Monika talks with Chris Pureka, who plays the Iron Horse 12/4.

For several years, Chris Pureka spent her days expanding the frontiers of scientific knowledge at the Smith College labs and her nights putting heartache to melody over guitar chords. Now that she’s touring full time, her songs get the days all to themselves; which means folks from Seattle to New York get to fill up rooms to hear her play. She comes home to the Iron Horse on Tuesday Dec 4^{th at 7pm,} en route to the Boston Music Awards Ceremony , where she is up for outstanding folk act of 2007. I chatted with this local girl made good mere days ago.

Monika: I've been listening closely to your new album Dryland in preparation for talking to you and was at times overwhelmed by the sadness I felt listening to it. It was uncomfortable- I had to walk away from the speakers repeatedly and I had a markedly unproductive few days. (I mean this as a compliment.) Being myself so debilitated by proximity to your work, I wonder what place melancholy has in your daily life. Some people I know whose art goes deeply into a specific emotional palate embody totally different energy outside of the creating process, others seem always to be living inside their pieces.

Do you agree with my impression that your songs are sad?

Chris: I think that many of my songs are sad, yes. And I think that my sad songs do come from my immediate experience or my personal sadness. I don’t think that the people that know me are surprised that the songs are sad. I often use songwriting as a tool to get through difficult times. And then, it’s almost as though once I put the melancholy into the song, it’s not in me anymore. I get it out of my system. It’s my way of processing it.

That said, however, I don’t think that all my songs are sad. In fact, on Dryland, I think that there is a theme of hope threaded throughout many of the songs.

Read the full interview here.

Buy tickets HERE to Chris Pureka Tuesday 12/4 at the Iron Horse