By Dave Bangert
Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN) | June 30, 1992
Lisa Germano is free with the word “stupid,” especially when it comes to anything she’s doing.
The diminutive violinist, best known for her work with John Mellencamp, cringed through the Scarecrow tour, her first line of duty with the Hossier rocker’s troupe.
Dubbing the 1986 ordeal the “Scare Lisa Tour,” Germano says the whole experience just made her feel stupid and out of place.
When she recorded her captivating, haunting solo debut a year ago, Germano did nearly all the work herself, too afraid to invite other musicians into the studio. “I didn’t want to call anyone in because I wasn’t sure about my singing or my ideas,” the self-conscious 34-year-old Bohemian says during a stop on Mellencamp’s current Whenever We Wanted tour.
“I wasn’t sure whether everything was stupid or not.”
The tour visits Deer Creek Music Center, northeast of Indianapolis, tonight, Wednesday and Friday. A free concert, for those holding ticket stubs from the earlier shows, is set for Saturday.
Now, with a deal with Capitol Records and a new record due in early 1993, Germano is figuring out that people don’t think her idea of cool is quite as stupid as she once thought it was.
“I got some pretty good reviews, which was pretty surprising. So I guess I wasn’t so stupid after all,” Germano says about her self-produced On the Way Down from the Moon Palace. “I learned that you can’t be in it to impress people. You have to do things the way you think they ought to be.”
Before she hooked up with Mellencamp, Germano was about to give up on what was turning into a horrid musical career. The daughter of the orchestra director in Mishawaka, Ind., Germano started playing violin at age 7. After a few boring bouts of waitressing, she wound up in the Little Nashville Opry house band. She spent time there learning hundreds of country standards and wearing what she called Hee Haw outfits. She hated the job, determined to treat it with the same desire she put into waiting tables.
But there she met Kenny Aronoff, Mellencamp’s drummer and a Little Nashville alumnus. He was there looking for ideas for Mellencamp’s upcoming record, Scarecrow. Germano and Aronoff clicked, and a year later she drummer recommended her for an acoustic version of the Mellencamp song, “Small Town.”
From there, Germano’s fiddling became a distinctive part of Mellencamp’s granger turns on Lonesome Jubilee and Big Daddy. Since then, she has worked with U2, Bob Seger, Simple Minds and Billy Joel. She says she loves working with Mellencamp and the rest, but she admits she wants more.
“I always want to play with John,” Germano says. “It’s not that I want to just do that, it’s just thaht I want to do both. I have ideas of my own and John’s supported that.”
Moon Palace was the first clue of Germano’s budding independence.
In Eskimo mythology, the Moon Palace is the icy palace where women are protected and provided for, living a life of passive beauty and reflected glory. It’s a silent existence where women never participate, where there’s no failing, where there’s no feeling.
Germano’s vision was exquisite, very much different than her work with Mellencamp, with tiny musicbox melodies, fairy tale moodiness and drunken rambling lyrics. Rolling Stone sang her praises and Spin magazine called Moon Palace brilliant.
The record still is available in limited release around Indiana. Much easier to find are the two tracks she provided for Mellencamp’s Falling From Grace soundtrack this year.
After Moon Palace, record companies started clamoring for Germano’s services. She signed with Capitol in late 1991 and is recording her major label debut between legs of the Mellencamp tour. She’s working in New Orleans with producer Malcolm Burn, who has worked with Chris Whitley, the Neville Brothers and Daniel Lanois.
“Malcolm and I, we both have ideas,” she says. “We’re both real ‘feel people,’ but there’s a real power struggle there. So far, so good, so maybe it’ll pay off.”
The working title is Everyone’s Victim, and idea Germano thinks she’s starting to get around.
“You know the kind of people I’m talking about who give up on themselves,” Germano explains. “I don’t know how to explain it, you know, but where you’re not a victim because anybody’s abusing you or anything. You’re a victim because it’s a lot easier to wimp out on yourself. I think everyone thinks like that once in awhile. The title is about the anger of letting it happen.”
Which of course, Germano says, is pretty stupid.
