“What kind of asshole would make a record to teach people a lesson?”

Curling up on the sofa to do this interview, Annie Clark, the musician behind St Vincent flicks through the previous copy of BEAT. “And this is Lykke Li? Well, I guess that’s her face…”  We are here to discuss her new album, an intimate reworking of Masseduction – simplified down to vocals and piano, the album gives the songs a greater edge of raw emotion. Happy to talk about the world other than herself – from if the title of Cate Lebon’s album Mug Museum is a metaphor, to what kind of DJ software is the best, to how she picks which latex pieces to wear on stage, she’s funny and chatty and relaxed – which seems far from the pink box / journalist set up where we last met (Clark decided to redefine the journalist to musician transaction and had journalists crawl through a tiny door into a pink box where she sat listening to something akin to whale noise). Having released Masseduction a year ago, the album hit top 3 in both the Billboard Alternative and Rock charts, and number six in the UK – and of course, in the process, there was a fair old amount of talking about it. But here at BEAT, we don’t really like to revisit old ground with our gently probing interviews, sometimes there’s greater clarity to be found in talking about the rest of the world someone inhabits rather than one small portion of it. 

So, the album: why did you call it MassEducation? 

I can’t even tell you how many times people misread it or misquoted Masseduction as Masseducation… I don’t blame them, it’s close. I just wanted to call this one MassEducation.

It’s not like, you want to teach people something?

What kind of asshole would make a record to teach people a lesson? (laughs) No, it was an inside joke. People thought the first one was called Masseducation or Asseducation.

Tell me about the machinations of making it.

It was done in my friends studio in Midtown Manhattan. We recorded in a two day period a couple of weeks after we finished Masseduction. I just wanted to live in the songs for a second in a way that was unadorned. So my best friend in the world, Thomas Bartlett, who is a genius, would listen to the songs once. We never talked about how we were going to do it or how we were going to play it, there was no ‘what about this tempo, or this key.’ We didn’t speak. We just went in and played two or three takes of each song and picked the best one and that is this record. We would do a take and know instantly that it was right and move onto the next one. We’d do like, whatever, 5 or 6 a day.

When you listen to it, I don’t think it feels spontaneous.

It doesn’t? Great. The songs are deeply constructed, there was a template. It wasn’t free jazz. We just played music for a couple of days.

How do you think people will react to it?

I hope I have made something that resonates with people. 

Did the initial reaction to Masseduction surprise you? 

I am not really sure what that was?

Well in the name of research, I read all the Youtube comments and everyone loved it.

(Laughs) You read YouTube comments?! That is the worst!!

OK so, I’ll admit to you that I watched some of your performances and then watched PJ Harvey videos for about three hours.

Well, you were right to do that.

She told me once that if a song doesn’t work on a four-track recorder an a guitar it will never work.

I agree with that. If you can’t strip it down to the most simple thing and sing it, it’s just not a song. 

Some of her early demos are my favourite things. 

Four Track Demos is so so good. Is This Desire? came out when I was in highschool and it was my first intro to her. It was everything.

She was so young – I love that clip of her on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and it’s just her and the guitar. And then Jay Leno is like, ‘You live on your parent’s farm?’ And she’s like, ‘Yup got to go back and castrate the lambs later’.

(Laughs) And it was just her and the guitar! So fucking rad. They are great songs. 

There’s something quite pop and quite punk about being alone on stage – did you find that when you did your solo show?

Did you see that show? It really came into its own – as things naturally have to, in front of an audience. You can rehearse something ad nauseum but you don’t discover what it is until it’s in front of people. But that show got really special, I really enjoyed playing it. Obviously I was playing over pre-recorded tracks, so you look for a vibe personally and emotionally in other places. And a lot of that vibe was with the audience. 

Did you get to watch Nick Cave when you played the same festival as him earlier this year?

I watched some of it. He is the best we have, I think.

It was so amazing, but, you know the Bad Seeds look so sharp, but when he invited the crowd on stage it somehow broke the timeless vacuum he had created on stage.

Hmmm yeah. I’ve watched people give Q and A’s – and a lot of times, when people ask a question from the audience, a lot of what they are saying is about themselves. They want this person that they love is that they want this person that they love to acknowledge them. The performer is up there creating this world and it breaks the world for a second. 

Like in Sex and The City season 1, where she talks to the camera all the time? 

Really?! Ha!! I have to go rewatch that.

They all have really dry hair and break the fourth wall. It’s something! 

That’s bizarre!! It reminds me… I was in Toronto a couple weeks ago and I was flipping through the TV. I stopped on Law and Order SVU, as you do. Or, as Toko [Yasuda who plays keys, bass and backing vocals] and I call it, ‘Jun-Jun!’... So I was going to go watch some ‘Jun-Jun!’ and I’m watching it and, I didn’t realise that it was a channel for blind people. So, you’re watching Law and Order but there’s a narrator saying, “And then they buried the baby in the beach.” I was like, what the fuck? Dick Wolf really jumped the shark! But we put it together, I thought they were trying to add a little spice. But it also made me realise how really fucked up this shit is and how enjoyable this carnage is to watch. 

It’s mad isn’t it. It’s like when you see someone sign a song. I was standing next to the two women singing a Bjork concert once and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. One woman was really getting into it doing all the big numbers and the other one was doing all the mellow fanny flute numbers. 

(Laughs) Did you just say Fanny Flute!!?!? That reminds me, when I was watching the world cup I couldn’t stop thinking about the referees… they must have to train like crazy to have to scoot about with everybody. But wait...What’s a fanny flute?

Well you know her new album is kinda… sexy. Some of the artwork was hear in a  blue furry suit wearing a strap-on. 

Ah that’s great. Her and Peaches. I remember seeing Peaches play a club ages ago and her backup dancers had strap ons and there was a lot of… making them helicopter.

That sounds about right.

Do you know who else is such a genius? Fiona Apple. We have a friendship and sometimes I just tell her, ‘Fiona I love you, thank you for everything’. I feel like I have gotten to say that to a few people: Thank you so much. 

Do you think you’ll tour the new album?

TBD. It remains to be seen. Thomas is not a touring fan, he did it for years, so if we do do dates, it’s not going to be like...it’s not going to be six months bonanza. It will be special and small. I want to play like, hotel bars where I’ve been mistaken for a prostitute. 

So not appearing out of an olive like U2.

It was a lemon! I saw that tour. I went with my dad and sister to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. PJ Harvey opened but classic my dad’s driving, we missed her. But opening on big big gigs like that, I am sure is not the most fun for artists. People are excited for the headliner. 

Your stage set up for your last tour was pretty intense. 

The costumes for this thing are a whole to-do. Because they are insane. There’s a lot of latex. There’s nude latex and that I have to wear cutlets with. You know what that is? It looks like a chicken cutlet but covers your… scenario. So that goes with the nude latex and there’s nude coloured fishnets. But they just kind of even out your skin, it kind of keeps everything ladylike. There’s another outfit that there’s a little cover and you have to do double stick tape to the dress. Yeah, there’s all kinds of wardrobe technology.

How do you choose what you’re going to wear?Uh...On how uncomfortable I feel like being. The latex stuff, it’s not that it’s uncomfortable, but it’s really hot. Sometimes I really like that – wringing out your clothes afterwards.

And if you are really not feeling it do you just slide on stage in a tracksuit and a pair of slides?

(Laughs) hahaha, yeah! 

I guess we’ve touched on talked about everything else apart from this… so one final proper question, what do you want to achieve?

I just want to make music that’s inspiring.