So...
Why Poe?
“It’s
a decent story, I guess. When I was about ten, I went to a costume party
with my parents where you dressed as a character from a story, and people
were supposed to guess who you were. I was really obsessed with Edgar Allen
Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” which is about a costume party where
someone dresses as the plague, and the emperor ends up dying. So I came
dressed as death.
I was
right at the age when you’re starting to get morbid and thinking your parents
are stupid - and I named myself Poe to give everyone a hint. And it stuck
ever since. They all thought it was hysterical, but I was so serious
- people were laughing and I was like, this is serious performance art!
Poe
is originally from New York City, but before the age of eight, she had
lived in North America, Europe, India, and Africa. Her mother is an actress;
her Polish-born father a renowned film director...
We
lived in Spain for two years. My Dad was making a film that the government
didn’t like, so we were basically kicked out. India for a year, and Africa
for a year. He was making a documentary about Africa, so we were
moving like every three days for a year straight. My mother was a hero!
Then
we moved from New York City to Provo, Utah; which was bizarre. My brother
and I were two of six non-Mormons in a school of 1,600. It was a gorgeous
place, but those school bus Mormons took one look at my Sex Pistols t-shirt
and hated my guts.
My
parents split up when I was 16, so I left home and went back to New York,
and was on my own from then on. I squatted in a building on the Lower East
Side. I made money (I could be arrested for this!) by making fake subway
tokens and selling them for a quarter.
It
gave me a sort of split identity complex. I had great parents as a child;
they were there, you had dinnertime, you went to bed and then all of the
sudden there was nothing. I think that’s something a lot of people in my
generation deal with.
POE
went from a squat on the Lower East Side to Princeton University...
When
I left home, I had sort of made a deal with the principal of my school.
I was really into academics as a kid, and I was only about two credits
short, so he let me graduate on the condition that I write a paper about
my adventures. I took the SATs and applied to Princeton and I got a full
scholarship - not because I was so smart, but because I was legally emancipated
and I didn’t have any money.
Princeton
was tricky at first, but it was awesome. I had been living on my own since
I was 16, and then all of the sudden I was at this fucking country club!
There was a full music studio that I could use, there were theaters, there
was film, there were editing facilities. These kids would walk around complaining,
and I was like, are you crazy?
POE
began writing songs at the age of eight...
During
my “Poe phase” (laughs), I was always writing little poems, and somebody
taught me three chords on the piano, and I’ve got about 40 songs written
with three chords - third-grade bullshit about my teachers! I just kept
doing it, and eventually I hooked up with this guy in New York who had
a four-track. That’s when MIDI was just starting, so I got really into
machines. Then, in Princeton, I was in a band for about five years, which
was more organic music - we did very little with computers. When
the band broke up, I went back to the machines, and now both of those aspects
are in my music; I find it interesting to try to make all those ideas work
together. I think it’s stupid to say, “Technology is going to lead us into
the future” or “Technology is going to destroy us.” Whether we like it
or not, we created technology and it’s here to stay; it will do what we
make it do. So we may as well try to find a balance, and make the organic
parts of our world work with the technical.
“HELLO”
features Poe with eight different co-writers and three producers. RJ Rice,
band member Jeffrey Connor, and Jane’s Addiction/Alice In Chains vet Dave
Jerden. Working in seven different studios in Los Angeles and Detroit,
using a combination of computers and live musicians (including Guns N’
Roses drummer Matt Sorum). It took awhile... Music is a team sport. I’m
always willing to listen to ideas, but I have the final say. I always
write all the lyrics and then tend to collaborate on the music, but it’s
never the same. I could be jamming or recording or; this is what I’m notorious
for. We’re in the middle of mixing the album, and the bass player plays
something and I’m like, “Play that again! I’ve got an idea!.” AND, oops;
we’re recording a new song and the mix waits. Other times, songs were created
more from looping sounds and putting things together like a collage. Sometimes
that will trigger off lyrics or a poem.
Poe’s
voice and lyrics are instantly identifiable. While the music is eclectic
and diverse, moving from loping dance beats to metallic guitars to swing-jazz
to acoustic ballads to... The songs on the album are very different. You
have a song like “Trigger Happy Jack,” which has a bonehead guitar part
and a kinda funny little groove. Then there is “Hello,” which has more
of an ambient hip hop groove, and feels a lot more mechanical in a way.
I’m interested in combining different parts of different cultures, because
I saw so many different cultures as a kid. And the one thing that tied
every culture together was music. I prefer this, as opposed to “I AM a
folk singer” or “I AM an alternative rock singer” or “I AM” whatever, because
I am evolving. I am and have been affected by and inspired by the things
I’ve come into contact with both creatively and personally.
Two
of “HELLO”’s most arresting songs are “Trigger Happy Jack” and the title
track. Both feature equally arresting companion videos, directed by Paul
Andresen and Eric Koziol.
“Trigger
Happy Jack” is inspired by two things: somebody I knew, people can go psycho,
and an actual car-jacking. I was driving down Sunset Boulevard, by myself,
at about two in the morning. I slowed down because I got a weird vibe from
another car, and he turned to cut me off. I knew if I stopped I could be
in real trouble, so I accelerated around him and he proceeded to bash into
me over and over again, waving a gun. It was like a car chase in a movie.
The only reason I got away was because my car was a hair faster.
Then
this security officer escorted me home, and he didn’t want to leave! He
asked, “Do you girls live alone?”, and my roomate said, “Yes;” wrong answer!
He said, “You must be worried, so I’ll watch you,” and he proceeded to
sit in our driveway all night, every night for a month! And there was nothing
we could do, because if we got the guy fired, he has a license to carry
a gun; and he might just be a nice guy, but he might be a total psycho!
It’s
basically about the inability to communicate with somebody. “Trigger Happy
Jack’s” character is the psychotic, and it’s also a sort of split in me.
The one side that’s consistently thinking it’s possible to communicate
with this person, and the other side that takes over that’s like, “Fight
him.” Women have to get better at learning when to nurture someone, and
when to protect themselves. At least I do.
I wrote
“Hello” about two years ago, and it uses the imagery of the internet as
a metaphor for trying to reach someone that seems somehow unreachable.
It explores the discovery of new tools, new ways of communicating, and
the internet is definitely like that. It’s a loss of identity, a discovery
of identity, things being fragmented and linked back together in completely
new and unusual ways. I also creatively find the internet interesting as
this mass of sort of public consciousness.
The
first time I ever perused the internet was almost a disturbing experience,
because you know you’re talking to somebody real on the other line, but
you can’t see them, and you have no idea if they’re telling the truth or
not, and you might not be telling the truth. It’s interesting to see how
people react to you if you invent different personas.
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