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Rufus Wainwright

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Beginnings And Endings With Rufus Wainwright

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The chamber-pop luminary speaks with GRAMMY.com about the symbolic nature of returning to Los Angeles, closing the book and the potential for a future en français
Laura Studarus
GRAMMYs
Jul 16, 2020 - 9:04 am

Rufus Wainwright has come home. In the past, the singer/songwriter's taste for decadence has taken him to creative extremes. There was a GRAMMY-nominated Judy Garland tribute concert, staged at Carnegie Hall (and then again at five different historic venues across the world). Two operas, 2009's Prima Donna, and 2018’s Hadrian. And even a brief role in the 2005 film The Aviator (alongside his sister Martha and father Loudon). 

But for an artist who named not just one but two albums after the idea of longing, he's now found himself shockingly at peace, not only with the state of his career but also in leaning into life as a husband and father in the Laurel Canyon enclave he calls home. Sure, he's also quick to call himself an old-school artist in the days of rapidly shrinking production budgets. But music is an art that he takes seriously, even if the idea of legacy is something that he’s willing to poke fun at. ("I'm sorry!" he yelps, when I reveal references in his self-titled debut served as my gateway drug to Puccini.)

It's that mental headspace, one mixed with realistic expectations, undeniable decadence, and yes—a sense of humor—that marks his 10th studio album, Unfollow the Rules, his first mainstream release since 2012's Out of the Game. Sure, there's a hint of nostalgia to his baroque piano pop, and lyrics that reference both the diaphanous nature of existence and dirty dishes. But know that Wainwright is already looking ahead, and despite his deep bench of work over the last 20 years, this only marks the end of the end of act one.

Ahead of the release of his new album (out now via BMG), Wainwright spoke with GRAMMY.com about the symbolic nature of returning to Los Angeles, closing the book and the potential for a future en français.

Other than your daily robe recitals, what’s the vibe around your house right now?  

We [he and husband Jörn Weisbrodt] share custody of our daughter, our nine-year-old daughter. So, we have a week of kids-centric times and then a week of us-centric time. So, it's actually a nice a nice mixture for us. We're very fortunate.

You lived in L.A. back in the 1990s. What's it like for you coming back at a completely different point in your life?

I made my first albums in Los Angeles, and before that I hung around a lot in New York and didn't really gain a steady footing on the East Coast in terms of what I was trying to do artistically. It was really when I came to L.A. that I found my groove and what I was doing was really understood by the establishment. Because I fell into a tradition of songwriting and record production that is a little more, how shall we say, psychedelic and unusual, and less hard edge than New York. So it worked out really well from the outset, and then I ended up moving back to New York and taking over that city. I had great time there and I still keep an apartment there. But, over the years I've always returned to L.A. and I have a lot of friends here. And this is where my career began. And now that I'm back, I really do consider it my number one spot. I'm very fortunate.

You've talked about moving into your second act. How have you defined that idea?

I started out in a period that even back then was on its way out. In the sense, I was one of the last real kind of major label-signed unusual artists. So, there was a lot of attention, and a lot of money and a lot of time lavished to create what I wanted to do. And, and I think in the end of the day, it was worth the effort. You know, I made great music. But that being said, it's a kind of a sensibility that does not exist anymore, mainly because the record business has changed dramatically. But now in returning to L.A., I'm sort of harkening back to that moment. I wouldn't say that this is a second act, I would say it's the end of the first act. Meaning that this is a bookend to my first record. And now I'm ready to start the second act with something completely new and different.

I love the way you've unpacked this. I feel like a lot of times in pop culture, artists get saddled with the midlife crisis card, which feels unfair. 

What very helpful for me is that I'm a big opera fan. I've written two operas. And I intend on writing another one. In terms of working in that world, you become very aware quickly, that it's only in your 40s that you really flourish, especially as an opera singer. There's a whole slew of credible roles that you can't really sing if you're in your 30s, because you just don't have the weight and the gravity and tenacity that someone in their 40s has. So, I tried to translate a bit of that to my popular work as a musician.

Do you feel like you specifically brought some of that ethos back to Unfollow the Rules?

Unwittingly for sure. I never try to have the intention of bringing pop to opera, or opera to pop. I feel that the two very different polls. When you're in one, you gotta respect it fully. That being said, I think that naturally things travel with me and to the other genres. This stuff does rub off for sure. I do feel that it's been very valuable for both my pop singing and my opera work to make this journey because you know, the human, the human soul can't help but learn. Especially in this day and age—you have to just go crazy.

Did you give yourself any guidelines or goalposts other than sit down and write?

There were some guidelines in the sense that I wanted to make an old-school kind of L.A. album with session players, strings and beautiful studios and so forth. But we had a fraction of the budget that I had many, many years ago. So, there was much more attention paid on economics. And so, we couldn't be anywhere near as lavish which in a strange way, was a great help to us. Mitchell Froom, the producer, spearheaded this concept and because we didn't have so much time and so much money, we had it had to be great right away. There was a sense of urgency that I think translates into the music.

Is there a nervousness that comes with feeling like you have to nail it?

Recording for me has always been—and this is something that I'm now can comfortably professes—a very natural fit. I have the ability in the studio to kind of let go and see where the music wants to take me. I have been in situations where the track isn't working or there's certain frustrating elements, but in the end, I always seem to enjoy the challenge when that occurs.

Where did this provocative title come from?

My daughter Viva came up with that phrase. One day she walked in and said, "Daddy, I just want to unfollow the rules" and then walked out. She dropped it kind of like a mic. It became a song, and when we were producing the record, I kept asking people different ideas, and shopping different titles, and that one just kept coming around. And so, we decided to go with it in the end. For me, it's a double-edged meaning in the sense that, on a more profound level, it's not about destroying the rules. I'm not an iconoclast. It's about turning around and going backwards and reexamining the path that you took prior to where you are today, and then deciding what you want to do. But then the other side of that, it's a very 21st century expression to unfollow. Now, whether it's Facebook or Instagram, just kind of press a button and everything disappears, which as we know is not what happens.

How much of the track was "For the Ladies" influenced by your female fans?

I always feel like I'm five years old. [Laughs.] So, I lose perspective. Now I've got younger fans than me who I think are like, my mom. And it's not because they look like my mom, but I just always feel like a child. It's like an artistic problem. But it's definitely kind of devoted to female fans who are so enamored of me in so many ways, whether they're like my mother, my sister, my, my grandmother or a real member of the family. They're just 100% devoted and become quite crazy, which of course I adore, and they've been really supportive my career for the whole time.

I know you said you're not an iconoclast, but what a cool position to be in where you mean so much to so many different groups of people.

I try to write different fields and different perspectives. And that's very rare now. Often times you'll listen to a new album and everything's kind of related. This is this similar thread that runs through it. I find slightly dull a lot of the time, because I like every song to be its own kind of universe. And in turn, I think that's given me a very wide variety in my fan base.

If Unfollow the Rules ends an era for you, do you have an inkling of what might be down the road?

There's a lot of projects I'm starting to conceive of. One thing I've always wanted to do is make a French record. And when I say a French record, I don't mean like me singing Edith Piaf songs. But doing something very avant-garde and crazy, and something that 14 year olds would enjoy. I'll suddenly become the French Billie Eilish.

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Doves

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Doves On Their First Album In A Decade & Why They’re Still Trying To Stay Patient

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"We always joke and say there's a curse on Doves," guitarist/songwriter Jez Williams tells GRAMMY.com of the Manchester indie stalwarts
Laura Studarus
GRAMMYs
Sep 10, 2020 - 9:22 am

Jez Williams is calling from his studio in the Manchester countryside. The area is currently experiencing a downpour of Biblical proportions, but the Doves guitarist isn’t terribly bothered. As he explains, accidently hitting a cymbal on the drum kit he’s perched on while trying to emphasize a point, music as always been a comfortable place for him. And returning to Doves, the three-piece he’s been a part of since 1998, was a homecoming, especially since it meant working with his brother Andy Williams, and frontman Jimi Goodwin.

After a decade, apart, the band's first official meeting took place over dinner—a working meal that Williams describes as feeling a bit like both a Tinder date and meeting with an old flame. Inspired by the loss of David Bowie, carnivals and desire in all its forms, the band’s fifth album, The Universal Want, carries a similar tension. Going into the studio, they had one rule: no nostalgia. And while the release is unmistakably covered in Doves' fingerprints, including arena-worthy choruses, crackling electronics and lyrics written through smudged rose-colored glasses ("Old friend it's been a while/We're just prisoners of this life."), it also reflects the excitement of musicians still happy to be doing what they love.

Ahead of the release, Williams spoke with GRAMMY.com about taking time to cosplay as a band at the beginning of their journey, dipping into their childhood memories and why he’d be super down for an alien abduction.

It seems like a terrible irony that Doves is putting out a new album in a year when nothing is happening.

We always joke and say there's a curse on Doves. We haven't done an album for 10 or 11 years, and we finally finished the album, we can't tour. I remember when we were cutting the new album in March, and we were so excited. Like, oh my god, we were just so amped to get the album out. And then literally I was in London cutting, and then the next day, the COVID thing really ramped up. There was a lockdown. I had to get from London back to Manchester literally the next day. You could not make this up.

On the bright side, you get to dodge bad tour bathrooms for a while longer.

You know what, I miss everything about it. Sure, we did some festival gigs last year, but we'll miss the real proper gigging where you're on a tour and with the same people in a room for three months. I absolutely love it. And I’m just really just itching to get back to that place—if we ever do.

Other than the occasional show, what has the last decade looked like for you?

Me and the singer Jimi put out a solo record, and me and my brother put out another project called Black Rivers. And then Jimi put out a solo album. It was interesting, starting a new band from scratch. It was almost like going back to when we started in a van, rather than a tour bus, and you're doing these kinds of sweaty clubs. That was cool. And you had to load your own equipment back into the bus, so not much of a crew. It was pretty much back to grassroots kind of fun.

That's interesting that you were able to put aside the privilege that comes with already having an established project.

It was really good fun, because it was different to Doves, it was something we've not experienced with Doves, because we've been together for a long time. Doing something outside that Doves was, I think was much-needed. It bought a lot of much-needed energy back into Doves. I just think we were so desperate for a break.

So, what was that first reunion like when you came back together, not as three dudes who are fond of each other, but as a band?

We met in a curry house. It was kind of freaky and strange and a little bit surreal, because we've not really seen each other. A little bit nervous—the meeting had all the emotions. We just wanted to know if there was something still there. We were checking out how each is feeling about the potential of us doing something new. We always said, if we are going to come back, it's got to be with a new album, not just to play the old songs. We're older, and maybe not any wiser, but we're definitely a little bit older. So, we had that curry. And then about a week later, we went to a little studio, and we literally just played the old songs that we haven't played for years. And that was freaky.

Muscle memory is so fascinating.

That's exactly what it was, it was some weird freaky muscle memory, your hands knew where to go. Jimi just immediately went into the lyrics. There was no "I forgotten that lyric." It was the strangest thing.

The track "Carousels" features a sample from Tony Allen. Did your band have a relationship with him?

That was a song that I personally had written. It was knocking around for years. And then I took it in a different direction. I slowed it down. Then I found this album that Tony Allen did of drum samples. And then once I had that in place, it's certainly quite good, and I took it to the band and they really liked it. And they went on from there. We've been aware of Tony Allen for a bit. I love Afrobeat, so it was such an honor to have them indirectly playing with us. And obviously, it was so strange because he passed away this year and made it all the more sort of poignant.

It is a really beautiful little hidden tribute. It's interesting because you did mention that you didn't want Doves to be based in nostalgia, and yet carnivals from your youth also came into play.

They were a little bit menacing, a little bit scary. Exciting. There was danger in the air, but yet magic in there. So, it had all these wondrous kind of mixed emotions. This is when we were kids just mucking about. There's all the bad boys and the people from the other side of the tracks. It had all these emotions mixed up, so I guess we were kind of reminiscing about that kind of feeling of when you're a kid and your eyes are opening up slowly to this sort of wonderful dangerous world.

That's such a beautiful filter.

Oh, yeah, I like that. We sometimes reminisce about things like that. Lyrically. And this just seemed to feel natural.

The Universal Want feels like an incredibly provocative title.

What summed up the album for us was this kind of misguided wanting. It was interesting to us that people sometimes are so programmed to think what they want is the newest this and that. This kind of consumerism, that's just gone into what people think they want, but they're not actually getting. This kind of a yearning for something that's perhaps misguided.

Yeah. So much of our want is out of our control and shaped by influences.

Exactly. Some people might spiritually want some something more than just the latest iPhone or whatever. But things are sort of degrading in society where people are just programmed to want these consumer things. I just think that's a sort of erosion.

Your cover was created by Maria Lax, a photographer from Northern Finland who shoots UFO sighting—which might be the best collection of words ever. How did you guys stumble across her work?

Well, in fact it was Jimi. He bought this book that she had done. She did a real limited run. Maria Lax made this beautiful book that had been hand-bound and she puts little bits of notes in personally, so it is very personalized. Jimi bought a couple one for me one for Andy for our birthdays. I was just I was just stunned by the beauty and the noir-airy look to it. It just spoke out to me, and I just thought, this absolutely marries with this album. It was just, for me it was, it was just so obvious that the two must go together.

Have you had any close encounters with aliens?

Not personally. I've always been obsessed with them. I was brought up on E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And I loved the late-'70s fascination with UFOs. It's almost like Maria's photos look like it's either about to arrive or it's just left. It's very eerie, but no, I haven't personally seen them. Not yet, but still open!

Do you foresee more music from Doves in the future?

I don't see why not. There's no reason for us not to do another album. At the moment, we're just desperate to get out there and gig. We understand why we can't, but it's at the forefront of our minds.

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Jessy Lanza

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Jessy Lanza Is Still Trying to Look On The Bright Side

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Ahead of the release of her third album, 'All the Time,' the electro-R&B performer spoke with GRAMMY.com about recovering from burnout, irrational anger and forging a new creative connection with an old friend
Laura Studarus
GRAMMYs
Jul 22, 2020 - 9:21 am

Jessy Lanza is far from home, specifically on the side of the road in Texas at a Jiffy Lube. The last few weeks have been a lot for the singer/songwriter. A cancelled tour, an unexpected relocation from New York to San Francisco with her partner after her landlord refused to extend their lease, and—of course—a global pandemic that colors almost every moment of the conversation.

It’s a lot, as Lanza readily admits. But the singer/songwriter has been trying to stay positive.

Unsurprisingly, music has been a lifelong support system. As a listener, she practices the kind of genre agnosticism that’s landed her the occasional radio DJ gig. But when it comes to her own work, first introduced widely with her 2014 debut album, Pull My Hair Back, the fascination manifests itself in a potent blend of breathy sing-speak and minimal beats, a mix that was further embellished on her sophomore album, Oh No. (The title was chosen to reflect her struggle with anxiety and dread—and yes, it feels prophetic now.)

Lanza's new album All the Time (out on July 24 via Hyperdub), is another upbeat, spartan mix, one that collages together 1990s R&B beats, disco and experimental pop tones. It’s also thoroughly optimistic dance party, the mood she needed to sustain her during a break-up, geographic relocation and learning how to make friends as an adult in a new city.

Ahead of the release of All the Time, Lanza spoke with GRAMMY.com about recovering from burnout, irrational anger, and forging a new creative connection with an old friend.

How do you deal with anxiety when it emerges?

I have been in constant motion since this whole thing escalated. I've had objectives that I've had to achieve. I have been anxious, but it's just I'm kind of getting through every day. It's like, okay, we have to get to Albuquerque tomorrow. It's like, we need to get an oil change. So, I haven't really had time to sit and think about what's going on. I think by the time we get to San Francisco, I'll really have time to be super anxious. But yeah, I don't know. I guess I just try and try and remind myself how lucky I am. That we were able to leave and that I have a minivan that fits all my shit in it. Remembering how lucky I am to have mobility. That helps.

Are you as objective-driven when it comes to making music, or living day-to-day on tour?

I can be a really depressive person and I hate that about myself. So, it really is a challenge. Touring is a challenge for me. I don't want to just get in bed and pull the covers over my head even though I'm really tempted by that. But I think that that's why trying is a scary thing for me. But I think part of the reason I like it is because I do it despite myself and I think that gives me some confidence that I can do it even though it's not so natural.

When you are tempted to stay in bed, does having a schedule or knowing that you have to go make music help?

That's a tough question. Because sometimes I wonder, like, do I need to make music? It's the only thing that I've felt pretty much my entire life that I'm really any good at and the only thing that I've really been compelled to do. That's what drives me to do it. And yeah, sometimes that feels weird. I'm not a heart surgeon. It could be argued that that's the depression talking sometimes. 

I feel like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, food, shelter, etc., should really have more branches for the nontangible things that feed us. Especially when it comes to something that has nurtured you for as long as it has.

It definitely has. I've come to terms with the fact I'm a real people pleaser. I've always wanted to make my parents happy. I always wanted to make other people feel good. And I think music is one way I know that I can do that. And so, I think that it gives me some sense of purpose in the world.

Well, in that case it sounds like a basic. It's in your pyramid.

Yeah, it's a weird road to go down where it's like, well, then why would you need to do anything?

When did All the Time start to take shape?

I started a long time after Oh No. Like, really right to the end of 2017. I was pretty burnt out by the end of that. 2018 when I knew I didn't have any tours, and I had time to spend at home and set studio [time] the way I wanted to. That's when I really started to write songs for All The Time. It took a long time for that record to get finished, because I was burnt out.

What helped you through that period of feeling burnt out?

I'd moved to New York from Hamilton, [Ontario] at the beginning of 2017. I really had this naive idea that like that leaving Hamilton and having a fresh start and a new relationship, and a new apartment, and a new city, I thought that that would make me feel better than I was feeling, and it didn't. And I think once I started that started to sink in—that the problem isn't the city, it's not the people around you, [but] the problem is me. That was the seed that started the whole album and a lot of the themes the album. I mean, I love living in New York, and I found that all this stuff was still following me around. A lot of the feelings that I thought would go away with a change of environment.

Was there a moment in all this with a song or like something that helped lead the way into this record?

The title track "All The Time" was the first song that Jeremy [Greenspan of Junior Boys], and I started working on. Our relationship was pretty weird at that point in time, because for the past five years had been dating, and we were broken up and we knew we still wanted to work on music. So, we were both navigating that situation and like weren't really sure that it was going to work out. And he sent me this really nice chord progression and drum pattern and he was like, I was working on this, maybe you could write something over it. And so yeah, I wrote the lyrics and the melody for that song "All the Time." And we both really loved it. And that kind of kicked things off. And it was a reassurance that we can still do this and we can still be friends and so have a musical relationship, even though it was it was pretty precarious for a while.

I love the way you rediscovered your shared language.

I think a huge part of our relationship was always working on music together. And so, that has just continued. And I feel really lucky that it has. Because I love working on music with Jeremy and I would have been really sad to have lost that.

What kind of angry emotions informed "Lick in Heaven?"

That song I wrote when I was really, really mad, and that's really about total frustration with other people. The seed of it was when you get to this point of anger and you just you just start seeing red. It's like the point of no return. You know, you can say things and do things that you don't mean or you're gonna regret later and it's like, that kind of detachment from reality. I think it was after I got in this like real banger of a fight with my partner, Winston, and just reflecting on how badly I acted. I was just so embarrassed with the things that I said.

When you've spent time working, and then sending ideas back to Jeremy and Hamilton, what do you do to help make you feel more connected either to the musical community or to the people around you?

I think DJing has been a really a really big part of me feeling like I'm relating to other people who make music. In New York, I didn't really know anybody when I first moved there and then I started DJing at this place called The Lot Radio. I have a monthly show there. I met people through that. DJing is such a nice way to get music from other people and share music and do edits of people's tracks. It opened up a whole social world for me that I really didn't have in Hamilton, just because that community just doesn't really exist.

Did listening to all this music affect the way you approached the new album?

I was listening to a lot of R&B music from 1980, music that was like 35 years old. I was listening to a lot of Alexander O'Neal and Pointer Sisters. I was taking a lot of time to actually learn the chord progressions. A lot of the songs on the album were started just from me figuring out the chords for a song and then writing my own song. It just turned into a track from there, so yes, I'm spending a lot of time in my studio, just kind of messing around and listening to music.

It seems like you're good at going with the creative flow. Even in trying times.

Yeah, that's something I've really tried to work on. Generally thinking positively. And like, you know, it's likely that something good will happen. It's not always something bad around the corner. Over the past couple years especially—just to try and relax and let things happen. Just think a bit more positively about it, because I'm pretty tired of thinking that everything's just going to go to shit you know? Even though sometimes it doesn't seem all that good. What else is there to do but [say] it's gonna be okay.

Since we started talking about basic needs, what would your superhero power be: flight or in visibility?

Oh, definitely flight. The ability to just get from one place to the next really fast and on your own terms. That'd be pretty awesome. I feel like invisibility would just bring out like the creep in me. Flight, you could still get a little bit of that, but I just feel like invisibility you would learn a lot of things that you probably don't need to know.

Wye Oak On Learning To Press Pause, Branching Out & Supporting Black Lives Matter

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Soko

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Soko Explores Her Feelings

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Ahead of the release of her latest record, 'Feel Feelings,' the French singer/songwriter tells GRAMMY.com about why, this time, she didn’t feel the need to create alone
Laura Studarus
GRAMMYs
Jul 15, 2020 - 8:00 am

Soko is having a rough 2020. (Then again, aren’t we all?) There was a broken foot that kept her from walking for two months. Then came Covid-19, which she caught and is only now feeling fully recovered. And of course, having to promote an album at home—when like every musician, she'd rather be out in the world, performing and experiencing the human connection that comes with it.

Still, as we speak, socially distanced but connected over the phone, she sounds thankful. She's healthy, has work and is surrounded by her family. (A fact underscored by her occasional pauses to coo to her son in rapid-fire French.) As she explains, this newfound bliss came after working for it—both through therapy and in creating new patterns in her day-to-day life.

It’s an attitude of hard-won contentment that's reflected in her just-released third album, Feel Feelings. Across its 12 tracks of woozy guitar pop, Soko aims for balance, accepting the duality of sadness and happiness in a husky alto. But however heavy or honest she gets, there’s also a dedication to resisting escapism. ("Everything about you is a lie, made up in a movie, that I don’t want to watch," she sings on "Time Waits For No One.") It’s a balancing act wrapped in music, one which she’ll be the first to admit takes a determined spirit to achieve.

Ahead of the release, Soko unpacked the album with GRAMMY.com, discussing her newfound definition of "exist," ignoring those who tell her to smile, and why this time, she didn’t feel the need to create alone.

Has the D.I.Y. of music always been important to you?

It has, yeah, for as far as I can remember. I've always recorded my songs on GarageBand. So, teaching myself how to play instruments and figuring it out, kind of not really by the book but just by learning, making mistakes, correcting your mistakes and doing better. I experienced a lot of D.I.Y. stuff on the previous record [2015's My Dreams Dictate My Reality]. But for this record, I didn't want to do it myself. For the first time, I felt confident enough that I had to prove myself that I could do it all by myself, but I felt like, okay, now I proved to myself that I'm able to do it myself. I have that strength and confidence in me, I can finally invite people in a way that is more playful. And also, I just wanted to collaborate with people. I really liked making the record.

That's huge that you felt like you could communicate your vision.

Yeah, I felt like, "Okay, I know what I'm talking about." I don't have that sort of like imposter syndrome anymore. I felt like before, people would just attribute all of my choices to whichever man was in the room. And I was like, "No, this is what I wanted—nobody else's decisions." And now I feel pretty strong in my ability to communicate musically with people, and I know what I like and I know what I don't like. I love making melodies. I'm kind of a goofy player. I could play it but it would probably take me a lot of practice when I could find the melody and communicate to someone in no time. And then they can play it much better than I [can].

You've worked on so many different creative projects. Was there a moment when this clicked in for you and you realized you did have that confidence?

I think over time. We do a lot of writing prior getting into the studio, and my entire record would be mapped out. Everything would be returned and then [I'd] take it to people to help me do my vision. I think I went to the studio, very charged with everything I was talking about in the record. A few songs were fully written, like "Let Me Adore You." It was the first thing I did for the record, and I wrote it by myself on acoustic guitar. And the song "Quiet Storm" was actually left over from my previous record. And that was finally the version that I felt like it was always meant to be. And a lot of songs came into the studio or playing with other people, jamming some little bits of chord progressions that I like and then feeling, "Oh I want this to be the title." I know I'm gonna write the lyrics and these are the melodies.

I'm feeling a lot of joy, moving through all this.

I think it was a lot of growth in confidence. Also, because I did make the choice valuing my worth, depending on who, or if I'm dating. So, I wanted to go celibate and make this record. Because I wanted to have no distraction and be fully committed to my record and all the chit-chat in my head of like, "Am I worthy enough? Is anyone gonna love me?" Whatever, it didn't have to matter anymore, because I didn't want to attribute my confidence to other people and give other people my strength when I should keep it for myself. It needed that, all of that self-love I was gaining by not wasting it on things that were not worth it. [It] made me feel more free and independent. 

I've explored a lot, and I've encountered things, and now it's time to break the bad patterns that I have. Instead of being like, "I'm the victim," [now I think], "Okay, well, if people do [something] to me, it's because I let them." So, if I let them, I have to take responsibility for it and cut the pattern and stop it. [I have to] look within to see what I can change to have a healthy partnership with someone. And, then my work, relationships, thrive and my friendships thrive, because I wasn't looking for the destructive pattern.

I think that's amazing because it can be so scary to take that responsibility.

To me, everyone is always talking about like, how do we get fit? How do we work out enough? Do you take care of your body enough? Do you feel good in your body? How is your skin routine? And what's your beauty routine? To me, there's another very challenging element to all of this. I feel like there is not enough talk about the importance of looking within to rerail your destructive patterns into a healthy place. And there was no open conversation about this. To me, it is as important as your skincare routine and how much you work out. It's a whole. And it's not just meditation, or it's not just doing yoga—obviously, that helps with anxiety and stuff—but therapy, work on yourself, cutting negative patterns and finding ways to develop tools of communication: I feel like that's what I was trying to do with this record. I wanted to make a record that is like, "It is okay to have all the feelings." They're all valid.

Is that where a song like "Being Sad is Not a Crime" comes in?

Absolutely. And "Don't Tell Me to Smile." It's like, why should I be told to smile for your picture if that's not what I'm feeling? Why can't you just be okay with what I'm feeling? If you're trying to see me and see me for who I am, and not for who I could be in your mind. There's a lot about the fantasy of relationship[s] and the fantasy of the world that it can be one way, but like, really I think it's beautiful to just see it for what it is.

Have you found sort of a sense of fantasy or magic having a positive influence in any area of your life?

I find different things magical. I find making a project come to life magical. I find being able to imagine doing it [and] putting it out magical. I find having an idea for video and then making it with your friends, and putting it out into the world, and then it doesn't belong to you anymore and people connecting to it magical. And I find that I find travelling magical. I definitely right now fantasize about being on the beach with my friend in Costa Rica. Because I miss her terribly and I hate that borders are closed. And also, I've been doing movies as an actress since 16. And, you know, every movie that gets made and that goes into production that comes out is like a miracle. Yeah, it takes so much work and so many people in so many conversations and so much imagination and creativity. 

Given that you you've done so much positive work on yourself, are you able to dig into the sadness on a song like "Quiet Storm" without falling back into it?

The first version of that song was pretty sad, but when I recorded it for the record, I wanted the sound of it to be happy. Even though the context and the situation is pretty dramatic—and I think I did that—I'm really happy with the results, and that's exactly what I want for that song. The fact that the music has a happy tone—even like a sexy groove—it's like [keeping] the songs from being totally dramatic. I just didn't want things to be just one way or another. I wanted it to have the ray of emotion, like the before the during and the after. And after is a lot brighter than the during. And so, by putting these sounds, next to this subject. I felt like, you know, it's my way of being like okay I've lived through this. I survived.

Do you find that you're often singing to yourself?

In a way that it's diary-like where I want to be able to listen to them in like 20-30 years, and be like, "That is exactly what I was feeling." And if something is a song that I did write 10 years ago, I still feel very much that way, even though sonically it's not something I like. Lyrically, the themes and stuff feel very childish of me to sing that way, but it's good because it's still there and it's a musical memory.

Is it tough to let some of this out into the wild?

It's like, dude I might put out the record and nobody will care. And it was a year and a half of my life working on it and then it's been in the can for two years because we're waiting for the moment to put it out. I've been carrying it to dreaming and dreaming and dreaming [or] even talking about it, or hearing what people think about it. I get most of the satisfaction, making the sounds and recording them. But even packaging the record and making videos is something that I really love, and then the response... I'm super anxious.

How do you define success?

What I have right now, waking up next to my girlfriend and my baby, every day, and feeling super content with what I have.

I love how you've titled this album because it feels like you've never had any problem feeling things.

Yeah, I never had any problems doing that. Other people around would [say to me], you should have a stiff upper lip. Not everybody needs to know when you're feeling sad. And I'm like, why not? If they were more in tune with their feelings, they might have compassion for what I'm going through right now. And we might even get into a great conversation that is deeply personal and we might even realize that we are more alike than we imagined, and we might even grow friendship out of this. But if everyone is just pretending that everything's okay all the time, it's very hard to create new connections.

Speaking of people coming together, how have the recent L.A. protests affected you and your family? Did you participate?

It really gave us a sense of togetherness facing the big issues. We wanted to physically be present but that didn't feel safe for our family with the omnipresent Covid scares. But we were very vocal and present and supportive on social media, relaying important informations about the protests, bailouts, links to support, donate, learn and research.

How would you encourage your listeners get involved? What does allyship look like to you?

Being a white ally to me means being actively anti-racist. Starting the conversation into our home. My baby just started watching this show "Motown Magic" on Netflix that he loves—it stars a little Black kid and all the music is amazing and Indigo is obsessed with it!

For me, it was also important to take a pause to listen. I watched a lot of movies like I'm Not Your Negro, 13th, Selma, The Banker... Such good films! And I also decided to delay the release of my album because it didn't feel appropriate to use this sensitive and very important time for self-promotion, and i wanted to make sure to put my energy and focus into showing full support to ALL Black lives matter. Because we shouldn't forget about trans lives and our trans brothers and sisters did so much for the LGBTQ+ community and we wouldn't be where we're at today without them!

Read More: The Unbreakable Margo Price

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PJ Harvey and John Parish perform at Primavera Sound Festival in 2016

Photo by Jordi Vidal/Redferns

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PJ Harvey's Lost Album: John Parish Discusses 1996 Gem 'Dance Hall At Louse Point'

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On the occasion of its recent reissue, we tracked down John Parish to talk about 'Dance Hall At Louse Point' and his earliest memories of meeting PJ Harvey as an ambitious teenager
Zach Schonfeld
GRAMMYs
Nov 10, 2020 - 10:19 am

PJ Harvey rarely looks back. The songwriter’s career has been defined by a restless sense of reinvention, each album cycle accompanied by a fresh persona—the blues roar of To Bring You My Love, or the glossy alt-rock romance of Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea—ready to be discarded at the next creative whim.

But 2020 has been an exception. Harvey has spent much of the year rolling out a vinyl reissue series of her back catalog, along with some accompanying demo albums. The latest vinyl reissue is something of an outlier: Dance Hall At Louse Point, Harvey’s abrasive 1996 collaboration with ex-bandmate John Parish. Harvey and Parish had first met in the late 1980s, when she joined his band Automatic Dlamini. In 1996, they combined Parish’s musical demos and Harvey’s lyrics on an album that would plunge the singer-songwriter into an avant-garde realm of disturbing monologues and banshee-wail vocals.

Credited to John Parish & Polly Jean Harvey, Dance Hall was largely overshadowed at the time by the immense success of To Bring You My Love. In retrospect, it’s an underrated gem and something of a lost album in Harvey’s catalog; as Harvey herself later acknowledged, "People don't even count that, yet that's the record I'm really proud of."

On the occasion of the album’s recent reissue, I tracked down John Parish to talk about the album’s unusual backstory and his earliest memories of meeting Harvey as an ambitious teenager. Since then, Parish has co-produced most of the singer’s solo albums, and in 2009, the pair reunited for a second collaborative record. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

At the time you made Dance Hall At Louse Point, you had already known Polly for a number of years. What was your first impression when you first met her in the '80s?

She was like 17 when I first met her. She was coming to see my band, Automatic Dlamini, whenever we played in her local area. We all got to chatting after a gig. A mutual friend introduced us, and then she gave me a couple of cassettes of some of her early songs she’d been writing. They were kind of like folk songs at that time, really. But her voice—it was already there. It was fully formed at that age.

I just thought, "That girl’s got a really good voice, I’m gonna see if she wants to join the band." So I just asked her. When she finished school, she came and joined the band and she played with us for the next three years, before she formed the first PJ Harvey trio.

Was there a moment when you first realized, "This person is extraordinarily talented, oh my God."

I mean, I obviously saw something that was really good there; otherwise I wouldn’t have asked her to join the band. You can’t possibly predict how somebody’s going to develop as an artist. I could see that she had the potential to be great. If I said, "Oh, I knew she was going to be a star"—obviously nobody can know those kinds of things.

Do you have any favorite memories of working with Polly in Automatic Dlamini?

She came in at a point when the original lineup was kind of falling apart. I was rebuilding a lineup, and she was an absolutely fundamental part of that. She’s always had an old head on young shoulders. She was somebody that you could talk to and discuss pretty serious issues. As a teenager, she was very serious. And was quite capable of being able to offer good advice. We started relying on each other.

Was she nervous performing onstage with the band when she first joined?

The first couple of shows, yeah, really nervous. As you would be. But no, she got used to it pretty fast.

Tell me about the origin story for Dance Hall At Louse Point. My understanding is that you wrote those songs while on tour with Polly for To Bring You My Love?

That’s semi-right. It was Polly’s idea. It was after Rid Of Me, before she had started To Bring You My Love. I was teaching a performing arts course at a local college. I’d written some music for a theater production, and Polly came along to see it. She absolutely loved the music, and said afterwards, "Would you write me some music in that kind of vein? That I could try writing words to?" I said, "OK, that would be great."

That’s how we had the idea for the album. I was writing the music for Dance Hall At Louse Point at the same time she was writing the music for To Bring You My Love. I then became involved with [To Bring You My Love], which was obviously a big record. And it involved a big tour as well. Took 18 months of our time. While we were on tour for To Bring You My Love, that’s when Polly wrote all the words. She already had a cassette of the music for the Dance Hall record, which she carried around with her on the tour and then wrote lyrics in different cities. Which is why those cities are referenced on the album sleeve.

Were you hearing her lyrics while she was writing them? Or were you both working in your own separate worlds?

She would sort of drop a cassette into my hotel room and say, "I've got some lyrics for this song." I'd hear them as they were coming in. It was always kind of, "Here you go, here's the lyrics." And it would always be completely done. It was very exciting.

I was reading some old interviews with Polly. There’s one where she describes that record as being a huge turning point for her. What do you think she meant by that?

It’s always difficult to talk about how that is for somebody else. My take on that is—and I know this from myself when I’m writing in collaboration with somebody else—it’s a certain freedom you have that you don’t give yourself if you're writing entirely individually, because you have the weight of the whole thing. When you can share the weight, it eases you up to do things you might be nervous about doing yourself, because you’re not sure whether you’ve gone off a stupid tangent and you’re not seeing it.

You can try those things that might seem kind of wayward. And you have another person that you rely on say, "Oh yeah, that’s great. Push it a bit further." Like I said before, she approaches most things very seriously. Writing particularly so. So I think it probably enabled her to be a bit more wayward than she might have been. When I first heard her vocal idea for "Taut," I mean—the entire delivery of the song was kind of extreme.

Which song are you referring to?

I’m referring to "Taut." Which is quite an extreme performance. A lot of the songs, I would give her a title. So I gave her the title "Taut." She didn’t have to use it if she didn’t want to. Some of the titles she used; some she didn’t. But I think it was also quite freeing to suddenly have a word or a line and say, "What are you gonna come up with for that?"

I’m assuming Polly thinks the same. She might have a totally different reason for saying that was a turning point. It could also be that, up until that point, the lyrics she had been writing—you know, Rid Of Me and Dry—were very personal lyrics. Or they could be read in a personal way, couldn’t they? Louse Point was very much stories and scenarios. You weren’t imagining that Polly was talking about herself in the bulk of those songs.

The vocal performance on "City Of No Sun" is also quite extreme and very jarring. Were you taken aback by her approach to singing this material?

I was a bit surprised. In a good way. I thought it was really exciting. I remember the performance of "City Of No Sun" when we were in the studio. She said, "OK, I’ll record the quiet bits first, then I’ll do the loud bits." So she had the engineer set the levels, doing the quiet bits. It’s quite strange timing in that song, to get everything to line up. She hit the chorus; she had two or three go’s and she kept getting it wrong.

At one point, she got it wrong again and she was so annoyed that she just went straight into the loud bit anyway. We had the mic set to be recording this really quiet vocal, so all the needles shot way into the red. It was on tape, which can really compress those kinds of things.

Is that the performance that is actually on the record? You can hear how it sounds a bit distorted.

Yeah. Because it’s absolutely pushing everything. She didn't mean to record it like that, but it just sounded so great. Of course we kept it.

Whose idea was it to cover "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee?

It was initially done because they needed it for this film [Basquiat]. We really liked the way it came out, so we thought, "Oh, it kind of fits on the record." The recording that’s on the album is actually the first time we’d ever played that song. There were no rehearsals. We didn’t really know what we were going to do. Mick Harvey played the organ, I played drums, and Polly sang.

Obviously, most of her albums are credited to PJ Harvey. On this album, she's Polly Jean Harvey. What do you think is the significance of her changing her billing?

That was absolutely her call. I think she was quite protective of me. She very much said, "I want it to be called John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey, not the other way around." It’s difficult, isn’t it, if you’re an established artist and you suddenly work with someone who’s unknown, or de facto unknown. It’s like, "Oh, PJ Harvey and some bloke" kind of thing. I think she was trying to find the best way of making people realize that it wasn’t another PJ Harvey album. I know that later on, when we did the second collaboration, it was PJ Harvey and John Parish. It in some ways made more sense, but you’re never quite sure how you should go about those things when you’re doing them.

Some articles I’ve read state that the record label, Island, was uncomfortable with the album and believed it to be "commercial suicide." Is there any truth to that?

I’m sure there were people at Island who were a little bit unnerved by it. And by the fact that it was coming out not as a PJ Harvey record, but under a different name, when To Bring You My Love had just been such a relatively commercial success for PJ Harvey. Probably somebody said it was commercial suicide. If they really thought that, I doubt they would have put it out. I think they didn’t really know what it was.

I have to give quite a lot of credit to Polly’s manager, Paul McGuinness. I think if he hadn’t been behind it, perhaps Island Records wouldn’t have gone for it. But Paul heard it and he was like, "This is a really good record." Obviously he had a lot of clout and a lot of credibility with Island.

During this period, Polly was also becoming successful very quickly. Perhaps she was overwhelmed by the expectations from the record label or the degree of media scrutiny. Do you think those factors contributed to her desire to separate herself from the PJ Harvey that people knew?

You’d probably have to ask her. My take would be that it’s not quite as thought-through as that. She doesn’t like to repeat herself. The last thing she would have wanted to do at that time would have been To Bring You My Love 2. Her gut reaction is to try and do something different each time. Which is why I think she’s had such a long, successful career. I think there was a lot of pressure after the first album, Dry—the record company didn’t like Rid Of Me. They didn’t want to have this Steve Albini-recorded, very hard-hitting album. They were hoping for something more commercial, like I would have said Dry was.

If you are able to reinvent yourself each time—which, obviously a lot of artists just don’t have that facility—if you can, it sets you up for a much longer, more interesting career.

The album title refers to a painting. How did the title present itself to you or to Polly?

I was, and I still am, a very big fan of the painting Rosy-Fingered Dawn At Louse Point by [William] de Kooning. I told you I was giving Polly some of the songs I gave her with titles. One of them, which she ended up not writing any lyrics to—the title track from the album—is an instrumental. That was just a title I gave it. There was something about a place called "Louse Point" that sounded sort of desolate and rather unappealing, and I just thought a dance hall—I just liked the atmosphere that the title [suggested].

How would you describe this album’s long-term legacy in Polly’s career? Do you think it’s overdue for more attention?

I mean, I know it’s seemed like there’s a hardcore group of fans that like it very much. In the U.K. and Europe, there were a lot of people [who] liked it pretty much straight away. Perhaps in America it took a little bit longer to find its home. Obviously we never came over, played any shows, did anything in the U.S. at the time of its release. A lot of people talk to me about it 23, 24 years after its release and say they love it very much. I guess it has its fans for sure.

Once this reissue campaign is over, do you think we can expect a new album from Polly next year?

Umm… I don’t know. I can’t really answer that.

Are there any more previously unreleased demos, like the Dry demos, that fans can look forward to as part of this reissue campaign?

Nearly all the albums will come with accompanying demos. Probably the only ones that won’t are our two collaborative albums—the demos would all be instrumental versions of the album, because that’s how we went about it.

What can you tell me about the demos for Is This Desire?

Well, there’s a demo version of "The Garden," which I really, really love. Had it been down to me, I would have said "Put the demo version on the album" when the record came out. Because I just think it’s one of Polly’s greatest demos. Generally, I like the demos for Is This Desire? a lot.

And the b-sides from that record as well—"Sweeter Than Anything," "Nina in Ecstasy." I think there are some really extraordinary songs that didn’t make it onto the proper album.

You and me both. I think "Nina In Ecstasy" should have been on the record. That was my favorite track of the whole set of demos. So I was very disappointed that that didn't make it onto the album.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that track should have been on there. Will those b-sides be included with the reissue package?

Not the initial reissue package, because it’s literally the album plus demos of the album. I might be wrong, but I think there might be some kind of b-sides and rarities thing to come out as another package at some point down the line.

Will you also be reissuing the more recent albums, like Let England Shake and The Hope Six Demolition Project?

I think Hope Six is still available anyway. So I don’t think there’s any point in reissuing that. But I think everything that was unavailable is being made available.

Has Polly herself been very involved in preparing these reissues and overseeing everything?

No, I think she’s delegated to people like me or Head. And she’s delegated the artwork; it’s all the people that did it originally who are working on it again. She’s very good at [delegating].

I’ve always gotten the sense she doesn’t like to dwell on her past work. She’s more interested in doing something new.

As all creative artists should be, I think.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, The Honorable Music Lover

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