Interview and session: Raffaella performs at The Current
by Diane
December 20, 2022
During a visit to The Current, newer-to-Minneapolis singer Raffaella performed music from her recent EP, Live, Raff, Love (Act 1). Stripped down to just guitar, bass, and drums, the three-song performance gives listeners a rock ‘n’ roll feel to Raffaella's spirited pop music.
The band features Minneapolis drummer Joey Hays (Papa Mbye, Brunette) and bassist Megan Mahoney (Lissie, Early Eyes), as well New York guitarist Sara L’Abriola (Hank), who was also in Raffaella’s side project Peach Fuzz with Samia and Victoria Zaro.
Live, Raff, Love (Act 2) will be released in 2023. Like Act 1, the music was co-written and produced by Raffaella’s partner — and Hippo Campus frontman — Jake Luppen. Songs often start with Luppen fiddling around on the guitar while Raffaella comes up with lyrics and melodies in real-time.
Raffaella, an NYC transplant, spoke with The Current's Local Show host Diane about integrating into the Twin Cities music scene, incorporating humor and lightheartedness into serious subject matter, how studying French literature has influenced her writing, and more.
Transcript edited for clarity and length.
Diane here, host of the local show with Raffaella. Good to have you in the studio.
Good to be here. Thanks for having me.
I want to get into the fact that you're from Manhattan. You've lived in California too. And I want to know how you feel about Minneapolis right now. It's different!
It's so different. I mean, it's funny that it's the “minne-apple,” you know, came from the Big Apple, but I love it. It's cold. But I feel like with cold weather you just kind of adapt to it regardless of the severity. And it gets cold in New York too. So I feel like anytime I ever mentioned the fact that I live in Minneapolis now everybody talks about how — "Oh, man! The tundra." And I'm like, "Totally!" But I like seasons. And I like my new winter jacket.
It is a cool winter jacket. The one you're wearing today?
Yeah, thank you. I literally have been living here for two-and-a-half years and I have not had a winter jacket.
Oh! It's about time.
It is about time. And it really helps as it turns out.
It feels special to call you local now. Because you bring a new energy to our scene. I would definitely consider it different. I can't think of anyone who sounds — I'm not trying to make some grandiose statement, but you have a very unique voice and sound that's different from artists in our area. And I want to know more about how it's feeling integrating into our scene. I know it obviously helps that your partner is Jake Luppen of Hippo Campus. Talk to us about that.
Having Jake as sort of my liaison to introduce me to so many wonderful people here was super beneficial. Just being a transplant and immediately feeling included in this community of just incredible musicians and coming from the coast, it's very different. The sounds are different. And the priorities are different. And the goals are different. And I feel like here, it's the first time I really felt like there was a community around music in a way that was proactive. Everybody really supports one another, collaborating, going to shows, and actually listening to music. I feel like that's suddenly very rare. People really do that here. So that's awesome.
But yeah, it's been awesome. I mean, 7th Street (Entry) is such a good example of whenever I think of the Minneapolis community. I just go straight to that little room. And it feels huge when you're in it because it also transforms with every different artist. It's been really lovely, and cathartic, and grounding. And I can see how with my practice and my prep, it's so different. It makes me wish that I focus more on the art of piano or really honing in on an instrument — and I've been practicing guitar, which I'm so bad at. But I felt inspired to do that here because I was like, "Damn, I want to be like my friends." Everybody knows I play guitar.
Well, your craft at singing is outstanding.
Aw, thank you.
Not long ago, The Current profiled you. You touched on some heavier subjects. And one was that you ended up switching managers because you had a disagreement about them saying you shouldn't have your boyfriend produce your record ... And from our perspective as the listener and looking in and seeing how you are shining, it seems like it was a great idea. Tell me a little bit about that.
Totally. I would just feel really sad a lot of the time and feel really hopeless, and it felt like my options were limited in terms of how to progress. And I would get off the phone in tears ... I really cared about the people I used to work with. So I would make excuses a lot. But luckily, I had people in my life that were like, "Hey, you shouldn't cry after you get off of the phone. You should feel encouraged." It was just like an incompatible way of going about building a career. But I feel really lucky to have had loved ones kind of reality check me. When your job is also your livelihood and you feel like you're not doing a good job at it, you just get really mentally ill and hopeless. And I think that Minneapolis both kind of forced me to confront that because there were no distractions. And it also helped me see what was important to me, which was organic growth through live music and just getting better at my craft, and being as patient and careful as possible with every decision, be it a live show or a synth sound.
Well, and it seems like Jake is such a supporting, loving partner too. When I interviewed him, he was just like, "She's so amazing."
Yeah, working on this music with him was crazy. I've never seen anybody care so much about anything. And I was like, I feel like I should care as much as you care. You definitely care way more than me. But yeah, he's taught me so much about artistic integrity and just how to be kind to myself. Seeing somebody be kind to you is just a really nice reminder that you're also allowed to be kind to yourself.
I also read that you spent some time in California. Was it California? You studied at Columbia for French Lit and philosophy.
Yeah! So that was in New York. But I was in California for a year before that.
Okay, cool. Well, I'm curious how that might intersect with your music. Are you a big (Marcel) Proust fan?
Oh, my God. I've read a Proust book, meaning I've read probably 25% of it. And screaming —
Because it’s all run-on sentences.
Yeah, the run-on sentences with Proust, and every single detail that's ever existed in anything, he has to include. But I've studied a lot of poetry, which I really loved, like Baudelaire, Rimbaud. And I also studied a lot of French cinema. I think that was definitely really inspiring with the aesthetics that I'm more inclined to embrace. And I think when you study a language that's not your own, it kind of stretches your mind to think about words in different ways. So I think studying French was definitely — it's sort of like how you take math in school. It's like, we're not using math anymore. But it's somehow helping us survive through reality. It helped us. We don't really know how, but we know that it did. Because there's a reason why every single student is learning how to do calculus. So that's kind of how I feel about French. It stretched my creative mind in all the right ways to sort of help me see language in a new way.
I definitely hear that in your writing. If I were to describe your music, it's like pop music with really beautiful singing, smart writing. And then it interjects humor, lightheartedness, and a little bit of comedy. And that's one of my favorite things about it. Because I love the goofy element, because I can relate to that, too ... not taking yourself too seriously.
Yeah, when you think about it, you're just on a stage and you're singing songs. People are listening. And it's just such a silly profession. But it's also like the most meaningful thing.
It is! Tell me more about that. Where does this inspiration come to be a little bit goofy on stage but also sing serious subjects?
Totally. Oh, I think taking yourself seriously is just inherently terrifying.
Agreed.
So it's definitely like a defense mechanism, the humor. And I do that in my life, just resort to that. But I also think it's nice. Catharsis exists in humor and sadness, like scary movies or you laugh. It should always kind of be there in some iteration. So yeah, I try to be funny, but not too funny. Sometimes I really get on the nose. Jake will be like, "You know what? Maybe we should think of a different lyric." And I'm like, "Why?!" And like, 20 minutes later, I'm like, "Hey, so, you were very much right about that." Yeah, it's a balance for sure.
I get it, I know. I can relate to that because sometimes my writing is so comedic, because I have some of those feelings of sadness as well. And so I balance it out with that. But I don't know, I like it. I think it makes the music accessible in some ways.
Totally. Oh, that's so cool to hear.
Your record – Act 1 is out. And then Act 2 is coming out. Tell me about your decision to do a part one and then a part two. And I heard that part one, well, I listened to it, and it's got a more joyful tone. And I'm hearing that part two is more serious. Tell me about the impetus to present in that way.
I didn't really know how to deliver the project until we finished it. And we wrote "Grown Up," that was the last song. And then I kind of saw it. Just kind of happened that way ... I think somebody said, "Oh, your music is so narrative-driven." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, I guess so." And I studied acting growing up, and I love the theater. And so I kind of wanted to honor that part of myself. And yeah, plays are always really happy. And then they get really sad, in act two, and dark. And I mean, Oklahoma! when Jud dies. That's so sad and dark. Anyway, it's not as dark as Oklahoma! But it definitely gets more earnest in the second half. And like I was saying, there's still humor in it. But I think I'm so afraid of that earnestness. And so it felt really dark to me in a way. But yeah, it just felt like it made sense. And I liked the sort of paradoxical paradigm of light and dark and happy and sad. And I feel like that kind of makes something complete. So yeah, just two pieces that are somehow contrasting, coming together and creating one entity that hopefully allows for some emotions in between the two contrasts.
I keep thinking about the song "Bardot" in my head, because that was the first song I heard by you. And it has this French feel to it. And Bardot is a French word, right?
She's Brigitte Bardot. She was like the va-va voom ...
Oh, the va-va voom – yeah, there's a really sophisticated thing about it. Give me a little more background on that song. That's the first track that I heard by you that I was like, "This is so good."
Thanks so much. Yeah, I recorded that one with this guy Edo, who's an awesome producer. And we wrote that together in 2018, I think. And I had been dating this dude at the time — I call it rom-com syndrome — where they kind of mystify you in a way where you are no longer a human being. And at first, you're like, "I'm on this amazing pedestal and the view is awesome, and I feel beautiful." And then you're like, "I'm trapped. Get me down from here. You don't treat me like a human in ways that I would want you to." So I was talking to him about — I'd also been studying French literature, which is basically all about the mystification of women, and men just being really frustrated with their inability to understand what it's like to live as a woman. And so they write essays and books and psychoanalytical theories on what it's like to be a woman. Anyway, so I was actually talking to this person about studying that and he was looking at me as I was talking, and I was like, “Okay, do you have anything else you could say back to what I said, though?” So I guess it's sort of about that, well, if you're gonna fall in love with this version of me that isn't real, you're always going to kind of be in agony, because that doesn't exist.
Wow, what a good way to put that. I'm thinking of — what is that Wes Anderson movie that takes place …
Royal Tenenbaums?
Not that one, but the (sings) "You look like Marlena Dietrich, and you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire."
Yes! What is that?
It's Peter Sarstedt ... "Where Do You Go to My Lovely?" is the name of the song. And that's exactly what I think this reminds me of. This overly romanticized version of what a woman is.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, sometimes you're just like “(Bleep) it, I'm just gonna lean into that then.” And I'll dance for you, cuz I don't want you to leave me yet.
(Laughs) Because it's fun.
It's fun, but yeah, it's not gonna last.
Beautifully put. Yes, men, take note. It's a thing.
We are humans.
We are all humans. Actually, I could probably take that note too.
Yeah, me too actually.
