QuickTake:

Bonham talks about growing up in Eugene, her 90s alt-rock hit “Mother Mother” and embracing different musical influences with age. She’s performing at Eugene’s WOW Hall on Aug. 22.

In the second episode of the hit television show “Yellowjackets,” about a girls’ high school soccer team surviving in a remote forest after their plane crashes, one teenager snaps into action and amputates the mangled leg of the team’s coach. (It’s a gnarly sequence, so don’t watch if you’re squeamish.)

The scene is set to “Mother Mother,” a 1996 alt rock hit with a howling scream that “Everything’s fine!” from a young woman calling home. The real-life “mother” in that song is Lee Anne Robertson, a longtime music teacher in the Eugene-Springfield region and the mother of musician Tracy Bonham.

“Mother Mother” was the lead single of Bonham’s debut album, “The Burdens of Being Upright,” and it brought Bonham, a graduate of South Eugene High School and local youth orchestra, ’90s alt-rock-woman luminary status and two Grammy nominations in her late 20s.

Now, ahead of the song’s 30th anniversary next year and an Aug. 22 show at The W.O.W Hall, Bonham, 58, talked about her new album “Sky Too Wide,” moving away from alt-rock with time and her musical upbringing in Eugene.

“I always love talking about growing up in Eugene, because I do feel like it was the perfect place for me to grow up,” she said.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield: What was your childhood like growing up in Eugene?

Tracy Bonham: I was the daughter of the city editor of the Eugene Register-Guard. His name was Donn Bonham, and my mom is Lee Anne. Now she’s Lee Anne Robertson. She was a music teacher. She’s still around. I grew up in a community that was so supportive after my dad passed when I was super, super young. I was 18 months old or so.

My mom just had this community of theater people, music people. I learned what I wanted to be when I grew up by watching my mom on stage. I remember a couple productions where she was the lead in community musical theater. I knew that being on stage was where I wanted to be. She was up there, and she was so good. 

The teachers that I had, especially when I got into Roosevelt for junior high and then high school at South Eugene, the teachers, the music teachers, the string conductors for junior symphony and Youth Symphony and my theater teacher, I still talk about them today, because they had such a huge impact on my my life as a musician and as a person. 

You started as a kid with violin and piano. Can you tell me about how your tastes changed leading into “The Burdens of Being Upright”?

Where I scream! Growing up playing classical music, that was one side of me. There was a certain discipline, and I loved the art of practicing. But there was also this other side of me: I loved singing vocal jazz, but I also loved pop music and R&B, and my mom was playing Stevie Wonder and The Beatles all the time. I had this wide range of tastes, so that always stayed with me. 

I got a full scholarship to go to [the University of Southern California] on the violin. I was just like, “I gotta do this, because I’m not getting a scholarship anywhere else.” My SAT scores were pretty bad. I just knew this was my ticket. I also carried with me a sense of rebellion. I had been kicked out of music camp the summer before my senior year, because I was a little bit of a rebel.

When I was at USC after the second year, I just thought, “Man, I can’t fit in with the real strict classical world.” I wasn’t really good enough or motivated enough to become a solo violinist. I might be in the back of the second violins in some orchestra. I realized singing and performing on stage was more my style. I could express myself better and not feel like I had to adhere to all of the discipline of classical music that was starting to frustrate me a little bit. 

Once I got to Boston and I started to write the songs in my 20s [she transferred from USC to attend the Berklee College of Music], I was just letting that whole rebellious side out in my songs. It just struck a chord with everyone.

“Damn the Sky (for Being Too Wide),” one of the songs on your new album, feels like a culmination of different interests. How have your musical interests changed with time? 

Especially with this album, I am unabashedly going back to my classical roots. I think all throughout my career as a recording artist, I had been dabbling and hinting, in my second album in the year 2000, I was already starting to experiment with incorporating some of my classical ideas, but I was still very much in that edgy rock, alternative rock phase. 

I had a revelation somewhere after 2000 where I was like, “I don’t want to complain anymore.” My songs were all angry. They’re about the music business or my old manager or my old boyfriend. I just thought, I don’t want to leave this world with only having a catalog of me just pissing and moaning all the time in my music. 

My songwriting started to change. I started to write songs like “Whether You Fall” or my song “Shine,” which is all about the light we have within. I really wanted to start moving towards a more positive message while still incorporating my quirky style. 

As I’m older now, I’m less worried about fitting into the old mold. There was a long time where I felt I needed to stay in a certain genre because of the fans’ expectations. With the disappearance of the music business, at least the way it was before, I just feel more liberated to express myself in the way I want to express myself right now. 

You talked about the disappearance of how the music business once was. Now everything is TikTok clips and on-screen needledrops — you had a big one in “Yellowjackets.” What was that moment like for you?

At first I had no idea. I remember approving it, “There’s this show, it’s in development, and they want to use your song.” I was like, “Cool.” They had also prefaced it with, “We’re going to use other women from the ’90s.” I was like, “Cool, that’s great.” Then I forgot about it.

Months and months and months went by, and then I got a text from a friend, and the friend texted, “Nice placement.” And I was like, “What do you even — what? What’s happening?” And he sent me a clip, I think he videoed the TV, and then I found out it was this hit show.

What happened is that young people started to come to my music. Even now, I was just speaking to my nephew who lives in Mississippi, and he said, “All these 20-year-olds are coming into my restaurant saying, ‘Oh yeah, I know this song, Tracy Bonham.’” And he’s like, “Wait, that’s my aunt.”

I love that I’m feeling kind of cool again. We didn’t realize it when we were all in it, just the ’90s being a moment where a lot of strong women were getting airplay. Then, boom, the door slams shut. In retrospect, I feel really proud to be in that moment. I love that, for young women especially, but that everyone is getting a chance to revisit my music plus other women’s music from the ’90s.

What is it like for you to perform in Eugene after all of this?

Eugene wasn’t really a focus market for me when I had a hit, and so I feel bad about it. It was such a weird time. It wasn’t a slow development, so I didn’t develop a real core fan base in Eugene. 

I regret it. It was one of those casualties of having a hit so quickly, and then the drop soon after that, there was not enough time to really build a fan base. [Bonham’s follow-up album was less successful than her debut, in part because corporate restructuring at then-label Island Records delayed its release for two years.] 

Now, I’m mixed with that feeling of, “I’m not sure I’m gonna sell enough tickets, how embarrassing that would be,” and then, “I’m so excited to perform in front of family and friends.” 

This question reminds me of when I performed last April with the Eugene Ballet at the Hult Center, knowing my friends and family and music teachers and conductors were in the audience. I had to keep from crying. I wanted to be in that big theater and honor — it’s gonna sound weird — the ghost of my real dad, while knowing that my beloved stepfather was in the audience. I had to put my hand on my heart to keep myself from getting emotional.

The song that you mentioned, “Damn the Sky (for Being Too Wide).” That was definitely written about being so far away from my family in Eugene. It was written in one sitting, and it was a stream of consciousness. I was feeling so isolated. It was way before COVID. I missed my family. I have a son who is almost 15, and I was longing for that feeling of a village. I can’t just call my mom and be like, “Hey, can you come over? I need help,” because we’re so far away. We’re in New York, and they’re in Eugene. So this idea is shrinking the sky to bring everyone closer together.

How to see Tracy Bonham

Where: The W.O.W. Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave.
When: Friday, Aug. 22 at 8 p.m.
Tickets: Available online, starting at $25 for advance general admission tickets and $35 on the day of the performance

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Annie Aguiar is the Arts and Culture Correspondent. She has reported arts news and features for national and local newsrooms, including at the Seattle Times, the Washington Post and most recently as a reporting fellow for the New York Times’ Culture desk covering arts and entertainment.