Choffel: There's never a wrong time to be born
Austin singer chooses family over fame (but fame will not be refused)
It’s been three years since her last album, and two years since she appeared in three episodes of The Voice, but Suzanna Choffel looks to make her career the top priority in the next year. There are going to be a lot of champagne toasts in early 2015, when Choffel’s next album, produced by David Boyle (Okkervil River, Black Joe Lewis) should be in the can. Look for her to be running around all over town during SXSW in March. Nothing is going to distract Choffel next year, when she plans to continue splitting time between New York City and her hometown of Austin. An adventurous traveler, don’t be surprised if Ms. Choffel jets off to France or Brazil at a moment’s notice.
Rip, rip, rip. Where’s my lighter? That draft of a Suzanna Choffel profile was up in smoke after I received a text from the singer that she was pregnant. It wasn’t planned. “I guess this changes everything.” Ya think?
I had a really good story about a young musician leaving her comfortable hometown of Austin to gamble on herself in New York City. There, she met a well-connected manager who believed in her 100%. Their ambitious dreams together sparkled like the skyline … and then she was knocked up by a Persian bodybuilder. That new ending sucked!
I was happy for Zanna and her partner Paul Oveisi (actually an entrepreneur who lifts weights), but having to do a complete rewrite is an activity I couldn’t hate more unless a catheter was involved.
The only thing I didn’t have to change was the headline. “There’s Never a Wrong Time To Be Born” originally aimed at how the fast-changing music business shouldn’t alter the creative process. When Choffel told me, “I was born either 10 years too early or 10 years too late” it spoke to coming of age at the worst time to make money as a musician. But it’s the best time to connect with those who get you, even if your priorities flip.
Choffel’s next release came March 23, 2015. Lulu dropped, literally, on the last night of SXSW when Mommy Nearest was dancing to African band Songhoy Blues and felt the baby move into birth position. She went into labor the next day.
In the past few years, Choffel has found another use for her smoky voice, which once ruled Wednesdays at Momo’s. She’s the 11 a.m.- 3 p.m. weekday DJ on Sun Radio, where Wednesday now belongs to the “BOV” (bring your own vinyl) request show. She’s a natural on the radio, but I get a little sad whenever she has to act excited about playing an artist that has half her talent. Is Maggie Rogers still a thing?
Choffel still performs semi-regularly, and she did make that David Boyle-produced album Hello Goodbye in 2017. But it didn’t add to the momentum of predecessor Archer, which was a renamed Steady Eye Shaky Bow, which Choffel’s manager Nell Mulderry sold to NYC’s Red Parlor Records in 2013. That $15,000 helped make Manhattan feasible, even if Paul and Zanna had to rent a room in someone’s apartment.
(Cue the Association): “And then along comes Lulu!” Then, four years later came second daughter Izzy. I’ve seen so many photos of those cuties on Facebook I may ask for an autograph if I ever meet them.
Of all my “discoveries” while at the Statesman - Terry Hendrix, the Damnations, Anna Ege, Gary Clark Jr., Del Castillo- Suzanna Choffel seemed to have the easiest path to stardom (i.e. making me look like a friggin’ genius.)
But the truth is that Choffel was already discovered, just not in her hometown. She won $10,000 in a national songwriting contest in 2005, and was featured on the home page of YouTube for this song:
As a way to feel like you’re doing actual work, while wasting everyone’s time, the Statesman produced rooftop sessions with local acts in 2005. Only about 150 people watched each one, but I got Choffel in asap, because this would be my proof that I was still on top of things. She brought her drummer Eldridge Goins, who was also her boyfriend at the time. They set up side by side, but the obviously-enamored producer wanted Zanna in front. Eldridge refused to move his drums backward, earning my respect… and his face about 3 seconds of airtime.
Watching Choffel advance on The Voice in 2012 (Team Blake) was a point of pride, with Rolling Stone singling her out as “the only artist you’d want to listen to a complete album by.” But then she came up against the season’s eventual winner Cassadee Pope. Producers gave Suzanna four songs to choose from, and she picked “Jolene” by Dolly. Slam dunk, right? But they made her do “Could You Be Loved” by Bob Marley instead. Now, Choffel is a huge Marley fan, playing his records hours a day when she was teaching herself guitar, but that’s not a song to show off your vocals. Too many backup singers.
But you don’t want to win The Voice, not if you crave credibility. Choffel got her name out there, but seemed destined for greater rewards.
There’s a sensuality to her voice that would fit in with fans of Amy Winehouse, Stevie Nicks and Adele, plus she’s got a distinctive guitar style. But Choffel never made it out of the clubs. She’s gone from The Voice to the voice of Whataburger ads. But the bills are paid and the kids are full.
"I first had the pop star dream when I was about 7," said the middle child of three, lucky to be born with a very non-Jan Brady voice. By the time her parents divorced, when she was 12, Choffel knew she wanted to be a singer, but she was leaning toward R&B. "I was very influenced by African American culture and music, so my mother's Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris records didn't do anything for me," she said.
But as an Austin High student, Choffel fell under the influence of Patty Griffin, and everything changed. "When I was 17, I went by myself to see Patty Griffin at the Cactus. It was just her and a guitar, and it opened up all the possibilities for me,” said the AHS basketball player, who’d sing the National Anthem before games in her uniform. Choffel soon found other models for the musician she wanted to be in Ani DiFranco, the DIY princess, and Paul Simon's Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints albums. She spent months in Brazil and loved it- even though she was mugged. Everything was a learning moment.
Her favorite classroom was Momo’s, above Katz’s Deli on W. Sixth St., which Oveisi bought from John “Mellow Johnny” Korioth and Chris Ruhling in December 2000. Those hardcore bicyclists underestimated how much simple stairs would keep people away, and lasted only eight months. Paul Oveisi was a lawyer with a civil litigation firm, who decided that what he really wanted to do was run live music venues- and lucked out with the greatest patio in town. Especially after the 2005 indoor smoking ban.
Before Momo’s, it was upscale jazz club Top of the Marc, owned by deli king Marc Katz. Opening in Aug. 1989 with the piano/bass duo of Polk & Beans (James Polk and Beans Richardson), the club had a pretty impressive run of almost 11 years, putting national jazz acts in an 400-capacity room. After closing in March 2000, Top of the Marc left behind much of the furniture, which gave Momo’s a more elegant feel than the usual rock club. But then you had redhead Ruby Collins at the bar, opening beer bottles by the arm full like Dangerous Toys were about to go on.
It took a couple years for Momo’s’ identity to reveal itself. The singer-songwriters had too much room, and the alternative metal acts had too much sound. The first band to really make sense there was South Austin Jug Band, who packed Sunday nights, starting in 2002. With Warren Hood on fiddle, Matt Slusher on mandolin, Will Dupuy on standup bass and the songs and laconic phrasing of James Hyland, SAJB appealed to both the taco hats at UT and jamband groovers. Thank you, Jennifer Cook, for dragging me up there from Opal Divine’s across the street. (Remember when Sixth and Rio Grande wasn’t ruled by d-bags?)
Momo’s can claim future platinum act Los Lonely Boys, booking the Garzas when nobody besides Freddy Fletcher knew who the hell they were. (Blues with three-part harmonies- no thanks!) Willie Nelson stopped by one night to hear the band his nephew Freddy was about to sign.
Bit by the club bug big-time, Oveisi made a couple of financial mistakes in 2002, buying the troubled Metro club on Sixth Street (whose owner Paresh Patel went-and stayed- missing in 2000) and renaming it Six of Clubs, then taking over Steamboat in the future La Bare building. The mystery of why so many clubs have failed at the prime location of Riverside and Congress is solved when you see a utility bill.
Oveisi decided to concentrate on Momo’s and to chair the Live Music Task Force that helped venues and the city to better work together.
The Momo’s glory years were the mid-2000s, when Choffel was the queen and Band of Heathens the kings. But let’s not forget T-Bird and the Breaks, a top-flight soul band which played its first-ever gig at Momo’s and had lines down the alley a month later. The Belleville Outfit took over the newgrass scene after SAJB broke up.
It was a great room that, like Top of the Marc, made it to year 11. The belch of death was when Nate Paul’s World Class Capital bought the building at 618 W. Sixth in 2011. While renovating the former Katz’s space, a support beam was removed, and the writing was on a buckled Momo’s floor. Rather than fight a new landlord who saw the future in bottle service, Oveisi settled his lease and moved to NYC, where he opened the ZirZamin listening room.
OK, I think we’re caught up with Momo’s. Let’s go back to “Zanna Ouise,” who I had to re-interview in late 2014, when her world- and my week- were turned upside down.
“Initially, I was scared shitless and just so overwhelmed about what this meant for my career,” said Choffel. “And then slowly, with a lot of talking it out and journaling and reaching out to other musical mamas, I realized that this is not only doable, but it can actually enhance your career in many ways. Up until now my whole life has just been about me and my career. I did whatever I wanted to do, whenever. This gives me some boundaries… Time is more precious, to be treated with respect.”
Just as dancing is a representation of sex, making music is an approximation of childbirth. There is no greater form of creativity- and any two morons can do it- so you have to work hard to make your experience special.
“Eliza Gilkyson has a great line in one of her songs,” Choffel said. “‘The little dream lives and the big dream dies.’ I’m living the little dream.”
Watch this expensive NYC-shot video for “Raincloud”
But the big dream's not dead yet.