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ABOVE
Corinne
Dinner in her home office, one of the completely renovated
and finished rooms in her new home. With it's hard wood
floors, powder blue walls, complementary wallpaper, and
minimal furniture, it's clear you've just stepped into the
room of a designer.
Photographed
on September 20, 2009. |
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On
the kickball field Corinne Dinner is one of the guys. She
runs, kicks, and throws just as hard as anyone else and
it becomes clear quite quickly that she's a force to be
reckoned with. Similarly, on stage with The Hectors, surrounded
by three male band mates, she commands an uncompromising
presence while simultaneously delivering heartfelt lyrics
with emotion and grace.
I
met up with Corinne in September of 2009 at her new home
in Los Angeles which she and Jim Saunders (who plays bass
in The Hectors) were currently in the middle of renovating.
It's now complete and includes a practice/recording space
which I'm eager to see and hear in action.
You
mentioned to me that you were from Walnut Creek, when did
you move to Los Angeles?
Corinne Dinner: I moved here I'm thinking
like 2000.
What
was your motivation for coming here?
CD: I wanted to be a screenwriter, but then
I met other screenwriters because I was going to bars a
lot when I first moved here and everybody was miserable.
And maybe it was just the people I met, but they all were
like – "I don't know if you want to do this,
you're in a room all day and it's not like you're part of
this movie business" – and so the more people
I talked to, even people who were kinda successful, it just
bummed me out. So I didn't want to do that anymore. I went
back to UCLA for graphic design.
When
was that?
CD: That was like 2003. Something like
that, 2004.
Where
did you go to college?
CD: Reed in Portland.
Oh
okay. Is that were you met Jim?
CD: No, I met Jim at the
law firm he worked for in Century City.
What
were you doing there?
CD: I was there because I
was trying to screen write and I was looking for any job
that needed a writer. I could barely get a job out of college,
no one knew where Reed was. When I was looking at colleges
I was like maybe I'll go to Santa Cruz or maybe I'll got
to UC and I should have because it didn't matter that I
went to Reed. It's actually a good school but no one knows
about it.
What
do you mean no one knows about it. I know about it.
CD: I'm surprised, you're
one of 30 people. No one knows Reed. I put in a lot of work
and it's more money and everything but it just doesn't really
matter. It didn't help me get a job, I'll put it that way.
I'm
really surprised.
CD: Yeah, it did nothing
for me. But I met Jim, they were hiring writers, it was
like just a generic thing to write up immigration papers.
It was really boring. I was there for a few months.
So
you guys worked together.
CD: Yeah, that's where I
met him.
What
does he do there?
CD: He is sort of in charge
of cases coming in. They do a lot of entertainment stuff;
it's a range but he's kinda in charge of the entertainment
division, they help production people and actors from foreign
countries follow immigration law.
What's
it like being in a band with someone you're in a relationship
with?
CD: It works really well
for us because it's cool to have someone you trust to immediately
bounce
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ideas off of. When you're being creative and you're vulnerable
and you're coming up with a bunch of stuff, you know some
of it's not good, you need to edit. You need to edit down
so we help each other do that.
You're
not afraid that because of your relationship he'll
be nicer to you?
CD: Oh he wouldn't be nicer to me. That's
what's great about it. That's what's great about being in
a relationship. If you're in a good relationship they'll
be honest with you. They'll be like, you know this is schmaltzy,
or you can go into a different part here, and you shouldn't
repeat this again, or this is two many parts. You don't
tip toe around about it. And so it's just a matter of not
hurting the other person's feelings, if anything it goes
the other way and you're too blunt. I tend to be too blunt
but I don't mean it, it's just that we have such short hand.
Is
that difficult when you add other people, that you two are
so on the same page and the others aren't?
CD: Not with Eric and Robert
because we're just really good friends. I think we're all
pretty open with each other and we have a really good rapport.
I think if we were the Polyphonic Spree it would be different,
but all those guys are like...
But
my understanding is that you were in a relationship before
you started the band.
CD: Yeah.
And
then you started the band because you thought it would be
cool to be in a band.
CD: No. (laughs)
Why
did you start The Hectors? Were you in bands before?
CD: We were in a relationship
and he was in a different band, but it was more just a recording
band. His friends were in Sacramento so he would go up there
on his vacation to record and put things out. I saw him
do it, and I always played music a little bit, but to be
honest whenever I played with dudes before then they were
not very supportive. They were kind of dicks and I hate
that it sounds cliche and like I'm doing the typical woman
rant. I wasn't accepted but it's more like they kind of,
they'd almost want to show off more than play with you.
And I never met any girls I wanted to play with so Jim was
the first one where he was cool about it and supportive
and open to helping me learn things or critique my songwriting
without being a jerk. So it kinda just evolved naturally,
and I saw him playing music and was like, "I can do
that". Then I started writing songs and we started
writings songs together. It started as a fun thing, and
we were already friends with Robert. It really came about
organically, we weren't like, "let's start a band".
That's
really great. How long were you living in Los Angeles before
you felt like Los Angeles was your home, how long before
you were happy here?
CD: In a weird way, because
I came here right after I graduated, graduating can be such
an alienating and strange thing, you don't know where you're
going or whatever, I felt like that summer it was my home
or that fall, whenever I moved here it was my home. I immediately
made a couple good friends then and we just drank and went
to bars, went out, and barbecued, and stuff like that. Like,
immediately. Immediately I was immersed into the East side
of L.A. and it was really different from Portland but I
liked it. I needed a change. It almost was like I was on
a weird, forbidden vacation that my growing up in San Francisco
and Portland had told me was wrong. I'm not supposed to
like L.A. so it seems, I had no expectations so I was easily
impressed.
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