>> Who do you want to work with that you haven't met yet?
>> Alright, Stevie Wonder, where you at, man?
Stevie Wonder, where you at?
[MUSIC].
>> I am Pat Healy and welcome to 4/4,
where we get in rhythm with our guest by asking four reverent questions and four
not-so-reverent questions.
Our guest is Brittany Davis.
Their debut EP is
“I Choose to Live,”
out now on Loose Groove Records.
They are also a member of the band
Painted Shield with Stone Gossard and Matt Cameron of Pearl Jam.
Hi, Brittany. Welcome.
>> Hi. I'm so glad to be here.
>> Good, me too. Were you a Pearl Jam fan before you met Stone Gossard?
>> Honestly, no.
I had no idea how dynamic and expansive he was sonically,
he'll tell you otherwise,
he'll say, "Oh,
I just do my part,”
but he's always pushing the songs further.
Even with Painted Shield,
I think it can have more room here.
I think he could have more sonic presence here.
He's always pushing the envelope.
I could hear that when I started listening to Pearl Jam's music.
Okay, [people may say] it's rock, it's Pearl Jam. But you know what?
Some of those songs have
these modulations and the timbres that somebody is expanding and pushing for it.
I just felt like,
"Hey, I didn't know this was here.”
>> How did you first become friends with Stone Gossard?
>> We have this beautiful friend named Om Johari,
who actually introduced me to Stone Gossard at a Pearl Jam concert.
She had been telling him about me for some time.
Eventually, once he heard me play,
and saw me create, he was like smitten,
and we've been friends ever since.
>> It's interesting how
with the Painted Shield records there's the first one and you can hear you on there a bit.
But then with the next group of songs that I've heard,
there's A LOT more Brittany Davis on it.
>> The first album,
a great friend—Om Johari, actually—was like
“Let Brittany sing backup!
We gonna sing backups on this one.”
We did, and they loved it,
and so I actually joined the band.
The second album, we actually did a lot of file-sharing, all kinds of good stuff.
We just added our pieces and remotely,
that's why you hear more of me.
It's because I was making up key parts and drum parts, and sending them in.
That was a lot of beautiful magic happening during that time.
>> With the pandemic, magic was hard to come by around that time too.
>> Yeah, it really was.
>> You address a lot of the pandemic in the lyrics of the “I Choose to Live” EP.
>> The first song, “I Choose to Live” was definitely a pandemic baby.
The reason why is because all of the pandemic—
not just the actual loss of life,
but the loss of community—
it really hit me how much we all needed an anthem,
how much I needed an anthem,
a reminder to continue life despite the trials.
It was a beautiful moment for me.
It was like a release.
When I was in the thick of the pandemic,
I didn't know quite how to do music.
I just was this hurricane of emotions and I didn't know, I was scared.
I was like, "What is it?
What happens to me after this?
What happens to all of us?"
As things started to change,
we started to turn a corner.
Vaccinations became available,
I was like, "We're pushing through though,”
and I just wanted to be a cheerleader and cheer people past that breaking point,
and I finally was able to release all of those emotions through,
“I Choose to Live,” the EP and song.
>> Listening to some of your earlier work on YouTube and stuff that's out there.
It's terrific, but it's not nearly as YOU as this collection of songs.
What has been your journey to embracing your authentic self?
The way that you sing about yourself is
so personal yet there's something universal about it.
How did you arrive from point A to point B?
>> Well, the truth is,
I never have to worry about creativity or the change of the journey.
I just become whatever the sound is, and so,
the more authentic I became with myself,
the more my music became authentic.
And it started with just feeling invisible in the early days.
In feeling like I didn't have a voice,
I didn't have a face, I didn't have a name.
But as I grew and I began to experience love for my community, love for myself,
and love for AND FROM the art that I made with and for people,
I began to really experience another level of being,
and that changed the way that I gave my music to people.
Like I've said, my friend Om Johari,
who also is a musician herself,
introduced me to a lot of different ways of sonic expression.
It helped me come out of my shell with this EP and
gain confidence in what was possible sonically for me and through my voice,
putting on characters,
putting on personas,
expanding beyond what was expected.
Okay, everybody wants to hear the big beautiful woman sing really loud and really hard.
But what happens when the non-binary,
big, beautiful person sings, but they sing soft,
like “Loud Loud World,” expanding and extending beyond
the expectation of gaudiness in vocal range and timbre.
Sometimes it's polite, sometimes it's ugly and mean and just grrr and that's okay.
That's what life is.
Anyway, it's beautiful.
I always say that I'm a vessel of sound.
Being that vessel of sound,
I become what I create, basically.
>> I like how you say you are a vessel of sound.
I'd read another one where you'd said a “translator of sonic divinity.”
>> Yes.
>> I love that. How do you get in that zone to translate the divine, sonically?
>> Oh, that's deep. You want to go there?
>> Yeah, definitely!
>> Well, the truth is,
it's not about me in that moment.
It is about the divine.
That means that I'm not there.
Sometimes I'm performing,
and you see my body or hear my mouth,
but somebody way higher than me is speaking.
I believe in God,
I believe in Christianity,
and I trust in God, who gives life and creates life,
and therefore, I am the life created.
Therefore, creator is speaking through me.
>> We're gonna do some silly questions now because we were just pretty deep.
[LAUGHTER] We’ve got to have a range here.
>> Okay. [LAUGHTER]
>> Because that's life.
>> Yeah.
>> If you could play a prank on a historical figure,
who would it be and what would you do?
>> What's the one dude's name? “The British are coming”?
>> Paul Revere!
>> Man, I don't know why, but if somebody
was running through my neighborhood doing something like that,
I probably would have had some of them boxing glove
hands, just like POP! knock him in the face.
[LAUGHTER] “The British are … PSHHHT Man. Shut up, man. Come on, man.”
>> What a different world that would be.
What is your favorite topping on pizza?
>> [LAUGHTER] Yeah, pizza is something that I could just go on for hours about.
I like Hawaiian pizza.
Let's just keep it like that.
I like pineapples and ham on my pizza. It’s GOOD!
>> I like it too. It's not for everybody though.
What was the first song you learned to play on your own without anybody teaching you?
>> You are going to laugh at me [LAUGHTER] It was “Winnie the Pooh.”
>> Alright, What happened?
>> I learned how to play it and I played it for my teachers and
everybody was laughing at first because they thought it was the keyboard playing.
But when they found out it was me they was like, "Wait a minute,
this two-year-old is actually playing this song." [LAUGHTER]
>> You were two?
>> Yeah. [LAUGHTER].
>> Wow!
>> They were like, "Wait, we can't believe this is happening.
Wait. Hold on." They called my granny and granny is like, "Yeah,
but she's just like hitting on the keys and going [SINGING] ‘Winnie, the Pooh’”
Nope. I was playing it with the flatted 6th, I believe.
>> If you could do the soundtrack of any movie,
like redo it, what would it be?
>> Oh, you know wha I would probably redo is “Rush Hour.”
>> “Rush Hour”?! With Jackie Chan?
>> Yeah.
>> That'd be cool. That'll be your next project.
>> [LAUGHTER] Copyright!
>> Brittany, thank you so much for your time.
I appreciate you being here today and chatting with us.
>> I appreciate you taking your time.
This was a great interview. [MUSIC].