By Georgette Johnson-Whaley

Taken from SOBO Magazine

The SOUL SISTER Issue

May-June 2007

Brig (pronounced “bridge”) Feltus, is a storyteller extraordinaire. With her melodic tales of love and self-discovery, she takes us for a long walk and pulls us in several directions. Her music speaks of influences such as early 20th century jazz and blues standards, mixed with 70’s rock, folk, and soul. It is accompanied by vocal styling which channels the ghosts of Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and many others. Think Jill Scott meets Sinead O’Connor meets the Red Hot Chili Peppers meets Bjork. SOBO recently had the chance to speak with Brig Feltus and the conversation was very enlightening indeed.

Hi Brig! I have to start by asking you about your video for “Head Over Heels” I think it’s amazing. I love it! Tell me how the video concept came into being.  

I don’t know what it is – I call it my “mojo” because I have a tendency to attract opportunities and a girlfriend of mine from Germany happened to be in LA for a few months and she’s a film director. She had about a week and a half of downtime and she said to me “let’s make a music video!” I didn’t have any money to make a video and she told me to not worry about it. We sat down and started making all these plans and scenes with multiple images of me with different guys in one scene. She started doing her re-search and we spent about five days just trying to pull together locations. The video is about a conflict within me from three different perspectives. One of them is obvious and that I’m a hopeless romantic and can find something easy to love in the person that I meet. When things don’t go as planned, I feel as if someone has played a trick on me. The character I play with the top hat and the confetti is supposed to be sort of like a trickster, casting a spell over the other me’s that’s fallen in love with these guys. The third character is the storyteller who is neutral and observing all that’s happening and can understand both sides and see the value in seeing people in that way. That’s the basic concept and I didn’t wanna really have a solution to it all. In other words, you wanted to leave the viewer to formulate their own opinion about the conclusion.

I’m curious to know how you made the swing that’s in the video.

 I made that swing myself! We bought some wood at a hardware store and the chain and we built it! I got a saw and a drill and just got to work! (Laughs)

The video is so beautiful. The costumes, the make-up – everything was so eloquent.

Thank you. I probably spent about $2,000 on that video.

Whoa! That was good for $2,000, girl! (Laughs)

People were telling me that when you’re signed to a label to make a video like that, that’s almost $500,000.That comes out of your pocket!

Exactly! How do you compose your songs?

For the most part, when I write alone I try to come up with the chord progression on guitar or piano and then I listen to what I’ve done and something comes that’s very organic. I’ll be playing the chord progression and I’ll just start humming the melody and something will come that fills like it belongs in that melody.

So you play guitar?

 A little bit – just enough to get what I need. A lot of those songs I wrote together with my producer Chico Bennett. Chico is a Grammy-nominated producer who has worked with Prince, Madonna, and Destiny’s Child to name a few. When we have a writing session, we’ll sit for two or three hours, talk, and then pickup the guitar and just start playing. Half an hour later, we have ourselves a new song. Some of the songs you hear on MySpace are what we did at 3 a.m. That’s when some of the best music gets made.

So when did you decide to start making music?

I grew up in a musical family: my mother is a pianist, a choir director, and a minister of music. It never occurred to me that I would be doing this. My sisters and I sang in all of her choirs growing up and never once did I think that this would be the thing that I am doing with my life. After several creative fields that I’ve worked in the past, my cousin, who’s a big celebrity in Germany, got a record deal. She told them she would sign it if they allowed me to write songs. We wrote some songs for her album and because of her circumstances, she ended up not putting the album out. However, it established a relation-ship between Chico and I.

How long ago did all of this take place?

This was four and half years ago. We recorded – let me say we are still recording!(Laughs) It’s just about done and we’re doing the final mixing but in the meantime, I’m honing my chops to go and sing onstage. I went onstage for the first time in March of 2005.

Really. How did you feel?

It’s funny because I was extremely distraught and nervous before that first show. By the end of the first show, which was about half an hour, I was thinking “is that it?” (Laughs)By the time everything was done, I just felt like this is what I’m supposed to be doing.

There’s an angel that’s looking out for you, Brig.

I think it’s just meant to be. There are certain things in place in order to make something happen. I don’t take a lot of credit for it—I just know I’m supposed to be going from point A to point B.

In today’s society, the type of music that you’re making is not what some people would expect from a black woman. What kind of challenges have you faced?

To be honest, I’m a lot older than most artists who are getting started and I’m not as touched by what people think of me because I have an identity of my own. On the flip-side of that, I’m still young in the game, naïve and hopeful. The industry has gone through so much turmoil in the last 50 years. I’m sure you saw the film Dreamgirls because the story touches a lot on sales versus quality. It also touches on sales versus who you are as an artist. On one hand, you look at companies that try to pigeonhole artists in any way and that’s greedy in not wanting to put the time and money into supporting an artist for who they really are. This is not just something that happens in music but in every type of industry. However, the public is becoming very aware of what’s going on and this is with the internet is so successful, it’s why the iPod is so successful, it’s why satellite radio is so successful, and it’s why downloads are so successful. People are tired of music that they don’t necessarily like.

I agree, Brig. People are getting tired of being told what to like.

It’s like here are your 20 choices of artists that you can like and we’re gonna play all 20 of them over and over again all day long –and that’s all you’re allowed to have. Not to mention, because of the music that I play, I am very surprised at the number of black fans that I have because we all think as Americans, that we all have to be separate with labels and not wander outside of the box.

I can tell sometimes when I see Beyonce. In my opinion, Beyonce wants to do what you’re doing but she can’t. I can tell she wants to play the guitar and she wants to play this type of music but she can not do it. There’s no way.

I love Jill Scott and I bought her first CD about 10 times because I wore it out. In Dave Chappelle’s film Block Party, she let her voice be loud and she did that 70’s rock thing and I can tell that she loves that kind of music. Erykah Badu is the same way but they are pigeonholed into selling to a so-called market to a so-called people who will only buy it if it sounds like something they already know. When people ask what kind of music I make, I say hopefully it will be the kind of music you will like.

Since we’re talking about influences, who are some of the people you admire?

Oh wow! I have a lot of them! Probably the biggest is the singer-songwriters because I love Stevie Wonder, Bjork, Carly Simon, Minnie Riperton, Roberta Flack, and of course Aretha Franklin. Historically, Stevie is so amazing because he has crossed the line and the same can be said for Bjork.

That’s why I’m so happy for sites like MySpace.com because it’s opened up a whole new world for me as far as introducing me to new artists. I don’t know If I would’ve ever found you Brig if it wasn’t for MySpace. We’ve been blessed here at SOBO to interview some great artists from that site.

Thank you so much.

I love your graphic designs, Brig. Tell me about Andreas Adamec, the man behind the magic.

He is wonderful and it’s been so fun to work with him because Andreas is such a great artist. The interesting thing is because I have such a vivid imagination – I drive him nuts!(Laughs)

Give me an example if you don’t mind.

My graphics. Most of what we’ve done has changed his perspectives and has opened a lot of doors for him. He is just so, so talented. He’s a perfectionist and he enjoys what he is doing.

Brig, this interview was very fun and enlightening.

Thank you so much for talking to SOBO.

It was my pleasure and thank you as well.

More on Brig Feltus at:

www.brigfeltus.com

www.myspace.com/brigfeltus

www.myspace.com/chrysalischild