Ingrid began performing with The Flying Neutrinos when she was eleven years old. During the 1980’s, the band traveled extensively throughout Mexico and the U.S. In 1994 Ingrid and her cousin, trombonist Todd Londagin, took over the band when her parents, "Poppa Neutrino," David Pearlman and his wife "Captain" Betsy Terrell, left to accomplish another of their dreams – to build a raft from scraps found in the streets of New York City (christened the Son of Town Hall) and sailing it across the North Atlantic Ocean.

With the birth of her daughter Ava on May 29^th of this year, Ingrid is now also a parent. Both she and her husband, photographer Dwight Marshall, are career artists accustomed to a creative, unconventional lifestyle. Parenting in that environment places unique demands on both parents and children.

Ingrid spoke with me over the telephone from a cabin on Lake Candlewood in Connecticut’s lower Berkshire Mountains. There, she and husband photographer Dwight Marshall have been relaxing and adapting to parenthood. Throughout our conversation Ava could be heard cooing in the background. Ingrid was relaxed and seemed very happy in her new role as a mother.

She last performed in New Orleans during Teaze-o-rama 2001 at the Shim Sham Club just days before giving birth to Ava. Five days after Ava’s birth, Ingrid was back on stage in New York City. Ingrid Lucia will next perform in New Orleans on October 5^th at El Matador.

MM: How are you adjusting to parenthood? Is it what you expected?

IL: Well, it’s harder than I expected and it’s better than I expected. Better because it’s a certain emotional thing that happens that you don’t really expect or know because never experienced it and it’s very, you know . . . it tears your heart out. I’ve never had that experience before in my life. Sure you have a few moments here or there but consistently, just the contact with a person, seeing that person grow and change right before your eyes, that you’re there helping a thousand percent is an amazing feeling. Right before your eyes physically you’re seeing hair growing up on the head the next morning and a hand reaching out and grabbing. It’s hard unless you’ve had a kid. When I heard people say in the past "yeah, sure, whatever, all that work for some little kid to hold out it’s hand and grab something," But when you experience it yourself it’s pretty amazing.

MM: It’s seems typical, and probably quite normal for new parents to feel somewhat overwhelmed and under-prepared for the birth of their first child but was there anything you felt over-prepared for?

IL: Nothing. We were prepared for material items we needed for her but in terms of going through the birth experience and just dealing day to day . . . you don’t know what to expect so how can you prepare for it. We came up to the cabin to have it quiet and have lots of space from work so that we could be with her. It’s been great having a lot of time off. We’ve been away from the city where it’s all dirty and noisy.

MM: Are you around family at all?

IL: We’re around Dwight’s family and my mom came up from New Orleans for a few weeks.

MM: Are you planning on having more children?

IL: I don’t know at this point. I had an exceptionally hard labor and it’s hard to forget that but if I were to it would probably be in about five or six years.

MM: Had you originally planned on having multiple children?

IL: We had actually. We kind of decided we’d have one if we were in the same financial bracket as we are now and if we advanced financially that we wanted to have a whole bunch of them and now we’re kind of thinking "hey, I don’t know about this." They need a lot of attention and it’s hard to give that to more than two or three at a time.

MM: Being thirty-one, had you purposely waited to have children until you secured you career as a singer?

IL: Yeah, absolutely. We were going to wait even longer but Dwight had a good point. He said that if we keep waiting we’re going to get used to our lifestyle and then never want one. That does happen. A lot of people in our circle in New York that I’ve gone back to see don’t have kids and are in a situation where they probably won’t and they want to. It’s just too hard to make it work at a certain point.

MM: What do you see as the most difficult changes that you will now need to make regarding your career?

IL: It’s going to be a lot of pressure on Dwight. He’s going to be watching and overseeing her while I’m doing the show. I think that’s going to put a lot of pressure on our relationship. He was always there and we were having a lot of fun together but now it’s a lot of responsibility. In terms of being able to run off and do a date and come back, it’s a lot more planning. You have to really look at whether the date is worth doing now either for fun reasons, exposure reasons, or financial reasons you just can’t do anything anymore. It’s O.K., that’s something I prefer anyway.

MM: You grew up in a family that traveled extensively together. Do you plan to do the same with your family?

IL: We were a family band and always together. I think that was a huge plus. Dwight and I have always traveled together anyway and I think, even more so now, it’s going to be that way.

MM: Do you envision bringing Ava out with you?

IL: Not to the clubs particularly. That’s going to be the difficult thing. Should we get a nanny to come with us so Dwight can come out at night so we can still be together? I don’t know. We’re trying to figure that out right now.

MM: Have you performed since Ava’s birth?

IL: Yeah. My first gig was when she was five days old.

MM: How has your performance changed? Have you noticed any difference in your instrument?

IL: Absolutely. It’s gotten better. I think the reasons it’s gotten better are number one, when I was pregnant with her I wasn’t worried about sucking in my stomach, I wasn’t worried about vanity things at all and I had a deeper breath and it was more about the singing. It’s continued to stay that way and also I think as you get older your voice more from what I’ve heard. So just with time too, my voice is getting better. But the other thing mainly is that you’re not concerned about people or what they think about you. You’ve got your own thing going with your family and you’re there to express and create and try to make people happy but you’re not worried that they’re going to like it or not like it. Your mind is focused on something more important.

MM: Do you have aspiration of Ava growing up to be a performer, a musician, or anything in particular?

IL: Well, I want her to be and do what she wants to in her life. I always joke-around that she’ll run away from the circus to join the real world. Whether becoming a banker something, I don’t know. Whatever she wants to be will be fine with me. We were always raised that way in our family. The greatest thing you can give a person or a child is space to pursue what they want to in their life. That’s what’s going to make them happy.

MM: Was Dwight’s family upbringing anything similar to yours?

IL: Oh no, it was extremely the opposite. His dad is a stock market broker. He made a lot of money. [Dwight’s] brother went into the same business and he kind of wanted Dwight to do the same thing. They have a big house in Connecticut, they’re conservative . . . when he sees footage of my dad’s raft trip he’s just like "Oh . . ." Meanwhile Dwight’s moving more and more in the direction of our lifestyle so it’s interesting but they’re accepting of him and they love the baby to death.

MM: Certainly your very different family backgrounds will play a very interesting role in how Ava steers her own direction.

IL: I think it’s going to give her a lot of dimension.

MM: In your interview with Noah Adams for NPR’s "All Things Considered" (March 2000) you talked about being home-schooled. How do you feel about being home-schooled? Were you exclusively home-schooled or did you also get to experience public schooling at times?

IL: I went to public school for tenth grade in New Orleans at Warren Easton and I went to eighth grade in Austin and I loved going to school. I think home-schooling was great because number one the kids read more and were more advanced in all different areas because you could go at your own rate and kids are really smart. If you give them the chance to move ahead they will. I think the down side was socially we weren’t really able to connect with kids our own age, we were around adults all the time and that in a way was sad. That shouldn’t have been the case but it was. For her [Ava], if we end up traveling a lot I would definitely do home-schooling for her but I would try to get her involved in more social activities with kids than we had.

MM: I assume that it was your parents who did most of the teaching.

IL: They did, yes.

MM: Was it one or the other that took on most of the responsibilities?

IL: Mostly my mother. My dad was running around chasing big pictures and visions and we’re all were doing the details. It’s so funny because that’s exactly how I ended up. My whole life going "what is he doing? He’s crazy." Now I’m the one and Dwight’s running after me catching up on details.

MM: I know it’s a little early for you to be thinking about education at this point but the role of the arts in your education played a very prominent role. How do you feel about the role of art in public education or in the available formal schooling that you will be facing with Ava?

IL: Well I don’t think there’s enough of it in either public or private schooling and just in regard to arts in somebody’s life I’m already trying to put that into her life. I think it’s very important, exposure to different ideas and impressions. I think that when people are creating or happy, whatever area it is that they’re interested in, creativity is very important . . . in everybody’s life I think.

MM: Your dad put the Neutrinos together in the eighties. How old were you at that time?

IL: Eleven.

MM: What was home life like before the band?

IL: My dad’s always been into travel. He’s been into psychology, art . . . he was from San Francisco so he was part of the whole Beatnik circle for years when they were in their prime. [The family] traveled a lot. My dad was a commercial sign painter. He did commercial art, which my mom still does for a living, and they were interested in pursuing and meeting new people and experiencing. If they did one experience they didn’t want to do that again, they wanted to try something new. They felt life had so much to offer so why do the same thing over and over and over. Music, in a way, was an extension of how to continue that lifestyle for them. We used New Orleans as a base and we were there maybe four or five months out of the year and then we’d go to Mexico or go try something else. My dad would go like "O.K., we’re going to Mexico on bicycles," or "We’re going to walk through the desert in Nevada." He’d come up with these ideas and all of us would go like "O.K., here we go again." It was great. I mean it was really hard because there was a lot of physical effort, a lot of being a really close, tight-knit unit where you couldn’t really go off and make friends, you know, you were always together. Looking back on it I thought it was great. I wouldn’t trade that at all for a conservative, regular life.

MM: So are you going to send Ava out on one of your dad’s rafts anytime soon?

IL: Well, they said they have a rocking chair for her. I will probably not want to let her out of my sight until she’s six or seven for an extended stay somewhere. Definitely visits . . . we’re going to go see him on our way down to New Orleans and visit him and Betsy on the raft around Christmas time.

MM: Is there anything you’d like to add?

IL: Yeah. The last thing I want to add is that a lot of people pick one thing and they put a thousand percent into it and I think it’s kind of unbalanced. I think that if you can pick a couple of things, like for me it’s family, performing . . . career, family, and friends but if you can pick a couple of things it’s a little harder but I think it makes you a more balanced person. That’s something I’m looking forward to because for my whole life, up to this point, has been all about performing and it was definitely off balance.

MM: Have you been writing?

IL: Yeah, I’ve been keeping a journal and I write songs, I write poems . . . actually, I have a whole bunch of poems that, just for the fun of it, I want to put into a book to pass around to people.

MM: Have the songs that you’ve written been in any way reflective of Ava’s presence in your life?