Good Neko Case interview

[AD]

I love the shit out of this girl. Check out her comments about pitch-shifting and auto-tune. She will be mine.

Here's the link

And here's the interview if you don't want to click the link.

Interview: Neko Case

Story by Ryan Dombal

Neko Case sometimes gets a bad rap for what celebrity magazines refer to as "diva behavior." But, throughout our hour-long phone conversation, I barely got a whiff of any uppity, self-aggrandizing tics. Not to say Case isn't above taking pointed swipes at other artists' vocal talents, which she does with venom in this interview. The jabs aren't catty though, they're born out of the care and love she puts into her own country-folk musings, which she continues to produce at a high level on her new album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.

Often cagey about the meanings behind her mysterious lyrics, Case delves into her unique songwriting process-- one spiked with trauma, modesty, and self-doubt. She also touches on the rumors surrounding her involvement with power-pop royals the New Pornographers and her future within that group. And if you want to find out why Celine Dion nearly made her hate babies, please read on.

Pitchfork: I'll be honest, I'm often confused by your lyrics. Do you go out of your way to make things cryptic?

Neko Case: You're not supposed to totally know what's happening. The songs are supposed to give you clues so you can fill in the blanks. I don't know if I'm good at this or not, but I try. I started out trying to write songs that were more straightforward but it didn't really work. And I'm particularly not good at writing love songs. Maybe if something comes to be, but I can't just whip one up. Unless it's about loving dogs, then I'll sound like a kook. Maybe I do now.

I hope the sense of humor comes across. There are some things that sound serious, but the overall theme is a little more about letting go because the record is about losing your faith. No matter how much you lose your faith, whether it be in humanity, in your country or in your best friend, there's still always a little atom of faith left somehow. It's like not being able to destroy matter-- it's about physics! [laughs] Emotional physics! Mind physics!

Pitchfork: From Fox Confessor, on a song like "Star Witness", I'm guessing there's a car accident involved but the details are sketchy.

Case: I spent a while on that song. It's about an actual event that occurred in front of me. It wasn't actually a car accident but someone being shot to death. That was a real event that happened in Chicago.

Pitchfork: What happened?

Case: It was one of those things where there's gang violence and somebody gets shot right in front of you, and you live it and it's horrible. And, of course, it doesn't make the news because the kid is black. Nobody gives a shit except for his family, and you see how much nobody gives a shit and it's fucking heartbreaking. He wasn't even the kid they were looking to shoot. He was just some kid who they mistook for somebody else and they shot him. I saw it happen. I didn't make the song about me either. The song is pieces of different people but the event is in there.

Pitchfork: Why do you think you often focus on negative, bleak themes in your songwriting?

Case: It's not so much negativity as it is things you can't understand. I only have my own experiences that I know for sure what happened. I don't really talk about myself in the songs but there are moments that are about me. I try not to make those moments very clear so people can make it into their own story. Maybe what I'm better at describing are the scary things. Maybe that's what stands out more.

I was raised to be modest to the point of fanaticism. [in my family], we don't talk about ourselves to each other. Vanity is considered the worst possible sin. I've gotten better about having to describe things. If you're going to make a record and people are going to write about you, it's your responsibility to answer questions. It's validating-- I'm just very clumsy.

Pitchfork: Your live show is a weird mix of stark seriousness during the songs and goofball bathroom humor in between, can you explain the dichotomy?

Case: I have a hard time taking myself seriously, so anything serious that does come out is in the songs. My band doesn't take me seriously, which is why I love them. We can't stand up there and pretend. What we're doing is really important to me and it's my job and I love it, but I can't just stand there unflinchingly noble in front of the audience.

I just think of my own experiences going to see shows. For example, I went to see Lucinda Williams in Vancouver and there was this Australian woman opening the show. Nobody had ever heard of her and she was alright, but there were people talking and she just started bitching them out like, "I can't believe you're talking! You don't love music!" I thought, "These people just paid to get into your show and they came to see Lucinda Williams so, if they're gonna talk a little bit, fucking get over it." It would kill me if people felt like that at my show. A live show is one of the last holdouts of a thing that makes you feel a part of a community, where you'll go and maybe meet your future wife or boyfriend, or you're taking your sister to her first show. These are the things that you remember later in your life. So bands shouldn't come and act like, "You're here to stand and be quiet while we do our thing and it's fucking important!" That shit is laughable, arrogant, and stupid.

Pitchfork: Have you ever thought of incorporating more of that humorous side of yourself into your songs?

Case: I think it's in there to an extent. I'm the kind of person who hates joke rock so it's one of my huge pet peeves.

Pitchfork: Well, not necessarily joke rock...

Case: I'm getting there, I swear. There's this art form in songwriting that's incredibly difficult-- to be really funny in a song and also really touching. I can't do that. There are people who can, like Vic Chesnutt or Carolyn Mark. Maybe the sometimes serious subjects in my songs are what make it possible for me to be such a happy go lucky person the rest of the time.

Pitchfork: Are there any bands you can think of that you really liked but were turned off by their seriousness live?

Case: Not that I can think of. The only ones that stand out to me are people like Jonathan Richman or Robyn Hitchcock, who can make you totally cry while their music is so funny and they're hilarious. They know they're great but they also don't think they're better than you and they really invite you into their show. The negative things don't really stand out as much as, "Oh, that Jonathan Richman show in 1986, fuck that was fun."

Like Rufus Wainwright, what a fantastic musician but he's so warm and so funny. His self-deprecation is hilarious. He can also be incredibly vain but he does it in such a way that's so delightful. It's good because during every song I'm weeping my eyes out because it's so beautiful and then he makes some joke about how his fur coat is making him look like an extra huge queen and I'm like, "Thank you, Rufus," because I needed to breathe for a moment. And his sister [Martha], I've never seen her live but holy fuck that record was so good, I can't even deal. Those Wainwrights, they're ridiculously talented.

Pitchfork: Given the anachronistic feel of your solo records, I find it hard to picture you even listening to any current bands.

Case: I do but I'm usually about a year behind everyone else. Like right now I'm on a Canadian ladies thing. I'm listening to Feist and Martha Wainwright over and over again.

Pitchfork: What's you're take on Feist?

Case: She's got the most soulful voice and she doesn't sound like anyone else. Martha is the only person who can get away with saying "bloody mother fucking asshole," and it works for me. I'm not good at swearing in my own songs so when somebody else can do it I'm like, "Good, thank you!"

Pitchfork: You recently stated that you've given up on typical song structure with Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. What do you mean by that?

Case: I don't mean typical song structure is bad. But I'm pretty self-conscious, so I tend to work in a way where I say what I need to say and get out rather than revisit things. It's kind of a collage style. I realized that it had more emotional weight that way. I'll always be in the developmental stages as far as being a songwriter. I'm not overly confident about it but that was the first thing I realized, like, "Hey, that's my style. That's good. I should just do that."

Pitchfork: Still, there are lots of traditional elements to the songwriting. It's not like a Brian Eno record.

Case: That's totally true. I'm a huge Brian Eno fan and Taking Tiger Mountain is one of my favorite albums of all time. But when I think about songwriting my mind goes first to things like Roy Orbison or Dolly Parton or any classic songs by the Platters or Jackie Wilson. Or old r&b songs like "Nothing Takes the Place of You". They're really simple structurally and they don't adhere to a time or place, and that's very powerful. I think of all songwriting as high art, but that's what I instinctively think of first. Not that more experimental artists aren't just as valid. I'm sure lurking under the surface in my mind are people like Brian Eno and Roxy Music wearing giant sideburns and leopard skin pants going, "You can put a saxophone on it!" In my sleep, I'm tossing and turning. Bryan Ferry's going, "Neko, wake up. You don't have to do it that way." [laughs]

Pitchfork: That's quite a dream.

Case: I've had a waking dream like that but not a sleeping one.

Pitchfork: You seem like somebody who would be especially annoyed by the "American Idol"-ization of modern pop.

Case: You mean the horrible singing?

Pitchfork: Yes.

Case: When I think about Jackie Wilson or the Platters and then I think about modern, Top 40 music that's really horrible, it makes me mad. Singing isn't important anymore. I'm not a genius-- if I had been around during the time of Jackie Wilson or Rosemary Clooney or Patsy Cline, I would be shit. I would be singing in some bar somewhere for $5 a week and that's as far as I would ever go. But I'm living now and I write songs, it's different. There's some part about the craft of singing-- craft is too important of a word, I hate that word but I just used it anyway-- in a lot of places, it hasn't really made it. It's not to do with the people who are doing it as much as the people who are producing it. There's technology like auto tune and pitch shifting so you don't have to know how to sing. That shit sounds like shit! It's like that taste in diet soda, I can taste it-- and it makes me sick.

When I hear auto tune on somebody's voice, I don't take them seriously. Or you hear somebody like Alicia Keys, who I know is pretty good, and you'll hear a little bit of auto tune and you're like, "You're too fucking good for that. Why would you let them do that to you? Don't you know what that means?" It's not an effect like people try to say, it's for people like Shania Twain who can't sing. Yet there they are, all over the radio, jizzing saccharine all over you. It's a horrible sound and it's like, "Shania, spend an extra hour in the studio and you'll hit the note and it'll sound fine. Just work on it, it's not like making a burger!"

Pitchfork: She's pretty busy making videos and shit though.

Case: It's rough, I know. She's so rich she could get somebody else to do the other stuff while she spends that extra hour in the studio. Or Madonna! Just hit the note! Don't pretend it's William Orbit being crafty-- we know you're not hitting the note because you have other shit to do. You can do it, I have faith in you. But don't leave the studio before you hit that fucking note. And you know what? When you do hit it you're going to feel so much more valid that it'll come through in all the other shit you're supposed to be doing later in the day. Seriously!

And if Celine Dion is supposedly the great singer that she says she is why is there auto tune on every fucking word in her songs? Can't you just hit it, Celine? Do you have another baby book to shoot? You gotta paint your baby to look like a pot of peas? What are you doing that you can't be singing in the studio? It's your fucking job!

Pitchfork: Hey, that baby book is beautiful.

Case: You know that's the grossest thing I've ever seen. That was so nasty I almost had to hate some babies for that. But babies came back and said, "I'm not responsible for this, they made me do it." So I decided that I still love babies.

Pitchfork: You seem to be following this book closely.

Case: It's so easy to follow! I don't even have a TV or a radio in my house and it's easy to follow.

Pitchfork: Anyway, I take it your not a fan of auto tune.

Case: I'm not a perfect note hitter either but I'm not going to cover it up with auto tune. Everybody uses it, too. I once asked a studio guy in Tornoto, "How many people don't use auto tune?" and he said, "You and Nelly Furtado are the only two people who've never used it in here." Even though I'm not into Nelly Furtado, it kind of made me respect her. It's cool that she has some integrity.

Pitchfork: So you're willing to write off the entire Top 40 at this point?

Case: Pretty much.

Pitchfork: What about R. Kelly?

Case: He amuses me from time to time. And I'm not going to say I don't love the new Kanye West record. I do. There are things about the production I'm not crazy about though. People mix records to be heard in cars and to have the bass incredibly loud so the vocals have to fight with everything so there's no dynamic left, and that's kind of a bummer. That may not be my taste but I'm not going to go, "Kanye's not very good," because he's pretty badass. It's a difference in taste, like the New Pornographers and myself have different taste in production as well but it all works out in the end.

Pitchfork: Do you think if Mass Romantic didn't take off like it did you'd still have a need to make that type music along with your solo stuff?

Case: Definitely. I've been in that band for as long as I've been in my solo band, and I couldn't imagine not doing it. I love that band, it's like rock 'n' roll Six Flags, like jumpin' on the bed and looking in the mirror with your hairbrush or like singing along with Cheap Trick on the radio. It's that teenage feeling for me.

There have been problems because we haven't been able to tour properly but we got Carl's niece Kathryne to fill in and that has worked out super good. We avoid scheduling problems, nobody's overworked. I'm really grateful that she's willing to come on board and willing to help out. We didn't know how it was going to work out but everybody loves Kathryne and our last tour was so fun.

Pitchfork: Does it irk you that you can't play shows with them sometimes?

Case: Yeah. I have to be an adult and accept it but there are times when I'm like, "God, I wish I was there doing that." I've tried to do it all in one year before and wanted to check myself into some sort of mental rest facility because you're only human and you can get physically exhausted easily. Being in two full-time rock bands is pretty impossible. I love to tour but I have a dog and I want to see him. And, being a songwriter, you have to have experiences and do things. You can't just go on tour all the time, otherwise you get nothing to write about. It's finally at a point where the balance is perfectly right.

The New Pornographers work so hard. I don't know anybody more prolific at songwriting than Carl. They're talking to me about working on a new record already and I'm like, "You guys are the shit, man!" For me personally, after finishing Fox Confessor, I don't want to think about another record for I don't know how long. With the Pornographers, the songs are written and you go in and you do your part, you don't have to worry about anything. I can look forward to that. But for me having all the responsibility is really tiring sometimes. I love it, but the New Pornographers fill a need to be part of something where I'm not the focus. Dan and Carl's songwriting made me want to be in a band long ago, they've always been a huge influence on me. So the Pornographers and my own band have felt slightly separate only recently to me.

Pitchfork: So you're saying that people shouldn't believe some of the rumors about there being dissension within the group?

Case: I think that those things came from the fact that we're incredibly boring. None of us are drug addicts or alcoholics. All we do is work. I'm sorry that we're not the Rolling Stones getting busted at the border for heroin. People just fill in the blanks. It's not easy to be a rock writer and I don't envy that position because what kind of exciting sex angle are you going to put on a middle-aged rock 'n' roll band that works all the time? Don't get me wrong, it is annoying. It makes you feel bad when you read things in the press where people are saying you and your band don't get along and you're like, "Yes, we do." For a long time, when Dan wouldn't come on tour with us people would say one of Dan's albums was all about the New Pornographers and how he hated us and we were like, "He wrote those songs before we even put out Mass Romantic." Dan would find it hilarious so we would feed it too. We would talk shit about Dan onstage, just making shit up. It was funny. But at the same time it's not helpful.

Pitchfork: What are some of the things people have made up about you guys?

Case: I remember there was some Magnet interview that I didn't take part in and David Cross was hanging out with Carl and the writer really wanted for there to be a problem in our band and couldn't find anything, so he made up all this stuff. David Cross called me a diva and he tried to expound on that-- as if I'd been making it really hard on Carl and David Cross was sticking up for him. I never read it but that's what I was told. David Cross was joking. He's David Cross-- that's what he does. Anybody would know that, even if they didn't know him or me. So it looked very desperate and it made me laugh.

[AD]

OK so nobody is really interested in this, but i'll filter out a particularly good part of the interview in the hopes that it will spark your interest in my fake girlfriend enough to read the rest of it...

Pitchfork: You seem like somebody who would be especially annoyed by the "American Idol"-ization of modern pop.

Case: You mean the horrible singing?

Pitchfork: Yes.

Case: When I think about Jackie Wilson or the Platters and then I think about modern, Top 40 music that's really horrible, it makes me mad. Singing isn't important anymore. I'm not a genius-- if I had been around during the time of Jackie Wilson or Rosemary Clooney or Patsy Cline, I would be sh!t. I would be singing in some bar somewhere for $5 a week and that's as far as I would ever go. But I'm living now and I write songs, it's different. There's some part about the craft of singing-- craft is too important of a word, I hate that word but I just used it anyway-- in a lot of places, it hasn't really made it. It's not to do with the people who are doing it as much as the people who are producing it. There's technology like auto tune and pitch shifting so you don't have to know how to sing. That sh!t sounds like sh!t! It's like that taste in diet soda, I can taste it-- and it makes me sick.

When I hear auto tune on somebody's voice, I don't take them seriously. Or you hear somebody like Alicia Keys, who I know is pretty good, and you'll hear a little bit of auto tune and you're like, "You're too fuÇking good for that. Why would you let them do that to you? Don't you know what that means?" It's not an effect like people try to say, it's for people like Shania Twain who can't sing. Yet there they are, all over the radio, jizzing saccharine all over you. It's a horrible sound and it's like, "Shania, spend an extra hour in the studio and you'll hit the note and it'll sound fine. Just work on it, it's not like making a burger!"

Pitchfork: She's pretty busy making videos and sh!t though.

Case: It's rough, I know. She's so rich she could get somebody else to do the other stuff while she spends that extra hour in the studio. Or Madonna! Just hit the note! Don't pretend it's William Orbit being crafty-- we know you're not hitting the note because you have other sh!t to do. You can do it, I have faith in you. But don't leave the studio before you hit that fuÇking note. And you know what? When you do hit it you're going to feel so much more valid that it'll come through in all the other sh!t you're supposed to be doing later in the day. Seriously!

And if Celine Dion is supposedly the great singer that she says she is why is there auto tune on every fuÇking word in her songs? Can't you just hit it, Celine? Do you have another baby book to shoot? You gotta paint your baby to look like a pot of peas? What are you doing that you can't be singing in the studio? It's your fuÇking job!

Pitchfork: Hey, that baby book is beautiful.

Case: You know that's the grossest thing I've ever seen. That was so nasty I almost had to hate some babies for that. But babies came back and said, "I'm not responsible for this, they made me do it." So I decided that I still love babies.

Pitchfork: You seem to be following this book closely.

Case: It's so easy to follow! I don't even have a TV or a radio in my house and it's easy to follow.

Pitchfork: Anyway, I take it your not a fan of auto tune.

Case: I'm not a perfect note hitter either but I'm not going to cover it up with auto tune. Everybody uses it, too. I once asked a studio guy in Tornoto, "How many people don't use auto tune?" and he said, "You and Nelly Furtado are the only two people who've never used it in here." Even though I'm not into Nelly Furtado, it kind of made me respect her. It's cool that she has some integrity.

Pitchfork: So you're willing to write off the entire Top 40 at this point?

Case: Pretty much.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Thanks, AD - good reading. I loved the pair of lines your expurgated post closes with .

I love to hear musicians take their music so seriously.

[Asparagus]

She is pure gold.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

magic