One Eyed Jacks recently played host to N.Y.C. based singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia. She, and her backing band, played an intimate, haunting, and fragile set to a handful of attendees, who may or may not have known of Nastasia before, but surely left as fans. After being converted by her astonishing voice and magically structured songs, as well, we had the opportunity to speak with Nastasia. In a narrow back stage room, we spoke until “Rock-n-Roll Karaoke” drowned out all hopes for conversation.

Nastasia has been playing music for about 12 years. She began playing “seriously” sometime after moving from L.A. to New York. “I had a guitar. I had a friend who was a singer and a songwriter.” She continued, “I was influenced by him…It was fun. I never really sang before that.” Despite her relatively late start as a songwriter, Nina has, in the years since, released four albums, including the most recent release On Leaving.

“I don’t really think about how or why I write or anything like that… Usually I write music on the guitar first…It is always the music first…then the lyrics go, then the music will go.” And when talking about her latest release, she added “It’s usually not just a finished thing” which may explain why the songs that appear on On Leaving sound so seamless. No wasted space, or noise, appears on the album. Despite the modesty and bashfulness Nastasia portrays when she proclaims, “I don’t have any philosophies [to writing]” it is obvious that all has fallen into its intended place on On Leaving.

Nastasia does, nevertheless, eventually admit that she is “a lot more thoughtful” than she used to be. “I used to not care,” she adds before confessing: “I always feel like I sound silly talking about my stuff. It’s a funny thing to try to explain or make someone understand.”

As she finished that last statement the heavy riffs of live, rock-n-roll band “karaoke” came spilling through the thin wall and shiny curtain that separated the stage and us. She laughs, “It’s really quiet back here.” (We had picked this spot assuming it would be the quietest.) My tape-recorder, I knowingly presumed, was being drowned in distortion, so I asked what was to be my last question. To which she responded, “I used to do short stories. I haven’t in a while and I would like to do that some more.”