What’s Your Sign? Diana DeGarmo on Her New Album, Gemini JAMES GRADY
Diana Degarmo is perhaps most widely known as the runner-up on Season Three of American Idol, but she’s also become a beloved stage presence, appearing on and off Broadway and touring nationally with various shows. She also has a long-term relationship with Nashville. Having done a stint here a decade ago, she and husband Ace Young have now lived here for a few years. Last month, nearly fifteen years after her debut Blue Skies, Degarmo released her second full-length album, Gemini. Tell me about this newest project, Gemini. All right, Gemini is my newest album that has been three years--well, technically 15 years--in the making. But three years, I guess from the moment we really started writing it. I finally got the nerve to just say what I wanted to say and do what I wanted to do and quit trying to please other people. I wanted to just please myself, and thought, if I was going to make one more record, and I was going to die tomorrow, what would I want to leave the world? What would I want my legacy to be or my impression on this world? So many of the people I look up to musically have these incredible albums I used to love... And I wanted to do that for myself, selfishly, but also in a giving way. So I got together with my dear friend, Dylan Glatthorn, out of New York, and I told him I wanted to meld my Southern roots with my musical theatre career… It was fun to just create, there was no one sitting in a suit in a big office building somewhere we had to please. There was no timeline, there was no... We were just creating to create, which I think has been lost in our industry. I get it, we all need to pay our bills. Everyone wants to be popular because that’s what helps. But at the end of the day, the artists I’ve always looked up to didn’t always care about being popular. They wanted to be authentic and true to themselves. And that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a record that, when you listen to it, you’re like that’s Diana DeGarmo, that’s who she is 100 percent. My friend put an incredible band together for me. And I was like, “Okay, what’s your rate?” He was like, “I know you really
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can’t afford.” But I said, “Nope. I want to give you guys what you’re worth, because I know everyone is giving their time and energy but that little bit of extra respect, I think, really let people bring themselves to the record. It wasn’t just a day in the office for them. They knew how important it was to me, and how important the day was. This was not some big bank writing a check and no one’s going to care about the details. This was someone whose blood, sweat and tears were paying for those hours. It was magical to hear these songs that Dylan I had written on just piano ... you know, the magic of Nashville musicians... Oh my God, there’s really no way to fully describe it. But to see these songs transform instantaneously in front of me at Blackbird was, I think, one of the top three days of my life. It’s just been a big family affair for a love letter to Nashville and New York, I guess you might say. So many people do come to Nashville and start working on a career. What do you what do you attribute your ability to make it in this scene to? Relationships. I wasn’t worried about being famous when I came to Nashville. I wanted to meet people and build true, honest relationships. Those will stand the test of time: popularity will come and go celebrity will come and go, money will come and go, but true friendships will stand the test of time... And that’s actually a testament to this record. So much of this record has been created on relationships with people that, when we met, we were babies! Dylan was at NYU, he was in college, and I met him… Relationships are important. And so many people forget that the human element of art is so important. Just keeping the heart and the human element will make sure that the art is created in the best way. Tell me a little bit about your connections with theater here in Nashville and how that’s been for you. My husband and I moved back in 2013. I was lucky that I had made some great friend-
