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Amanda Palmer Interview by Juliet Bennett-Rylah |
Before The Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer spent a lot of time standing motionless, busking in Boston’s Harvard Square as a living statue called The Eight Foot Bride. This stark white stillness is in direct contrast to the beautiful maelstrom that is Palmer’s live. In cabaret costume, eyebrows etched on in meticulous calligraphy, she mercilessly pounds her piano into melodious submission. Sharp, clever lyrics delivered by a voice both sensual and strong are meant to be given strict attention. In rural Michigan during the Rothbury Music Festival, Palmer sat across from Wide-Eyed’s Juliet Bennett-Rylah in a stuffy media tent surrounded by acres of field and forest. Palmer discusses her forthcoming solo album and tour, just in time for us to tell you, Los Angeles, about her intimate solo show at the Troubadour on August 4. It’s your chance to spend an evening with the political, the punk and the consummate performer, Amanda Palmer.
Wide-Eyed: Let’s talk about your solo album.
Amanda Palmer: Alright, it’s called Who Killed Amanda Palmer.
WE: Twin Peaks reference?
AP: Yes.
WE: Tell us about it.
AP: Well, I’m a huge David Lynch fan so when I first got the idea of doing a solo record I thought that that would be a really funny title, but then the title sort of evolved into having its own little meaning and environment. I started doing off-shoot projects involved with the record… like some videos and there’s a book coming out along with the record that’s going to be written by Neil Gaiman. We’re doing this whole ‘various dead Amandas’ theme. So, it actually inspired a lot of other stuff which is the way it should always happen. You go in one random direction and eventually things blossom out of that — which is how life should be.
The record itself is just gorgeous and I’ve never been so proud of anything in my life. I’m so, so happy with the way it came out. It was supposed to be just a little solo piano record with no production and it was supposed to come out last spring, like not this past spring but the one over a year ago. Then, Ben Folds wrote an email to the band’s website just saying, “Hi, I’m a fan,” and we got to talking and he offered me his studio to record it and then he offered to produce and then one thing led to another and what was supposed to take a couple of weeks ended up taking the better part of a year. But, it was so worth it. I mean, the record is just beautiful. It’s got tons of really creative production on it, lots of strings, synthesizers, percussion, lots of background singing — not at all what I imagined it would be.
WE: Does Ben play on the record?
AP: Ben plays all over the record. He plays keyboards, percussion; he sings on it, he helped arrange a lot of the strings. He fully produced.
WE: Are there any other special guests?
AP: Yes, Zoe Keating, who used to play with Rasputina. She’s this fantastic cellist, plays on a couple tracks. Annie Clark from St. Vincent. She’s the singer from St. Vincent. She does a duet with me. And, East Bay Ray from The Dead Kennedys plays guitar on this great song called “Guitar Hero.” So, yes, laden with special guests.
WE: How long are you touring with this record?
AP: Indefinitely. Starting August, I go on tour.
WE: And you’ll be in our homebase LA at the Troubadour in August.
AP: That’s gonna be totally solo. I’m doing some shows in August that are just Amanda Palmer, solo piano, and then when I start the actual, real tour in October in Europe, I’m going to have a whole crew of backup people with me.
WE: Is that Estradasphere?
AP: No, I’m not actually taking a band. I’m taking a lot of backup actors, which is a lot less standard. It’s going to be really fun. When I come back around spring or fall, I may bring the band — Estradasphere — with me. They’re going through some changes right now: they just had a baby, and they share members with The Secret Chiefs (Secret Chiefs 3) and they’re going on tour. I’m hoping that our schedules line up for the rest of the tour.
WE: When you say you’re going to bring backup actors, do you mean The Dirty Business Brigade?
AP: No, not fans, but like actual, professional performance artists from Australia who are amazing. They’re physical theatre people that I’ve been collaborating with for a couple of years and they’re ready to just hit the road and do strange shit. So, it should be really good.
WE: So, this weekend at Rothbury, you’re doing a Dresden Dolls set, you’re doing yoga, and you’re with Gravity Plays Favorites—
AP: Yes, they’re just going to collaborate with us. They’re like these incredibly sexy pole-dancing acrobats. They’re incredible, not suggestive at all. That’s what I like about it — it’s very innocent.
WE: Are they named after your song?
AP: Yeah, that’s how we found each other. They named themselves after the lyric in “Gravity” and I wrote them a letter saying, “Oh, that’s so great,” and then they started opening up for us.
WE: Cool. On the album, the songs you wrote, were they written a long time ago, totally new or both?
AP: It’s a lot of both. The oldest song on the record is over ten years old. I wrote it when I was maybe 22, 23 years old. It was hard for me to put that one on the record. Ben (Folds) was like, “Oh, it’s so great, you gotta put it on the record,” and I was like, “Ehhhhh, it’s a little too retro, I don’t know if I can handle that,” and he talked me into it.
WE: Are you happy with it now?
AP: Yeah, I’m so happy with it now. He twisted my arm on a couple of issues and every single one of them I’m glad I caved.
WE: Is there going to be a Ben Folds/Amanda Palmer tour in the future?
AP: Maybe, I just played with him in Glastonbury and that was fun. We’d love to do a sort of Elton John/Billy Joel experiment where we reserve a room in Vegas and he has a pink, sparkly piano and I have a purple, sparkly piano and sunglasses.
WE: We interviewed Brian Viglione last month for our magazine. He said eventually there’d be another Dresden Dolls tour?
AP: Yeah, I think the plan is do the Amanda Palmer solo record and see how it goes. I’d like to take a break after that because I’ll probably be exhausted. And then we’ll probably gear up to tour.
WE: What other exciting things might you like to share with us?
AP: The videos. I wrote and shot six videos with my good friend Michael Pope, who is an old collaborator who’s done a bunch of The Dresden Dolls videos. We shot six videos in six days for the record and we’re releasing one every two weeks and we just put the first one up and people are loving it.
WE: Are they released on your YouTube channel?
AP: Yes. They’re really good, really performance-driven and very creative. I shot a handful of them at my old high school with a bunch of the students. I’m also putting the corresponding songs up with the videos on my MySpace.
WE: Have you been playing these songs live for a while?
AP: Yeah, most of them. A few of them are going to be unfamiliar, like “Runs in the Family,” “What’s the Use of Wondering?,” “Another Year,” — there’s a handful on the record that haven’t been played live and haven’t been shared. But then a lot of songs people will recognize from having heard them solo, but they’ve never heard them like this.
WE: So what can the crowd at Troubadour expect? A lot of new record stuff?
AP: I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it yet. As much as I like the whole production, lots of stuff happening, lots of actors, lots of costumes, I also really like the shows where I’m not really sure what I’m going to play tonight. I just sit down at the piano and it’s like a coffee club: you just sort of sit there and banter with the crowd and take requests. Those things are always really fun because they’re just so loose and relaxed and there’s no pressure.
WE: Yes, more of an intimate setting…
AP: An evening with… {laughs}
WE: That’s what you should bill it as. (pause) Evelyn Evelyn? Gonna keep doing that?
AP: I forgot about Evelyn. Somewhere in there we’ve got to put out the Evelyn Evelyn. The record is going to be called Evelyn Evelyn. Evelyn Evelyn presenting Evelyn Evelyn featuring and written by Evelyn Evelyn and starring Evelyn and Evelyn Evel the Evelyn Sisters. {laughs} Limited Edition eleven dollars and eleven cents.
WE: A thousand and eleven copies?
AP: Yes, we put out a thousand and eleven copies on vinyl. I think we’ll have to put out more of the CD. Maybe we’ll put out one hundred and eleven thousand — it’ll take a while for them to sell. {laughs} We’re hoping to do a tour — put the girls on tour — for a limited tour. I don’t know if I’ve told anyone about this yet publicly. We’re going to do a tour — Jason and I are going to come and help tour manage them because they’re really shy and they need the support…
WE: Right, I gotcha.
AP: We’ll set up a tour of cities that only have double names like Walla Walla, New York, New York. We want to play Sing Sing Prison, Baden Baden in Germany — pretty much, we’ve already made a list of the cities. Most of them were in Australia, but we’re hoping to make that happen. It might be really expensive, but worth it. And the tour T-shirts are going to be amazing when you look at the back.
WE: So it’s like a big surprise?
AP: Not anymore, because I just told you about it. And you can write about it. Tell people in Baden Baden to watch out.
