When singer/songwriter Rachael Yamagata was growing up, she went to all-girls school that she says warped her into the relationship-obsessed woman she’s become, at least in the lyrics of her songs. She began singing with a funk-crazed dance band called Bumpus while she was in college studying theater. While touring and recording with Bumpus, she was also writing confessional, deeply emotional songs that didn’t fit the band’s format. Happenstance, her first solo album, was a folk/pop charmer. Her tunes have appeared on The O.C., The L Word, Grey’s Anatomy and Alias, and Ray LaMontagne, Ryan Adams and Conor Oberst all expressed admiration for her vocal style. Having just issued Chesapeake (Frankenfish), Yamagata will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with her.
Yamagata: My two favorite flowers. They make me happy. They are statement flowers. Like temporary beautiful furniture. Someday I will have a huge orchid, multiple-stem plant and somehow learn to keep it alive in a grand pot that can’t be moved because it’s so massive. Until then, I’m obsessed with the luxury of the single orchid sitting on my coffee table. One of my favorite people, photographer and friend Jungman Kim, did a series on orchids, and I now have his book next to the orchid I keep in rotation in my place. It is a luxury to me to have fresh flowers, and when I’ve got one I just love it. Sunflowers make me smile. They’re big and cumbersome and slightly awkward to arrange and grow wild to these huge heights, and I find myself saying, “Hey buddy, how’s it going?” to a droopy one outside a coffee shop that I frequent. Go figure.
Video after the jump.
