Q&A: Sara Bareilles

Can you give us a specific example?
I remember we were recording the song "City," and it was really run-of-the-mill to me in my head, and I just burst into tears. I just didn't want it to be just a pretty recording, and the engineer was like, okay, let's try a Massive Attack version of it. So we went the other extreme, where it was really sparse and industrial, and that wasn't it either. And then we finally got to the middle ground, which is what it ended up being — it ended up working out. But for me, the process of going from one extreme to other was so traumatic, it felt like life or death right there, and I cried to Chris Chaney the bass player out in the lobby.

What is it about Broadway and show tunes that you find so appealing?
What I love about it is these songs have incredible dramatic arcs to them. There's a story — a beginning, a middle and an end — and it's okay to really explore the range of that within a song. I can get pissed and feel remorse and feel sad and be pissed again, all in the same song. The melody has to be such a strange focal point. You can't just moan through a song on Broadway.

Was your song "Vegas" inspired by any personal lost weekends there?
To me, "Vegas" was about living in L.A. It's such a dream-chaser society down there. There's something really beautiful and magical about that, but there's so many people that want to believe if they just do this one thing, everything is going to plateau and you'll be happy, and you'll win. If I just lose ten points. If I just move to Vegas. If I just move to New York, then everything's going to be all tied up with a bow, and that's just not real life. I just got really interested in that idea; what are we really telling ourselves here?

How concerned were you with putting yourself on your album cover? You're kind of hiding behind a radio.
I didn't want to be on the album artwork at all. I didn't want it to be about my image as much. I know how important it is, but it can start to be all anybody talks about or cares about. I remember going through a period of time where it had just become a part of the conversation — what I look like, what I'm wearing, what my hair does — and the music took a back seat. You're fooling yourself if you think you got into an industry that doesn't care about image. But if I let myself start to care about it too much it's going to take over, and I really believe that once you lose focus and the music is not the core of why you're making your choices, the shit's going to hit the fan.