For Jill Sobule, humor and storytelling are a big part of her legacy, oftentimes with her own life serving as source material. It was certainly the case with her last studio effort, 2018’s Nostalgia Kills. She’s further expanded on that via her latest project, F*ck 7th Grade, an autobiographical musical that premiered at the Manhattan-based Wild Project in 2022, had a reboot in the winter of 2023 and ran again for three weeks in 2024 (fourth run in three years). Not only was it a New York Times Critics pick, but it was nominated for a 2023 Drama Desk Award for Best Musical in a category against such major Broadway productions as Shucked, & Juliet, White Girl in Danger and Some Like It Hot. It was quite an accomplishment for such a small theatrical company.
“We were up against all the big boys,” Sobule pointed out. “It’s sad, because the Wild Project will hopefully do it again. But small theaters are having a really hard time right now. And forget any kind of federal funding.”
The true definition of an independent artist, it’s been nearly 20 years since Sobule put an album out with the benefit of conventional major label muscle (that would be 2004’s Underdog Victorious). She launched her own Pinko Records imprint via the release of 2009’s California Years, her seventh full-length album that was financed by $75,000 worth of fan donations. It was no small feat given the fact that the music industry was crumbling under the weight of the 2007 financial crash and still reeling from the after-effects of peer-to-peer file-sharing apps like Napster.
“I did it before there was a Kickstarter,” she explained, “I think I was the first one to ever do the different levels of donation. It was Jillsnextrecord.com and I’d have things from Polished Rock to Weapons Grade Plutonium. Somehow, the Associated Press and CNN got a hold of it and it became a big story. I did really well. The guys from Kickstarter, before they started it, came to me because I know someone who helped fund them. I was told these guys were starting a business and wanted to talk to me about what worked and what didn’t work. What a schlub. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Musical theater was not a new experience for the Denver native. She’d collaborated with Elise Thoron on 2008’s Prozak and the Platypus, wrote songs for a 2014 res-staging of the 1975 Broadway play Yentl at the Sarasota Theater and composed music for The Civilians’ 2018 stage adaptation of the movie Times Square. That same year, the seeds for 7th Grade were germinating back when Sobule was trying to decide whether it was going to be a one-woman show or a full production.
“I was doing music for a couple of other things and my theater agents asked if I thought about doing something like a musical memoir,” she recalled. “I have all these songs and I’m still not over my junior high school years—no one is. They put me together with this woman, Liza Birkenmeier, who is an amazing playwright. We talked and she put together these amazing tapings we had in our conversations and puzzled it together as a piece.”
Sobule added, “You know what’s so funny? Even though these are my words, I had to learn the words. I was so scared of memorizing things. I told my director, Lisa Peterson, who is so strict and amazing, that Bruce Springsteen had a monitor [when he was on Broadway] and I asked if I would be able to have a monitor. She looked at me and said, ‘You’re not Bruce Springsteen.’ Fair enough. The whole thing was such a great experience.”
Storytelling has always come secondary to Sobule, whose favorite albums as a teen included John Prine’s self-titled 1971 debut album (“…his direct, short stories set to music were so effective”), her parents’ Jobim records (“…the storytelling I couldn’t understand, but I could imagine. It was very verbose—I had no idea what they were saying) and Madman Across the Water (“A song like ‘Levon,’ what the hell is he talking about? What is going on?”). But it was her older brother who rocked Sobule’s world when he introduced her to The Beatles’ Revolver.
“It was the first record I ever heard and it blew my mind,” Sobule said with a laugh. “I never heard anything like that before. It was just weird stuff and otherworldly to me. They started doing their little storytelling and those story-songs were always something I was attracted too. I remembered listening to Sgt. Pepper’s and focusing on ‘She’s Leaving Home’.”
With the current tour, Sobule will be traveling solo bouncing between doing club shows and serving as an opening act for The Fixx and The Mekons on the West Coast over the summer. It’s a role she unequivocally embraces.
“I’ve already done a couple of dates with The Fixx and we got on so well and they’re so nice,” she said. “I’ve opened for many older acts including Paul Weller, Joe Jackson and Billy Bragg. I love the challenge of opening for older bands that have peaked. It’s different music and people know nothing about me.”
As for her own set, Sobule will be hopping around her canon while being accommodating to the audience (“I take requests—I’m a softie if someone wants to hear something.”) Given the times we’re living in, she’s not afraid to get political.
“There’s going to be a lot of storytelling—songs from this project and other new songs,” she said. “Since the election, I’ve got some very interesting songs. It’s going to be a mix of songs from Seventh Grade and other songs like ‘When They Say We Want Our America Back, What the F*** Do They Mean?’ When I originally wrote it, I thought I would do a song about the history of anti-immigration sentiment in America, starting from the very beginning. I started singing it at rallies during Trump’s first presidential campaign when I was touring with Bernie [Sanders]. It’s one of the songs fans ask for because I think people just want an excuse to cuss.”
Jill Sobule will be opening for The Fixx on April 5 at the Palladium Times Square, 1515 Broadway, NYC. For more information, visit www.palladiumtimessqure.com or call 516-200-6441.
