| THIS INTERVIEW WAS IN THIS SITE (the best Cat Power site i founded) SO THANKS GIRL. LONDON 14th MARCH 2000 -unpublished, full and unedited version of the interview- What sets these songs apart for you, what criteria decided which songs you'd put on The Covers Record? They're songs that at one time or another in my apartment or hotel room or a friend's house or some space or time or on stage, I'd just start playing a melody and, without even thinking about it, I'd just start singing that song. Just like 'oh, I'll start singing this song' and because I sang it once in my house, the next time I might play it on stage. It's like 'oh, maybe I'll play that to calm me down,' because I really hate my own songs. And it becomes a part of my memory, it becomes a song to me even though it doesn't sound like other people and their actual song. I felt really good playing them, not like really good but I felt like I could concentrate on them easier than my own songs because it's not like I'm making up the lyrics or anything. It's not like they're really my songs. And also because I admire and respect the people who wrote them. It feels better than singing my own songs. You've always covered other people's songs on your albums - Hank Williams, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Smog - so was this record something that you'd had in mind to do for a long time? Absolutely not, this came because at the end of my Moon Pix tour with the band, around the eighth month I started to become very unhappy playing my songs and I could not stand playing my songs, I felt I was lying every time I did it. So, more and more, my set list became these songs, I kept pulling them in, pulling them in and, finally, by the ninth month they would ask 'Chan, are we going to play any Cat Power songs?' So, they gave me freedom and inspired [me]. I had all these other original songs that I'd been carrying through that tour but I didn't feel inspired . . . because I know if I pick up those songs and spend a month in a recording studio, it's going to be a lot more pressure on me to tour more and get a band and think about it more and I don't want to think about it. And I know that these songs are very easy, you know, to think about. I know what I want, I don't have to go into a studio and wing it, which is what I did with all my other [recor! ds]. I knew what I wanted. Is there a common thread between the songs that you cover, something that draws you to them? I think a lot of songs cause me to freeze, it's like a moment in time when I hear the song. These songs are like that, they were all frozen in time when they were invented or whatever. When they were put into the consciousness of me and other people who really like them or that kind of song that comforts you in a way. That's what these songs are like for me. I don't think they're necessarily sad, I just think they're comforting or something. This is probably the question you've been asked most about this record . . . Satisfaction? Why did I not play the chorus? Yeah. Just 'cause when I was playing it in my room, just the melody for like thirty minutes and forgetting what time it was, I just started singing Satisfaction and I remember thinking 'oh, this is the part when "Satisfaction" comes up.' I just didn't sing it because all I can see is Mick Jagger, I can't really imagine singing his lyrics. Had you always planned to record these songs unaccompanied? Absolutely, yeah. All the songs that I've ever written even before there were people playing on them were always thought of playing by myself. Somebody always talked me into [playing with a band]. I'm kidding, Moon Pix I wanted it. When we last spoke I mentioned that Moon Pix was a more confident record than it's predecessors, and that you'd found your sound. I wanted to record, that's the first time I ever felt comfortable with what I was doing. So do you think you could have recorded this album before, or did Moon Pix give you the necessary confidence? Yeah, perhaps, yeah, absolutely, yeah. I guess psychologically, emotionally, whatever, I'd gotten more mature and I trust myself more, or something. You said you were sick of your own songs by the end of the Moon Pix tour. Just the Moon Pix songs? Oh, I never played any other songs from any other records, because I was on the Moon Pix tour Ionly played those songs. Because you were sick of playing them or because of the incidents that inspired that album? Had you grown distant from them? It's like different, because on stage you fight all different kinds of thoughts and I couldn't really concentrate on them because I knew how they went so well and also I couldn't concentrate because I was having to sing over the instruments live and that really stressed me out, not having to sing but having to yell and really working hard and the stress of that every night. Because I'm not a great musician and the people I was playing with are really great musicians, they have impeccable time and, just, they know how to play. I couldn't pay attention to what I could do, naturally, by myself, do you know what I mean? When we first started doing it on tour it was great, you know, there was a lot of positive energy and the first four weeks were some of the best shows I've ever played. Of course, our first European shows were really great too, but you know . . . On the surface this record seems very simple, just the voice and guitar or piano. Was it an easy record to make? Oh, absolutely [laughs]. One through six I recorded in the November before I went to Australia. I knew exactly what I wanted and I went in and was basically waiting for people to get finished doing stuff so I could do what I knew I was doing. The other songs are just, sort of, mistakes and 'oh the tapes running, play that thing again.' 'Salty dog, salty dog,' you know? This sounds really neat, press record. Sea of Love you know, things like that where I just had to be like 'I wanna do this, press record.' It would be like Wild Is The Wind, you know, afraid it would go away, he's like 'just test out the piano, see if you like it.' I'd be like 'Okay', I'd have the headphones on and start 'Love me, love me . . . that sounds really neat, press record.' I said 'Come here, bring some tape' and I'd put a piece of tape here and a piece of tape here and I'd be like 'Okay, I'm ready!' I'd never played it before. The other songs were like mistakes, impulses but the ! first six I'd been playing during shows, so I knew exactly what I wanted when it was time to record. What about the sequencing, there are five guitar songs, five piano songs and two more guitar tracks, the last two being 'lighter' songs after some heavier stuff in the middle. Was that planned? I've got a reason. Okay, when I play live, despite a couple of originals that I'll put on when I play live, one through six is the way that I play, that's my set list. And then Sea of Love is at the end because I'd released that single on Index magazine in the States and then Matador Anniversary [compilation] put that song on, so I put it at the end as a kind of goodbye because people have probably already heard that song. Salty Dog I'd never played in front of people in my life, so that's just the last one. Is this the record that kills off the Cat Power-as-indie tag? A record with jazz, folk and blues standards on it? I see that this record my grandmother and my parents probably could actually appreciate. There was this restaurant in Norway I was just at and if you wanted to eat there you had to watch this jazz band but it was all booked up and everyone there was over fifty. And the people were so quiet and I thought 'Wow, I'd love to play to these people,' I bet they'd like it. When we last spoke you recommended me Denis Johnson's Already Dead . . . What'd you think? It was great, and I've gone back and bought three more Stars at Noon? No, that one I can't find. Very good. Stars at Noon he writes from a woman's perspective and she's a journalist in Nicaragua in 1984 and she's hanging out with male journalists, photographers and stuff that are, you know, they get the story because it's easier for them. But she has to have sex with a guard who will rip up her passport if she doesn't and stuff like this. It's really great for a guy, you know, like Mike Leigh? He makes movies from a woman's perspective and that's very, very interesting. It's just a really good book. What is it about Denis Johnson in particular that you like? It's easy to read [grins], it's easy to understand. You think so? Already Dead was a pretty heavy book and you had to go with it, there was no point staying outside. It was the langauge that won me over Absolutely. He's very languid, or something. |