The acclaimed singer-songwriter is playing her first North Texas show since 2009 at the Majestic Theatre on Aug. 6 as part of her Midsummer Daydream Tour. She has since released three full-length records, written and performed commissioned songs for a formidable slate of Golden Globe-nominated productions (most notably Orange is the New Black, for which she wrote and performed the theme), and even made her Broadway debut with a 2019 residency at the Lunt-Fontanne.
With achievements of this sort accounting for such a long interval, we had many questions prepared for our conversation with Spektor, but regrettably, our inquiries had to be brief since unanticipated time constraints arose during the interview.
In that short time, we discussed her professional ties to two acclaimed local artists: producer extraordinaire John Congleton and Spektor’s own touring drummer, McKenzie Smith (Midlake, St. Vincent).
“They're both wonderful, wonderful men and very talented and very brilliant and funny and kind,” Spektor says over a Zoom call. “I just love good people, and I like people that value art and are curious.”
Spektor’s ties to Smith came during the production of her 2009 album Far. Producer and frequent collaborator David Kahne commissioned Smith as a percussionist for some of the recordings, and he had since remained in her orbit.
Spektor says she met Congleton at the insistence of colleagues. After the two had lunch, Spektor was commissioned to write the end-credit song to the 2019 movie Bombshell. She had Congleton in mind, and the result was the track “One Little Soldier.” Following this creative success, Spektor and Congleton once again collaborated for her eighth and most recent full-length album, 2022’s Home, Before and After.
Like many records at that godforsaken time, Home, Before and After was recorded remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I remember being in New York,” Spektor recalls. “We got hit before L.A. I remember talking to John, and he was like, ‘I think I could still fly out and come and we could still record together.’
"And I was like, ‘I don't think you understand, John. Like, it's getting crazy here. I don't think anybody's going to be flying anywhere pretty soon.’”
Spektor remembers the process of recording with Congleton, which was an “insane way to make music.”
“In one way, it was crazy-making and tedious, because you're literally sitting there for hours together, remotely listening to something through one program while looking at each other's faces through another program while being like, 'OK, two minutes and 32 seconds and 14 milliseconds, the breath that comes underneath the hi-hat needs to be like a deeply quiet,'” she says, adding, “In another way, it was actually really lovely because it's kind of like writing art letters to each other.”
In the end, Spektor says, it was a big learning experience that led her to make these records.
“When I listen, it's not like I could hear the remoteness of it on the record itself, like everything feels very normal,” Spektor says. “We were recording an orchestra in Macedonia while John and Jherek Bischoff, who helped arrange it, was in L.A. They were on, up at 3 a.m. on these four different programs. We were looking at the score on one thing, listening on another thing and talking yet still on another thing. It's 6 a.m. in New York. It's 3 a.m. in L.A. Macedonia had some kind of a normaler time, and in the end, it just works.”
More recently, Spektor has been promoting this record alongside a re-release of five other records that have been out-of-print and in high demand for years: 2006’s Begin to Hope, Far, 2012’s What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, 2016’s Remember Us to Life, and her 2010 fan-favorite live album Live in London.
“I don't like shortages,” Spektor says. “Maybe it's [me] coming from the Soviet Union, but it's like, rations and bread lines just don't feel great. So whenever I hear from people being like, ‘I really want this record and it's out of print,’ or, ‘This thing is not out,’ I'm always trying really hard to make sure it all becomes available.
“What was really fun about these is first of all, the quality is just really, really good. Secondly, the colors. It's funny. I used to just be like, 'No, if it's anything other than black or clear, it's gonna have fidelity issues.' But they sound really good and they're so beautiful. I actually experienced this thing when they arrived just for me to look at them, listen and test them. And the colors are just so gorgeous. They actually make you happy. I completely had the feeling of like, 'Oh, wow. This is just beautiful.'”
After wondering if people would play these vinyls or display them at home since we're in the streaming era, Spektor just wanted to satisfy her fans' demands. “To me, it was more like, 'If you want to have it and I can provide it, I definitely want to give you the thing that you want to have, you know, especially my songs,'” she says. “So that was what made me really happy, just to be like, 'My entire catalog is out. And if anybody has ever wanted to listen to this particular record on vinyl, now they can just have it.'”
Regina Spektor will perform on Wednesday, Aug. 6, at 8 p.m. at Majestic Theatre, 1925 Elm Street, Dallas, TX, 75201. Tickets are available starting at $78.31 on axs.com and $89.00 on StubHub.
