Vanessa Carlton, courtesy Alysse Gafkjen.

Vanessa Carlton is plotting future pain on her first headlining tour since before lockdowns, but it’s a current pain that’s postponed this conversation by a week and has her attention for the moment: The “A Thousand Miles” singer-songwriter broke her foot on a step in her Rhode Island home. Luckily, she says, she can still press her keyboard pedal—”It’s a small bone. It’s tiny.”

Still, for now, she’s seated while her husband, Deer Tick’s John McCauley, shuffles behind her laptop, searching for a working charger cable as the computer’s battery ticks down.

Carlton spent parts of 2022 on the road with Stevie Nicks, a friend of nearly two decades who officiated Carlton’s and McCauley’s marriage ceremony. On tour, she had an opportunity to perform songs from her latest album, 2020’s Love Is An Art, live for the first time.

“She really takes you under her wing,” Carlton said. “You get to just fly around with her; it’s pretty amazing. … Getting to open that show and then watch the show is like getting a master class.”

On the Future Pain tour, named for a song on Love Is An Art, Carlton is taking center stage, with only a cellist supporting her, which she said made her look at her songs in a new way and write new arrangements. She spoke to RIFF about the tour and working as a substitute elementary school teacher.

RIFF: What has the wait been like, for you, to play songs from Love Is An Art?

Vanessa Carlton: This is my first headlining tour, I think, in 5 years. I am so excited about it because, in particular, I love playing these types of venues where they’re pretty close and small, and I can do sort of cool arrangements of songs in the duo setting. I’m playing with this wonderful cellist [Isabel Castellvi], and she has these pedals that she sort of can manipulate the sound of what she’s playing, and I can do that, too, with my looper. We had so much fun cooking up arrangements of old songs, new songs, and just sort of creating this set list that I hope people enjoy.

The pandemic, the isolation and just this time in general feels really challenging. Being a parent during this time; it’s really hard. And there’s also absolutely wonderful points of connection that I’ve had during this time. When I go to a show, or when I experience music and I’m around other human beings and not just online or learning about another apocalyptic event in the world… I really look at this tour as these evenings of coming together in our humanity, in all of our worries and joys and pains, and just being like, “We’re all human beings here, experiencing all of this together.”

What’s the significance of naming the tour for the track “Future Pain?”

Vanessa Carlton: So uplifting, right? If anyone buys a ticket to this show, they’re real-deal fans, for sure. [laughs]. That kind of promotion, it’s dark, but I love that phrase. That song in particular is really about making decisions that are not good for you, but you do them anyway. And how many people do that? I think all of us do that at times. I just thought that it was a cheeky idea to name the tour that.

What’s your connection to these songs now? Are there some you feel closer to than when you first released them? Are there some that you’re looking forward to performing more than others?

Vanessa Carlton: I would play “The Only Way to Love” from that record a lot on the Stevie tour. I thought I’ve got a nice reception to that, so I think I’m definitely gonna put this in the set. Honestly, I think it’s been such a long time since being able to put together my own show, a headlining show, that I don’t know the answer to that yet.

I like to do these tours, and they sort of reveal curious things to [me], where I’m like, “Oh, God! I really am connecting to this song right now. I like playing the song,” as if it’s new, and I played it a million times. Whatever is going on in my life, I’m reliving this song in some way. I think it depends on the night, depends on where I am in the tour, but it’s certainly an alive experience for all involved. Nothing is fixed about a tour. It’s like you just jump off the cliff, and it happens.

I don’t suppose you’ll be playing any songs that you’ve written since that album.

Vanessa Carlton: I don’t think so. I was thinking about it, but I’m not sure.

That means you’ve started working on your next project. Where in the process are you for that?

Vanessa Carlton: Oh, God! I’ve just been dragging my feet, but I almost feel like I really enjoy reading [art critic] Jerry Saltz’s take on artists’ workflow situation because it makes you feel better. It’s like, don’t kick yourself when you’re in these lulls of silence, or just watching, because it’s all part of who you are in your process, and it’s part of the journey. Anyway, I’ve started a record, and I chip away at it, and then I stop and then I chip away, and I stop. So, you know, the norm.

What have you been up to outside music?

Vanessa Carlton: I was a substitute teacher at my daughter’s school all 2020, 2021. Amazing experience. I highly recommend doing that to really get you grounded. … I would be thrown in from kindergarten to third grade. If there was a teacher that was ill, they’d just call me up. … It was a Montessori type school.

Is it something that you could see yourself doing if you weren’t doing music?

Vanessa Carlton: I think that working with young people is really important and nourishing, and it’s incredibly rewarding. I learned a lot from them during that time. I remember at the time there was an argument that kids can’t wear masks. [But] I was out in the classroom with these kids, kindergarteners and first graders, and they don’t care! They just want to be together. They [were communicating with their] eyes. The adaptability of children; the resilience, is something we could all learn from—it’s really extraordinary. They just want to be with each other. They’re happy. All the craziness that was going on during that time, or during most times; it’s quite grounding to just be with a bunch of kids in a room. It can also be crazy if you don’t know how to manage a classroom, like myself. [laughs].

Why did you move from Nashville to Rhode Island in 2021, and how is it helping you, either in your personal life or in your music career? 

Vanessa Carlton: So my husband was born and raised in Smith Hill [in Providence, Rhode Island]. … We found a house out here in Warwick. Like most people during the pandemic, we moved back home closer to our families, and so we have a studio that we’re almost finished with here. It’s just nice to be back close to our families. Both sides live in the area. We’re both New Englanders, originally. I loved living in Nashville. I had a great time there. I miss it. However, this is definitely the right move for us.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.