I love how everything works in the underground community and I wanted to participate in it,” says Amy Ray, founder of the indie label Daemon Records, one half of the Indigo Girls, and solo artist in her own right. When she founded Daemon in 1990, her mission was to support local musicians, both in putting out their music and teaching them how to sustain their careers. But that grassroots, independent way of life extended to Ray’s own career, too; after almost a decade of putting out other people’s music, she decided to put out some of her own solo records, too.

So she traveled around the southeast writing, rehearsing, and recording for much of 2000. “I loved the simplicity of it,” she says. “Driving myself around, loading my own gear. You roll down windows of the van, listen to music with your band. It’s the way music should be.”