Enter the Blues-Saturated World of The Great Sadness

We first introduced you to THE GREAT SADNESS two years ago, when I gushed about their self-titled debut: “This has all the makings an American rock classic.” Now, Cathy Cooper (vocals, guitar) and Stephen McNeely (drums) have brought us a second long-play, ‘WEEP’ (2017). Even nominal fans of the blues, I’m convinced, are going to find this a go-to favorite in their playlist and certainly want to add it to their collection.

WEEP is a frank confessional, a journey into the stark realities of life, love, death, hope, alienation from the world, and hellish emotional storms. It shares a spiritual kinship not only with the blues greats of the past, but with contemporary songwriters like Scott “Wino” Weinrich (particularly his collaborations with Conny Ochs) and Screaming’ Mad Dee Calhoun. We can count Cathy and Stephen among the great contemporary underground songwriters of our generation, though it may be a generation beyond us before their work receives the recognition it deserves.

It’s quite evident you two are in love with the blues. Where did this obsession begin for each of you?

Cathy Cooper: I’m a huge, huge blues lover – mostly delta blues, like really, really dirty, grassroots, folk-based, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sleepy John Estes, Bertha Lee – that kind of stuff, you know. I like it because it comes from the gut. It’s kind of been a lifelong inspiration for me. That’s just where it’s at for me. You can’t get more raw then that.

Stephen McNeely: I think my love for the blues came to be an obsession after I met Cathy. It wasn’t something I was necessarily in love with or listening to everyday, but after I was introduced to more of it, it was definitely something I found highly interesting. For about four years now, I’ve been digging into an endless hole of great blues music.

How did The Great Sadness become a thing?

Stephen: We met five years ago. I played a single tom drum for Cathy for an acoustic set for a festival in Echo Park. After that, she asked me if I’d ever be interested in playing along with an electric guitar. Mind you, I had just met Cathy and been gifted a drum kit, so I said yes. I had no expectations whether it is a fun jam session. We had to see whether or not this was going to work out. Cathy invited me for a jam session at her studio with the entire kit. I brought the drum kit and she broke out the electric and an amp. It kind of melded into itself and we found a connection that worked, bringing together two perfectly good strangers. That she brought out the electric, The Great Sadness was born, and now here we are.

Cathy: It was on! (laughs)

All of your songs have one word titles. It gives it this certain aesthetic and philosophical outlet driving your songwriting.

Cathy: All you have to know in one word is, “I’m lazy.” (both laugh) I’m lazy about naming songs. I like writing the songs; I’m just not good at naming stuff. I don’t know if that’s just a slacker way of doing it. (laughs)

Stephen: I can sum this up as less is more, leaving more imagination to the brain to interpret in your own way.

'Weep’ is your most ambitious collection of songs. They really sizzle. How long have you been working on them?

Cathy: A couple years, dude.

Stephen: These are songs we’ve been playing live in America and in Europe for about two, three years. “Desperate” is one of our older songs, but is on the new record, is one of the first songs we composed for our set.

Cathy: One of the songs we actually wrote in the studio. We wrote “Deserter.”

Stephen: And “Deserter” was born out of sound engineer Joe Cardamone requesting that we write one on the spot. It ended being one of our keeper songs that we still play live. That’s on the new record.

Did you experience any cloudbursts of inspiration growing out of events in your life? I’m always interested in insights into the creative process, an area of enduring fascination for me.

Stephen: We think that this project was kind of inspired by events in our lives.

Cathy: I think it’s more personal, dude. It’s really personal.

Stephen: But it’s personal to both of us. There may have been things that happened to Cathy that made her feel a certain way. You know, it might have happened to me in a different way, but we still ended up in the same emotional state. I think a lot of the songs when we first got together were fueled by emotions we were both going through that were personal and separate to our own personal lives, but definitely fueled the fire of writing. We were not necessarily in a great place emotionally – you never are when you’re inspired. You can be in a dark place, or you can be in a great place. Inspiration comes whenever it wants to.

Cathy: Everything comes from being on the planet and experiencing pain and guilt and fear and love and everything else. I’ve had my share of “whatever” relationships, anger at political situations, the death of my parents, the loss of friends, the joy of creation. Everything influences me. The more visceral the emotion, the better the connection with the song writing and the actual playing, you know? That’s stuff’s really impactful. It’s important to be really present. That’s what music is all about, man. It’s just getting into it and just really putting it out there in a super aggressive, emotional way way.

Are the two of you pretty much in sync as far as musicians so you can jam on a song together, refine a song together, or do you and Cathy need away space to write new songs?

Stephen: Like I said, the day we chose to go into the studio and she chose to pick up an electric and we attempted a two-piece, we found that we were already synced up. Time-wise, I think we have the same time signatures in mind and deep in the heart was the love to count a 4/4 and sort of look at each other and see when the 1 is coming (laughs) and be able to stay synced at that.

Cathy has been writing songs for a really long time, way longer than me, so she had a lot of material. We talked about this earlier, but the song “Desperate” Cathy had already written guitar parts for so when it was brought into The Great Sadness it became a beast of its own. Cathy is responsible for all of the lyrics on this record. The way we did it from the beginning is that me and Cathy would get in the studio and just jam it and find a riff that we liked, and we would start breaking it down. We’d take a voice memo of it and Cathy would listen to that and she would write. More recently now, some of our newer songs that we’re writing together and I’m singing on the new stuff that’s coming out in the future.

Cathy: The way that we write has evolved, the more that we play. Stephen and I have a very intuitive way of feeding off of another when we play. It’s actually really enhanced the way that we write, because we can build songs a lot faster now, because we are more in sync. I feel the songs have actually gotten a lot better because we’ve built a style together. It’s kind of beefed up how we write, just because we’re aggressive in the way that we do stuff. It’s made the sound a lot bigger and more in your face.

I’m sure our readers and listeners would love to know what inspires and moves you deeply, including, but not limited to, music and other influences.

Stephen: Cathy love Rupaul’s Drag Race. (laughs). Me and Cathy are both artists on top of musicians. We both do a lot of artwork. We create whether it’s music or art every day.

Cathy: Stephen, what kind of artwork?

Stephen: I’ve always been drawn to dark artwork, anything and everything that has to do with seeking out the lies and dark truths of Catholicism. I highly enjoy the sabotage of that specific religion, so I like any kind of artwork having to do anything with that. The problem that I have with Jesus isn’t with him; it’s his fan club I have a problem with. (laughs)

I’m super inspired by music, mostly. I’m into a lot of stuff right now, we could go on forever. Me and Cathy recently fell in love on the road, when we were on our tour in Portland, with Bernelius. I believe he’s a one-man band. We don’t know where he’s from, either, but his music is fucking awesome. We also fell in love with The Devil And The Almighty Blues. Those are some guys out of Norway, I believe. They are fucking awesome. We also fell in love with Seasick Steve. He’s awesome. We were also listening a lot of Guru Guru, like a lot of old German prog rock stuff. We also worship and pray and hope for the return of 400 Blows. I should get that tattooed on my ass. Skot, if you’re listening, come back! We need you. (laughs) We want you back.

Thanks so much for visiting with me and the readers. Been wanting to do this forever. It’s been a long time coming!

Stephen: Thank you so much for having us. I hope this gives you a little more insight into how Cathy and getting shit done and delivered to you guys.

Cathy: Most of all, seriously, we like donuts.

Stephen: Who doesn’t like donuts? Except gluten-free people and vegans. Thank you again, Doomed and Stoned!

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