Indigo Girls Reflect on Late “Great Mentor” David Crosby

Folk-rock icons Indigo Girls touched down in Sundance for the world premiere of their Alexandria Bombach-directed film It’s Only Life After All. The doc debuted the same day they were booked to perform at the fest’s opening night fundraiser, hours after the Jan. 18 death of music legend David Crosby.

“We’re still processing,” Amy Ray, standing beside Emily Saliers on the red carpet, told THR. “The last time we saw him was at the Beacon in New York for Joan Baez’s birthday [in January 2016]. He was a great mentor who had a big influence on us. David and Jackson Browne were two people we met early on in the studio that we were already huge fans of before we worked together. It’s a big loss. It’s hard to start losing your heroes, you know?”

It was a whirlwind few days for the duo, as they shuffled between red carpet events, press opportunities and film screenings. Asked how they settled on the title for their film It’s Only Life After All, Sailers said Bombach had carte blanche the “whole way” on the film.

“We’d seen her film, On Her Shoulders, and met and talked with her. We had complete trust in her artistic vision as well as her humanity. Her whole team, Kathlyn Horan, who produced the film is also an old friend of ours. We knew them and they just surround themselves with great human beings who are talented and work hard. So when they said, ‘We want to make a film,’ we responded by saying, ‘Make the film you want to make.’ We have a lot of respect for filmmakers, and if we start dabbling and messing around with what they’re doing, it’s going to water it down, dilute it and it won’t be their clear vision. We’re not filmmakers so let them tell the story.”

This story first appeared in the Jan. 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.