Laura Stevenson Plays Newport On March 30

What separates the singer-songwriter type of musician from their contemporaries is how they can shine in different situations. Whether it’s by themselves or with a band, they know how to captivate an audience while showing their soul through song. New York artist Laura Stevenson knows how to do just that while expressing a versatile style of indie rock. Her songs are guaranteed to grab hold of the senses and never let go. She’ll be taking the stage at The Café at Parlor in Newport on March 30 with Lucky United’s Jenn Lombari and Adult Mom, and it promises to be a blast.

Ahead of the show I had a chat with Stevenson about her musical lineage, punk rock beginnings, moving from Brooklyn to upstate New York and the making of her last album, Cocksure, that came out in 2015.

Rob Duguay: There’s a bit of musical history in your family. Your grandfather Harry Simeone composed the songs “Little Drummer Boy” and “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and his wife Margaret McCravy sang for legendary swing jazz bandleader Benny Goodman. Did their musical achievements have any effect on you?

Laura Stevenson: I think genetically they influenced me for sure. Growing up with them playing in the house and listening to their music, I absorbed a lot stylistically, but I never used their success as a model for my own. Their careers existed during a very different time for music and they really thrived in that industry, but I never sought this out as a way to make a living because it’s pretty impossible for 99% of working musicians nowadays. I’m just making music I believe in and writing the best songs I can, but there’s no agenda with it.

RD: Your artistic beginnings were very much involved with the Long Island punk scene from working with The Arrogant Sons Of Bitches, Bomb The Music Industry! and Latterman. When you went solo, what inspired you to make the transition from punk to the folk-tinged indie rock that you play today?

LS: I just don’t really write punk rock songs. The way I play and write started super solitary and it’s remained that way pretty much. The band kind of developed around different tours so I started writing for other instruments or with them in mind, but the full band stuff doesn’t veer any particular way. And if it does it’s more Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers than like, Rancid. The way we tour and the way I run the band is definitely in line with the way I grew up and the scene of bands we exist within but, yeah, we sound very different.

RD: During the time you made Cocksure that came out in October 2015, you moved from Brooklyn to upstate New York’s Hudson River Valley. Was there any adjusting for you at first when you settled in to your new surroundings or was it just a breath of fresh air getting away from the city?

LS: It was both for sure. It’s weird sometimes and isolating, but the city was weird and isolating, too — just in a different way. Up there it’s just a lot prettier and I can go for hikes and have a garden and it’s a nice place to be in between tours.

RD: Do you have any preference between performing by yourself versus performing with a backing band?

LS: No, I don’t have a preference really. It’s just completely different. Playing with the band is more fun — there’s more energy — but there are a lot of songs that don’t work with the band and make more sense on my own and vice versa. Playing alone is more intimate, obviously; it’s more vulnerable for me and I can dig into the songs more. It’s just a more personal interpretation of it, which is scary but exciting.

RD: After the show in Newport on March 30, what do you have planned for the rest of 2017?

LS: More touring and also recording at an unspecified time as of right now. I have a record that needs to be made, so that’s the thing I’m focusing on right now in between crazy bouts of traveling.

Buy tickets to see Laura Stevenson @ The Café at Parlour in Newport, RI on March 30: eventbrite.com/e/laura-stevenson-w-adult-mom-lucky-united-tickets-30296872762; Laura Stevenson’s Website: laurastevenson.net