- Alright, questions.

Come on down, please.

- Come on down.

- Hi, Karen.

- Hey.

- Go ahead.

- Okay, I'll go for it.

"Closer to Fine", 1989.

1990 Grammy Award show, you're up for Best New Artist and who wins?

- [Emily] Milli Vanilli.

(audience laughs) - [Karen] And it's now an asterisk.

So can you talk about that whole experience in terms of they won and then they didn't win?

Should you have won that night?

- [Evan] And and did it matter to you?

- I mean, if I had to be honest.

If we were up for New Artist, I wanted to win New Artist.

- [Evan] Sure.

- But we didn't.

We were not upset by it.

It just all became very strange in the... (audience laughs) But we won for Best Contemporary Folk Recording.

I mean, to win a Grammy, you never think that's gonna happen.

So I was just excited to be there and then, the word is that we had the second amount of votes.

I don't know whether that's true or not, so that's the word that we would've won if they didn't won.

But it's really a story.

- [Evan] They didn't do a do over and say, "Well, now we're gonna give it to the second place finishers"?

- No, they didn't.

- No, no, my mom definitely wanted that to happen.

- Yeah.

(audience laughs) - [Karen] Thank you.

- Excellent.

- It was crazy.

- Great, come on up.

Hi.

- Hi.

Your previous album, "One Lost Day", there was a song, "Texas Was Clean", I was curious if you would be willing to share what the backstory or inspiration was for that song.

- [Evan] Great question.

- Oh, that's a fun question.

(audience laughs) Very obscure song as you know.

You know, I thought of it watching "Friday Night Lights" actually, the TV show.

And then it sort of elaborated.

I think that show caught really a great sort of blend of like human nature and the stories of our lives and stuff, encapsulated in a show about football.

But also I spent a lot of time in Austin.

Emily and I both have.

It's been a real touchstone for us.

Texas has, and we have a lot of special friends here.

And so some of it is about our early days in Austin and the people that we knew and sort of just the tenderness, that I feel for Texas really.

So, yeah.

- Thank you.

- That's the story.

- Great.

Hi.

- Hi.

- Hey.

- Oh my goodness.

Wow, thank you.

(audience laughs) - [Evan] It's okay.

- Thank you so much for just a lifetime of fantastic music and I just love you guys.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- You show up in my dreams as songwriting advice, which is really pretty fantastic.

So thank you for just being a part of that I guess.

But my question is, y'all have a very special audience.

When I go to your shows, the only other kind of band that is like that is Iron Maiden oddly.

But you go there, and everyone knows the words and it's not just like...

It's not just your classics.

It's not just your hits.

It's the latest records.

And so I wanted to ask you about like, when did you realize that your audience, your fans, were very, very special in that way?

And how that might have changed how you perform or how you interact or even how you think about your fans?

- Wow, great question.

- That's a great question.

Just a couple things.

I mean, we do make a new set list every night, so we try to mix it up and try to cover as much ground as we can.

I'll speak for myself.

I don't always have as much confidence in the moment of say like a deep cut or a super obscure song.

Like we rarely make a set list of all super obscure... Like we throw in some sing-alongs and we try to pace things.

But ever since the beginning, I mean, we are of our community and our community supported us.

And it's been that it has felt like that the whole way along.

And I think the songs are like, they're about stuff that we've observed in our own lives or reflections on human nature and conflict and social movements and all that.

And the people who come to our shows are people who think about those things as well.

They never say like, "Shut up and sing," you know?

(audience laughs) So I think that it's just such a strong sense of community and when the documentary was mentioned, Amy and I were like, "Don't make a movie about us."

"Make a movie about our community."

So I think we have recognized that.

- And can I just say?

How many people have seen the documentary?

I can say with confidence it is that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- It really is not about...

I mean, it is about you all in one very obvious sense, but it really is about the community.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- And yeah, and I think the joy that I feel now as I said earlier more than ever, is just still feeling that and just being overwhelmed by how we all are together and the experience.

I mean, I know we're up on stage and we wrote the songs and we're singing it, but it feels much more reciprocal than that.

It feels energetic and it feels very healing to me.

- And one of the things that we noticed when we started early on was we would, when we had people that would open for us, they would be a lot of bands that were really different from us.

Like we would have punk rock bands open or whatever.

And our audience was... That showed us too, like people are just open to music and our violinist, had a heavy metal band for a long time and there's crossover.

You can't judge what kind of music people are gonna like, and we just always tried to remember that.

And then try to put obscure... We don't wanna do just the same songs every night.

So, who does, right?

- Yeah.

- So it's really fun if we just mix it up and then I think everybody in the audience is so cool about helping each other sing.

Yeah, thanks for the question.

- Yeah, that's a great question.

- Appreciate it.

Bring the next questioner up.

On the question of the set list being different every night, you don't mind playing your hits?

- No.

- No.

- There are some people that are like, "Don't ask me to play X, I play that all the time.

I'd rather play stuff that you..." - No, like "Closer to Fine".

- You can do it all.

- "Closer to Fine" or "Kid Fears", the opening acts oftentimes will sing those songs with us.

So it's different every single night.

The audience will take a verse and it just makes it new again.

- [Evan] Magnificent, hi.

- Hi.

I am here today with my extraordinary mom, who is my introduction to Indigo Girls.

- [Emily] Thank you, Mom.

- Thank you, mom.

(audience applauds) Your music has been just such an incredible touchstone in our relationship.

I am really curious what artists you have been most excited to share with your daughters and what role music plays - That's a great question.

- Whoa.

- in your relationship with your children.

- [Evan] That's a really great question.

- Excellent question.

- Oh my gosh.

(audience laughs) We took a road trip to Iceland and there's a lot of driving in Iceland, if those of you who might know.

And we rented this van and we had playlists.

And so I tried to insert like...

There's a recent song by CeeLo and Timbaland.

I'm a huge Timbaland fan.

And she didn't really wanna hear that.

(audience laughs) She kind of sneakily ended up like putting most of her songs in the playlist.

So I do try, but I don't think she's quite ready yet.

But the good thing is that we're both Swifties, so we have that in common.

And she actually started to write songs when she was really young, and I'm trying to encourage her to do that as well.

And hopefully we'll have some influence over that.

But she's not ready to like listen to the music that I love yet.

I don't know about Ozi.

- Well, I listen to a lot of Taylor Swift right now, and I love Taylor Swift.

My kid really likes rock.

And so we share Joan Jett.

My kid is learning "Back in Black" for a talent show on the drums.

So we listen to that.

- Wow.

- And when I'm in the car, I play "Boy Genius" a lot lately just to try to... And I play Luke Combs.

You know, anything I'm listening to, I just try to listen to what I listen to.

And I've noticed lately when my kid is in the backseat, they're listening to what I'm listening to it.

They used to say like, "Can you put on, you know..." I don't know what?

The children's, whatever that thing is called when you make...

It's the re redone pop songs for kids?

- [Evan] Yep.

(indistinct chatter) - That's changed.

Now it's like, my kid just says, "Play some music."

And then I'll just put on something.

So, it's really fun.

I really love the...

I just love sharing music.

It's just such a great thing.

And we've always done that.

But now it's become mutual.

When they were first born, it was like, I sang Johnny Cash songs all the time as lullabies, or what I chose.

And then it was like whatever Ozi chose.

And now it's like we're blending.

So it's, yeah.

It's awesome.

- Awesome, thank you so much.

- Hi, mom.

(laughs) - Yeah, hi, Mom.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Mom.

- This actually answers a question I wanted to ask at some point, which is are you encouraging of your own kids to be in the music business or to perform or not?

Some people are like, "No."

But obviously both of you are.

- It's whatever you want.

I have no stake in it.

- Right, but what you're not doing is saying, "This has been a bad experience for us," waving them off.

- No, I mean, my daughter is obsessed with Broadway and she wants an agent and she just got head shots.

And I told her... And she looks up these auditions online and she's like, "Mom, there are tryouts for the 'Lion King' and 'Frozen'".

So we will record her and we'll send it all in.

But then, I said, "Honey, if you get on Broadway, you can't go to school."

And she loves school and she loves her friends.

And I said, "And also, Mommy's gonna be with you all the time."

(audience laughs) - Well, you just killed that dream, didn't you, you know what I'm saying?

(audience laughs) - But we want her to have her dreams.

We don't say, "You can't do this."

We just like pepper it with a bit of reality.

- [Evan] I love it.

(audience laughs) Hi.

- Hi.

Well, first of all, I wanna say thank you for sharing so much of your lives with the public and helping everyone bring meaning to all of that.

- [Amy] Oh, sweet.

- But in a similar vein, I've got my 9-year-old here and he's actually, it's his first concert of any type tonight.

- [Emily] Oh, wow.

(audience applauds) We'll be there.

And we snagged some row A, so it's gonna be even crazier, I know.

- [Emily] Epic.

- Yeah, there we go.

But kind of in that similar vein, has there ever been a certain performance or maybe even types of performance that are just kind of magical for you guys?

What does the audience do or what it feels like and are some of these examples?

- When we do benefit shows.

Like when we're involved with a group and we're celebrating the work of that particular group, those are really the most heartfelt experiences.

Also, every time we have an opener, we love all the opening acts.

So when they come out and sing with us, that's always great.

There are some, I always get thrilled and a little nervous to play in New York City.

So if we play in New York City, that's pretty exciting and jazzed.

And then, we are gonna do some shows with Melissa Etheridge in August and some shows with Amos Lee in September.

And I really like co-bills.

That's gonna be really fun.

But there's really, I can't...

There aren't bad nights, really.

Our crowd just brings it every single night.

- Yeah, it's all about the crowd.

- Yeah.

- And then like tonight with Lloyd Mains playing.

- Yeah.

- He's an old friend.

And those kinda things for us, when we can invite people that live in town or people call us and are like, "I'm in town, can I sit in?"

Or whatever, we're just like, that is the most fun thing.

- That's so great.

- And it makes everything just a little bit more, you know, we don't know what's gonna happen all the time.

So that's good.

(laughs) - Okay, thank you so much.

- Hope you have fun tonight.

- Thank you.

Have fun.

- Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

- I wanna be sure that we take as many questions as we have time for.

Are we good on time?

I'm gonna assume that we are.

So, yes.

- Hi, I will be seeing you later on tonight.

- Cool.

- I first discovered you in 1993.

You were the first CD I ever bought.

I never let you go.

- [Emily] Wow.

- And I wanna thank you for "Look Long".

Sometimes when I think about our political climate here in the United States, I get worried.

I get scared for myself, for my family, for my sons.

And I hear your lyrics.

"I will always love this beautiful nation, my beautiful land, this beautiful land.""

And it just sets my heart back on track and gives me hope.

So I just wanna thank you so much.

- [Emily] Such a nice thing you're saying.

- [Amy] Thank you so much.

- [Emily] Thank you.

- [Evan] Thank you.

- [Amy] That's go sweet.

(audience applauds) - How nice.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- So first of all, my mom really likes your music and plays it every day when she drives me to school.

(audience laughs) Yeah.

- Sorry.

(audience laughs) - She's like right there.

(audience laughs) And then also, I had a question about what was your favorite place to go and play music tour I guess, besides Austin I guess, 'cause... (audience laughs) - [Amy] Yeah.

- [Evan] No need to pander, we've exempted Austin.

So no need to pander.

- Yeah.

- So what our favorite city or a favorite country or favorite club?

- [Audience Member] Anywhere.

- [Amy] Anywhere?

Okay.

- [Emily] Good question.

- [Amy] Yeah.

- Well, like I said, New York makes me nervous and gets me excited and I like playing in the South 'cause people are rowdy and they're just an energy.

There's a southern energy that I really, really like.

So southern shows feel like home.

And I like playing in Seattle because it's so beautiful and the people there are really, really great and they've been really, really good to us.

But once I start answering this question, then I've got like 10 more places I wanna say.

- Yeah.

- I don't know what Amy wants to say.

- So I mean, I agree, the South.

I love to play a small like club a lot of times that's kinda rock and roll and sweaty and up close so you can see everybody.

And every city has like different really cool things to do too.

So it's like if you've got a city that's got good thrift shops or good record stores, or I don't know, good arcade, or a good place to run or ride bikes, those things make a difference to us too.

(chuckle) So, yeah.

Cool.

Thanks for the question.

- Thank you, all right.

- Thank you.

- You guys are really cool.

- Steve, are we good to take another one?

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- We're out of time.

- We're done?

Okay.

- [Audience] Aw.

- We gotta get Amy and Emily back downtown so that they can get ready for tonight.

Please give them a big hand.

- Thank you, all.

- What a treat!

- Thank you, all.

- Good.

- Thank you.

- Great.

- This is great.