In House With A Fine Frenzy: Singer Alison Sudol Goes All-Natural on 'Pines'

A Fine Frenzy sounds like a punk band gone rogue, but giggling Alison Sudol, who took the name from a verse in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," is anything but a delinquent. The LA-based songwriter has been releasing records under the moniker since 2007, but her dream was always to be a writer, not a singer. So in conjunction with her third record, Pines, Alison decided to release a book. Both projects share an emphasis on nature, hope, and joy.

"I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid, and it's like this weird thing where there was such a joy to it for me. It was so easy that I was like 'There's no way I can make career out of this, it's too fun.' So I went into singing," Sudol tells Spinner. "I'm shy, so singing is the most terrifying thing for me. But it moves things. So that's why I ended up going into that. But then getting to do this book was wonderful because it was like pairing something that I love doing so much with my passion, the thing that opens every door for me in life, which is music."

Sudol decided to change her whole approach for this album. She changed her songwriting style and subject matter and even dyed the curtain of red hair she adopted as part of the A Fine Frenzy's persona, to blonde. Pines is all about going natural.

"I needed to just change everything, I needed this to be a clean slate," the "Almost Lover" singer says, while adding that many of fans didn't respond well to her shedding the red-haired siren look.

"I've gotten mixed reactions. Sometimes people forget you are a human. People have said 'Your hair sucks! I liked you better with red hair!' Which is hard for me because I'm naturally a blonde. For a long time red hair is something that I hid behind. It was like a security blanket, it was the thing that I felt was unique. But it was getting to the point where it was being identified with my personality and my ethos. I just wanted to try being me for a minute."

In embracing her natural self, Sudol also worked to make art that wasn't strictly about the sad demise of relationships. Her initial album One Cell in the Sea and the follow-up Bomb in a Birdcage both deal heavily in relationships and love that often go wrong.

"I didn't just want to be the heartbroken girl anymore. I don't mean that only in the musical sense, just in life. I was just like 'Stop the pattern! There's other things to life than just getting your heart smushed and bashed.' I needed to change my life on so many levels. I needed to learn how to be happy. I needed to learn how to engage with people. I got signed quite early and I had been really sheltered and very shy. So I didn't develop in certain areas of my life. I didn't have that many friendships, I lived a lot in my imagination and not so much in the real world."

Watch A Fine Frenzy's "Avalanches" Video
"When I'm in a forest I'm like 'Ahh forest!' But then I think about the sea and I think 'oh but I want that!' If somehow there was the ocean in a forest and then a mountain inside of that, under the water [laughs]. Each type of landscape, even a prairie, rolling hills, it all brings about a different emotion and so I think I'm just happiest when I'm somewhere beautiful," Sudol explained.

Through these spaces she hopes to convey a larger message about going through hard times and self-discovery. Both the album and the book tackle transformations that Sudol has recently dealt with.

"If the album was a fable I suppose the moral is that when life seems at its darkest and it's at its lowest point, that's the time when you have the gift of regeneration. If you're brave and willing to try you can do anything that you put your mind and heart and spirit into."

The book has the same sort of lesson embedded in it, an attempt to see the brightness in a world that can seem very dark, Alison's attempt to instill magic and faith in the hearts of kids and adults alike.

"If you're going through a difficult or transitional time the hardest part is right before you go to bed. That's the loneliest and the darkest part. So I wanted to make something that would just make people feel good. There's also a children's book aspect to it, but something that a parent would like to read too, and they would probably get different things out than their child would. But the point was to let kids feel like the world is magical, because we need that as kids. Kids need as much imagination and faith and hope as they can get."

The album and the book Pines are both available today (Oct. 9) buy them here or those on a limited budget can get the single "Now Is the Start" right here.

Click Through Photos of A Fine Frenzy

Watch A Fine Frenzy's "Electric Twist" Video