re both theater geeks so we know how to do that.

RL: You have to get your game face on. For me, it makes it easier. There’s tense moments if we’re having an argument, or whatever. But I’ve been in other bands where there were lots of intense moments. Melanie is a two-time cancer survivor. Both of the times we got the diagnosis, within hours, we were on stage. In that respect, it was nice that we were able to be together. I felt it was definitely a strength to be able to be together in some of those tough moments. Definitely in the joyous moments.

MK: Yeah.

LG: Do you have any tips for anyone considering being in a remotely similar position how to make it work? What do you worry about? What not to worry about? At the end of the day, what is important?

MK: Communication is key. Respecting each other is key – in both a marriage and a musical relationship. You have to communicate and respect each other in the house and as a fellow bandmate. If you have those two things it’s mostly going to work out. You can overcome anything that’s thrown your way if you have respect and trust in the other person and talk about it… it’s not always going to be rainbows and butterflies, but that’s life!

RL: Everyone needs to find their own way. It’s not that different than the dynamic that’s in a band. Unless there’s a bandleader and everyone else is just support. But the most difficult thing is the creative process. When you have people that are trying to create any part together, there’s always a little tension whether you’re married or not. If you have a bruised ego over the direction of the art, you have to let that not interfere with your personal relationship.

MK: It’s always hard if your partner in life and art doesn’t like your idea. But as long as you know they respect you, you respect them, and clearly communicate it, in theory, you can create better art because it’s both of your ideas together. I do want to say that it may be easier for us because we don’t have kids! I would imagine that’d make things more complicated!

LG: Looking back on 24 years, under the lens of being a couple, and being in a band, would you have done anything different?

RL: When we first started as a band, we struggled with finding people to work with that were on the same page as us. At the end of the day, there was always… we had a revolving door lineup for a couple of years. Then, we started doing the two-piece thing we’re doing now. I wish we had the nerve to do that earlier than we did.

MK: And more confidence, I’d say. It was a learning experience that I guess was necessary, and make us grateful. I feel this is probably common with a lot of people. A lot of it is self-doubt and lack of confidence in what you’re going to do. It’s scary when you put your art out there.

LG: Absolutely.

MK: Sometimes it’s harder to take a risk. We did the best we could.

LG: That’s pretty impressive that you don’t have any regrets but that one thing!

MK: We always try to do our best, and appreciate the people that come to see us. We made a decision a long time ago that the reason we wanted to write songs and make music, and perform it, is because it brings us joy, and we want to pass that joy on to other people. That’s what it is for us. For us, if we move somebody with our show, that’s it. We did what we wanted to do that day. When I look back – and I try to do that at every show, even the shitty ones!

LG: It was wonderful meeting you two! Thank you again, guys! I hope you have a great night!

MK: You, too!

RL: May the force be with you!

LG: And, also with you!