May 16, 2006

Fans of singer Michelle Branch may be taken aback by the twangy sound of her new project, the Wreckers. For a performer whose previous hits ("Everywhere," "All You Wanted," "Breathe") helped define the swooning teen girl-pop landscape of the early aughties, this band -- in which Branch shares songwriting and vocal duties with her close friend Jessica Harp -- represents a step toward musical independence that her platinum records, top 10 singles and a Grammy award hadn't yet provided. But lest her fans be scared away by the word "country," the Wreckers' debut is hardly a departure. "Stand Still, Look Pretty" is very much a pop record, in keeping with the melodic drama and easy-on-the-ears aesthetic that earned Branch an audience in the first place. Still, there's no missing the Wreckers' twang, particularly on lead single "Leave the Pieces," currently burning up the country radio and CMT charts; watch video. Perhaps it is a departure after all. Branch and Harp spoke to MSN Music by phone during a brief break from their busy promotional schedule.

MSN Music: Because you're both veterans of trying to make it as solo artists -- obviously with varying degrees of success -- what it's like to go from being out there on your own to having a partner in crime?

Michelle Branch: For me, in terms of being in the studio, there was no difference. I mean, the studio is always a really creative, collaborative place, and so I'm used to being with other people and passing ideas off of each other. For me -- and I think Jess would agree -- the difference is more when you're out working and playing shows.

What about on the songwriting side of the fence? I mean, how do you guys work together?

Jessica Harp: Well, we've written together for a long time, so it's something we kind of have down to a science. It just comes really easily and naturally to us. But I think the cool thing about us writing together is, you know, we help each other with our strengths and weaknesses. We've pretty much determined that I'm more of the lyric person -- lyrics come more easily to me -- and Michelle tackles the melody part of it more easily, and when we come together, it's usually pretty quick and easy for us to write a song.

How did you get to the point where you'd refined it to a science? Are you sitting down facing each other with guitars, Lennon-McCartney style? Are you exchanging sound files by e-mail?

Branch: It's different every time, but I guess the science part she was talking about is the fact that when we do write together -- how do I say this? The comforting part, the part that we can rely on, is the part where Jess is usually the lyricist, and I'm usually good at coming up with the initial chord progression or melody when we sit together and say, "Let's write a song." However, it's really rare that we sit down and say, "Let's write a song." We have to wait until, usually, we're either sitting on the bus or at one of our houses, hanging out, playing guitar.

Where does the country influence in this record come from, because it's not something that was immediately apparent on the Michelle Branch solo material?

Harp: Well, I've written and sung country my whole life, but I think that Michelle has always had a little bit of that tendency. Where she sits down with a guitar and writes a song, it starts out as a very organic, singer-songwritery-type sound. And you know, you could take our songs in a million different directions, production-wise. But I've always loved country music, and we both wanted to make a country record.

Branch: I grew up on a lot of different music, and a lot of it was country. Maybe not as much modern country as Jess, but a lot of the older stuff: Patsy Cline and Hank Williams and Marty Robbins. But I also listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and Gram Parsons and, you know, Joni Mitchell, and it's kind of arguable whether some of those records could be considered country, you know? It's just the music I like and the writing I like. This is the kind of record I've been trying to make for a long time and really just couldn't.

What was keeping you from doing it?

Branch: Um, without sounding too nasty or catty: the label. You know, wanting a certain sound and wanting to reach a certain audience, and it was all about TRL and selling a million records. I'm not knocking it at all, because it was a lot of fun. But at the end of the day, this is the kind of record that I was wanting to make and trying to make, and this is probably more what I sounded like before I was signed, for sure.

Do you feel that this record is a good indication of the way you guys will continue to work? Do you have any sense of what you're going to do next, other than tour?

Branch: At this point, it's kind of in everyone else's hands. If we're not successful, we'll have to go back to the drawing board. Hopefully, it will be successful, because Jess and I -- this is what we want to do. We want to make record-records from here on out. But it's just so new, we have no idea. We're just waiting for people to react to kind of map out what we're going to do for the next year.

You sound really confident in the material but sort of cautiously optimistic audience-wise. Are you worried? Are you excited?

Branch: I'm very excited. We're both excited.

Harp: I'm excited, but anytime anybody puts a record out, you know, you always hope that -- you have confidence in what you're doing, and you hope it does well, but you can't really promise anything to yourself. So we're just crossing our fingers, 'cause this is just -- this is it for us. It's the most proud I've been of a project and the hardest I've worked to get a project to fruition, and it'll be the most rewarding, if it works.

Did you encounter resistance from your label and management to the collaboration concept?

Harp: Not really. I think the most resistance in the beginning was that we wanted to make a country record.

Branch: Yeah. It wasn't the collaboration, 'cause everyone who knew me knew Jess. I was always talking about Jess, and they knew Jess' music, and love Jess. I think, if anything, they were just confused as to why I would just forget everything that I'd been working so hard for. That was kind of hard for people to wrap their heads around. Instead of thinking of it as an evolution, they were thinking of it as like, you know...

A radical departure from "Breathe."

Branch: Yeah, exactly.

The truth of the matter is, it doesn't sound like such a radical departure. There's a lot of organic instrumentation, but it still sounds like a very modern pop record with a bit of twang, very much an extension of what you've done in the past.

Harp: That's what we think.

Branch: For some reason, a lot of people just thought it was really drastic, but I think that for people who follow Jess and people who listen to me, it'll be a no-brainer. They'll just say, "Oh, yeah, this just sounds like the record she was supposed to write next."

It seems like this kind of risk-taking is always frowned upon until the moment it starts being successful, and then everybody is lining up to...

Branch: Jump on it. Exactly. We're witnessing a lot of that right now. You know, a lot of people who weren't necessarily the most supportive in the beginning are all of a sudden kind of jumping out and saying, "See, look what we did! This is exactly how we wanted things to be!" You just kind of have to laugh to yourself about it.

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