Dan Cummings • Hyperactive Magazine • July 2005

When Fate Comes Around

Going into this interview, I had few preconceptions. Like anyone who has picked up her album, or even seen the cover, I wondered to myself what Bernadette Seacrest is all about. Beautiful, jazzy, vintage; renowned for style, a sultry voice and velvet glances; raven-black hair and intricate ink. A mystique embodied, a resonant voice transcending time to fly from the ‘30s and find us here, in the early twenty-first century, amidst self-doubt and disenfranchisement. An old soul of the continuum, singing timelessly in the smoky lower room of an upscale bar. Who is she? How did she get here? Why is she so wildly successful?

Talking with Seacrest after a Santa Fe gig, she answered these questions with alacrity. “I love singing more than anything,” she started off. “I was meant to do this. I think the universe has been preparing me for this my whole life. It’s in my bones.”

Dan: A universal calling?

Seacrest: (nodding) Hell yeah. I believe that God, or something, is going ‘yes Bernadette, do this thing, here it is . . .’ Something happens to me when I sing; I don’t know how to articulate it—it’s like a soul thing, a resonating that connects me like nothing else.

Dan: Some say singing is a primordial expression.

Seacrest : (smiling) I wholeheartedly agree.

Dan: Is that why people respond to you?

Seacrest: I don’t know. It baffles me. At almost any of our shows, there are all kinds of folks that shouldn’t be there. Young punk rock kids, 80 year-olds swingdancing—it’s across the board. That’s the coolest thing. It’s a fluke, really; everything fell in my lap, and I don’t know why this is happening.

Accident of fate or not, Seacrest has met with incredible enthusiasm, evinced by the abundant crowds at her concerts and the uncanny success of her first album, No More Music By the Suckers.

Seacrest: The title is homage to Public Enemy. They have a real message and I wish that more music was like that. “Suckers” are the Brittany Spears types: horrible-manufactured-cookie-cutter artists. We need more real music and real bands doing real stuff. All that American Idol shit makes me sad; there’s so much great talent out there that won’t sell out for a buck.

A mix of standards and original material, the album is “for the fans,” blending the hard and dark (“Sweet Salvation”) with the lighter upbeat (“Dream a Little Dream”). Most striking is Seacrest’s voice. Dark liquors, noir and cigarette smoke, she sings a sweet sound that drips with sinister knowledge. It’s jazz and punk rock, soulful but ready to stage-dive. Backing Seacrest is the Yes Men, the three-person collective of bassist Mike Grimes, percussionist Jason Aspeslet, and Aaron Cummings on clarinet and sax. Accomplished in their own right, the Yes Men are an ensemble of professionalism, seamlessly blending together behind Seacrest’s crooning.

Dan: In contrast to other bar gigs, with you guys the crowd is very attentive, even silent.

Cummings: People do listen instead of talking through the show. Usually you’re there for background entertainment while everyone gets drunk . . . but not with her.

Aspeslet: It’s more like a concert than a gig.

Dan: What is it about her?

Cummings: She’s got an incredible voice—

Aspeslet: (laughing) She’s eccentric.

Dan: Can I put that in the article?

Aspeslet: (laughing) No—

Grimes: She gauges the audience. She gets up there and talks about whatever and people just get into her.

Cummings: She really keeps in mind what the show is about the whole time she’s onstage, from start to finish.

Aspeslet: She’s great at making the crowd a part of the show. People like that.

And, Seacrest busts her ass. With open admiration, the band went on, in-depth, about the work Seacrest puts in on a daily basis. Scheduling, organizing, garnering publicity, even planning a trip to France next fall.

Dan: Your band speaks highly of you.

Seacrest: I love those boys. Those guys are the shit. They are so good.

Dan: Plans for the future? Another album?

Seacrest: (smiling) Playing in Paris on my birthday! And the next album . . . a little more raw-sounding, a real authentic sound. I don’t want to get limited into being a “jazz singer;” I just happen to be singing jazz right now. There’s all kinds of music that I love and that I love to do. I like the old shit, but I think it’s nice to meld things together.

She smiled again, confident in the future, even if she’s not sure where that future leads. Fate has brought her this far, and she seems to trust that it will take her where she needs to go. “I am very lucky, and I know that,” she reflected. “I’ve wanted it for so long, I think that is what drives me. I push, and then I let go and see what happens.