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AE: You have a dream in the movie that you tell Jay about in which you are working a big and boring job in front of a computer at warehouse. Was that the kind of worst case scenario that troubled your dreams and your waking life at that point in your artistic career?
SC-DM: I worked at office jobs the whole time we were in New York and Nashville, the first eight years of our career. Those jobs supported our career, because we couldn't make ends meet with our income from Y'all. We always spent a lot more (on marketing, travel, etc.) than we brought in. That was the reason we went on the road, as a way to cut our living expenses, because we got to the point where we were going under and had to do something drastic or quit.

I can't tell you how good that felt to not have to work 9 to 5 in an office any more. But it also meant we gave up a big source of income and for the first time we were totally dependent on our income from Y'all. It felt great to be self-supporting artists, but it was a big risk and very scary. I was the one who did the books, so I was always aware of how close to the edge of financial disaster we were. We had huge debts from Y'all.

AE: The introduction of Roger is a new and essential component to the Y’all story. It is explained how just before you and Jay met him, Roger had been living in a van in the desert on a spiritual quest. This is followed shortly by a wonderful scene in which Roger is doing stretches in what appears to be preparation for doing yoga, and proceeds to kill a bug, crawling. The movie seems to be full of these kinds of moments.
SC-DM: To me that scene shows that things are never exactly what you think. And more particularly, that Roger is not what you might have pegged him to be. We all have contradictions in our personalities, and I think it's those things that make people interesting. But I think the main reason I put that shot in the film is that I thought it was really funny.

AE: They say that timing is everything, and right now, in the summer 2005, we have seen the launch of Logo, the third gay television network to hit the airwaves in recent months. If you held out a little longer, do you think that Y’all would have gotten the variety show that they wanted on Logo, Q Television or here! TV?
SC-DM: You never know. Y'all had an up and down relationship with the gay media, gay venues, the organized gay community in general. We had lots of gay and lesbian fans, but they usually found us through other outlets, like the folk music circuit, or acoustic and folk radio. The big exception to what I was saying earlier about no negative feedback was our experience with gay and lesbian audiences. We got booed off the stage at an ACT UP benefit in New York, and totally ignored when we performed at gay pride events. It was humiliating, and we stopped courting that audience in favor of more mainstream venues where the audiences are more diverse and where we felt more appreciated.

AE: What is the current status of the relationship between you and Jay and Roger?
SC-DM: We're pretty far flung geographically right now, but I think we'll always be family to each other. I won't try to speak for Jay and Roger, but I'm very close to both of them still. Jay and I are in touch almost daily. We have some plans for creative projects and we both try to stay involved in each other's lives as much as we can. Though our relationship is very different now in the day-to-day aspects, I feel a closeness to Jay that I didn't quite feel when we were together. We're more honest. We know each other better after the experience of our relationship with Roger and our separation.

Because we were living in a 20-foot camper together, there was no escape. We had to sit there and deal with each other while a lot of very hard stuff was happening. It was painful, but I'm really grateful for it. It's easy to run away when things are hard, but what I found out is that it's better to stick it out, take it apart, find out what's really happening, and especially to stay long enough to find a way to forgive.

I saw Roger pretty frequently when I was in New York that first year of editing because he was living in New England. I haven't seen as much of him in the last two years. After New York, I spent a year editing in Nashville, where Jay was living, and we saw each other almost daily. We were all together for the premiere of the film in San Francisco this past spring.

AE: What is the current status of the band?
SC-DM: What I've been telling people when they ask that question is that Y'all is eternal, they just don't occupy our bodies anymore. Jay and I have dusted off our Y'all outfits and sung together a couple times for special occasions in the last few years, and I can imagine we'll perform a bit to promote the film, but neither of us has a desire to return to the act full time. It ran its course, you know? There are so many other things we want to do.

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