Seraphina Lotkhamnga on May 14th, 2012

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“Four years. Never again!” Meiko says. Yes, it’s taken that much time for her sophomore album, “The Bright Side,” to arrive. The former Hotel Cafe waitress-turned-singing sensation was the first artist signed to then-booming MySpace Records back in the day, shooting up the songwriter charts on iTunes and finding her songs in hit TV shows. After the label’s demise, the native of Roberta, Ga. (pop. 800), idled while her new songs collected dust. On Tuesday, they finally see daylight when “The Bright Side” is released via Fantasy Records/Concord Music Group.

||| Download: “Leave the Lights On”

Meiko’s loyal fans will recognize some of these tunes. But the forthcoming record glistens with gumption fans may take a new pleasure in. Despite the cheerful disposition, the album also slinks and shimmers with a daring dip into other elements, such as R&B-pop grooves, that may have her fans do a double-take. Have things indeed gotten brighter? As she prepared for her two-night stint (beginning tonight) at the Hotel Cafe to celebrate the release, we chatted with Meiko to find out:

It’s really hard not to associate your music with Hotel Café. You were waiting tables and bartending there. I can only imagine the things you got to see during that time. Did you ever make mental notes of good shows and the ones that bombed?

Hell yeah, I would! Well, I never thought any of the shows bombed. There were a couple of times I was like, “Oh Lord.” I felt bad for that person because they were really nervous. The quality of people that they bring in to play shows that they have a standard. They do their research. But the first show there that blew my mind was when I saw Sia for the first time. I was waiting tables and I just kind of stood there and cried the whole time. It was just so beautiful. Then after her last song, I realized I had pissed all my tables off. There were people looking at me like, “Where were you?” It was really the coolest thing ever, though. Waiting tables isn’t the funnest job, but waiting tables at a music venue is awesome. I just went there the other night to see my friend Buddy, who was doing a residency. It’s like a family reunion whenever I go there. Actually it’s always like a reunion every night there. I think everyone just goes there all the time.

You did the Hotel Café tour back then with Rachael Yamagata and Ingrid Michaelson, which was kind of right after a lot of blogs and TV shows catapulted your career. How was that?

Honestly, I was worried in the beginning. I was scared things were going to get catty. There was a backing band that was just guys, but all the performers were all girls. But yeah, it wasn’t catty at all. They had a house band that would play with everybody, and it was really cool to step outside the box to play with other girls like Lenka and Sara Bareilles. That was the first time I had that kind of access. Generally, those tours were cool. I had to watch my beer intake every night, though.

Do you feel like the image of singer-songwriters has changed over the years at all? It seems like some people still think singer-songwriters are a bit more ”¦ subdued ”¦ than say, punk rockers.

Maybe the image has changed a little bit. I know that even when I go back home to family or friends of family, they go, “Oh you play guitar. Does it sound kind of like Jewel?” And you’re like, what? Is Jewel the only girl you can think of who plays guitar? I don’t know. I think a lot of people are getting a lot cooler, musically. Adele has opened the doors a lot for girls, at least.

“Singer-songwriter” is such a big umbrella. It can include any genre, which people seem to forget.

Yeah, it’s hard to lump people. And a singer-songwriter is someone who writes their own songs and that’s everybody. Most people, anyway. So I don’t get weirded out by the stigma. “Oh you’re a singer-songwriter.” Yeah, I am! And a guitar player!

When I listen to your new record, I get the feeling you went into it writing happier songs. You do have a song titled “I’m in Love,” which you repeat several times. I’m assuming you ”¦ fell in love?

I did! I fell in love and that was the first song I wrote in the relationship and that was all I could think about saying in the song. I remember when I first played it live, my manager was like “We get it. OK.” So I chopped it off and said “I’m in love” less, but that’s how I felt. You just want to scream it out over and over again – and put a trumpet in there.

You kind of a came off a break-up before writing the last album, but you were pretty somber with your tunes. Do you think you’ll ever pull an Alanis Morissette and write an album where you’re insanely pissed off?

Probably. Definitely? I don’t know. I like the idea of putting out a lot of records that reflect what I’m going through. My first record was a little chill and I wrote a lot of break up songs. This one is pretty happy, but who know what the future holds. Who knows what kind of gnarly shit I’ll come across, but that’s kind of the exciting part; to think about what the possibilities are in songwriting, all the crazy experiences that are bound to happen.

Are you still with the guy?

Yes!

So there is an overall happy arch throughout the new album, but there’s also this electronic shimmer that I didn’t hear on the first album. For example, “Leave the Lights On.” Who were the producers that helped you out with that song?

That was Jimmy Messer and a dude out of Belgium called Styrofoam.

We now take this timeout to watch the official video for the single:

How did you hook up with him?

I met him through a label guy, actually, Luke Wood at Interscope. He thought it would be a good idea for us to team up together. So we started sending each other stuff back and forth online. I would send him just me playing guitar, and he would chop it up and put it to crazy, awesome music. So I got him to come here and we started working together.

Did he work with you on a few more songs then?

He did a lot of the album. Some tracks I did just with him, some I did just with Jimmy and then I did some with the both of them.

The video for “Leave the Lights On” seems to convey a secret relationship or a secret love affair.

Yeah, well I was writing all these happy songs, and I was getting bored with writing all these “I’m in love” songs. So I wanted to think outside the box a little bit, and imagined what it would be like to have this secret sexy forbidden love affair, this gritty scandalous thing. I wrote it with my friend Tony Reyes when I was touring in Atlanta. When I put my bags down in his place, he was like “I want to show you this song I was working on,” and it was just beats. Then when I started singing along to it, I had the perfect idea to it and secretly hoped he hadn’t shown it to anyone else. So I wrote the melody and lyrics on top of the song, and that was it. It was really quick.

Was it always a contender for the album?

No, it was not. When I was making the album, everyone said that the song should not go on the album. But when I played it live, I could just feel people were in to it and liked it. There’s something that happens. You can tell sometimes what songs go well, more than other songs. It was just pin drop quiet in the room. So I secretly recorded that song in the studio. Then I showed the producers and they were like, “Oh my god, let’s do it.” So we stayed really late in the studio and did that song as well.

So you had a secret affair with the song itself.

Exactly: a secret song affair. But once it got recorded, that’s when everyone was like “Oh, I knew that song was great all along,” and it was like yeah, right! But it’s the single, and I love that it’s the single, because it’s my favorite song off the record.

There’s another song on “Bright Side” called “Real Real Sweet,” that’s about secrets, too, right?

Oh yeah. I wrote that because I was really good friends with this guy and he had this girlfriend who ended up stalking me. It got really uncomfortable and we ended up not being friends with each other anymore because of this girl. She thought something was going on between me and her boyfriend. So I wrote this song to kind of mess with her head.

So is this a play off of “Boys with Girlfriends” from the last album?

Yes, I wrote the song right after “Boys with Girlfriends.” Nice one! “Boys with Girlfriends” was the last song I recorded for the last record, and I wanted to put “Real Real Sweet” on there but it just didn’t end up working out. I didn’t have a good recording of it. But I kept playing it at shows and people were asking me where they could get it, and I didn’t know what to tell them. So I made sure to record it for this album and it’s exactly how I want it to sound.

Well, “Leave the Lights On” and “Real Real Sweet” are much racier than “Boys with Girlfriends.” The lyrics in the latter are simpler and straightforward, and now there’s all this business behind closed doors. Has living in L.A. made you more daring in your songwriting?

Hmm ”¦ Maybe. Maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. My views are getting a lot different from what they were in my early twenties. I observe a lot, so maybe it is living in the city. I’ve seen a lot of gnarly stuff.

Well you’ve always been kind of saucy. You do have that song “You’ve Gotta F–kin’ Tip,” which has me recalling you on stage with quite the potty mouth before.

I know! I’m trying to control that! Sometimes I give myself a pep talk before a show and say “Okay, don’t say any more than 3 cuss words on stage.” Most people are like, “Yeah! Shit talker!” but then I had this pregnant girl come up to me and say, “I didn’t like that you said the F-word so much.”

I noticed some of your new songs also have some R&B slight undertones, which also plays into some of the racier appeal this time around.

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to work with beats a little bit more. Both Styrofoam and Jimmy are very good with making beats, but the one R&B-ish song that comes to mind is “When the Doors Close.” I thought this is a “sexy” song; I want it over a cool, sexy beat. So I sang over it and that’s just the demo. A few of the songs on the record are actually demos – “Thinking Too Much” and “I Wonder,” too. I liked the way they were and I put them on the record. I want to do more R&B stuff, too. I love it. That’s another thing about being lumped into the “singer-songwriter” genre. You’re so sweet. You sing la-la-las. You talk about love, but there is another side that is the dirty south and it’s the SWV, the TLC, Mary J. Blige and all that old school stuff that I just love. It’s in my soul. I love mixing those elements. I mean my first CD was “The Bodyguard” soundtrack. That’s R&B, and it’s not like I went from listening to that to listening to pop music. I went from that to “Crazy, Sexy, Cool” and then “My Life.” I was all about it. Then when I was all about writing songs I couldn’t figure out how to write R&B songs, so that’s when my musical taste changed and I started listening to the Cranberries and Fiona Apple.

What are you happiest about in regards to “The Bright Side?”

I’m happy that it’s finally finished and I can move on. I’ve been working on this album for two years. I put my last record out in 2007, right? I re-released it in 2008 with “Boys and Girlfriends.” Then in 2009, I toured my butt off. In 2010, I toured a little bit but I also got in the studio, so I basically started this record in 2010. So I’m ready. It’s weird. You work on a project and you finally put it out. It’s a strange feeling because I’m already thinking of new songs. But I have tell myself to stop that because I’m about to play all these songs all the time. That’s what happened last time when I was touring. I would play the songs that are now on this record and people were like, “Where can I get that?” But I had to be like “You can’t because it’s not recorded yet!” and I don’t want that to happen again.

What’s going on next if you’re not writing new songs then?

Well, I’m going to Japan to do radio promo for the album and it’s going to be my first time. I’m a quarter Japanese, and I have family there I’ve never met. I’m very excited. It’s on my bucket list so I’m probably going to cry the whole time I’m there. I’ll be there for two weeks in July ”¦ and they made a J-Pop remix of “Stuck On You.” It’s so wacky! It’s like alien crack.

||| Live: Meiko celebrates the release of “The Bright Side” tonight and Tuesday at the Hotel Cafe.

Top photo by Reid Rolls. Second photo by Jeff Koga.