#2: Hitting the Higher Notes with Singer Songwriter Renee Stahl

TRANSCRIPT

I’m Kris Adams and this is life.  Welcome to the Adventures of Possibility Podcast, episode number 2.

We all stumble and fall in life.  It’s the choice to stand up again that holds the key from turning adversity into possibility.  Join me on the journey, so that you get inspired to stand tall too.

This episode is brought to you today by whatever inspires you.

KRIS  My guest today is Singer/Songwriter, Wife, Mother, Friend. Renee Stahl. Not only does she have the voice of an angel, but also a generous heart and loving laugh that brings joy to so many, including myself. Renee, I so happy you’re here today

RENEE  Me too, thank you

KRIS  Take 2 of our interview

RENEE  (LAUGHS) Here we go

KRIS (LAUGHS)  Just a little back story, Renee and I recorded a previous interview, but we kept having dropped calls and technical difficulties. Anyway, I lost the episode, and I was so sad

RENEE  How did you move through that Kris?

KRIS  Oh, well. I cried in my closet

RENEE  (LAUGHS)

KRIS  Because that’s where I’m recording right now. This is my little studio

RENEE  (LAUGHS)  Did you swear?

KRIS  Yeah, I don’t remember, I was so taken out by it. And I couldn’t call you back right away, cause I thought, Ugh God, this is just

RENEE  (LAUGHS)

KRIS  (LAUGHS)

RENEE  I’m sorry I’m laughing

KRIS  No, it’s good. Laughter is so good, it’s one of the key elements, I feel. Thank you for being here again, and I truly appreciate you and I want to talk about your recent travels to Spain with your two girls. I loved the photo you posted on instagram with your oldest daughter, Amelia. The caption, I think it said, it simply was, sharing smiles. I’m curious if you also get a lot of rolled eyes, as well as sharing smiles with your new teenager, like mine?

RENEE  My tween. Yes, I do indeed. You know, we had the opportunity to go with my Mother-in-law to Spain this summer. It was incredible, and oh, Spain is just an amazing country, I’ve never been before and there was a lot of joy and just having so much fun. It’s nice to just kind of get away and have a new outlook and just a different place to experience, and yes we smile a lot, we laugh a lot, but definitely I’m getting a lot of, she said to me today, that she doesn’t trust me right now because, you know, she has an iPhone, and we have a contract, a three page contract that she signed that we need to re-look at and revise, which is her phone is in my room at the end of the day, and also that I have access to every password and I can look at everything on her phone. It’s basically my phone that she’s borrowing, or our phone, and she came home last night, she went to a party, she came home, there was some stuff going on with some of her friends, and she said don’t look at my phone. I’m gonna keep it in my room tonight. Well, I let her keep it in her room, but I snuck in around, (LAUGHS) when she was sleeping. I heard her snoring and I went in, and I looked, and I would like to have a trustworthy relationship with my daughter, but also let her know that I am here, you know she’s eleven, she’s gonna be twelve in a couple of weeks and it’s such a fine line of privacy. I want her to have her own private experiences with her friends, but I also wanna know what’s going on and need to know what’s going on and I think parents, everyone, all the parents, I hope are looking at their children’s phones because we need to monitor and you know

KRIS  Yes

RENEE  Does Simone have a phone?

KRIS  Oh yeah. Everything you’re saying is something that we go through over here too, and I think this modern age with technology and you and I, I know, have traditional values, and you know want those things, that our girls have and yet they will never know what it’s like not to have a phone or a computer. They are growing up in this time and so we’re navigating it too, I feel, we’re figuring it out as we go along

RENEE  So how much privacy do you give her? What do you, do you look at her phone?

KRIS  Well, yeah. The password, everything, that’s our agreement as well and that trust issue is very key as well as you talked about

RENEE  Well, she said to me today, speaking of the rolled eyes, I won’t trust you. I won’t trust you anymore. And that really hurt, because I want her to trust me and I want her to know that I’m there for her

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  But, I don’t, I put myself in her place, and I think like, I don’t want somebody spying on me, or looking at everything I say and do and write, you know.

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  What I said to Paul this morning is I think I need to pick my battles, as far as I don’t think I should of told her that I looked. I should of just looked and choose when to tell her, if something comes up that is actually more important that is who likes who. And I said to her, we don’t have any secrets in this house.

KRIS  Yeah, exactly

RENEE  Yeah

KRIS  It sounds like a song title, We Don’t Have Any Secrets in This House

RENEE  (LAUGHS) It’s a country song, yeah.

KRIS  Your songs, they sound like they’re inspired from grace and that higher creativity place. How much of your songs are influenced by the vulnerability and strength of spirituality?

RENEE  Hmm, I you know, write what comes to me and sometimes I’ll have like a specific situation that I want to write about, or if I’m writing for a record. I’m doing a new record right now call Kindred, which is a follow-up to my first record, Renee and Friends Record, which is Simpatico, but this is more about family and friends, and my kids are actually on this record as well, and so, I feel inspired to write songs now to, It’s always about unconditional love and universal love, just love from a parent to a child, but from a person to a dog, just anything that you love, you know

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  And I think I write a lot from love, and so, I try to. I writing a song right now, called Leaders of the World, I wrote with my friend Jennifer Paskow and Tom Rossi and it’s just about empowerment, this specific song, about trusting your heart and being your own leader and I’m really inspired by the young children and young adults of today right now with all the movements with you know, gun violence, just people speaking up and being passionate, so that’s what’s inspiring me right now, but I really just try to listen to whatever is coming through, and sometimes I never really know what I’m gonna write about, I’ll just pick up the guitar and start seeing what happens, right, it’s always different

KRIS  Well, it’s kind of like you had mentioned once being a catcher of songs, and I love that, it’s like poetry in motion, they just download to you

RENEE  It’s exactly what it feels like. I do feel. I don’t feel responsible, I feel responsible to carry it. It’s almost like a song carrier. I just did this course of song leading which I’m gonna start doing some song circles

KRIS  Oh, great

RENEE  Just bringing people together who call themselves singers and who don’t, and just people who love to sing, and singing together, I thinks it’s really, really important. Everyone’s so busy on their computers and their phones and being, going. You look and go to Starbucks and everybody’s in their own little world, you know. You go anywhere. I was in a coffee shop the other day and there were ten people in there and seven of them were looking down onto their phones, and so I really feel we need more connection and more looking each other in the eye, and singing together is such a beautiful and vulnerable, but beautiful thing to do, and I’m really excited, so I took this course, and a lot of the songs that are coming through me right now are songs with double melody and with parts and rounds that people can sing together which I’m really excited about

KRIS  Let’s circle back around to, you had mentioned bringing your girls into the studio. What’s it like bringing them in and singing with you?

RENEE  Oh it’s so much fun (DOG BARKS IN BACKGROUND) We sing together at home all the time. I’ll sing to them things like, (SINGS) Put you clothes away, and they’ll say (SINGS) I don’t want to right now

KRIS  (LAUGHS)

RENEE  You know. We sing everything. (DOG BARKS) Oh, Tallulah’s singing

KRIS  Yeah, (LAUGHS)

RENEE  Awww

KRIS  Ooh

RENEE  So, it’s really fun. We’re doing, they’ve written some songs, and we’re singing songs together. Amelia’s singing lead on a couple of songs, and it’s incredible. It’s incredible to have sung to them and with them my whole life, and now they’re gonna be on this record with me, so it’s pretty amazing. I’m excited

KRIS  Yeah, I’m excited to hear it. Share about the song, or the story behind I Wanna Be the Music.

RENEE  I Wanna Be the Music is a song, I was in LA. I was at a traffic light, and I looked over, and somebody was in their car next to me, and his windows were up and he was singing, You could just tell this guy was having so much fun singing. I don’t know what he was listening to, it didn’t matter. I just saw this silent movie of this guy singing so passionately, and I thought to myself, I wanna be the music in that car. I wish whatever he’s listening to, I wanna make people feel that good, and the song started out, I wanna be the music in your car, and then I wrote it with a friend of mine, and it turned into a love song. It was right at the beginning when I met Paul, and it turned into I wanna be the music in your heart, and it just kind of switched and it was inspired by that, and moved into a different direction.

(MUSIC PLAYS) Close your eyes, can you hear it now, isn’t it nice. I wanna be the music in your heart, I wanna be the music in your head. I wanna be the music that you think of before you go to bed

KRIS  Along with the solo songs that you write, or have written, you also write children’s music. How did all of those projects come about?

RENEE  Well, when I was pregnant, I had the idea to do a lullaby record, and reached out to my friend Jeremy Tobak, and I was looking for original songs that people had written and I knew he had a beautiful lullaby called Welcome to This World, and he came over and played it for me, and I thought there’s no way I can sing that song, he sang it so beautifully and Paul said why don’t you do a record with Jeremy, and I ended up on bed rest for about two weeks when I was pregnant and Jeremy came over every day, sat next to my bed and we wrote songs that we ended up recording two weeks before Amelia was born in her nursery, and it turned out, being pregnant and singing to my unborn child was just, I remember that feeling of just holding my belly and singing just everything I wanted her to feel and know and, so I started writing lullaby’s and we continued on to make four more records, and it’s been a beautiful experience. I love writing songs for children and families, it’s just so

KRIS  Yeah, they really translate to families and adults. They’re not just enjoyed by the little ones, ya know, the bigger ones.

RENEE  Well, we actually made music that we want to hear. We made music for parents. We made songs that we wanted to hear, and they’re people who buy our music who don’t even have children, so we were just trying to make good music and it just translated into the kindie world. They call it kindie

KRIS  Oh cute. Tell us about the song Night Mantra

RENEE  Night Mantra, a lot of the times Jeremy would come over and he would just start playing the guitar and I would just start singing, this one came, a mantra is a song you sing over and over again, almost like a meditation or a chant, and we just started singing, I will be your home, I will be your guide, I will be a friend, always on your side. (MUSIC PLAYS) I will be your home, I will be your guide, I will be a friend, always on your side. Sleep now in your room, quiet of the night, surrounded by the moon, til you see the light, I will be you home

RENEE  Some songs come in five minutes, and some songs you’re just racking your brain, and you’re working too hard, and that one came very quickly, and that was just a mantra we sang over and over and over again, I love that song

KRIS  I do too. You’ve managed to keep yourself pointed toward possibility, even when life sucks and things aren’t going well. I know it isn’t always easy, but I’ve known you to be a woman who doesn’t let life’s challenges get in the way. Take us back to a time when life wasn’t always like that. Take us back to when you wrote the song Genius

RENEE  Well, Genius is a song I wrote, I remember my Dad had written me a letter, and I lost a brother when I was twelve. He was my half brother. He was twenty when he died and he committed suicide. And my Dad wrote me a letter and on the back of the letter I was just inspired to write a letter to my brother, and I worked through so many emotions and anger and grief through so many years of therapy and suicide prevention groups, survivors, and just did so much work on healing, and but that song helped me heal in so many ways because I wasn’t editing in my songwriting at all, and sometimes I find, you know, you write songs like, what do you want people to hear? What do I wanna say? What’s gonna sound good? And that one I wasn’t writing, I was writing for me and though nobody’s ever gonna hear this, and I picked up the guitar, I found some chords, and I just sang the letter, and I played it for a friend, and he said, we should go record that tomorrow. And we ended up doing that and a very vulnerable time, and a vulnerable song (MUSIC PLAYS) But how did you know that it’s time to be leaving and how could you not say goodbye and go, but how could you not touch the ground when you’re falling, and how…

RENEE  It’s, it’s hard sometimes because, you know, my Dad doesn’t like it when I sing that, or when I would sing it in my shows, and you know it’s, I had to be honest of what was coming through for me and

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  Yeah. And my daughter’s about to be twelve so it’s so interesting seeing her the age that I was when he died

KRIS  hmmm

RENEE  It’s such a time when your body’s changing and you’re turning into a young adult and it was such a, and I really, I don’t really feel anyone was really there for me the way I needed it at that time. You know everyone tried, and everybody tries to help in their own ways, but yeah it was really a powerful experience

KRIS  Yeah, and sometimes kind of the lone journey, that only you can go through, and come out the other side, or not, you know, I mean there’s, grief is such a strange animal in and of itself, but what was your relationship like with him at the time? Were you close?

RENEE  We were close, I mean, he was, he was a musician, so I had that in common with him, and he was, I called him my protector, like I would go to him if my other brother was, we were fighting, and he was beating me up, I’d go to him and say, you know, get him! (LAUGHS) He wasn’t really there that often. He had some mental issues and he, so he wasn’t in my life constantly and it was a little confusing to me when I was growing up, because I didn’t know where he was. I think they tried to keep, It’s so interesting when you try to keep this from your children, you know, the information, but I felt like I knew things anyway and I was so curious and I wanted to know what was happening, so I think it’s important to be honest with your children and tell them, but not tell them everything, but let them know. We were close, but our age gap was so extreme

KRIS  Yes

RENEE  Yeah

KRIS  It sounds like even though, you know, you were, you went through that, your songwriting was a healing outlet in some way, maybe it wasn’t even formed or developed at that point. What was that like for you when you were younger, were you, what kind of things did you like? Did you like singing?

RENEE  Oh I loved singing. I’ve been singing since I was six or seven. My Mom said I would walk around the house with a hairbrush and sing into the hair brush and in the mirror, you know how you like to look in the mirror and sing to yourself

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  And I would write songs and I was in a singing group in Cleveland called the singing angels when I was seven and then I did plays, musical theater. I loved musical theater and belting and it’s so funny, I would do that and now I doing like quiet lullaby’s, you know. But I still, I love singing. You know my girls and I sing songs so loudly in the car to like Hamilton and Chorus Line, um, so yeah I sang since I was very young, but I remember sharing this story with you, I would write songs in my room, and tape them, and I wrote a song for my Mother, and I was so excited, it was a little cheesy but I was just telling her how much I love her and how great she was, and then my brother found the song, the tape, and he took it and he played it for his friends and blasted it and I was so embarrassed and here I was being vulnerable and sweet and just having these unedited moments and then he took it and played it for them, and I shut down and I stopped singing for a little while, I didn’t write songs for awhile, I was just so afraid that somebody was gonna hear my inner most thoughts and take them from me

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  And I remember you sharing that story with me about your sister

KRIS  Ah yeah, that was from a time, I hadn’t thought about that in so long, and it just instantly took me back to the situation when I was, maybe I was six or seven, and I had a diary. It had a little lock on it. I think it was like, Polly Pocket, or something, I don’t know, it was

RENEE  ah ha (LAUGHS) Holly Hobbie?

KRIS  Yes, Holly Hobbie, yes Holly Hobbie. I don’t think Polly Pockets were invented yet. Anyway, um, she read my diary, she opened it, read it, and teased me about how much I had a crush on Bill Bixby, from the Courtship of Eddie’s Father, and I

RENEE  (LAUGHS) oh my god

KRIS  And I loved him. You’d think I’d have a crush on his son, cause we were probably the same age, but I don’t know it was just their relationship I had a crush on. They were so sweet

RENEE  You should look him up. Maybe he’s, maybe he’s… single

KRIS  (LAUGHS)

RENEE  Can you imagine, you end up with Bill Bixby’s son?

KRIS  (LAUGHS) oh my god. That was an interesting moment that you and I had in those reflections, the wall of shame, you know, but even though I shut down too, I came back, now I publicly display all of my inner everything on my blog now, but, and it’s gotta come out somehow and, you know if it’s meant to be and the trajectory of the, you know then it will find its way

RENEE  Well, I love, I love your Phoenix from the ashes of how people are trying to push us down and there’s nothing they can do. He I am writing songs and putting out records and here you are writing and putting your stuff out there, and you know, you can have things that might affect you and people trying to stop you, but if it’s meant to be, it really, and you push through, I think it’s important to know that there’s nothing that can stop it.

KRIS  Yeah, and it, exactly. I agree. You have such an amazing community of friends. You surround yourself with many kind and loving people, and its no surprise there’s so many that showed up on your Renee and Friend’s album. Tell us about the song, You Were Meant to Be with Geln Phillips

RENEE  You were meant to be, oh I love that song so much, um Glen and I shared the same manager. We had the same manager with Renee and Jeremy and I reached out to him. Glen has the most incredible voice, his songwriting is incredible and I made a list of people that I would love to be on that record, my first record and my producer, Rich Jacques and I both shared a love for Toad the Wet Sprocket and I reached out and we got together, we drove to Santa Barbara and wrote the song and it started with a title, You Were Meant to Be, and we just wrote from there and it turned out to be such a beautiful song of, you know, some people walk around feeling like they’re a mistake and they shouldn’t have been born, and I just love that sentiment of you were meant to be here, and you have every reason to be here and, it’s just, we also wrote it from a time, from a place, where Glen was going through a divorce at the time, it came from there also, I think it was also like a love song, to himself in a way, you know you can sing it to yourself, not just to somebody else.

(MUSIC PLAYS) Can’t promise you the moon and stars, but on a clear night we can go out in the yard, lay upon the grass beneath the sky, and count the shooting stars and satellites. I can’t promise you won’t need to cry, but I’ll help you wipe the tears from your eyes, if there’s one thing that you want to know is true, please don’t forget that, you were meant to be here, through hard days and sweet years, through laughter and warm tears, you were meant to be here, you were meant to be here, you were meant to be. I can’t promise everyone will see how beautiful you are, how bright and free. For all the many changes you go through, you can’t forget that you were meant to be here, through hard days and sweet years, through laughter and warm tears, you were meant to be here, you were meant to be here, you were meant to spin through summers, fears and wonders, trust your heart dear, you were meant to be here, through hard days and sweet years, through laughter and warm tears, you were meant to be here, you were meant to be here, you were meant to be here, through long days and short years, through questions and happy tears, you were meant to be here, you were meant to be here, you were meant be

KRIS  It’s beautiful. Your renditions of the songs with Maya Rudolph and Molly Shannon make my heart so happy when I listen to them. How did those songs come about?

RENEE  Well, Maya is a huge Prince fan, in fact, she has a Prince cover band called Princess, and Starfish and Coffee is a Prince song, and she’s a Mom at the school that my older daughter went to in Los Angeles, and we were singing in a little Mom group at the school and I told her I was working on the record, and wanted to do Starfish and Coffee, and she said, yeah. And Molly Shannon I grew up with in Cleveland Ohio, and we did plays together, in fact, we did You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, and she was Snoopy while I was Lucy, and Happiness is such a beautiful song, and it’s a song we sang in the play, we used to take it around to nursing homes in Cleveland, and she’s so much fun, so funny, I just love her. I’ve known her since I was ten years old, and just felt like the right song for us to do together. It’s really her singing and I just love the ending.

KRIS  I do too

RENEE  The only part of the song that I’m on is her saying my name, of her giggling in the end is my favorite part of the whole song

KRIS  So beautiful, me too

RENEE  Yeah

KRIS  You and your husband Paul created a beautiful sanctuary and living environment where you gather with friends and family, sing songs, you share delicious meals, and play. Walk us through what happened when the mud slides hit your house and the Montecito community in Santa Barbara

RENEE  Well, we moved here officially four years ago, and bought a house about nine years ago, and were’t even planning on moving here, just we had a house on the weekends we’d come to and invite friends and our house is open to family and friends, and then in January, we were staying with a friend, hearing that the rains were coming, and took my girls and our dog over to a friends house, actually the night before the actual mud slide, and had no idea how our house was effected until some neighbors went over and got our cat who was luckily alive and totally freaked out, and took pictures of our house, and it was devastating, absolutely traumatizing, and devastating to see three to four feet of mud filling our whole house, boulders going through the house, and landscape completely destroyed, and it’s just something that we built and moved here to, you know, raise our family, and just completely devastating, shocking and devastating. We are in the process of rebuilding. It’s actually our second flood, which I kinda giggle about now, because it’s laughable, it’s kind of even hard to believe. A plumber didn’t connect the pipe correctly, and when we first moved here, we had another flood, so I feel like I’m just touring different houses in the neighborhoods, and

KRIS  Amazing

RENEE  You know, it’s such a lesson for me of letting go of things and my plans and just having to accept where I am and such a, but also, letting myself grieve and cry and scream and hit my pillow and be angry and let myself go through the emotions, and say, you know, this sucks. You know

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  And try to help my girls have their own feelings and say, you know, I wanna go home. And, you know, just knowing that our home is together, and that we are stronger from it and more flexible from it

KRIS  Yeah, what an amazing valuable lesson that you don’t wanna have to necessarily teach right in the heart of it, but the outcome is so, for them to carry forward in their lives to know that they’re resilient, and they can move past those kind of things, is so invaluable, priceless

RENEE  But I have to tell you, this community is incredible, really incredible, and I know people might have their own ideas of Montecito, but this, there are people, community members, taking out their own shovels, the bucket brigade, and going and shoveling in people’s yards and driveways, and collecting things and there’s a group on facebook that would post things that they found, everything from our garage left and was down, washed away down the creeks, down to the ocean, and just away, probably in the ocean, everything. And think about things that you keep in your garage, so it’s like keepsakes, kids art, clothes, you know, pictures, just whatever you, people keep in their garage. That’s what we kept

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  And, ah, I shared this story with you, which is, I was scrolling through this website on facebook, and I, something caught my eyes, and my heart stopped, I couldn’t believe it. There was a doll that was found, like ten miles across on the beach, pretty far, that somebody had posted, and that was Amelia’s doll

KRIS  Ah, it’s amazing

RENEE  She had since she was one, and I could not believe it, that somebody found it, cleaned it up, and posted it, and the post had been posted about, somebody said, about 10,000 times, maybe, I could be wrong on that number, but several several times people were, who’s dollie is this? People wanted to find the little girl who belonged to that doll. (LAUGHS)

KRIS  (LAUGHS)

RENEE  And little did they know, she was grown and that was a keepsake, but we did end up meeting the woman who found the doll and we got it back, and just that, that to me is a beautiful story, finding, you know that’s the only thing we found from

KRIS  It’s a miracle

RENEE  From what was lost

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  Yeah, it was

KRIS  It’s such a great story, it gives those little, those little moments of hope and inspiration, and it’s amazing

RENEE  And connection to this woman I’ve never met before

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  But who found this, and cleaned it up, and she was so sweet and, just, it was so caring, so loving, and it actually brought joy to people’s hearts, that the doll was found, and that the owners found it, like people wanted that doll to be reunited with whoever lost it

KRIS  Yeah, such a sweet story, and when we spoke after, soon after all that, and there was another big storm near me in northern California, and I asked if the rain came down south to you because the last thing you needed was more rain, and you said, rain is good, we need rain, and I loved what you said and how, in that moment, you know, how do you stay optimistic, or move forward when life is so difficult and scary to do so. How did you do that?

RENEE  I feel like that’s my default, my optimism, you know I feel like I go there, but I try not to go there in a false way. I try to let myself have my feelings, and I think I eventually end up in the optimism

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  But we do, rain helps things grow, we need it and to not push it away, or say it’s bad, but you know, it’s gonna be helpful and to not be afraid of it, you know

KRIS  Yeah

RENEE  I hope it rains again, we need things to grow, to grow back up on the mountain, and help

KRIS  Yeah, Renee, thank you so much for bringing us into a snapshot of your life, and it’s comforting to know there’s people like you, who give their voice to making a difference in the world

RENEE  Thank you so much Kris. This is truly a pleasure. I really, I love you so much.

KRIS  I love you too

RENEE  Thank you so much for asking me to do this

KRIS  Yeah. Where can people find your music?

RENEE  On Amazon, on iTunes, CD Baby I think still has some CD’s, if people are still listening to CD’s. Spotify, YouTube, we have a YouTube channel, it’s called One Melody Records, reneeandfriendscom, reneeandjeremycom

KRIS  That’s great, I’ll put all the links in the show notes to, so people can find you

RENEE  Okay

KRIS  It’s just, thank you, thank you so much for being here

RENEE  Thank you, thank you

(MUSIC PLAYING)

KRIS  If you like this episode, then please share the love, leave a comment, or write a review, and subscribe too. I thank you. Go to krisadamslife for more of life’s inspirations. From my heart to yours, sending all good things.