Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0
Sitar

Lana Del Rey Interviews With Triple J

By Sitar, in New Interviews

Recommended Posts

slang    1,509

slang
Posted
Triple J is there:

Retweeted by Lana Del Rey Online:

(1st link gets you to the 2nd one).



 

I thought it was interesting particularly when they talked about Brooklyn Baby. I didn't notice the time of it (midway thru?) and anyway I was perplexed at the interface, which didn't allow me to skip around. The talk *suggested* (to me, at least) ambiguities about Barrie. Maybe they signal a true divide or maybe it was just slyly orchestrated to seem ambiguous. Anyway, still rooting for Barrie, in the sense of wanting collaborations from him and LDR in the future. 

3

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

longtimeman    8,082

longtimeman
Posted

Has anyone transcribed this yet??

This is a fairly rough transcript but I've tried to be as accurate to the meaning of the questions and answers as possible. If I've made any substantial mistakes, please let me know.

 

 

 

R: Richard Kingsmill L: Lana Del Rey
 
R: We started by talking about the fact that she rerecorded much of the album with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys
 
[MFG plays] L: I was in New York at Electric Lady studios - My best friend Lee Foster runs Electric Lady and he said why don't you just come down and see what happens I started the record casually by myself with a session drummer and my guitar player from my band and I think around December 20th I really felt like I was done but I wasn't really sure if I'd gotten what I wanted and I went out to a club one night with my producer from my first record Emile Haynie and he was going to meet Dan and I'd never met Dan before and Dan was just really fun and I told him about the record and he said he wanted to hear and it and when he heard the songs told me he wanted to hear it when he heard the songs, he said he really liked them but that if I was going for was really a west coast fusion with the underground jazz appreciation - he felt like maybe I hadn't gotten there yet. So he wanted to just take it a little bit further I guess.
 
R: but you were unsure about those recordings as well?
 
L: I liked them but they were more towards a kind of classic rock feel 
 
R: And you wanted something to be a bit murkier; a bit more blurred?
 
L: Yeah I guess I was - it's funny the word I was looking for was fuzz and then after having read some of Dan's interviews after I worked with him I was laughing because I read that he was known for his fuzzy guitar and I thought 'huh' - interesting. I guess he was brought into my life for a reason. He definitely brought that kind of casual but chaotic element I was looking for.
 
R: And he plays mostly guitar on those tracks he plays on those sessions? There are still a few songs from that first session?
 
L: There are a few tracks from that.
 
R: Can we talk about one of those [...] we'll talk about your relationship with Dan more, Pretty When You Cry is one of my favourites from the record. At first I wasn't sure about it - it's got such a distinctive vocal at the start; can you talk about this track and that vocal delivery - was that really hard to get?
 
L: First of all I'm glad that it stood out to you, because for me it really stood - it takes a long time to make a record, for each track to be right, the vocal delivery, the lyrics, the melody that accompanies it have to be really cohesive. Pretty When You Cry was one of those tracks - I've had the same guitarist in my band for the last four years - Blake S. - He was riffing on these four chords when I was at Electric Lady. We just turned the mic on and started experimenting. He played a little ten second interlude and I started singing, sort of ad libbing. The reason I like that song is because I kept it exactly how it was on that first try, and I think it's special for me because there's no real ... I don't know what the word is ... affectations - I wasn't putting something on; I was just sort of feeling out the melody. I like that it's organic in that way, and for me that's what the record's about - meeting people that are fun that I have chemistry with. That song is preserved from that very first take
 
[Pretty When You Cry]
 
R: We've gotta talk about West Coast because obviously that was the first track - it was the first big single from the record, we got such a wonderful track. I believe that the record company freaked a little when they heard what you'd done with the chorus.
 
L: I think it was a combination of [saying that] this being a record rooted in jazz with an easy West Coast vibe to it, and the first song I showed them was this song that was supposed to be a single that slipped into an even slower half time beat during the chorus, and they were like "Come on, can't you just for once do something normal?!", but I kinda joke around about it, but the truth is that they're so amazing and they know that I'm going to do what I do. But I love that song for the first single because the vibe is right and it sets the tone for this West Coast feel and Dan loves it.
 
R: Well yeah, it's got a little bits of his influence. What about the lyrics - is there a west coast saying or did you just come up with that?
 
L: That's what someone just said to me when I was on the beach, I was at a beach party, he said "they've got a saying if you're not drinking then you're not playing" I thought it was a cute opening line.
 
R: ... basically meaning that if you're not having fun at the party then you haven't had enough alcohol?
 
L: Exactly
 
R: How do you feel about that lyric? Because it's been talked about before those problems with alcohol you had as a teenager - how did you feel?
 
L: For me it's like thinking about the way things were for me, and how my motivations were for so long, they still seem a part of my life even though I'm not drinking now. For some reason I really like soaking up the mood of like a really dynamic party whether it's on the West Coast or whatever. I like that other people can have fun and let loose. I feel like I'm a part of it when I'm there - so yeah, I felt comfortable with it.
 
R: You don't drink any more
 
L: Not right now - I can't promise anything in the future. [laughing]
 
R: [About Brooklyn Baby] I don't know whether Lou Reed was supposed to sing part of the song or whether the song was half written and you were going to finish writing it with him. What were you thinking there?
 
L: I had written it and all the while I'd been talking to Lou Reed's manager for a few months trying to get over to New York to do anything with him really, to meet him, say hi - he was still writing - and finally just one night I took the red eye overnight and that was going to be the time that hopefully I was going to meet him, but that morning I landed at about 7 in the morning and that morning he had passed away, and he had never heard Brooklyn Baby, I wrote it kind of with him in mind - that was the track that I thought he'd like.
 
R: How did you react when you got off the plane and heard that news - what went through your head?
 
L: I was just shocked that just seconds after I landed that that was the news - it was the timing of it that surprised me. Obviously I didn't know him, and obviously it resonated in a much more personal way for his family and the people who knew him but I was just surprised at the timing of it; just having landed and then getting the news, it was kinda a strange feeling.
 
R: Barrie, your life partner, your boyfriend, he co-wrote Brooklyn Baby with you - the guitar chords reminded me of the softer moments of the Velvet Underground - did that kind of link you with Lou Reed with that song?
 
L: well I mean I'm glad you got that - I thought it was kind of reminiscent of the VU stuff that I really like and that's why I was hoping that if he heard it he would like it too.
 
R: It had that feel sort of that Pale Blue Eyes or some of that softer VU feel with those guitar chords.
 
L: Yes, definitely I really love that song from the record and it's funny how the production changes the song so much - when it was a demo it was more singer/songwriterish and with Dan and the band it took on this new kind of exotic Brooklyn feeling I really loved it
 
[brooklyn Baby]
 
R: Lana Del Rey is with us on JJJ - Let's go back to Dan from the Black Keys when you decided to rerecord a lot of these songs with him I believe it was very fast was it just a couple of weeks that it took to do most of this record?
 
L: It felt like longer but I think it was three weeks with Dan
 
R: Well that's still pretty quick for what is a fairly substantial record plus all the bonus tracks as well. On the CD as well on the inside, you actually say "thanks to Dan for bringing the fire back into my life". You have talked a little bit with BTD that you thought that everything had been set for LDR. Had you started to lose the feel, the muse, the passion for music at any point?
 
L: Yeah a little bit - I don't really know where it comes from, I'm so instinctual, even with the song titles, sometimes I have song titles that are a couple of words that actually aren't even in the song and I never really know why I chose them and they just feel right, and for me just being driven by instinct and intuition it's important that I'm always in the right place at the right time. I don't know sometimes with touring around and not being in one place, I think that's what makes it harder to write for me and also I knew that a lot of people didn't really like the first record and I thought that I'm not really sure if I want to go down the line investing so much passion and love in a new record but what's funny is that it had been talked about so much that two years later I felt more free to write just whatever I want because I knew what was coming down the line. The thing about Dan is that he was interested in me and interested in the record, and it kind of made me feel interesting again. Sometimes it's down to you and sometimes it's down to another person, so for me it was about another person this time
 
R: You don't think Lana's taken seriously as an artist - I mean even BTD sold millions of copies, you won a lot of fans worldwide with that record but still you feel like the recognition from other people is not quite right towards Lana Del Rey?
 
L: I mean I guess I felt that there was a lot of miss-communication and I think it's because I'm a very quiet person which means that even by the time I did my very first interview there were a lot of things that were written that weren't true - sort of recycled little stories about how things became how they were, and I guess it bothered me considering that they were so far removed from my own experience - I don't even know why they bothered me. I wanted to make sure that the music was ok [and] that the stories of the songs were intact. When people have their own impression about how you got to where you got to, it changes their mind about the music - sometimes it's hard to think about the words when you're thinking about the stories. I felt that my own story was in the way.
 
R: There is also with the creation that you've come up with - Lana Del Rey - it is a vehicle for you to explore some thigns which might be reflective of things you've experienced, but you can explore a whole lot of other things and personalities that maybe you don't live out in your everyday life. is that true?
 
L: It is true that you can do that
 
R: This is where the confusion for a lot of people lies - they don't know if it's Lizzy or Lana; they find it murky, which could be the power of the music of LDR. How much of Lana Del Rey is actually you?
 
L: All of it. I think that the culmination of me changing my name on top of stories written that were more think pieces rather than question and answer interviews led to this misconception that there is a division between people. For me there's a pretty fluid transition from being on stage to then being off stage in my personal life. Obviously I write about a couple of things that aren't so relatable, but coming from a more alternative background where I sort of got to write about whatever I wanted to, and was sort of invisible for seven or eight years, I never had to censor myself and definitely never had to talk about what I meant. It's obviously changed, but for me there's no persona, there's definitely a world like a visual world that I love building though editing and directing and creating the videos but in terms of a personality divide, I don't see one.
 
R: Provocation for Lana Del Rey is a very strong element of what you do it's still here on this record too. You enjoy that?
 
L: I'm not a natural provocateur, not really flamboyant in my personal life or on stage, it's not really something I go for, but I like to be playful lyrically I enjoy writing that's kind of my passion. If I use innuendo and metaphors instead of saying things directly or sometimes I say things directly without using metaphors and innuendo. It depends - I'm always flipping over my words, sometimes in the same sentence. Sometimes I'm referencing something and sometimes I'm being really direct - I'm blurring the lines between the two just because I'm not sure how personal I want to make it. 
 

 

 

6

tumblr_ou8g76nUPp1ts8ukho1_250.png

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

longtimeman    8,082

longtimeman
Posted

I thought this was a pretty good interview - a few points.

 

- This explanation of what happened with Lou Reed makes a lot more sense than the previous account, which made it sound as though they had a recording session set up on the day he died, which was clearly not true (he had been unwell, and wasn't doing anything that strenuous in the last weeks of his life). The fact that she just took it upon herself to visit him, and had the bad luck to pick that day, at least could have happened.

 

- How many times does she have to explain the whole persona/LDR thing? I know that it's the law that interviewers have to ask her about it, but she's said it so many times it should have sunk in already. It's her 'artist name', but that doesn't mean she's inventing more than any other songwriters, regardless of whatever name they choose to put on their records. (I've always thought it was closer to someone like Chan Marshall/Cat Power, who made out that 'Cat Power' was a band name, but always referred to just her and whoever she happened to be playing with, or just solo - I don't remember people hassling Chan at the time about how similar or different 'Chan' and 'Cat' were ...)

 

- The drinking question reads worse than it sounds - it can seem from reading the transcript that she's planning on going back to drinking, but listening to her, it really sounds as though she's being honest with herself and not setting herself up as someone who thinks she's going to be 'sober for life'. The media has such a distorted view of drinking and alcoholism that she doesn't need the extra pressure of some bullshit article being written if she's photographed at a table where there are beer bottles (memo to the self righteous - it's quite possible for an ex-drinker to happily be around other people drinking and not feel drawn in to it, which she explains in this interview beautifully). 

0

tumblr_ou8g76nUPp1ts8ukho1_250.png

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Kommander    3,260

Kommander
Posted

@@longtimeman Thank you so much for the transcription!  :D . I wonder how UV used to sound before she met Dan  :flutter:, well judging by the 'Demo-Radio Mix' version of West Coast probably we have an idea.

 

Hum I think "Pretty When You Cry" and all the songs that Dan didn't touch (unfortunatelly) are the most demo-like we have now  :agree:

1

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0
Go To Topic Listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...