Whether she’s crafting quirky, guitar-led solo works under her own name, blending hardcore and post-rock with Tummy+, or crafting something with new band This Could Never Work, Reno musician Elleanor Burke has shown that no music genre is out of her reach. Her latest record as Elleanor Burke, Hark! (with the special help of her band Brandon T. Nguyen, Lavandula Felice and Lynn Stanfield), is a sonic journey of heavy emotional moods and groovy jams, featuring Burke ranging between overdrive and envelope filters to make songs artistic, ferocious and weird. For more on Elleanor Burke, check out her Bandcamp page. elleanorburke.bandcamp.com. Elleanor Burke is performing at the Holland Project at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 6, opening up for The Mall. Tickets are $10. For more, visit the Holland Project’s website.
What was the first concert you attended?
My dad was a real hippie-dippie type, a real deadhead, so the first show I went to was Bob Weir, who was one of the front people with the Grateful Dead, and his band RatDog. I think I was 11 at the time, so it was pretty early, and I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. I remember it being really long, and that there was a lot of reefer.
What was the first album you owned?
One of the first albums I went out of my way to buy on CD or anything was probably Frizzle Fry by Primus. I was a Primus teenager for sure, which I feel like is a whole genre of teenager. I was really into bass, and that was my super-focus when I was 13 years old.
What bands are you listening to right now?
I feel like they’ve been all over the place. I definitely started in those more kind of jammy, rocky places, and I’ve ended up almost in contrast to that, where I’m like, “That was so young me, and I want to listen to something different now.” I’ve been really into Bjork, and Japanese rock music (like) Malice Mizer, and there’s another band called LUNA SEA. They’re a visual kei J-rock band, and those two artists were really influential on the record I just put out. I’ve also been really into Cocteau Twins, and Bôa and their song “Duvet.”
What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get?
The only real genre I’ve just never been able to understand is pop punk. No hate toward it; I just have really been able to sink my teeth there.
What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live?
I think it’d be really crazy to be able to see when Miles Davis had John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley in his band, and was playing around Kind of Blue in the late ’50s. It just seems like such a different world, and it’s really interesting to imagine these huge names in jazz were all a part of Miles Davis’ band at that time. It seems like a really interesting setting where everyone’s really taking their time, and they’re all standing onstage with a cigarette.
What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure?
I’m not guilty about it, but I love early 2000s girly-pop music. Gwen Stefani is a really big one. It was guilty when I was young, because I grew up with this very masculine musical world.
What’s your favorite music venue?
I would say anywhere that’s outside in the daytime in a big, open space. I really just love playing open spaces, or outdoor events of questionable legality.
What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head?
“Kiss of Life” by Sade, the first line: “There must have been an angel by my side.” That comes out of my mouth a lot.
What band or artist changed your life? How?
I have actually said that Eden by LUNA SEA changed my life. I sort of fell off of the rock ’n’ roll train, and even still, I don’t find myself super-interested in listening. I’ve been playing guitar since I was really young, and I’ve had this interesting conflicting relationship with it where it’s just not what I’m into, but it’s still the instrument that I know best, and I feel like I can express myself the best on it. I heard this album, and I really liked its approach to a more beautiful sound that was pretty and delicate in a different way. I would definitely say LUNA SEA really changed the direction of what I was doing with music over the last couple of years, and really influenced the album that I just put out called Hark! There are even a couple of songs on there where I just wanted to do some more directly similar things to what was on that album.
You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking?
It’d be really interesting to look into a jazz musician who’s notably a hard ass or kind of mean. I’ve seen some interviews with Miles Davis where he’s just being brutally honest with musicians, or talking about how he would like really lay into somebody, and I think it’d be really interesting to play in front of somebody Miles Davis, or even someone who seems a little nicer, like Herbie Hancock, and just be like, “What do you think I can improve on?” I love working with different musicians who notice those kinds of things, and I think it’d be really neat to get the discerning eye of somebody who has a bit of ego.
What song would you like played at your funeral?
It’d be really cool for people to play music that reminded them of me. It would be really neat if people took their turn just listening and feeling. I definitely listen to music around my friends, and that was really nice when remembering a close friend of mine recently, just kind of being like, “Oh, she loved this song.”
Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time?
This is me just panicking and saying the first thing that comes to mind, but Diamond Life by Sade.
What song should everyone listen to right now?
“I Talk to the Wind” from A Young Person’s Guide to King Crimson 1976. It’s a weird, deep-cut version of the song, but it’s a really interesting piece of content, and just a beautiful version of it where they have someone different singing on it. It’s more of a weird, melancholic, but kind of cheery ballad, as opposed to this long, drawn-out lament of going mad or something.