Much ink has been spilled trying to describe Rasputina, cello rock, neo chamber grunge, burlesque, dark cabaret. But none of the terms gets at the hauntingly melodic cello or how the sound it makes get’s into your gut and then stays there trembling. And none of those terms even hint at the irony or wit behind the lyrics. What other group could make a song about the Birkenau concentration camp and cover Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” and then parody the DeBeers diamond commercials all on one album? Melora Craeger, the woman behind the cello is the founder and one constant member of Rasputina. I talked to her about high school, the state of music today, and the upcoming show at The Old Rock House on July 21.
St. Louis Magazine: Congratulations on having a kid [Creager had a daughter in 2010]!
Melora Creager: Oh thank you.
SLM: That’s pretty exciting. Is it pretty difficult to tour now?
MC: Let’s see, we toured a lot last year when she was new and it wasn’t as hard as it sounds.
SLM: I guess you don’t take her with you?
MC: Yeah.
SLM: You do?!
MC: Yeah.
SLM: Wow. You’re a brave woman.
MC: [Laughs]
SLM: What about Hollis [Creager’s other daughter]?
MC: We’ve always have a system where she spends the summers with her dad and then I try to get my touring done in the summer.
SLM: Your line-up for the band has changed a little. What’s the biggest difference with having a man, Daniel DeJesus, playing cello [previously any males in the group played the drums]?
MC: Umm, I think that it’s less of a difference that he’s a man than he is—he grew up listening to my music, so he just knows all the songs and thinks I’m a great lady. [Laughs.] That’s the difference.
SLM: How did you find him?
MC: He e-mailed me through the website when he heard I needed a cellist and he really didn’t think he had a chance since he is a man but he’s so talented and such a good singer/cellist and so cute and a really nice guy so I had no hesitation with him.
SLM: I love the song “Holocaust of Giants.” How did that come about?
MC: I read someone’s theories [that] giants are real, and they’re mentioned in the Bible, and Ohio settlers in the early 1800s supposedly found many burial mounds with giant bones in them, and I was really taken with the idea.
SLM: Why do you write so much about historical figures and events?
MC: I think I was never comfortable writing about my life and my feelings like people usually do. I just thought that would be embarrassing. Just wasn’t for me. And whatever I was reading about is what I would be excited about.
SLM: Do you get sick of people asking you about what it was like touring with Nirvana?
MC: I don’t get sick of it. I have my little answers.
SLM: Oh, well then what was it like?
MC: You’re going to ask me now! I can’t believe this! [Laughs] It was so long ago now and it was so short, it was like a dream. It was really exciting. It was crazy to be just plopped into that huge band when I was just starting out. They’re really nice guys and it was so sad what happened to him but he was [pause] a really funny sweet guy that anybody would want to be friends with. It showed me early on—I don’t know that fame is not healthy but it doesn’t mix well with somebody with integrity. That was good to have an early lesson that big fame is not necessarily a good thing.
SLM: You do a lot of the artwork for the albums yourself. Lots of the covers look like needlepoint. Is that actual needlepoint or manufactured on the computer?
MC: If it looks like needlepoint it is. The Sister Kinderhook Album was embroidered…. The very first album I made a million years ago, that one was sewn too. That was the size of a CD booklet but it as stuffed like a quilt.
SLM: Oh yeah, Thanks for the Ether.
MC: Yeah.
SLM: I remember buying that album, back in a record store, when we still had those.
MC: Yeah, I remember [those]!
SLM: Rasputina has been around for a while, do you think the changes in the music industry have been positive or negative?
MC: There’s both sides to it of course. I think with the equipment… anybody can record so you don’t need a big budget or a big recording studio, so that’s great. That kind of democratizes everything. But there’s probably just too much music. Everybody is on iTunes. Everybody is on YouTube. So, it’s hard to find new things when there’s so much to see or everything only lasts a second. And I don’t know how much music is not paid for, but I think it is a big amount. Musicians used to be able to make money off their music and now it’s more like just a gift or it’s just taken.
SLM: Did you ever look at fan videos for your music?
MC: I do once in a while. If they make something from scratch to my song I think that’s really great and creative and I love it. But a lot of people will just put another video to my song, like Gwen Stefani dancing to one of my songs and I think that’s really stupid. [Laughs.]
SLM: I do too! [Laughs.] What were you like in high school?
MC: In high school I tried to look like everybody else but I think it was like a costume and everyone could tell that I was a weird girl anyway. So, I was kind of like a weird girl mascot to the cute cheerleader girls. I wasn’t really an outcast. During high school I got to go to New York City to go to an art camp and then I got all new wave.
SLM: Did people think it was weird to play the cello when you were in school? Did you play in the orchestra?
MC: I did play in orchestra up until about junior high and it was such a nerd thing and I was picked on for it. [So,] I didn’t do it anymore. I quit.
SLM: Oh, but you didn’t quit playing entirely?
MC: I quit playing totally and then when I was in art school in New York City I’d meet people with bands and I’d say, “I played the cello when I was a kid.” And they’d say, “Oh you gotta play the cello in my band. That would be so cool.” So then I started doing that.
SLM: Peer pressure is a big problem. Is that something you want to make sure doesn’t happen to Hollis?
MC: There’s a lot of weird stuff around music and Hollis and me as a mom because I was raised very strictly. The music studies were very strict and that’s how I was able to do it. I was required to practice. But I’m just not finding it in myself to be that strict with Hollis. It’s a weird question that I wrestle with.
SLM: When you came up with the idea for the band were you afraid people wouldn’t get it?
MC: No, I kind of assumed that everyone knew at least as much as me and were probably smarter…. So, I was really surprised that anyone else was surprised like, what cellos, a rock band? I didn’t know it would be a surprise.
SLM: Is it hard to get Daniel the costumes?
MC: No, actually he handles it himself and he gets really into it and he’s been really into elaborate face painting, so he’s really fun that way.
SLM: Any memorable gigs last year?
MC: St. Louis was really good last year because I hadn’t played there in years and I didn’t expect anything out of it and then it was definitely one of our favorite shows of the tour.
