By Zac Taylor
Managing Editor

Ann Driscoll is a Cincinnati native with the Beatles in her voice, Kurt Cobain in her hands, Elliott Smith in her writing, and a hint of Fiona Apple in her swagger. In addition to her budding career as a solo artist, Driscoll also fronts the all-female dance rock group Mrs Danvers, and plays bass in other bands around Boston. (She is also the associate editor of The Groove, so it was both fun and weird to interview and write about her! Got to love Berklee.)

Zac Taylor: How does this Boston cold weather inspire you, or does it totally put you off?

Ann Driscoll: The cold weather is good because it makes you want to retreat to your bed room and snuggle up with your guitar and just write some songs, because anything is better than going out.

ZT: How cold does it get in Cincinnati?

AD: It gets really cold. I just don’t notice as much because I’m always driving there.

ZT: So you have your own band, and Mrs. Danvers, and you play bass with Black Kettle, and I’m sure you have a couple of projects under the radar—how do you juggle all these things?

AD: It’s funny—somehow I still manage to waste time. You’d think with all the activities going on that I would be productive all the time. But I still go on YouTube and watch cheesy horror movies on Netflix. Obviously, I manage OK.

ZT: That’s good to hear. Your record Young Tracks, which is on iTunes now—when did those songs come about?

AD: Those songs were written between the ages of 15 and 19, and that’s why the album is called Young Tracks. They were all songs I wrote and recorded as a teenager that I just needed to compile and put out there. They’re songs I wrote before I came to Berklee for the most part; there’s one song called ‘Jesus Don’t Like Beggars’ that I wrote in my first month at Berklee. But in general, they’re a reflection of my music before I really started to intellectualize it and take it 100 percent seriously. They were written for myself, because I thought I had no future in music. So there’s a purity to the intention behind those songs.

ZT: When you say ‘intellectualize’ your music, does that carry any negative connotations?

AD: Ha. Sure, it does. I feel like when I was writing songs as a teenager, I was just writing for myself and writing for my soul, and not at all considering what other people were expecting. The songs I have written that I consider to be good songs since I’ve come to Berklee have been the same kind of thing—just completely divorcing myself from any kind of expectation that other people might have, or that my education has burdened me with. So I think it’s important to just write for yourself.

ZT: What are some of the biggest things you’ve taken from Berklee with regards to writing or time management? Has it made you hopeful for your career over the next five years?

AD: The cool thing about Berklee is obviously the people, and really we’re all in this together. We’re all in an industry that is extremely difficult to break into. I think community is something I’ve learned the most about at Berklee. For instance, Mrs. Danvers has a really supportive community of followers, and being in a band with people who are supportive, in that band as well as with my solo project, has been amazing. And I have noticed that the bands that are the most successful among my friends and my peers are the ones that really foster a sense of community, like Nini+Ben for instance. It’s not just the band, it’s about the whole movement. It’s about the personalities involved, and I think that that’s critical. Music is more social now. It’s not something you listen to by yourself—it’s a concert. With the decline of the record industry, and the increase of live shows, it’s really about the experience you have with another individual, it’s an interaction. So it really has to be more interpersonal. And I’ve always written music in my basement by myself and viewed music as something I’ve transmitted to another person without really being there. Berklee has taught me to be more social, and view music as a social process.

ZT: Where would you like to see Ann Driscoll in three years?

AD: Someone I really respect and admire is Annie Clark from St. Vincent. She’s amazing. I remember when we interviewed her for The Groove, I asked her kind of an uncouth question: ‘How are you doing financially?’ And she said yes, it is possible to make money in the music industry. She sells records, she tours, she sells out venues that aren’t huge venues, but decently sized. And she has her music placed in movies—she’s on the Twilight New Moon soundtrack. And she’s making money, she’s collaborating with great artists, and she’s surviving. That would be an amazing goal in three years. She was on Heavy Rotations, and she’s only a few years older than us. I think that would be perfect if in three years I would be in the same position as Annie Clark. I just need a frizzy haircut and to lose 40 lbs.

ZT: Tell me about ‘Trophy Fuck’ and ‘Ringmaster.’

AD: Well Trophy Fuck is not going to be on the record, but I am playing it live at the CD Release Show.

ZT: What?! That’s bogus.

AD: No it’s fine. I totally understand. I need to get a clean version of it that says ‘Trophy Slut’ instead of ‘Trophy Fuck.’

ZT: So what’s going to be on the record instead?

AD: ‘I Wanna Be Your Zombie,’ which also has profanity. The first verse is about ‘the blood of a bitch I can’t live without.’ I went through a really strange period during my freshman year at Berklee when I just couldn’t stop writing songs with profanity. ‘I Wanna Be Your Zombie,’ ‘Trophy Fuck,’ ‘Make Up Your Fucking Mind.’ Everything I wrote was like a Quentin Tarantino film. But ‘Zombie’ and ‘Ringmaster’ are both based on crushes I had, and dealing with them through various analogies. ‘Ringmaster’ is actually about the burden of performing onstage, and how performers who entertain people are actually really sad on the inside, which is not a new idea at all, but hopefully the song sounds interesting to people. I recorded it with four string players, and three horn/woodwinds.

ZT: Are you going to pull any crazy stops for the Heavy Rotations Show?

AD: I don’t know. I would really like to do something crazy with interpretive dance for ‘Ringmaster.’ I would like to have fire-breathers and stuff. Wouldn’t that be cool to have real circus people onstage?!