runo plum is a singer-songwriter based in Minneapolis. Her new record, patching, is out now on Winspear.
runo plum is a singer-songwriter based in Minneapolis; Searows is Alec Duckart, a singer-songwriter based in Portland. runo’s debut record patching is out now on Winspear, so to celebrate, the former tourmates got on Zoom for a little Q&A.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
runo plum: I’m nervous.
Alec Duckart: I know!
runo: I’ve never done something like this.
Alec: Me neither.
runo: Usually the people have such good questions. Or it’s questions that you’ve answered a bunch, so you have your answer ready. Anyways… How are you feeling over there in Portland?
Alec: I’m good. I’m really happy to not be on tour right now.
runo: I am so jealous of you, because I’m on tour, as you know. I’m in Brighton right now. It’s beautiful, but I’m tired. And my voice is kind of gone. I can’t sing any of my higher register. Did you see the prompts that Tom [runo’s publicist] sent?
Alec: Yes, I did.
runo: First question: “You two have toured together in the past” — yas, we have, once — “do you have any particular memories that have stuck with you from those shows?” I had a few answers. Maybe my answers will help you jog your answers.
Alec: Yeah.
runo: First thing that came to mind was Stumptown Oatly Horchata.
Alec: [Laughs.] Yes.
runo: We drank this pretty much every day. We called it “our drugs,” and every morning we needed our drugs. That stuck out. That actually doesn’t have anything to do with the shows…
Alec: We literally made Andrew, our TM, go out of the way to go to Whole Foods.
runo: Very important. What else? I guess just having a slumber party every night.
Alec: Oh, my god. Yeah.
runo: We had shared hotel rooms, so it was like a slumber party every night. We watched Daisy Jones & the Six.
Alec: Yep.
runo: Set us up for success… I feel like the best memories weren’t actually at the shows.
Alec: I feel like the shows themselves always end up blurring together. I feel like it was the first time touring with just my friends and my besties. It was so much easier to be distracted and not nervous all the time. Because on other tours I’ve been like, “I’m just stressed all day, every day.” And there was not really any time to be stressed out.
runo: We’re hanging out.
Alec: We’re goofing.
runo: That was the first time I toured, and I feel like it’s going to be so hard to ever compare to that big hang that we had. This is this one is mostly for me, but a memory is that my string broke at the Minneapolis show, and I got to play your magical, majestic vintage guitar. That felt like a special moment for me.
Alec: That was magical.
runo: Honestly, that moment — I used to hate Dreadnoughts because I was like, “It’s so big. I don’t want it.” But I feel like when I played that, I was like, Oh, wait, this might be worth it. It’s so fucking good.
Alec: It’s so huge.
runo: It is giant. But it’s just so full and beautiful.
Alec: Luscious.
runo: OK, maybe let’s go to the next one. “Is there anything you learned from each other in terms of touring, performing, songwriting, being a musician in general?” [Laughs.] OK, hard questions. Let’s see… For me, I say, you can write songs that are long, and I find that awesome. Because I’m always scared for it to be too long, because I don’t want to bore people. And you do it, and it’s gorgeous, and I think that’s awesome. I’m like, You know what? I can keep going. Let me say a little more.
Alec: I get so nervous when I feel like my songs end up being long. I have to cut them down sometimes.
runo: Really?
Alec: I’m always like, Is this bad? Some people don’t like that.
runo: I feel like also when it’s slower, maybe, that makes the song longer. Another one: I think that the world that you’ve created around your music is very beautiful and specific and cohesive, and that is something that I want to move towards more. I feel like I have just been more random. And I mean, obviously Marlowe [Ostara] has helped with that, with their videos. But, yeah, I find that very gorgeous, beautiful, inspiring.
Alec: I feel like I’ve seen everything that I see of your sound and visuals feels so cohesive to me, and so you.
runo: Really?
Alec: Yeah. It just feels like a reflection of… not of you as a person, but of you as an artist. And even of you as a person, but, you know, sometimes you gotta separate the two.
runo: Totally.
Alec: I feel like your taste makes it this cohesive thing where it’s like, this is so specifically and uniquely your sound, your look, and your vibe.
runo: Well, that’s good that it comes off that way. Love to hear that. Maybe it’s more of just a personal identity issue. Who knows? It’s so hard to know how it looks.
Alec: I feel like sometimes I’m just throwing stuff out there, and sometimes it kind of goes together. Sometimes it feels like it doesn’t at all.
runo: No, literally. I do think that from the outside perspective it’s always different. Another one I had — which, I’m meaning this as a compliment, but you know when you get backhanded compliments sometimes and it sucks? I never wanna do that.
Alec: [Laughs.] Don’t worry.
runo: OK, one that I thought that actually was sort of pivotal to me was, I feel like you wear your comfortable every day clothes on stage — which obviously is cute as fuck. I love your style. But I feel like I’ve always felt like I had to wear a fancy thing on stage, and that makes everything so much stressful, because I’m like, I’m in an outfit, now I feel stiff and uncomfortable and I don’t like that fabric… But I bet you just wear your outfit and it’s just chill. I was like, Oh, I can just wear my clothes and it’s fine.
Alec: I want to wear something cuter, or just dress up so that I’m in an outfit, but I don’t know… At the last minute, I’m like, It’s going to be weird. They’re all gonna know that I don’t usually do this.
runo: [Laughs.] It’s like when you’re wearing a hat and it’s like, Everyone knows that I put this on just for this performance.
Alec: [Laughs.] I wore a tie at one of the shows on tour, and I was like, This is so embarrassing.
runo: They’re all gonna be like, “OK, ballgown! You’re going to a ball?”
Alec: “OK, high school teacher!”
runo: Literally. Oh, my god. And actually, probably no one would even realize that you’re wearing anything.
Alec: One of the things I was going to say: your stage presence feels so… I feel like you have a way of talking to the audience and talking about your music that doesn’t feel awkward in the way that it feels with whatever I choose to say, and it still feels so authentic. Like you don’t have a script, but you have this earnestness and you’re sharing something about the songs in a way that isn’t giving too much away. And I don’t know where that balance is, so I just don’t say anything about the songs specifically, and then I’m filling the silence with something else.
runo: Well, thank you. It’s crazy that you say that because I feel like your audience was so specifically supportive and it made it easier to feel more comfortable. And I actually feel like I’ve gotten more nervous since then, and worse at having good stage presence because every crowd is different. But I appreciate that. I feel like I have to just disassociate a little and whatever comes out, comes out. And that’s why sometimes I’ll say some wonky stuff. [Laughs.] But people like it sometimes! Or sometimes they just stare at me. But, you know, what do you do.
Alec: That’s fine.
runo: It’s fine.
Alec: People have been like, “I really like how awkward you are on stage.”
runo: [Laughs.] Wait, oh, my god — someone literally last night was like, “I love how awkward you are. I’m awkward too, and that’s why I like your music.” And I was like, But how did you know I was awkward before? Because it was their first time seeing me.
Alec: [Laughs.] “I could just feel it in your songs.”
runo: Oh, golly.
Alec: But I know what you mean. And it is a compliment, because before I did music especially, seeing people on stage where I’m like, “You’re just some guy and you’re on stage doing this,” it made me feel like I could also do that. Because I’m not like, “What is up, Minneapolis?!”
runo: “Hey, London!!!” No, that’s so true. I remember seeing Adrianne Lenker for the first time and being like, Oh, she’s really uncomfortable.
Alec: Also just silent. Like, silently tuning her guitar. She’s not worried.
runo: We played a few shows with Teethe, and they don’t talk. They didn’t talk a single time. I was like, “Wait, you’re kind of onto something.” They didn’t introduce any of the songs or engage with the crowd. I guess you don’t have to. There are no rules, technically.
Alec: Love that.
runo: OK, what else? Should we go to the next question?
Alec: Yeah.
runo: “How does having a personal relationship with other artists inform your work in general? Do you find that comparing experiences of songwriting with other writers impacts your own approach?” I personally feel like if it’s your peers, comparison is scary. I don’t like to do that because then it will make me want to, [sings,] di-iii-ie. Or something. I feel like it’s actually for me best to fully separate and be like, We have our paths, we have our things, and it’s perfect that way.
Alec: Perfect.
runo: That being said, if it’s a bigger artist, I feel more like, Oh, could I do that? They do that, so maybe I should do that. Sometimes, about little things. What about you?
Alec: I really compare myself to so many people all the time, and it’s not good for me. It makes me feel bad about myself. But I feel like when I’m really close with people, then I’m like, “I love you so much that anytime anything good happens, I’m just joyful about it.”
runo: Yeah, literally. That’s sort of a thing about human experience in general, where it just doesn’t make sense to feel weirdly about it.
