The Indigo Girls talk ahead of Birmingham gig
In an age of radical politics – where people are expected to walk the walk as well as talk the talk – The Indigo Girls are five paces ahead.
The duo has balanced their long, successful musical career by supporting numerous social causes. Having established an intensely dedicated fan base, the duo continues to remain relevant and attract new fans. With their latest release, One Lost Day, both Emily Saliers and Amy Ray have secured their spot as one of the most legendary musical acts of this generation. They’ll bring the record to Birmingham’s Town Hall on Monday, with support from special guest Lucy Wainwright Roche.
The Grammy-winning group met at elementary school and began performing in Georgia as kids. Their first album was released 30 years ago and Emily and Amy remain active in political and environmental causes.
Emily says: “From the very beginning we’ve written songs about social issues, and then very early on when we were still just playing at bars and we were super young, we started organizing benefits for local community issues and I think actually my very first gig as a 14 year-old was for a Democratic gathering in Minnesota.
“Both Amy and I were politically active and thinking about social issues from the very beginning. Then as we got into our career we networked with a lot of amazing activists and we learned the importance of a grassroots approach to activism. And now we can’t really even separate ourselves from the music and the politics and the activism. It’s not really politics because politics can be a mess. Let’s us say let’s just call it citizenship.”
The duo work with numerous organisations, charities and self-help groups that seek to support environmentalism and social activism. Emily says: “Well the main thing is that about two decades ago we helped start this group called Honor the Earth with Winona LaDuke, she is a Native American activist from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. So our main work is environmental activism and environmental social justice. We work [a lot] with Indigenous communities. We discovered working with Winona that environmental justice issues happen first and foremost on Indigenous land disproportionately. And environmental impact happens to people who don’t have as much money or as much of a political voice in communities that are impoverished.
“Also we are very active in the gun control movement and we work a lot with Moms Demand Action, which is a gun control advocacy group. We do a lot of anti-death penalty work and then of course we are very involved in Queer-rights, trans-rights, quality movement within the Queer movement because we are both Queer obviously. So those are the main thrust in our activism.”
The duo believe they ought to take a stand to help those in need – particularly given the platform that they get as performers.
Emily adds: “I don’t feel like there is an obligation, but I think everybody should be a citizen. Everybody should be involved because this is our world. It’s important to participate, this is our community, these are our communities, and people need each other. We need community.
“Music is a great galvanizer, it stirs people’s souls and it gets them fired up no matter what genre it is.”
