Milwaukee music fans may remember our delightful, squeezebox-playing, artsy-to-the-max, DIY-queen Pezzetino…well guess what!?! Margaret Stutt is back with a brand new project ZETI. She’s returning to the stage after 14 years for a one-night only show on Thursday, April 9th at The Estate. Think intimate venue, grand piano and a bunch of new music. Check out my interview with her below for more deets!
1. So excited to hear you are making music again. Pezzettino still has a big place in my heart, but tell me more about your latest project ZETI
ZETI is allowing a fresh start, rooted in deep roots and the embrace of everything as a beginning, full of openness, opportunity, and the freedom to explore and experiment in nonduality. It is meant as an offering, whereas I feel that Pezzettino was in a sense a project of egoic validation and catharsis that I’m less interested in right now. I appreciated the inflation of self in my early days, as a woman trying to fight for a place in the world, yet I’m grateful to create some space between a public record of a younger self that was grasping, fighting, albeit sometimes with exuberance.
ZETI feels at peace and at home, belonging to a wide net of universal interbeing. It's not about me, really.
2. Any fun things we should know about the theme of the new record?
The artistic legacy of Jfre Coad and Rich Jacobs, two DIY artists who passed too soon this winter, reminded us of the beauty of simple, humble acts of creation using whatever is available on hand. So I tracked all of my parts sitting on the floor, using a simple field recorder. No wires. Just press the red button and go… and I’m actually very happy with it. Sure, it’s great to record with the best mics in a studio, and I've done that and will continue to work with fabulous engineers. It’s also great to be completely vulnerable and unencumbered, on the floor in comfy clothes, in your home with nobody around.
3. It's been 14 years since you've played in Milwaukee....what inspired you to come back now?
I didn’t see a point to come back and perform other than to assert the relevancy of a separate self, and I haven't found that too compelling. However, with our society experiencing metacrises including increased political violence, oppression, unjust wars, climate disaster, and collapsing systems– not to mention losses in our personal lives– I felt called to build community in intimate settings. I felt I can be of service having survived a severe mental health crisis and existential threat myself, navigating to a place of deeper strength, resilience, grit and resolve.
I was excited to perform again for the release of the studio project I’m working on… but it is a multi-year project… and I just realized… why wait? We can benefit from togetherness NOW. We don’t need to wait for the perfect bonanza. It went from talking to venues about shows two years from ahead to two months ahead. Just showing up as we are, now, with care, intention, and a desire to let go, fortify. To find freedom, to tend to the light and leave feeling emboldened to spread it widely.
4. Your show at The Estate on April 9th feels like a family reunion! Who can we expect to see that night with you?
It will indeed be a gathering of people from many cross-sections of life: loyal Pezzettino community members, family and friends. Yet I wholeheartedly welcome friends I haven’t met yet to enter the inner circle of caring hearts. This is not a reunion show. It is a new beginning for me and anyone in the room. We will come face to face with shadow, walk through the dark forest, come to a clearing, observe stillness, dissolve into the ocean and air, feel the sun on our skin, then take flight. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday evening, if you ask me. If we haven't met yet, I'd love to meet you and offer you peace and strength.
5. Last question for you, Miss Margaret....what did your childhood smell like?
It smelled like grass, sweat and dirt. My adulthood also smells like grass, sweat and dirt. I have heard there’s merit in consistency.
