Iris blooming again with new album

By Timothy Finn

McClatchy Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo.

“My least favorite thing is talking about myself,” says Iris DeMent.

She is on the phone from her home in southeast Iowa, where she lives in a tiny rural town with her 12-year-old daughter and her husband, fellow songwriter Greg Brown. “There are only about 150 people in town, none of them within shouting distance of each other.”

She’s not inclined to reveal a lot, but DeMent has some big things to talk about. She is working on a new album, her first since “Lifeline,” a collection of traditional gospel tunes released in 2004, and her first album of original material since the very political “The Way I Should,” released 15 years ago.

Despite the long expanse of time between albums, DeMent said not once did she doubt that she would one day release another album of her own songs.

“Never — I never thought that,” she said. “I could go another 20 years without writing a song and never think that it’d be something I’d never do again, and I can’t really tell you why I feel that way. But I’ve never had that feeling, not for five minutes. I’ve worried about it, and I’ve felt anxious, and I’ve felt sad about it, but I never doubted I’d be able to do it again someday.”

That “someday” came early last year, she said. That’s when she felt the re-emergence of what she called the “want-to,” that instinct that she taps into when she creates.

“It has showed up periodically,” she said. “It always does. But as far as staying there for consistent periods of time and feeling like I’ve been able to relax into the music again long enough to really produce much, it has only been within the last six to eight months. It’s not something I can really explain. It’s a feeling I get inside, something that feels very alive. It’s not something I can put a finger on.

“Why has it come back? I have no idea. I could talk for hours guessing about it.”

DeMent started her music career in Kansas City, where she lived for roughly 20 years.

She released two records before “Lifeline” and “The Way I Should”: “Infamous Angel” in 1993 and “My Life” in 1994. Both were critically acclaimed, and “My Life” was nominated for a Grammy.

The British music magazine Q said of “Angel”: “Her songs ... display an emotional charge and simplicity of touch that can prove joyful and touching by turns.”

DeMent and Brown were married in 2002. They resided in Kansas City until 2007, when they moved to Iowa, onto property that belonged to Brown’s family. Brown recently released “Freak Flag” on Yep Roc Records, his first studio album in five years. DeMent said she and Brown are longtime fans of each other’s work, but they do not collaborate when it comes to songwriting.

“It’s really more my doing than his,” she said. “I’ve always been private about that. I just about have to lock myself away in a soundproof space to get myself to be where I need to be so I can write.

“I run out and play things for him when I’m done, and he does the same thing. But neither asks the other what we think should be done. We’re both pretty instinctual. I think I fear losing those instincts, so I’m not inclined to ask someone what they think. To me, that’s part of the big joy of creating something. It’s going out on that limb, out into the unknown and trusting your gut. I think Greg and I have that in common.”

Her live shows these days are typically solo affairs; she performs mostly at the piano, not on guitar.

“About six or seven years ago, I made the switch,” she said. “By and large, I’m on the piano.”

That’s primarily how she’ll record the album she doesn’t want to say too much about, except that she isn’t sure whether she’ll self-release it or take up an “option” she is considering. She will say about the new songs only that their inspirations come “from all kinds of places.”

“I don’t know how particular any inspiration is,” she said. “I think to a certain extent I write about people I know and love. I tend to migrate toward that. Writing for me is a lot of work. I usually have to have a strong emotional cord between me and whatever it is I’m writing about to keep me in that seat, writing.”