By Keith Walsh
In the summer of 1981, just after high school graduation, I was in love with two things: myself and my Moog Prodigy synthesizer. With these two meager assets, I embarked on a brief career playing in a synthpop quartet. But not before having a love affair with Stacey Swain, whom I met at the Casbah recording studio in Fullerton, and who would embark on a massive career of her own, with the stage name Stacey Q. Our paths took us to different places, and we lost touch. Since then, Stacey has had top ten chart success, and most recently, in 2019, reunited with her original producer, Jon St James, to create the stunning new album, SSQ’s “Jet Town Je Te’aime.” I am very happy to have had this chance to reconnect with her for an hour long phone conversation, our first encounter since 1985, aside from a brief chance meeting in 1993.
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KW: So, let’s start with the 80s. How important was meeting Jon St. James for your career?
Stacey: That’s my career, as far as my adult music career. I hoped to be a dancer, but as far as my career, the day I met him, that was it. That was my whole ‘in’ to the thing. My whole ‘in’ to the shindig.
KW: Do you feel like it was kind of a fate thing, like how you met him, or destiny? It’s interesting how people meet.
Stacey: Yeah, there’s no reason why I, who never aspired to sing at all…I was immediately captivated with recording, you know, just being fresh back from the circus, this was exciting to me, you know. More so than being in an outfit that was torturing animals. You know, this was way better.
(Prior to her music career, Stacey was an elephant girl, touring the world with the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. KW).
KW: That’s a big issue, they shut all the circuses down.
Stacey: Thank God, you know, I just did not know in those days. I just want to apologize for any ignorance there, but I used to believe what they said, that these elephants have a better chance than being poached over there, this is better than anything. And I know now that it’s not – I believed them.
KW: The culture has come a long way in giving rights to animals.
Stacey: Well you must have thought, God, this girl’s she’s so sweet –how can she be so unfeeling and nonchalant about the elephant riding, you know? And that’s why, I really didn’t understand.
KW: I was very low on understanding back then too. To the point where I bought you some earrings with ivory elephants on them, and I didn’t realize how cruel that was.
Stacey: And I loved those, I wear them on the cover of an album. I thought that was just a gorgeous thing. Oh my God, I just don’t even….that’s my big thing, the elephant sanctuaries. We try to pay attention, and we know all the elephants that are on the web, you know, the web’s good for that.
KW: What have you been up to?
Stacey: For the last 15 years straight I’ve been touring.
KW: Do you miss that right now, with the lockdown, the Corona thing?
Stacey: No, because the dates I’ll miss, they’ll postpone them, and at some point, like everybody else, I’ll pick up where we left off. I’m grateful for them, but I don’t miss them.
KW: The new album, by SSQ, “Jet Town Je T’aime,” I’m really enjoying it very much.
Stacey: Oh God, that’s the best so far if you ask me. Jon’s on a roll. We just keep going. The next day after we released the album, he goes ‘here’s the next song.’ I’m like ‘Whoa, okay!’ I thought we were done,’ he goes, ‘no, we’re not done. We’ll never be done.’
KW: Here’s a video of the first single from the new SSQ album, “AirPods On,” created by Jon St. James’ teenage son, Damon, and his friend Tahlia Flores.
Stacey: So ask me who my favorite pianist is?
KW: Mike Garson?
Stacey: Yuja Wang.
KW: I’ve seen her, she wears the skirts and stuff. She’s my classical music crush.
Stacey: Yes, she’s the best, on this planet right now, she’s the best concert pianist, I’m convinced of it.
KW: I want to go back to the 80s. Did you know you were breaking ground when that red vinyl EP came out? Did you realize ‘this is something new and we’re on the front of it?’
Stacey: Well, let me put it this way, maybe this will sound familiar. What happened for me was, we sent out the red vinyl, it wasn’t for sale. It was our promo kit, and immediately, you know, within the month, we were top ten. Like all four songs, in every college in all of the world, I thought we had hit the big time. I thought that we had made it. ‘We did it,’ you know. I thought that was it. I thought that’s what we were going for. ‘Hey, that’s so cool, everybody’s looking at us, and we’re on the college radio stations.’ Jon goes, ‘No Stacey, this is not it.’
KW: Little did you know, in 85 or 86, with “Two of Hearts….”
Stacey: That was something else. I had no idea. I really liked the project. I can’t say I knew that we were really good, and that we were going to be popular, but I really liked it.
KW: You’re a perfectionist in the studio, I can tell.
Stacey: Well, I have to be, that’s why I’m still doing it. I’m still trying to, you know, to be, not like Adele or anything, but you know, I just like to be proud of my work, but I would like to think that I do have it in me, before the great limo in the sky, that (I make) a record where my vocals (are perfect) where I sing better, I’m gonna try and sing better.
KW: The new one, “Jet Town Je T’aime,” it’s so beautiful, you saw my review, you know how much I like it.
Stacey: Well, I feel the same way about it as you, looking at it where you’re standing, because, the record’s all Jon. You know, ‘cause really, I’ve never seen anybody make a whole record all by themselves and sound like that. I just never saw anybody do it before. I think he did a pretty amazing job.
KW: He’s still your best producer, he still has that sound, and he’s got a distinctive sound.
Stacey: He’s my only producer. I mean, I didn’t sign with William Morris, I didn’t go with the Stevie Wonder people there. I turned them down.
KW: They wanted to represent you and you turned them down.
Stacey: Yeah, I turned them down, William Morris, and everybody thought I was crazy.
KW: Yeah, the pressures, who wants all that pressure?
Stacey: It is ridiculous.
KW: What a journey it’s been so far, with all the changes.
Stacey: I never dreamed in a million years, that after a fifteen year hiatus, I’d go back to work and work another fifteen years. I’m so grateful, that’s just amazing.
KW: Is there a new way of working in the studio, 35 years later?
Stacey: Recording the record, spending time in there, yes that is completely different. As far as my part, singing in the booth, it’s not different at all, and I’m not different at all. I’m still that girl trying to fit with Jon’s song, trying to make it sound as good as I can.
KW: Is it an intuitive process where you get into the song, or is it more thought out?
Stacey: Or Jon just gets on the talkback, and says ‘do it like this. Or try it like that.’ And that was really a saving grace for me, because I used to have these long thought processes and I could get self-conscious and you know, he’ll just say, ‘do it like, this, do it like that, or this is my idea.’
KW: How did it help you with being self-conscious, being a successful musician?
Stacey: Well, it’s more possible now that I go more time not being self-conscious, in a crowd. It was pretty pronounced.
KW: What is the most meaningful part of your career?
Stacey: The most meaningful part of my career? Having one! Having one that was successful, that was, everything about that was just stellar! You know, there’s ups and downs. ’Upon us all a little rain must fall,’ but I do have to say the whole overall experience in my life is the best. Just from beginning to end, because what it meant to me, that I was able, first of all, to do something in communication, towards people, which I (was not) very good at it, when I was younger. And learning how to sing. It may have been more comfortable to learn it not in front of people, but I learned how to, right in front of people, just the whole thing was great.
KW: Any thoughts about the music business?
Stacey: As far as the music, I don’t even want to call it the music biz, I don’t want to call it show biz, or entertainment. Music is so, oh my God, there is nothing like music. It’s so special, it’s kind of holy or sacred in a way. And to me, to involve in f#$#ed up stuff, jealousness, and pettiness, and you know, run up over somebody’s head to get where you’re going, there’s just no place for it. That’s not what it’s about, and you know, you just try to stay out of the business, and big dollar signs in your eyeballs, if you like music at all. And anybody can participate you know.
Look at Linda Ronstadt, she learned how to sing at home, in the family. She and Karen Carpenter are my favorites. More so than Barbra Streisand or any of that.
KW: You still have the same influences that you always had, rock and roll, electronic stuff?
Stacey: Oh, I’m gonna have to go with the dear lovely, all of the ex-band members and Jon, is probably the biggest influences on anything I recorded. But listening wise, I’ll like one or two songs, from like say, I’m not sure about Tame Impala, but there are a couple songs I do like. I like that “The Less I know The Better,” and “Elephant.” I like those two songs.
KW: Any thoughts about computers and music production?
Stacey: I say first of all, about the phone, about the phone that’s attached to you 24/7, I’m more like the ‘no news is good news’ type. And then also as far as computers, computers are to make records. Not to sit around and play tiddlywinks in your living room. So that’s just me.
KW: Technology is liberating for making music.
Stacey: You’re right. When you can fully realize what you want it to sound like all along with everything at your fingertips, now it’s totally great. I know people that don’t even come out of the studio they’re having such a good time. And they’re old timers.
KW: Are you looking forward to recording some new stuff with Jon, even with the COVID-19 crisis?
Stacey: As soon as they’ll let me get out of here. Yeah, pretty soon, as soon as it looks safe, I’ll get over there.
KW: Anything to say to the fans out there?
Stacey: Make sure you tell those people, thank you for listening to my records. I just want to thank you for thinking of us.
Stacey Q on Facebook
SSQ On Spotify
