Aimee Mann Hits Santa Barbara in Her First West Coast Tour in More than a Decade

“Right now, I’m thinking about making another record; there’s a musical I’m working on; and I’m writing a graphic memoir, which is a process,” says Grammy-winning Renaissance woman Aimee Mann. Over the past four decades, Mann has released 10 studio albums and contributed songs to Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 film Magnolia, earning an Oscar nomination for her pensive “Save Me.” With erudite lyrics and nimble melodies, Mann’s songs are complex and intimate, always honest, and touch many subjects.

I caught up with Mann in advance of her show at the Lobero on October 30, as part of her first West Coast tour in more than a decade. “I’m excited … I feel like it’s been a really long time,” she says. “Nobody has a reasonable sense of time anymore; COVID ruined that for everybody.”

Asked how it feels to interact with music following the pandemic, she says, “It’s harder for people to tour because inflation has come into the music business…. I’m not a person who pays attention to how many shows I’ve sold out, but I get a sense that in general it’s harder on people, and there’s a post-COVID trauma.”

Before the pandemic, Mann was commissioned to write songs for a musical adaptation of Susanna Kaysen’s memoir Girl, Interrupted. Although the project was shelved, Mann’s 2021 album, Queens of the Summer Hotel, features that material. Writing for a musical is “totally different,” she says. “I don’t think it’s as easy for me to write ‘on demand.’ … It’s a different skill set that I’ve gotten better at. I do like writing from the point of view of a character, getting into someone’s head.”

The subjects of Mann’s work range from drug addicts and sociopaths to loneliness and love, paired with music suited for compulsive listening. “It’s a piece of music that I’m playing, and it’ll form itself into words,” says Mann of her songwriting. “I’ve been rereading the works of Raymond Chandler, and there was this line I liked, describing a character driving to Santa Monica, that says, ‘All the way down, the lights turn green for him.’ I liked that. I thought that was an interesting way to personify something that happens. The topic in general going around my mind was the early days of a relationship where it feels like everything is going your way and all the lights are turned green for you. Then you start having problems, and you take both things personally.”

Where else does she get inspiration? “Sometimes, things are inspiring in that I think they’re just really good, and it gives me a renewed faith in the transformative power of art, which is kind of necessary to keep going on.”

In the vein of keeping on, I ask how Mann copes with our crazed world. “You have to ask yourself, ‘What action can I take?’ Sometimes, for me, it’s more than just nonaction … stop going over and over the worst-case scenario; just stay away from doomscrolling and ruminating. I believe having two or three friends that are sane, that you can reason things out with, keeps you from being the person who complains about the same thing over and over without taking action.”

If you follow Mann on Instagram, you’ll find some of her paintings; delightful graphic journal entries; and a number of squirrels, most notably one she named “Raggedy Ear.” “Raggedy Ear is a squirrel that’s been hanging around our house for years and may have gone to the great beyond; I don’t want to draw a conclusion! I haven’t seen her in a while, but I feel like she has left some children behind. There are three other squirrels who will go right to the door, peer in the window, and wait for nuts, a new generation waiting in the wings.”

See Aimee Mann with special guest Jonathan Coulton on Wednesday, October 30, 7:30 p.m., at the Lobero Theatre (33 E. Canon Perdido St.). See lobero.org.