Interview: Anya Turner & Robert Grusecki on JOY & LOVE at Sid Gold's Request Room

On September 16, October 14, and November 11, singer-songwriters Anya & Robert perform songs spanning their multi-decade career, especially their latest albums, SECRET LOVERS and MID-CENTURY MODERN, with bassist Tod Hedrick. You can RSVP and learn more information about the show on Eventbrite here. 

Read a conversation with the artists below.

How does it feel to be bringing JOY & LOVE to Sid Gold's Request Room?

Exhilarating! JOY & LOVE feels like the right show at the right time at the right place. We knew we wanted to do a show this fall and we also wanted to film it. So, we asked our friend, filmmaker Bill Hopkins, if he had any ideas about venues. He told us about Sid Gold's Request Room and suggested that we check it out. We walked over to the club on West 26th Street one day in May during off hours and found it to be a perfect, intimate music room with great acoustics, friendly people, and a fabulous retro décor with a great vibe. So we booked three dates and immediately called up our favorite bass player, Tod Hedrick, and asked him to join us.

How do you craft the set list for these shows? Can you tell us a bit about your process of writing and putting a show like this together?

First of all, we knew we wanted to favor songs from our two most recent albums, MID-CENTURY MODERN and SECRET LOVERS, because we had never performed them live. Then, we had to see how those sounds and stories would interact with each other and with some of our earlier songs. As we gradually began to find the family of songs that were right for this show, a theme emerged that was big enough to encompass an even wider selection of our material. We ended up choosing songs from seven of our ten albums.

Do you have any favorite lessons or things you've learned about art over the past 30 years of working together?

Oh boy! It so happens that one of the songs in this show, a little jazz waltz, addresses that very question:

Do not ask too much of people

Plan for your survival

Manage your existence

When your expectations are high

Keep your overhead low

Anyway

Come what may

It's okay

Good luck!

Our style and themes have been pretty consistent over the years. Maybe we were mature beginners and now we are youthful veterans. We remain hopefully humble facing the blank page. Our only aspiration is to somehow capture the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.

Aside from getting ready for this show, what else have you been working on lately?

We have two projects on the horizon. One is a sequel to JOY & LOVE called "The New York Songs of Anya & Robert". And we are also working on a new suite of songs for an album that we are currently calling "My Last Illusion". As it develops, we will find out what that title means.

Learn more about Anya Turner and Robert Grusecki at AnyaRobertMusic.com, YouTube.com/anyarobert and Facebook.com/anyarobertmusic