Naked: And The World Has The Nerve To Keep Turning

Tracy Bonham’s breakthrough debut album The Burdens of Being Upright (1996, Island Records) spawned the massive #1 alternative chart-topping single “Mother Mother.” A classically trained violinist and pianist, and twice GRAMMY® nominated, she spent the following 27 years evolving as an artist through her albums and live performances.

That debut album catapulted her into the spotlight with MTV fame, major radio play, and more, continuing relevance until even recently, when “Mother Mother” was featured in Showtime’s Yellow Jackets (Season 1 Episode 2).

Due to major shake-ups in the music industry Bonham’s second album, Down Here, was significantly delayed and released on Island-Def Jam in 2000. While continuing to tour the world, including several dates on the mainstage with Lilith Fair for two years (1997 and 1998), the industry’s landscape had become almost unrecognizable and had negative impacts on most strong female artists and their careers.

Changes within the industry then inspired Tracy to rethink how she approached her music and the music business. She asked Island-Def Jam Records to end her multi-record contract and with that newfound freedom, she relocated to Los Angeles to make her third album Blink the Brightest (Rounder/Zoé).

In 2003 and 2006 Bonham appeared as the featured vocalist and violinist in Blue Man Group’s arena tours (The Complex, How To Be A Megastar 2.0) in which she sold her self-released EPs (Bee EP and In The City & In The Woods) in rock arenas all over the United States enabling her to self-fund her third and fourth albums. In 2010, Bonham released Masts Of Manhatta (Engine Room Records) and continued to procure a more mature audience while maintaining the quirky humor and edginess of her first escapades in songwriting.

In 2015, Bonham released Wax & Gold on her imprint label A Woody Hollow and then in the time leading up to the 2016 elections, Bonham teamed up with friend John Wlaysewski of the band Late Cambrian to make a 20th anniversary album of The Burdens of Being Upright entitled Modern Burdens. Taking action during quarantine, Tracy and bassist Rene Hart uncovered previously finished recordings made with fellow educator and collaborator Josh Margolis of Margolis Productions for what would become an entirely new endeavor called Melodeon®, a music education project pointing toward a younger audience Bonham lovingly calls her “young music enthusiasts” and which released their first album entitled Young Maestros Vol. 1 in 2021.

In 2021, Bonham was approached by resident choreographer for the Eugene Ballet Suzanne Haag and the two of them began collaborating on a ballet production. Creating the material gave Bonham a chance to connect to her younger self as a classically trained musician and would become the material for what was to be her next album, Sky Too Wide (2025).

And as we break into the New Year, she says, “2026 is going to be an exciting year for me as I celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Burdens of Being Upright. I have so much in store for this year including a new release in honor of the 30th along with a newly developed concept for a rock show with strings,” she hints.

I sat down with Tracy and in what she herself called a “cathartic and profound” interview where she had to “dig deep” for her answers, whilst at the same time noted it all as being a “really good exercise” for her at this time, we discussed everything from her new album, how her divorce negatively impacted her both professionally and privately, how she battled breast cancer, and amongst a whole host of other things, we even got her thoughts on penguins!

Being that this is your seventh studio album, before we explore it can you please explain more about how such a beautiful work of musical art came to fruition (given it turned out to be accompanied by a very devastating year in your life)? - “Sky Too Wide was born out of a deep re-connection with myself after a very long and painful marriage and divorce. I had lost myself in wanting to build a family and was involved with a partner who did not see me for who I truly am. He saw me for what he wanted me to be. I tried so hard to stay in it, especially for our son, but it was slowly killing me. I became a shell of myself until I finally woke up. Maybe the final straw was having to quarantine with my ex and our son at the beginning of the legal divorce process which was excruciating.”

“My music career had taken the back burner since my ex husband focused so heavily on his career and there wasn’t room for both of us to shine, or so I thought. Additionally, our son was suffering with some mental health issues and that took all of my energy. I had been creating a music education curriculum because it could keep me at home while raising our son. I played some shows here and there and, since I couldn’t afford to pay a band, I played mostly solo.”

“I was also experiencing some issues with my neck due to playing the violin for that long and possibly exacerbated by playing the guitar without enough mindfulness on my posture. This resulted in me leaning back to my piano studies. It didn’t hurt to play the piano. Naturally, playing my existing music - the songs in my catalogue from each era - blended with my love for the piano and the rich harmonies of my favorite composers, Ravel, Debussy, etc. New songs began to emerge from this place.”

“I began playing duo shows with Rene Hart, an upright bassist who primarily played jazz. The true friendship that came out of this musical kinship was beautiful. It wasn’t just about music but that certainly was the central axis. Rene helped me move away from some of the misaligned beliefs I had held during my marriage where I was not allowed to shine. Plus, the belief that so many jazz instrumentalists have in common - that music is in the present moment and it comes from a deep place - deeply resonated with me.”

“It was what I had been longing for. My musical journey had already been turned inward for such a long time after touring for two decades, seeing the music business change before my eyes. If success, in the way I knew it, wasn’t an option anymore then my goal was to reconnect with the part of myself that played music for the love of it.”

“Before the thought crossed my mind that I might be ready to make an album, I had been asked to perform with the Eugene Ballet scheduled for the spring of 2024. The new arrangements seemed perfect for such an endeavor. My ambition was to record these beautiful versions and have something to sell on the merch table at the ballet performances. I decided to self-release the album when the time came.”

Being that the album was well underway before your diagnosis was revealed, once having caught your medical issue early and gotten it under your control, how much more was there to do on the album musically? Were there tracks still to be sung and if so, how did they differ in their makeup to how you had maybe outlined them prior to your diagnosis? - “In December, 2023 we went up to Applehead Recording Studio in Woodstock to record the basics for Sky Too Wide with the incredible jazz drummer, Alvester Garnett. I was experiencing some pretty major health issues in my gut at that time most likely due to all of the stress of the divorce. This was before I even knew I had breast cancer. The vibe in the studio was already about healing. It was about reclaiming my voice, reclaiming my life. Woodstock had been a place where my marriage and divorce had played out (while also spending time in Brooklyn) and I wanted to reconnect with the healing energy of the place.”

“It was only one month after finishing the basics that I found out I had breast cancer. Luckily, it was stage one (hormone receptor positive), but it definitely put a pause on finishing the album. However, there was no way I was going to cancel the ballet performances! They would be in my home town of Eugene, OR on that beautiful Silva Hall stage where I saw Sarah Vaughn perform (and Mel Tormé! Ha!). No way in Hell. My breast surgeon and oncologist both said that I could squeeze in the surgery before the April performances, go do the ballet shows with a sequent sub-mini tour down the West Coast with Jill Sobule, and come back for radiation. That is what I did. Mind you, the stress of everything and a possible compromised immune system gave me a nasty bout of shingles as Rene, Alvester, and I, trekked down to California in a minivan. The show must go on as they say.”

“When the performances were over, and just before radiation began in June I was able to overdub vocals in Rene’s basement studio plus have a wonderful guitarist named Steve Cardenas come in to lay down some guitar. I was also able to finish the string arrangements and had Olivier Manchon record his violin tracks remotely from upstate New York and Leah Shaw record her bassoon tracks remotely from North Carolina.”

“It is safe to say that the entire album recording process was all about perseverance and resilience. This is how the cover art came to be. I dreamed it up - the image of me falling through the sky - and then I called my favorite photographer, Shervin Lainez, to take the photo.”

You have also said that this new album portrays a woman finally shedding the skin of external pressure to be someone she is not, so can you explain that in more detail? - “After climbing out of what felt like a very deep existential hole, where I allowed an intimate partner to me treat me poorly even after voicing my unhappiness only to be met with gaslighting and dismissal (wow, I am going there), I was and still am ready to relinquish that part of me that needs to meet other people’s expectations. It is a light I continue to shine on my inner world with all of the maladaptive coping mechanisms from childhood. Whether this is codependent tendencies or childhood trauma rearing its head, it is my university, it is my earth school. It is big stuff and I am so happy to still be here to excavate and learn and hopefully help others do the same.”

Indeed, a lot of words and terms have already been used to describe your music over the years, but how would you yourself sum up your sound on this new album ... and in just five (5) words? - “Contemplative, cinematic, reflective, powerful, beautiful.”

Please tell us a little more about what these tracks noted below mean to you and how they came to be:

The Uncertain Sun - “The Uncertain Sun is about my understanding of the Law of Attraction. I now understand how a person can draw to themself precarious, chaotic relationships and experiences until they can do the inner work toward alignment to their own inner truth therefore drawing the right people and conditions into their life. I was not ready to drop out of life although there were some days when I felt there was no way out. I continued to look in the mirror every day and say “one more day” until things got better.”

Damn The Sky (For Being Too Wide) - “Damn The Sky (For Being Too Wide) is a song that came through me one day as I sat down at the piano feeling completely unsupported and alone. Being a mother of a child who is neurodivergent with a husband that could only do things his way made me long for my family back in Oregon. I had been displaced from my family of origin, my village, as we so many of us are. Other parents, at least what I would see on social media, etc. made things look so easy. It’s not supposed to be easy! Life isn’t supposed to be easy! I had no one to commiserate with. This was before the pandemic too!”

Jumping Bean - “Jumping Bean is a song from my 2000 release, Down Here, that needed a re-do, much like I personally needed a re-do. In 2000, it was about the music business telling me how to pose, what to wear, how to be. Fast forward to my life when recreating it- it was about leaving my suffocating marriage.”

Whether You Fall - “Whether You Fall is another re-do from a past era. I wanted this song to breathe and grow from its original, more simple recording. That said, the lyrics couldn’t have been more poignant during my reclamation and my transformation.”

And was Sky Too Wide always going to be the album’s name or was there another that nearly won the race come the time to take your hands off the project? - “I almost called it Damn The Sky (For Being Too Wide), The Horizon Behind Your Eyes, If The Sun and The Moon Should Ever Doubt (taken from a William Blake poem).”

Being that we’re not called Exclusive Magazine for nothing, is there a hidden message, a secret notation or an easter egg to be found amongst all the tracks assembled for this new album? - “There are definitely a few but the one I would like to share, the one I have never shared before, is the instrumental section in the middle (I guess it is the bridge) of Don’t Dick Around With My Heart. We (Rene, Alvester and I) called it the “grasshopper dance”.”

“In verse 2, the grasshopper in the mason jar was a metaphor for being trapped and unable to escape. Grasshoppers, by nature of their design, have a hard time jumping straight up. The lid was left off by its keeper giving it a false sense of free will to go out and start a new life. The music, in my mind, goes to a baroque style minuet where I picture the newly freed grasshopper dressed in Baroque clothing dancing happily and free (as free as one could dance in the Baroque era).”

The video for Jumping Bean is very interesting, given not only that it features ballerinas performing, but it doesn’t show you very much at all, so who came up with the idea and what can you tell us about the behind-the-scenes set up of it and how the filming went? - “The Jumping Bean video was a part of the Eugene Ballet performance where my musicians and I are situated on a riser behind the dancers. The idea of having one lone ballerina f**king shit up- specifically, toying with the other ballerinas who are performing one of the most stringent and formal classical ballet pieces in the entire repertoire, La Bayadère (1877), was the choreographer’s idea (Suzanne Haag).”

“This choreography was my favorite moment in the entire performance. The message that Suzanne so elegantly depicted was 100% spot on with the message of the album. When I returned home I had it edited into a music video. It came with its limitations, however. The videographer could not access the risers in the back in order to get me and the band into a shot very easily.”

Tracy Bonham - Jumping Bean (Sky Wide Version - Live) [Official Video]

Your debut album The Burdens of Being Upright came out in 1996 and with the recent release of Sky Too Wide that means nearly 30 years have passed, so I was wondering how you have changed in all that time as a singer, songwriter, musician and as a person, in general? - “As timing would have it, and as I write this, I am planning on going into the studio to re-record the Burdens of Being Upright with strings. This is inspired by what happened on Sky Too Wide. I found new inspiration with arranging for strings. The 30-year-old songs and the lyrics still stand up and I am reconnecting with the messages of speaking up to narcissism, misogyny, abusive exes and I am hoping that these messages will help young women especially during the madness of what is currently happening with the Epstein files, etc.”

And when can we expect the 30th Anniversary release of Burdens to be released? - “With Burdens upcoming recording in mind, the Burdens Anniversary album will most likely be released in Fall - barring no disasters happen, LOL.”

And as we come to the end here, with regard your just released album, now that it is in the hands of the public, as they play it how would you like them to approach their listening experience of it? - “My favorite vision - I imagine people playing the CD or vinyl on their stereo. This is a sad question I am about to ask: do people still have stereos? I imagine them sitting down in a chair with a glass of red wine and closing their eyes or reading the lyrics in the liner notes. Oh, how incredibly selfish I am! I know it is a huge ask especially today when it’s really all earbuds and moving from one place to another. That is the nature of our lives presently. Don’t even ask me if I practice what I preach. I am such a hypocrite. One can dream....”

And yes, we ask everyone we interview this very same question (as we are putting together a kid’s book). We here at Exclusive Magazine love Penguins and so we were wondering if you had any love for them and/or had a story of one (soft toy, zoo, chocolate bar, relative, etc.) that you could share with us? - “Well, when you say “kid’s book and penguins” in the same sentence I immediately go to Penguin Young Readers books. I think their imprint was called Puffin Books and I am visualizing some of my favorites from growing up like Watership Down, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, The Hobbit and Charlotte’s Web.”

Finally, we asked Tracy if she could provide a fun/serious/interesting photo that she had from her life so that we could include that photographic exclusive in this interview, and this is what she oh-so kindly sent and how she explained it: