Q&A: Blood Lemon's Melanie Radford on 'Petite Deaths' EP ahead of Pittsburgh show

Blood Lemon may not have aspired to be a power trio, but it just happened organically, according to bassist/vocalist Melanie Radford.

Forged in Boise, Idaho, the band features Radford, who also plays bass for Built to Spill, as well as guitarist/vocalist Lisa Simpson and drummer Lindsay Lloyd.

“We modeled ourselves mostly after the Breeders, to be fairly honest, but they’re not a three-piece. I think both me and Lisa have natural experiences working in a three-piece, and we both are fans of The Police and even bands like Rush,” Radford said this week. “We already knew what it was like to be in a three-piece from past bands that we’ve worked with too, though it just naturally came to us with our experience.”

Blood Lemon will be hitting the road for 10 shows over 11 nights in a gap in Built to Spill’s touring schedule. The tour hits Spirit Lodge in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood on Nov. 2. They’ll be joined by Black Cross Hotel, a Chicago industrial metal band that features some members of Stabbing Westward and The Atlas Moth, as well as Pittsburgh’s Larval State.

In January, the band released the “Petite Deaths” EP, which was recorded at the Rancho de la Luna studio in Joshua Tree, California, run by Dave Catching, a former member of Queens of the Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal.

“There’s something desolate about being out in the desert, quite literally in the middle of the desert, and just having that landscape to look at,” Radford said. “It was interesting for us to be in that environment and then also forcing each other to focus so much on the record and nothing else. So it really just feels like the snapshot in time, that record. … It just felt like this still moment in time, even listening to it now.”

In a call from Huntington, New York, before a Built to Spill show, Radford spoke with TribLive about pulling double duty, their “Petite Deaths” EP, the importance of speaking out and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.

It looks like you don’t get much of a break between Built to Spill to Blood Lemon back to Built to Spill, so how do you deal with that?

Just a lot of mental resetting and trying to find intentional stillness and actually trying to have downtime in between tours and in between shows. That kind of stuff is so important, the act of actually doing nothing. So I try really hard to prioritize stuff like that and to rest in between.

How hard is it to shift gears between band to band then back again?

It’s not too bad. I guess it can be a little bit hard just because they’re two different worlds. Blood Lemon is a pretty small band, so it’s humbling going back and getting into the work and the grind of what a smaller band just has to do, especially now. But it’s just learning how to really balance those two worlds and knowing that they’re both very separate.

Do you enjoy being out on the road so often? Do you have a preference that you prefer home? Do you prefer being on the road?

I don’t know if anyone really prefers to be on the road for a long time, even though you do get to a point where you get really good at it and it can be really fun. It could also be a very lonely experience, too, just because you’re living in a bubble and the whole world is happening around you, but you just have to learn to connect with the community that you’re in, even though it’s very small and it’s just a group of people that you’re touring with. But I think when I’m in tour, I really love it, but I do get to points where I’m like, OK, I’m ready to go home and just chill and have quiet time and just alone time.

Not have people all around you..

Yeah, totally. I think there’s a lot of extroverts who are artists and tour a lot and they thrive, but for me as an introvert, I definitely have to have alone time. So it’s just, again, learning how to balance all of that stuff.

Say someone goes in with no knowledge of the band, what should they expect from a Blood Lemon show?

I think they should expect something that’s energetic and loud but also very genuine and real. We’re just three good friends, and we smile a lot and have a good time on stage and laugh at each other a lot. I think a lot of people are going out to shows right now and expecting people to have really strong personas and theatrical things, which we kind of have. We put on a good show, but it has much more of a genuine feel to it, if that makes sense.

If people heard the music, they might maybe not expect as many smiles as you said.

(laughs) Yeah, totally. I mean, it’s just so fun. It’s fun to play. It’s fun to play with friends. And I feel that way about both bands, Built to Spill and Blood Lemon. It’s just the best time.

Now that the EP’s been out for 10 months, what stands out the most about it to you?

I think it just feels like a much more mature record for us. It’s been unfortunate that we’ve had such a big change in the political spectrum from when we recorded it to now. Things feel just so much more serious and detrimental politically, and our last album was a lot more politically charged than this EP. But I think it shows more of our range. We have a wider range with this EP, and we’re exploring different genres and having more fun with that.

Was it intentional for the songs to get a little bit longer on this one? Most of them seemed longer than the first album.

Yeah, definitely. We wanted to write songs that were more expansive and that take you more on a journey versus shorter pop songs that are in the first record.

Were they pop songs on the first record?

(laughs) I mean, in our lane, yes. As pop as you can get. I feel like we have a pretty strong pop sensibility to our songwriting, just in terms of things that you could hold on to when you’re listening, like hooks.

With “Perfect Too” from the EP, what do you enjoy about that song, playing it live? What stands out about that song?

That one probably is the most political song that we have on the EP, and it still feels really relevant to today in terms of social media and things really pressuring people to feel like they have to change themselves and fit a box, fit some kind of specific narrative that really just doesn’t fit everyone. Everyone’s different, and everyone is unique. I think when I play that song even today, a lot of people really relate to it, and I can see a lot of excitement in the crowd when they’re hearing the lyrics and agreeing with me. It’s really cool to play that song live because when we get to the second half, people are just dancing and really getting into it. It’s probably one of the funnest songs to play live even now.

Where do you see the evolution from the first album (in 2021) to the EP in the band? Can you chart that? Do you see how far you‘ve come?

I feel like it’s just from touring and playing more shows together. After the first record came out, we did a lot of touring and we even did a bunch of tours with Built to Spill, so I did double duty. It was a big learning experience of how to translate songs live, and we really wanted to have our next release be really close to our live performances and have that kind of energy, which we tried to get close to in the first record as well. But there’s something about this EP that feels a lot more expansive sonically, so it just feels more impactful in how we perform it live.

That comes with time too.

Yeah, it really does. It comes with time and just playing more shows together and learning each other’s quirks. The song “Her Shadow” was from sound checking for Built to Spill because Lindsey loves playing weird fusion samba beats. I saw her just naturally do it and we started jamming on it, and I look over and she just lit up. I was like, oh we should write a song with this in here, so it’s just coming with time and getting to know each other as players.

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When it comes to Blood Lemon, how important was it for you to get together and collaborate with other women? Was the dynamic different? Was that something that you were seeking out?

Yeah, it really was. I think just a lot of female performers, musicians, can relate to this. Growing up, I played with mostly guys in different bands in high school. And I don’t regret any of it. They’re wonderful people that I worked with. But there was something about wanting to collaborate with people who experienced the same things that I experienced and having that kind of solidarity creatively. At the time when I was in my 20s, it really meant so much to me. I really needed it. I needed that community. So Blood Lemon was this makeshift community that the three of us made together. And our practices, we would practice our songs, but we would also just have group therapy where we’d just sit and air out our grievances about the (expletive) that was going on. And, again, we’re friends. We’re really close, and we support each other and having that kind of support is so important when you’re in a band.

What do you view as a musician’s duty when it comes to putting politics into their music? You said this EP wasn’t as political as the first one, but do you feel like that’s a responsibility for musicians?

I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot. I do think, especially now, it’s pretty important, if you have a platform anyway. I see a lot of smaller bands that are just getting started and they’re still trying to figure out what they are with their personality as a musician and as a band. I think every musician should be given time to figure that out. But once you get to a certain point and you have a platform and you’re becoming established, I just feel like we have this responsibility to speak out, especially against the things that are going on right now, like the blatant fascism that’s rising in our country. I just think there’s no more room to be ambiguous.

I know that some smaller bands might say I have nothing to lose. When you get to the bigger bands, they have to walk the line…

They have to walk the line, yeah, and I see that and there are things to that that I understand, but man, (expletive) is just getting so bad. It’s scary, and I just feel like people really need to start speaking out and just saying, like hey, I don’t agree with this. This is wrong. It’s just as simple as that. There just needs to be more and more people speaking out on it.