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Where do you live now?
"Seattle."
You lived in the desert for a while. How did that compare to city life, and what made you go back
to a more-or-less urban setting?
"My band [Throwing Muses] ended. We kind of ran out of money, so we couldn't afford to make
another record or do another tour. And suddenly we just weren't anymore. I just went into hiding,
because that band had been everything to me since I was 14 years old. The desert was the perfect
place to go. I had been living in Los Angeles. We lived in the desert for a few years, and that
works. That allowed me to erase popular culture from my experience and everything I knew from my
head. I wasn't walking around memories anymore. I raised a baby out there, and then it became time to
get back into the world. We lived in Providence, Rhode Island, for a few years."
That's also where you recorded your latest record 'Sunny Border Blue', isn't it?
"Yeah. It's where I made my first solo record, so we kind of went back home for a while. I
wanted to be near my oldest son, and now we're in Seattle. Sorry if that's confusing... [laughs]"
What does it feel like for you, doing your own thing on the fringe of the commercial "rock scene"?
"For me, it's a dream come true. Not for a minute did I think that what I was doing would be
popular, so it's not like I was under any false impressions as regards the music business. [laughs]
Top 40 has always been stupid. If you're not going to go there, then you're in the underground, and
that's a healthy place to be if you care about what you do. When you start playing an instrument, you
don't expect the world to want to listen. The fact that people listened to me is a constant source of
amazement, and also that they show up, and they pay money, and they allow me to make the next record,
allow me to hang out with music every night. It's a good life. It's a hard one too, but as long as it
stays worth it for me... It seems to be worth it to them."
Could you live without music in your life?
"No. I've tried, and the songs don't stop coming. I can't shut them up, and they drive me crazy.
I love music. I hate it when it's making me sick, but when it's all coming out I'm honoured to be
hanging out with it. I don't know what it is, but I think it's incredible. The fact that Vic
[Chesnutt, a good friend and colleague of Hersh's] brings it into my world and that I have it
floating around to spit out is probably what keeps me going, to tell you the truth."
You generally have control over most aspects of the music that you make, often playing all of the
instruments yourself. How important is that independence, doing your own thing, to you when playing
music?
"Like I said, I miss my band. Their parts were just a given. They fell into the songs, they
carried me through the songs, and so I felt safe to go to hell and back for every piece of music that
I wrote and to ask a lot of myself musically. When I lost the band, I went through a period of a few
years, at least a few records, where I didn't feel that I should be going to hell, because I might
not come back. So I made some nice records, with nice songs for nice people... I made 'Strange Angels'
and 'Sky Motel' when I was just kind of shell-shocked after losing the band. This time ['Sunny Border
Blue'], I think I gave up all hope of ever getting them back, so I did go to hell and back for the
songs. I feel as passionate about this record as I did about the Muses. If anyone had tried to get in
the way in the studio I would have just ignored them. They're like flies buzzing around! [laughs] I
was very obsessive in the studio. My husband thinks I was manic, because I couldn't stop working. He
would drag me out at midnight and say: "You have to see the kids." Then I'd be back in the morning,
and I wouldn't let anybody eat. [laughs] I was just like: "Go, go, go, go, go!" It was six months.
That's a long time."
Was it like a catharsis for you?
"Yeah, and an obsession. All of the psychobabble! [laughs] ManiaŠ In the past, I've had people
try, like producers, who'd think they weren't doing enough, and they'd come up with these ideas...
Thinking back, I realize I must have been hard to work with, even though I'm sweet as pie. I go [mock
condescending]: "Ooh, no, no, no, honey, you don't understand! I know the song better than you. This
is what I want." I couldn't imagine that that would be insulting anyone."
Do you feel that you're misunderstood often when it comes to that sort of thing?
"Probably. I heard that I was difficult to work with. Someone said that. [laughs] At first I
thought [mock astonishment]: "What?!!" I'm so nice, so much nicer than everyone! I feel like a
doormat. What I do is I try their ideas, and then I erase them in the mix. [laughs] Maybe people
would consider that difficult to work with. Vic's point was: "That's so great for you. People totally
leave you alone. You have a V in front of your name now, which means 'don't go over there'!" [laughs]"
You've said that you're surprised about the lyrics on this last album, that you sound mean and
angry. Does this, what you're telling me, actually mean that Kristin Hersh in 2001 is content and
tranquil?
"[laughs] Well, apparently not. I have to believe the songs sometimes. Their point is
well-taken, and there was lot of stuff I had to get out. Like I said: I'm really nice. If I wore that
stuff on my sleeve, if I made it a part of my personality, I would make a really lousy roommate. I
live with the people that I love most in the world. I guess that's just called "keeping it inside". I
mean, how much is that going to do? I'd be screaming all of the time. [laughs] So I do it in the
music. All of the ugly stuff goes into the songs, and the songs just make it bigger. It's not ugly
anymore."
You've said in the past that you have no control over the lyrics, that it all just comes out. I
can't personally begin to imagine...
"I have no control at all. What it's like is: You know when you get a song stuck into your
head, and you're just kind of like: "La la la," and you have these bullshit words, and you realize
that has nothing to do with the actual lyrics? Those are my actual lyrics, the bullshit words.
[laughs] I think it's like a Rorschach inkblot. It's a way for your brain to shut off and stop
censoring your thoughts or your feelings for a minute. You spit out things you would never say in
public. [laughs]"
Like Tourette Syndrome?
"I think it's very similar to Tourette Syndrome. People have said that, when I play, I look like
I have Tourette Syndrome. I suspect that there's something like you losing your censoring ability
when the rhythm and the melody fool you into spitting stuff out. If I were going to censor the songs
I would have done it on this record. Or maybe I should have done it on this record, but now it's just
too late, and the people who were hurt by it are appeased. [laughs] They're over it! Their reactions
were not: "Fuck you." It was more like: "Are you OK? Let's talk." ... Which is not what would happen
if I actually said "fuck you" to them, so music is good that way! [laughs]"
When you play concerts, you've said that you basically lose all perspective around you and are
intensely focussed. How does that translate live? Are you able to perform this sort of material
easily?
"Oh yeah. Unless I'm playing badly, and that's usually because there's something to think about:
Some equipment's fucking up..."
A heckler in the back...
"I've never had a heckler, but some people are very - I don't know how to say it - distracting.
Just having the lights on the crowd, it's like: "Whoa! What are they all lookin' at?!!" It's best
that the lights are shining directly into my eyeballs. I'm loud enough in my monitors that I might as
well be alone in the room. That means I can just disappear. I used to take out my contacts. My
drummer would do that too. Then you're in this swirl of sensory deprivation. All you have is sound to
deal with. Then I realized, when I started playing solo, that there was no way that I was going to
get out to the middle of the stage with no friends and no equipment and climb up on the stool.
Because I'm so small, they build these platforms, and they put a rickety stool on top of it. I've got
to carry my guitar up there and not bump into the mic, which goes "doooom" [laughs] ... Now, there's
no way that I'm going to do that without contacts in! So, I had to get used to it. It was pretty hard."
How do you feel that your music, but also your musical tastes that you absorb, have changed over
the years? Do you process outside sources differently now?
"... That's a good question. I'm sure it has, but I think the only way I've noticed it changing
is that the more you love music, the more you come to rely on its spine-rattling qualities, and the
more music there is to hate, which is unfortunate. Well, that might not be true if you're focussed
solely on the underground, which seems to attract people who are not ego- or money-driven, especially
good bands who are not in the Top 40. When Jane's Addiction and Nirvana were selling records the
underground suffered, because people had this "I could be good AND a millionaire" attitude. "I'm
gonna sell out just a little bit." And it wouldn't work, so: "I'll sell out just a little bit more."
They're self-conscious, that's all, whereas, in the real world, musicians are necessarily dorks. They
spend years in their bedrooms or garages or basements, learning their crap, practising, songwriting,
which is crawling inside..."
It's just the ones that spend years in front of mirrors, praying their poses will work for them...
"... And that's what the business would like to sell as a musician. They don't have any right to
write songs for people with real lives, because their lives are too easy. What are they going to
write? [laughs] They can't write for me, anyway."
Do other forms of art, such as literature or film, influence you in any way, to the extent that
you feel a certain form of kinship with people involved in other creative fields and forms of
expression?
"Yeah. I think whatever songs are, if they were filtered through someone else, they would become
whatever that person had an affinity to making. I myself don't feel particularly creative as a
person. I don't feel like I would do a dance or paint a picture, because I would suck at it. It would
be adopting a style, whereas songs seem to be pure substance, and whatever style is attached to them
in the process is solely secondary to my experience of the process. I don't even hear it anymore. So
"yes" and "no" - I can watch someone creating with their filter and say: "Oh, that comes from the
same place." But... I can be stupider than that! [laughs] With other art forms, I have that old lady
thing: "I don't know what's good, but I know what I like!" Music, though, is so clear to me, and I
know immediately if someone's telling the truth or if they're going to do something interesting in a
minute or if I've heard the whole song. I don't want to give myself the benefit of the doubt. [laughs]"
So we're not going to see you as one of those musicians-turned-into-actors in a major motion
picture anytime soon?
"Oh my God, I can't imagine: "Wait a minute, she's got Tourette Syndrome!" [laughs] "She's kinda
retarded." I get so many more movie offers than I deserve for the kind of person that I am and for
what I do. People think that I would be good at playing the kind of life that I have."
They want to cast you as a prototype of yourself?
"Yeah. I can understand that. That would make sense. I should be good at playing what I am!
[laughs] You think you'd need someone who'd be good at playing anything first."
The negative side of that might be though, if you played someone similar to yourself, that you
would start analysing your behaviour and becoming self-conscious.
"Right. Exactly. I don't have the authority to shut that part off. They cast me as angry, young
mothers. There's always a kid and a gun involved. She lives in her car with her kids, and she's punky
and angry."
Erin Brockovich.
"There you go! [laughs] With no tits!"
[flustered] Well, that's all I have really! I really don't know where to take it from there...
"There's your title! [laughs] Segue THAT!"
http://www.kindamuzik.net/interview/kristin-hersh/kristin-hersh/390/
Meer Kristin Hersh op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/kristin-hersh
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