You may recognize her face from her decades-long career in TV and film or from her recent win on Fox's The Masked Singer ...Actor and Billboard Top 30 charting singer-songwriter Alicia Witt has played her piano-driven pop-rock music worldwide and has poured her latest heartfelt lyrics into Witness , her just-released EP. This is a LifeMinute with Alicia Witt.
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00:00 Hey, I'm Alicia Witt, and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:07 You may recognize her face from her decades-long career in TV and film, or from her win on
00:13 Fox's "The Masked Singer."
00:15 Actor and Billboard Top 30 charting singer-songwriter Alicia Witt has played her piano-driven pop
00:21 rock music all over the world, and she's poured her latest heartfelt lyrics into a
00:27 new EP called "Witness," which has just been released.
00:31 This is a Life Minute with Alicia Witt.
00:33 Hi!
00:34 Hi!
00:35 How are you?
00:36 How are you?
00:37 Great, thanks.
00:38 It's good to see you.
00:39 You too.
00:40 This EP is the fastest process I've experienced so far in terms of the birth of most of these
00:54 songs, the writing of them, and then jumping right into the studio, recording them, and
01:00 committing to them, getting them out and knowing they were going to be released.
01:07 And that's really thrilling.
01:11 It's freeing to have it be that instinctive, choosing what to put on it and knowing that
01:18 whatever I felt was correct in that moment is what's going to be forever now.
01:25 That's so great.
01:26 What do you attribute that to?
01:27 Why do you think it was easier this time?
01:30 You know, it was a result of having been on "The Masked Singer."
01:36 I received an email.
01:38 They reached out to me, and I didn't take more than a few seconds before I realized
01:46 that this was going to be an incredible gift for me.
01:49 It's interesting.
01:50 It's as fun and as silly as the show is.
01:53 I had a profound experience because it taught me what it feels like to use your voice alone
02:02 to connect to people.
02:04 I often feel a little like I'm not the most profound when it comes to communicating with
02:13 my words.
02:14 I feel much more connected when I have a song to sing.
02:18 The thing is, as a human being, we come with all these identifying features.
02:24 And whether you're a publicly known figure or not, every person on earth comes in a package.
02:33 We all make preconceived notions about who that person is before they open their mouth.
02:39 You have all of that hidden under a mask and under a costume.
02:44 You can't make eye contact.
02:45 You can't smile.
02:46 You can't touch.
02:48 So much of what I use as a performer when I get out on a stage is taken away.
02:54 All I had was my voice.
02:56 And I'll never, for the rest of my life, forget the feeling of singing "Over the Rainbow"
03:03 and connecting with that crowd of 500 people.
03:07 I'm feeling like I've never been closer to anyone.
03:21 And nobody knew who I was.
03:23 I know that the range of guesses were so fast.
03:26 It's so funny.
03:27 You know, Annie Lennox, Sarah McLachlan, Vanessa Williams, right?
03:32 It's changed how I sing for the better.
03:36 Now I think I can do it even more confidently.
03:40 It's a real gift that show gave me.
03:57 So I was going back and forth between Vancouver filming a movie and LA filming "The Masked
04:02 Singer."
04:03 And when I realized that the episode was going to air where I was unmasked in April, I thought,
04:15 I wonder if I can record something as soon as I get back to Nashville and just do it
04:20 lickety split.
04:22 And "Witness," it had been written over many months last year, actually.
04:29 That was one of the songs that's taken the longest to write because it was so very personal
04:35 to me and so important that every word felt true to my experience and to do honor to those
04:43 who are my witnesses.
04:46 But of all the songs in my arsenal that I've not recorded, that I've written over the years,
04:52 some of these songs didn't feel as resonant to the theme of being a witness or receiving
04:59 people being my witness as I wanted them to.
05:04 So I looked over all of these ideas I had sitting around that were not finished, and
05:08 I sent some of them to some of my favorite collaborators while I was busy working.
05:13 And when I got back to Nashville at the end of February, we jumped into the writing rooms
05:19 and wrote four of the six tracks that you hear on this EP.
05:25 And they felt like they fit into the theme, and they became part of this album.
05:34 Always Tuesday, I wrote by myself and didn't intend to write it.
05:38 It just came out of an experience I had.
05:43 I don't really know where that song came from, but I know it had to be on this record.
05:49 Tell us about "Someone to Write Me a Song."
05:51 I think the story of that is so neat.
05:53 Thank you.
05:54 "Someone to Write Me a Song" came from listening to the radio one day and hearing one of these
06:05 beautiful love songs that this town is full of, where you know it's so personal to the
06:12 writer, the songwriter, and yet the singer makes it feel so universal, but it's got just
06:21 enough personal details scattered in that it draws you in and it makes you think, "Gosh,
06:28 what kind of a love must that have been?
06:30 And did it last?
06:31 And does it even matter if it lasted?
06:33 It was so real in that moment, and it's been captured forever in a song."
06:37 And I started thinking as I drove around Nashville.
06:41 I've known a lot of songwriters, and I've dated some songwriters, and I'm just not sure
06:46 that anyone has written a song about me.
06:51 And I thought, "That's kind of a sweet metaphor for looking for love."
06:56 And I just got this idea.
06:58 I've had all these wonderful experiences in my life and dated all kinds of fantastic people,
07:05 but I just want someone to write me a song.
07:08 And what about "Clever Mind?"
07:10 Tell us the story behind that.
07:11 "Clever Mind" is the one song on the EP that was written a long time ago.
07:19 And I knew when it was completed that it said exactly what I had hoped it would.
07:27 It was an idea I had shortly after having ended a relationship where I discovered that
07:33 there was an other woman who was part of our relationship, unbeknownst to me at the time.
07:42 And that's obviously a jarring and disgusting thing to discover.
07:49 But once I started recovering from the shock, I found myself thinking about this woman in
07:55 particular and how long she had been in the picture and knowing full well that he had
08:05 a partner.
08:06 And I just thought, "What a lonely, broken person that must have been."
08:11 And I bet, if anything, she's hurting even more than I am.
08:17 What a good woman you are to think of it that way.
08:22 Just trying to heal from it, it occurred to me.
08:27 And I had a bunch of lyrics.
08:29 I had, again, like with "Witness," I had, "Is this what you call a clever mind?"
08:36 That just beginning of the round of it.
08:40 And I didn't think what I was coming up with on the piano was the best the song could be.
08:47 So the next time I was in Nashville, I had been introduced to Tia Sillars and Mark Selby.
08:53 Tia wrote "I Hope You Dance."
08:55 She co-wrote "I Hope You Dance."
08:57 And Mark was her husband, who has since passed away.
09:01 And they were such a beautiful, angelic couple, so full of light and love.
09:07 And when I presented this idea to them to write from the other woman's point of view,
09:13 I wasn't sure how they would feel about that, but they looked at each other and they're
09:17 like, "Yeah, we really like this idea.
09:19 Let's do it."
09:20 So we wrote this song, the three of us, and over the years I made a few recordings of
09:27 it, but I didn't feel they were quite what I wanted to put out.
09:33 And then for this EP, the producer, Cliff Downs, heard this and it was by far his favorite.
09:40 So I knew we found the right place to record it.
09:43 I love the recording of this.
09:45 I'm so happy.
09:46 Aw, awesome.
09:47 Awesome.
09:48 And if anything, I mean, a song about bearing witness, I was 100% a witness to this.
09:57 Not that I'm perfect by any means, but I've not dated somebody who's not single.
10:02 I always introduce this song by a very brief preface.
10:06 "Hey, I'm not the subject of this song."
10:09 Right, right.
10:10 Yeah, so "Witness" is just, tell us about the story a little bit about that as well.
10:16 "Witness" was describing the hardest chapter I've experienced so far and the knowing I
10:26 had, which I believe came from God, that was, "I'm going to get through this.
10:34 I am supported by so much love and so much strength.
10:40 And one day I'll be on the other side of this and I will tend to forget what I've gone through,
10:48 what I'm made of.
10:50 And I will need this super tiny inner circle of beloved ones who truly know the details.
11:02 They will need to be my witnesses and they will need to remind me."
11:08 And what was interesting about that chapter as well, which is what my second verse goes
11:13 into is, it drew me closer to those people in their own lives.
11:21 Having gone through what I did, I am now, if anything, able to be an even better friend
11:28 to them.
11:29 The forever bond that was formed is unbreakable and can't be shared by anyone else.
11:38 Beautiful.
11:39 So what is your creative process like?
11:42 I mean, obviously, is it the words first and then the sound comes later?
11:48 It's often, most of the time, I would say the words first.
11:52 I often get an idea and I jot it down in my trusty iPhone in the notes section.
12:01 I have hundreds of unfinished lyrics.
12:04 And what's great about that is obviously most of them aren't going to turn into songs, but
12:12 whenever I go to a writing session, I have an unlimited supply of little seedlings and
12:18 ideas and chances are one of these will always be what kicks off a writing session.
12:27 That's how most of my co-writes have gone.
12:29 I often just sit outside at night and just free flow with an idea, coming up with lyrics
12:36 that I don't even realize rhyme in the moment, but when I look at them later, they do.
12:40 They have a structure to them.
12:42 And then other times, actually a couple of times I've come up with a musical bit that
12:48 I don't have lyrics to, but it's kind of all over the place.
12:52 And I guess the most often of all is I get the main theme of it and it comes with a melody
13:00 and a lyric, just maybe one line and that one bit of music and that one line can spark
13:07 a whole song.
13:08 That's so neat.
13:10 And of course you're an actress as well.
13:12 What came first, music or acting?
13:16 I started playing the piano the same year that I made my first movie, which was age
13:21 seven.
13:22 And were you self-taught in the piano or did you?
13:24 I had a piano teacher, a wonderful teacher.
13:28 And she, I actually just saw her not so long ago.
13:32 She was wonderful.
13:33 She instilled my love of piano.
13:37 Most certainly.
13:38 I already had a love of music.
13:39 I loved musicals.
13:42 I loved singing and I loved listening to music, but I didn't grow up in a house where music
13:49 was being made on a regular basis.
13:51 My parents weren't really musicians.
13:55 My dad did play the guitar and banjo a little, but I didn't think about it.
13:59 And then these piano lessons really opened up my world and I took to it very fast.
14:05 And I knew very quickly that I was going to play for the rest of my life.
14:09 And I also knew I wanted to make up songs and sing for people much like I do now.
14:15 I just didn't really know what that looked like.
14:18 And I didn't start making songs consistently of my own until I was about 30.
14:27 Just took me a moment to gain that confidence.
14:30 But I started out with classical music.
14:32 I competed for many years until I was 14 and I was doing very well in the competitive
14:38 classical circles.
14:40 I knew that I didn't want to go to Juilliard or any of the...
14:44 That wasn't my path that I was passionate about.
14:48 But I did play piano to support myself at the Beverly Wilshire for many years as a teenager
14:55 in LA.
14:56 Wow.
14:57 So that was my day job as I worked my way up as an actor.
15:01 That's amazing.
15:02 Who are some of your musical inspirations?
15:05 I have so many.
15:08 Some of the ones that I can't imagine my songwriting without are Elton John, Billy Joel, Paul Simon,
15:18 Barry Manilow.
15:20 And then there are the songs from the 30s and 40s that I actually grew up playing because
15:28 I was working in a restaurant starting at the age of 10 as well to help pay for more
15:33 of the lessons.
15:34 At a certain point, I was taking four lessons a week with another teacher in Boston as well.
15:40 And I learned the Duke Ellington and George Gershwin and all of the Rogers and Hammerstein
15:48 and Rogers and Hart and all the countless classic writers of that era.
15:56 So they also had a profound influence on me.
15:59 So great.
16:00 How would you describe your sound?
16:02 I always struggle to describe it.
16:07 When I go out to make it, I don't think what genre it is going to be.
16:12 And I think this EP, I know it's pop, but I think there are influences of kind of all
16:19 the things I listen to.
16:22 Always Tuesday, just piano, vocal, and a lone cello is more of the 50s and 60s ilk, I suppose.
16:32 And I feel like I hear a country influence in both Witness and Clever Mind, certainly.
16:38 I listen to a lot of country, which I love.
16:42 And Loop is super fun.
16:45 That was on a loop for a long time in my brain without being completed.
16:50 I wrote that with another writer.
16:51 And I don't know what genre that is either.
16:54 It's just pop, I suppose.
16:56 I love Olivia Rodrigo and Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish.
17:03 So yeah, it's but I would hope that somebody like Billy Joel would listen to it and really
17:08 dig it too.
17:10 All of it has piano on it, except for one last string.
17:13 There's no piano on that one.
17:15 Just guitar driven.
17:16 And you don't play the guitar though, do you?
17:19 I wouldn't say that I play the guitar.
17:21 I do know a few chords.
17:24 I'm always trying to learn in fits and starts and I will.
17:28 Someday I will start playing it at gigs.
17:30 What do you like better, music or acting?
17:33 I don't have a preference.
17:36 They are both so important to my identity and my expression.
17:41 I get such different things out of each.
17:45 And I know that I'm happiest when there's an equal balance of both.
17:50 If I start to focus more on one or the other, I start really jonesing for that next juicy
17:58 acting role or I start craving getting in the studio and have to get in the studio wherever
18:06 I am when that happens.
18:08 I'm always writing.
18:09 So even if I'm very busy in the acting world and not focusing so much on music, I'm constantly
18:17 writing.
18:18 That never has to stop.
18:19 And you can't talk about long legs, right?
18:21 I can't.
18:22 Too bad.
18:23 It's such a shame going on.
18:25 We can talk again.
18:26 Yes, absolutely.
18:27 Absolutely.
18:28 I think it's neat that you do music for some of those Hallmark films too.
18:33 What is it about?
18:34 Oh, you probably can't talk about that either, can you?
18:37 I can't.
18:38 It's so, the strike is so very important.
18:41 And I think by not speaking about projects past or future, it's necessary that we all...
18:54 It's...
18:55 You want to say anything about that?
18:57 Anything about the strike?
18:58 I'd be happy to talk about the strike.
19:01 We're in Times Square and so we occasionally see everyone.
19:05 Yes.
19:06 I just learned last night from some friends that there have been a few pickets here at
19:13 the Nashville SAG-AFTRA.
19:15 I think a lot of people in the general public don't realize what the financials of it look
19:23 like for the actors.
19:26 And I think we know that actors with a recognizable name generally earn more than actors who are
19:34 working job to job to support themselves.
19:37 But what the public may not know in addition to that is there's currently not much appreciable
19:45 difference when you work on a series that you don't know if it's going to be a big hit
19:50 or not.
19:52 You work on a series for a streamer and you film the whole thing.
19:57 You get paid whatever you get paid and it doesn't matter some of the time.
20:01 You can be a recognizable actor or not.
20:05 If I'm up for a role and it's a really sought after role, I'm probably up against somebody
20:13 who might be less recognizable than me.
20:17 They may not be willing to pay me more.
20:20 They may likely say, "This is the deal.
20:25 Take it or leave it.
20:26 If you don't take it, you go to the next person."
20:28 It's even more crucial than ever with all the streamers that are out now.
20:35 If you work on a series, you do 13 episodes of it and you forget about it and go on to
20:39 the next thing, particularly that job is everything to you.
20:45 That is your potential health insurance.
20:46 That is your potential mortgage.
20:49 That's everything to you and your family.
20:51 You take what you're given.
20:52 You can't afford to say, "I'm going to hold out and see if you come back with more money
20:57 because they're not going to."
20:59 Then what if that series becomes a runaway hit like so many of them do?
21:04 The streamer doesn't know when they film it if it's going to be the next number one show.
21:09 This happens all the time.
21:11 That very actor who accepted a very low amount to make that show still doesn't have the money
21:18 they need while the streamer is reaping in millions because it's now being streamed hundreds
21:25 of millions of times.
21:27 This is one of the many things that we're fighting for is some justice.
21:33 That actor deserves to receive a tiny piece of the pie.
21:37 It's what residuals were put in place for back in the '80s, but residuals only apply
21:43 to the networks.
21:45 Most of these shows are now on streamers.
21:48 That's where the big hit shows are.
21:51 It's an amazing thing that hasn't been thought of before.
21:55 I know.
21:56 It just seems like a no-brainer.
21:58 It's been thought of.
22:00 We just haven't collectively dug our heels in and said enough is enough.
22:05 That's what's happening now.
22:06 The writers are doing the same, thankfully.
22:10 There's countless other issues.
22:12 I love talking about this because I think there's a misperception in the general public
22:17 that actors are rolling in it and if you're on a hit show, you're rich.
22:22 I promise you that's not true.
22:25 We're not even talking about being rich.
22:27 We're talking about having health insurance.
22:29 It is amazing how all these ... Look at Suits.
22:32 That show is so old and now it's huge again.
22:36 Yeah.
22:37 That's a great example.
22:38 All of these ... Yeah, they're all getting revivals.
22:43 It's crazy.
22:44 If you're part of a show, you should forever be linked to its success.
22:50 Yeah.
22:51 Whether you're an actor or a writer, anyone who helped create that content.
22:56 So hopefully we will band together and make some changes that really won't affect the
23:03 streamers much at all in terms of their profit.
23:06 I hope so too.
23:07 Thank God you're doing music then in the meantime too.
23:10 Yes.
23:11 I think that's great.
23:13 To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast, Life Minute TV on iTunes and all
23:17 streaming podcast platforms.
23:19 (upbeat music)