 Courtesy of the Artist
Based out of Northern California, folk-goddess Diane Patterson unites an acoustic guitar and ukulele, a mighty pen, and a woman's voice weaving spirit and social commentary in songs and on stages around the world. Her latest album, Open Road, was released in February and here Patterson answers her Essential 8 and graciously talks about the story behind Open Road, activism, Ani DiFranco, and more.
Is there a story behind your album’s title? Ha! I know Open Road sounds like rather a trite musician’s line about touring and all the random bits thereof. It ain’t about that, and if you see the gorgeous painting that my masterful friend Lindy Kehoe did for the cover, you might already have a wider view of the title. The song "Open Road" is inspired by the sacred deer, the boog, of ancient ritual lore, sitting on a high perch and observing the natural world. It’s a snapshot of ancient nomadic life on the steppe with animals, on horses, summer camp and winter camp and all kinds of hard work and play in blessed and beautiful places in between. “Cause every ride out, is a long ride home, living on an open road.” When/where do you do your best writing? I usually do my best writing when I’m alone on the land for a couple days and nights or in a quiet cabin with just my guitar and one joint that lasts me the whole time. Ha! But I think perhaps the most powerful song on this record is "Shape of Your Sorrow," and I couldn’t wait for my ‘alone time’ to write this one. We had just visited Ani DiFranco in her home for the first time, and she had asked me if I have to stop myself from crying when I perform my songs. She said, for her, it’s every night !! I was blown away. And then we got the news about the shooting in Orlando at Pulse Nightclub. Devastating. Right away I wondered what Ani was thinking and writing about that, so I started writing, “What is the shape of your sorrow? ... Tears that fall on your guitar.” I just started writing in the van, on the road. Then I read a powerful essay in The Nation from a man, queer like me, who pointed out that the gay nightclub scene is our safe place. It’s the refuge from the outside straight world. It’s where we can feel free to be ourselves, whatever gender bend we want to express that night, it’s all ok. So to have our queer family murdered like that at the gay bar was especially frightening and tragic, a loss of innocence for sure. So my song ends with a call for “Non-Violent Revolution, We’re here, we’re queer, Black lives matter.” And Ani did some haunting vocals on the the recording, she says, because I asked her to. Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination? I’m an activist at heart, and I often write when I feel needed, like when someone asks me to write a song, or when there’s an issue that I feel deeply about out in the world, and when I’m inspired by great movements, like Mni Wichoni, the movement at Standing Rock that’s still reverberating through indigenous communites around the world, to protect our world’s water. Standing Rock shows up in Spliff Song on this record, in the third verse, which starts out: “Take me willingly to stand on the front lines, Cause I’ll die free before I’ll let you leave me behind.” See, these really are desperate times, and instead of things getting better as the privileged class has been waking up in recent years, things have gotten so much worse with the state of the USA government and the environmental and social travesties that have worsened in an already life-or-death situation. And indigenous people have been aware of this environmental crisis for many generations as they’ve watched the cultures who lived in respect of the hand that feeds us dying away along with species and watersheds and ecosystems. So when I say in Spliff Song, “I’ll die free before I’ll let you leave me behind,” I’m touching on that dignity that lies at the heart of life, that dignity that says, I’m not gonna sit idle while the corporate profiteers and the privileged classes consume every last living blade of grass so they can live in comfort. No, what’s comfortable to the voice in the song is to honor the source of life, and if that means we have to carry our water and make a cook fire, then isn’t that beautiful, and can’t I hear the creek running and see the geese flying over and filling me with joy, and can’t I see my children laughing and learning in a flowering, living world. That flowering. living world is more important than my life. And the community we build, when we stand up for the living world, is what will sustain us, give us sanity, and make us happy in a way that money cannot buy. 
Which song of yours gets the best crowd response?
Eagle Feather! It’s got quite an energizing hey-yay-yay call throughout, and it’s saying, “Peaceful Warrior, you are the brave one. . . watch your bright dream coming true.” So it’s super uplifting. I wrote it I think in 2000 when I was fresh back from a visit to the Navajo resistance in North-East Arizona. I got to meet a few grandmothers out on the land, living traditionally with their goats and sheep, and weaving amazing rugs that they sold to fuel what they called the “economic resistance” to the surface coal mine that was destroying the land and their way of life. Ouch. F-ing tragedy, but here are these amazing people, persisting in their ways and remembering. And we learned on that trip that the eagle feather, when woven into the design of one of those beautiful Navajo rugs, sometimes means an antenna for the prayers. So, wow. My song says, “Lift an eagle feather to the sky!” It was really fun to finally record Eagle Feather, after performing it live for so many good years, and to get my bro Al Torre, who has played it with me for so many years live, to do the lead guitar work on that track and a couple others. I think the recording kept a live energy, which I love. And of course, Ani’s rhythm section, Terrence Higgins on drums and Todd Sickafoose on standup bass, nailed it on all my tracks. Lucky me. What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician? This is from the band Cake, from Sacramento, near where I started my music in my college town, Davis, California. Their frontman was answering in an interview and he said, “To all the up and coming young musicians out there, just work on your music. Don’t worry about what Cake is doing. Just work on your music, get it really strong, make it the way you want it to sound.” What’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out? The above quote from Cake, and also, nurture your relationships. Get to know people around you and get to know who is really believing in you, who you can trust, who you love to work with. When you start to tour and release records and expand, you’ll need a team of people who you can trust and who you want to work with day in and day out. And cultivate yourself to be a person who has lasting, trusting friendships. Have you met any of your heroes? If so, how did it go? Well, wow, my girlfriend/partner is old friends with Ani DiFranco, so Sheba naturally took me backstage a couple times to meet Ani. I was so happy to see what a sweet person she is, loving her old friend, and showing us pictures of her kids. I thanked her deeply for all her work and for honoring our folk elders. But then when Sheba took me to Ani’s house, and I got to really connect with her as a person, I felt so blessed and inspired. We connected pretty quick and easy because we saw on her kitchen counter a letter from the very same man who I had been corresponding with for 10 years, California inmate, published and celebrated poet, Spoon Jackson. At that time, Ani had just put one of Spoon’s poems to music, a perfect blues, and released it on a CD with a bunch of women each performing songs written by or inspired by people in prison. And I had just released a new CD with a song on it inspired by Spoon. So we sang each other our songs and were just kind of devastated together about the state of the prisons and our human family. Ani also helped me understand our friend Spoon’s case better than I had previously. My song says, “You killed a man.” Ani told me, he actually killed a woman. Ahhh. So heavy. That was when Spoon was very young, 19 I think, and now he is approaching 60. He was a mentor and poetry teacher in New Folsom where I got to sing for him and his fellow Men in Blue many times, and he probably continues that good work where he is now held in Lancaster, CA, hoping Governor Brown will grant him clemency. During that first visit we did a little recording in the studio there of Ani and her husband, producer Mike Napolitano. And from there, we chose to record a whole record, which took three more week-long visits through 2017. What a joy! Is there a professional “bucket list” item you would love to check off? I’d like to produce and play a big benefit show with Indigo Girls, and Ani D, for a cause we all believe in. If we did it right now, the cause for me would be to manifest more meaningful programming in the schools for the kids. Our ridiculous anti-culture stole their arts, music, machine shop, farming, and so many subjects that round out a person’s world and give them a chance to have real interactions with cool adults at school. And so here we are with this vapid school system that’s leaving kids isolated and lost. Besides bringing back all those arts and real-life skills, we’d like to bring in Self Defense classes, where kids learn to protect themselves and each other, and just to understand the idea that they have a right to safe space. Also we want to get more dialogue and resources going for kids and adults around sexual abuse and molestation so we can stop it. Website/Facebook/Purchase
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