“Right now, I’m thinking about making another record; there’s a musical I’m working on; and I’m writing a graphic memoir, which is a process,” says Grammy-winning Renaissance woman Aimee Mann. Over the past four decades, Mann has released 10 studio albums and contributed songs to Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 film Magnolia, earning an Oscar nomination for her pensive “Save Me.” With erudite lyrics and nimble melodies, Mann’s songs are complex and intimate, always honest, and touch many subjects.
I caught up with Mann in advance of her show at the Lobero on October 30, as part of her first West Coast tour in more than a decade. “I’m excited … I feel like it’s been a really long time,” she says. “Nobody has a reasonable sense of time anymore; COVID ruined that for everybody.”
Asked how it feels to interact with music following the pandemic, she says, “It’s harder for people to tour because inflation has come into the music business…. I’m not a person who pays attention to how many shows I’ve sold out, but I get a sense that in general it’s harder on people, and there’s a post-COVID trauma.”…