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Driving Soulfully 'Stupid' with Serabee
by Troy Rogers
 In
recent weeks, "Driving Me Stupid" by soulful Southern
pop belle, Serabee, has been climbing the "Hot"
Billboard charts and giving fans what we like
to call a more sophisticated mainstream Top 40
sound than any artist on the current scene. Interestingly,
it was the songwriting talents of Serabee on "Crazy
Chick" that produced a chart topping hit for Charlotte
Church. Featuring a fusion of Hammond organ, banjo,
and contemporary diva pop similar to Britney,
Christina and Mariah, "Driving Me Stupid" is the
first single from the culturally innovative self
titled Serabee EP released on November 10.
Although "Driving Me Stupid" is rooted in mainstream Top 40, the new Serabee EP goes far beyond pop into soul and R&B with tracks that prove Serabee isn't just a manufactured studio talent. In fact, when you listen to the tracks on the new Serabee EP, "Driving Me Stupid" is only the tip of the EP iceberg in terms of the true talent of a singer/songwriter who has Southern soul in her blood. The newly released Serabee EP proves that the native of Mississippi turned New Orleans and Nashville transplant has the raw, unharnessed potential of an Aretha Franklin and the modern R&B soul of some of today's current chart toppers.
Ahead of the November 10 Serabee EP, we caught up with Serabee for an exclusive chat to find out more about the mysterious Southern vixen, her musical roots, how she incorporates organ into pop, what the South gives a female artist over other regions of the country, and what aspects of a guy drive her stupid.
THE DEADBOLT: "Driving Me Stupid" is one of the more sophisticated pop songs I've heard in a while. There's a great Neville Brothers undercurrent, even some Santana, Rob Thomas layers infused with banjo and Hammond. How did you approach the musical identity of the song?
SERABEE: Wow! It's interesting that you say the Neville Brothers and Santana, I was thinking about all of them when I did that. Sophisticated, that's pretty cool that you say that. That's a compliment. I hope a sophisticated pop song that everybody will get it. But a lot of times these types of songs these days are not too sophisticated. But that's interesting that you say that, because I think it's a pretty clever song even though it's a stupid song [laughs]. It's about being driven stupid.
I wrote the song with a friend of mine in Atlanta and we sort of worked in the studio on the drum groove and then I took it and started doing it live in New Orleans with my band, and a lot of people really dug it. I kind of wanted to bring in the influence of the live music on top of the present thing. I had so many friends in the South that play steel guitar, from pedal steel to banjos to tubas to brass section, and I just wanted to do something unique with it and try to give it a worldly vibe.
I had a friend of mine who plays banjo, his name is Jeff Mosier, he plays in a band called Blueground Undergrass, and asked him to come into the studio and mess around, because I heard like this guitar sort of sound for the song and it wound up being a banjo sound. So it just came about from me loving music and getting in the studio with a bunch of my buddies. We were just kind of doing it for the fun of it. It turned out to be, I think, a unique sounding record.
THE DEADBOLT: There's powerful sense of soul on the EP that people haven't heard in a long time. It's almost in the way Steve Winwood did it but incorporating all of the elements of the soul greats into your own unique thing?
SERABEE: Right. You know, what can I say? To me it's all about the soul, whether it's R&B, pop, or whatever kind of music you're doing. I grew up doing gospel music. So for me it's always a soulful thing and I try to do everything from my soul.
THE DEADBOLT: Is there a certain unique confidence that the South gives a woman in terms of sexuality and artistry?
 SERABEE:
Yeah, I think so. I think being from the South,
there's not a whole lot to do except family,
church. I mean, the South, you have to learn
to be creative in a way. I grew up in the church,
so I was singing at the age of five years old
in church. That gave me a lot of confidence
as a woman. Just learning how to deal with people
at that young age and having an audience that
young and traveling around with my family, I
think it gave me a lot of confidence as a youngster
to be able to be confident in myself today.
But yeah, I think there's something to say about
Southern women. I think we grow up and a lot
of us are very family oriented. I have the best
father in the world and he taught me well and
he set a high bar for me. So not many men can
top that. I would say that I think Southern
women are the best women in the world [laughs].
THE DEADBOLT: How does that compare to confidence in terms of the honesty of a track like "The Rest of Me"?
SERABEE: Well, there you go. "The Rest of Me" is a song I feel - You know, you meet someone for the first time and so many people want to stereotype. They want to judge you if your hair is blond or you walk in and your jeans are too tight or you look like you're too Nashvegas or too glam. They immediately want to judge you or you're not glam enough. Being in the music industry, it's a very competitive market and I wish it was just about the music these days. It's not. It's almost like you have to have a trick up your sleeve to get out there.
So to me it was just saying "You know, I really don't care. If I want to wear a skirt, whatever I want to be today, I'm going to be that. And if it looks good and you like it then that's all cool." If you're really liking all of that then you should really get to know the real me, because you'll love the rest of me [laughs]. But to me, I just think more people should think that way. But a lot of times first impressions are what matter. So if it's the first impression that you get and you think that's good, then I guess I was just being confident in myself as a Southern woman, to say, "Hey, if you like that then you'll love the rest of me. Take the time to get to know me."
THE DEADBOLT: Although "Driving Me Stupid" is more in the pop wheelhouse, the EP is far more than pop. I mean, you're talking about JFK and Martin Luther King in "Different World". That's bringing something different to both soul and pop, especially from a songwriting standpoint.
SERABEE: I've traveled a lot and have been to London several times. I think some of the most amazing things in life are people and culture and meeting different people and traveling. I guess you could say I have a PHD in life just from traveling. I was actually home schooled most of my life and I was singing when I was really young. All of my brothers, all of us, we traveled around and met so many different people and figured things out. I actually wrote the idea for that song when I was really young in school. I guess it was probably my mother, we were going through history or something. I was always musical and that was how I learned things and remembered things, I'd do it musically. It's a smart song, but I think it's a way to maybe educate people, because it talks about a lot of different things. But hopefully everybody that hears it will listen to the lyrics and enjoy it, because the music has a retro groove. I write a lot of different things about a lot of different situations and to me that's probably one of the more sophisticated songs on the EP.
THE DEADBOLT: It's kind of funny: When I think of your early journey as a young girl and how you grew up with music, I get a picture of I Walk the Line meets O' Brother Where Art Thou. Is that accurate?
SERABEE: [laughs] That's interesting. Yeah, you're not too far off. You're close. That's funny. Wow! Walk the Line and O' Brother Where Art Thou.
THE DEADBOLT: How does that background help to give you an advantage in not sounding like everyone else?
 SERABEE:
That's a good question. I just think it's different,
you know? It's sort of my bag, doing the soul
blues music, and my mom being more of a folk
singer/songwriter. And then the church meets
that and growing up and learning on my own,
the different music that I'm attracted to. The
combination of that itself is going to be unique.
On top of that, I'm not just a singer or a songwriter
but I'm a musician. I think more than anything
after playing drums and the organ in church
when I was really young, at the same time I
started singing. So sometimes I feel like one
of the boys, you know? I like to go and sit
in with my friends, whether it's New Orleans
or London or New York, or even here in Nashville,
I'll go and sit in. And I don't even have to
sing sometimes, I just get on the organ and
rock out with my boys.
Singing is an amazing thing for me. It's how I express myself. But I think what's really unique about what I do is the church background. Like you said, Walk the Line meets O' Brother Where Art Thou but also meets being the daughter of musicians and learning how to play music when I was really young. All different types of music, from gospel to blues to bluegrass to R&B to jazz. It's all about the music. I'm a music lady and I think that's what's unique about what I do and what's going to separate my music from the rest. Not that I'm better than anyone else, I just think that it's a unique sound that I have because of where I come from.
THE DEADBOLT: In terms of options, what does the organ give you as a unique medium of expression?
SERABEE: I think that it's got that gospely, rootsy undertone. Not a lot of pop music today - you know, radio friendly music - not a lot use organs, banjos and things like that. I mean, I'm in love with all of the instruments. Sometimes I'll go somewhere and they may not even have an instrument and I'll be like, "Okay, bring me a pot or something. We're going to make some noise." But I think the Hammond brings in that gospel, soulful, jazzy, bluesy sound that definitely says there's substance there. Just being raised around New Orleans, like all of the clubs down there, you can't even walk in a club and they all have a Hammond. All of the churches, too. So I grew up playing in churches where the Hammond is a pretty popular instrument. That was my first instrument. So learning how to play on the organ in church, it's what I do.
But I think it's kind of cool that I'm doing it in pop music. I don't know if a lot of people have actually done it. But Steve Winwood was able to do it, and do it in a way that would pop. You can watch some of his older videos, like when he was with Spencer Davis, they just rocked my world. He was like sixteen or seventeen on the organ and he's just rocking out. That was like the real soulful, rootsy, gospely type stuff. Then he was able to seqway away from that into popular music with the organ and build cool grooves around it. So in today's market, if you have the right groove, the right rhythm section in the right pocket, you can almost put any instrument in it. As long as the lyric is edgy, the melody sing along, and the groove is just rockin, you can give it to a DJ or a guy to remix it. I mean there's so much you can do with music these days, it's unbelievable.
THE DEADBOLT: Can you talk a bit about the decision to redo "Crazy Chick" into the "Wacked Out" arrangement?
SERABEE: Well, it really wasn't a decision [laughs]. It just sort of happened like the story of my life. It's a song that's part of my catalog I had tested as a writer. But it opened a lot of doors for me. I was in New York meeting with my label and I was like, "Oh, by the way, here's some songs you guys haven't heard." "Crazy Chick" was on there and they were like, "What is this?" And I was like, "Oh, those are some songs I wrote a while back." So it just sort of happened like that. Doug Morris really liked "Crazy Chick" and he started calling people down to the office, "What do you think of this song? It was a hit for Charlotte Church in London." I was sitting there with a big hat on with feathers sticking out, looking like a crazy person [laughs], and Doug just looked at me and said, "Why don't we call it 'Whacked Out Chick'?" So I'm like, "That's interesting." So that's sort of how it happened. Then we went to the studio and started messing around with it and I think the "Whacked Out" was just a way for me to kind of make it my own again. Although it was my own the first time, really make it my own.
THE DEADBOLT: So what is it about a guy that drives you stupid?
 SERABEE:
[laughs] Oh man, when I can't manipulate him.
It drives me insane. When I don't have control
of the situation - oh, my God - it makes me
crazy. I don't know, a lot of things. When he
can get on the piano or organ or guitar and
play it as good as me, that really drives me
stupid [laughs]. That really drives me wacky.
I love a great sense of humor and I love someone
who's soulful. I just love soulful people. Soulful
people with old souls, that kind of drives me
stupid. But for the most part, I think when
they're not showing me attention. Like I said,
I can't control the situation. That's normally
what drives everybody stupid, right? When we
have no control of the situation, it drives
us nuts because there's something pestering
at us all of the time and you can't do anything
about it. So I guess not having control of the
situation, or being able to control a guy and
make him do and say what I want him to say,
drives me stupid [laughs].
So, Troy, that's your lesson for the day, okay?
THE DEADBOLT: [laughs] I got it.
SERABEE: [laughs] Now do as I say.
THE DEADBOLT: It's working already.
SERABEE: Good! Good! Well, now you won't drive me stupid. [laughs]
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