Q&A: Heart-to-heart with Blame Sally before their show

Blame Sally is a San Francisco folk-rock quartet with an attitude, combining acoustic textures with Americana harmonies and an independent spirit. In 2011, Blame Sally rose from “Bay Area phenom” (Santa Cruz Sentinel) to “a remarkable success story” (San Luis Obispo New Times) with the release of “Speeding Ticket and A Valentine,” which won Alternate Root Magazine’s People’s Choice Award for “Best Album of the Year.” The CD’s “sensual vocal blend and … agile instrumental prowess” (Blurt) earned them two sold-out shows at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, NPR’s Song of the Day and an appearance with John Oates on Mountain Stage.  
You’ve been together more than a dozen years. How often have you played Sonoma County in that time and how did you hook up with the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center?
Surprisingly we haven’t played Sonoma that many times. We did play the Sebastopol Community Center about a year and a half ago, though. Cloud Moss has booked us at Kate Wolf several times and he produced the last show as well as the one we’ll play this month.
How would you describe your music for the locals who haven’t heard you?
Very loosely you could say we fall in the Americana category. But more specifically, we synthesize a lot of different styles into our own thing. We have big harmonies, songs that convey a lot of emotion and we can rock.
What motivates you to keep creating?
Like most people who choose an artistic career, we do it because we are compelled to do it. Not creating is painful.
What has been your biggest challenge as you’ve become more popular?
Sometimes the best things are the most challenging.
We’ve been lucky enough to be able to tour the US and Europe pretty extensively during the past five or six years.
It is incredibly gratifying and, at the same time, it gets to be exhausting. Being away from home, completely out of our routines and driving, driving, driving, that can get old. It’s the blessing and the curse.
Aside from your musical gifts, what quality do you share that keeps you together as a band?
For one, we share really long friendships. The fact that
we care so much about each other and enjoy each others’ company has definitely made working together wonderful.
I think that musically we are all driven to be as good as we can be, we’re very compatible musically. Oh, yeah – you’re asking aside from musically. Probably the most important thing is that we all like to laugh a lot. Everyone in the band has a great sense of humor and laughing definitely gets you pretty far. We have definitely enjoyed some amazing late-night hysteria. Every once in awhile and completely unpredictably, Jeri takes on the personality and voices of her hillbilly ancestors. When you’re exhausted and cranky at the end of a really long day, it’s great to have a visitation from Jeri’s Uncle Bob and Aunt Ruby.
Who inspires you and why?
This question is hard for just one of us to answer because probably each of us would come up with a different answer.
I (Monica) am inspired by people who live their truth as diligently as possible. One musician that I really admire is Joni Mitchell. Not just her songs, her paintings or her singing,
but her dedication to serving the art first. She evolves and grows and has chosen to be completely true to herself. It’s
gotten her in trouble sometimes with both critics and fans, but at the end of the day she’s followed her muse instead of the opinion polls and consequently she has continued to expand as an artist. The art and the process of creating it obviously feed her.
What can fans look forward to at your Sebastopol show?
They’ll have a good time while they’re there and they’ll leave satisfied. I’m not sure why, but that’s always the case.  We are lucky to be so loved and we know it. See you soon!