Was it liberating to do something with more of a ‘take it as it comes’ approach?
“Totally. I think things are beautiful when you don’t plan them, and you don’t have any expectations, and you’re not trying to get somewhere in particular. You’re just enjoying it, and making something because you love it, and love the people that you’re playing with. I guess everything happens as a reason.”
How have you adjusted to life as the ‘lead singer’?
“It’s so different! I remember the first time playing, looking around and thinking: ‘Who am I supposed to be looking at? Where am I supposed to be? Why is Jack behind me?’ I had to work all that out. It’s funny, because my first band, when I was a teenager, it was like that. There were four of us, and I didn’t really play an instrument. But it’s been so many years since I did that. With The Kills, it’s really conversational on stage. We look at each other the whole time. It’s almost as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It’s this weird way of playing that we’ve developed, out of having stage-fright, originally. So, it was really, really odd for me to, all of a sudden, not have that one person to communicate with the whole time, but have three people I had to try and communicate with. Not only that, but I had to learn how to really connect with the audience, which is something that I feel like I’ve only just learned how to do. I was forced into a position I wasn’t used to, and I’m thankfully for that in loads of ways.”
Did stage-fright come calling back when you started playing with The Dead Weather?
“It comes calling every day that I go on stage. I’m always nervous, and always terrified. I think that’s why I’m addicted to it: there’s so much adrenaline associated with performing for me. It’s just this really manic, insane feeling that I get being on stage that I love so much. Right before I go on, I’m literally terrified! I’m almost tortured in the most exciting way. Because, I forget every morning when I wake up that I actually know what I’m doing. It’s only when I’m actually on stage that I remember that I know what I’m doing. But, yeah! It’s a terrifying experience all those eyes on you.”
It hasn’t grown less terrifying over the years?
“It’s just changed. But, essentially it’s still the same. I have different ways of dealing with it. I welcome it. I think fear is a really great thing. I’m almost as scared as losing it as I am actually scared. I don’t think I’d be as interesting a performer if I just walked up there like I f**king owned the place. In my head, I always feel like everyone’s doubting me, that I have people to convince. I don’t want to lose that feeling.”
So, you weren’t a performative child?
“Not really, no. I did a couple of theatre things, and I got into that, but I was really just too shy. I always sang, but never in front of anybody else. Growing up, I always just thought I was going to do art. I just liked skateboarding. I didn’t think I was going to do music.”
And, yet, you started in Discount when you were 14!
“By then I really had this strong desire to just make music happen. I saw it, in many ways, as a form of escape. I always loved, when I was a kid, to go see big cities, go places that I’d never been. I thought that was the most exciting thing you could do. I grew up in a small town [Vero Beach, Florida], and I’m so glad I did, because it made me want to leave that town with a vengeance. I really wanted out! I think that’s really powerful growing up somewhere like that, where you have room to dream and imagine and plan to get the hell out. I think I’d be a different person if I grew up in New York City. I don’t know if I would’ve had that same desire to start touring when I was still in junior high-school.”
How did your parents feel about your budding rock’n’roll career?
“They were supportive. In the way that they didn’t stop me. The first tour I went on, I had to take some time of school to go. That created a little bit of a problem. It took me a long time for me to convince them to let me down. Meanwhile, we were booking the tour, and I was determined to go no matter what anybody said. I’m so glad they let me do it. Going on tour for a couple of weeks was just the most exciting thing I’d ever done. It really turned what had been happening in my friend’s garage into a real thing. I never stopped after that. Any chance I got to leave, I did.”
You said that with The Dead Weather it didn’t feel like a ‘real thing,’ too, until you took it on tour. Has that been a recurring theme in all your projects?
“I don’t know. It really didn’t feel like that with The Kills. Right before I moved to London, I was 20, and I was sending tapes back and forth with Jamie. This was The Kills before The Kills existed. Sending four-track tapes almost as like a pen-pal thing. To me, those things were really real. It wasn’t a band, but it was even better: it was a reason to wake up in the morning. It was completely real.”
Do you remember that feeling of anticipation, waiting for the postman?
“Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was mail crazy. I kinda still am. There wasn’t really any email back then, so everything was all about patience. I think I’ve lost a lot of patience. But, yeah, the most exciting day, the day that’d just make your week, would be when I’d get a package from Jamie. There’d be all these tapes in them, I wouldn’t know what was on them, what these songs were going to be, or what he’d done to my songs. And he’d throw a bag of coffee in the package, so I’d drink the whole thing and just be up for two days straight, not sleeping, not doing anything else, just working on these songs so I could get them back in the mail to him. It was a real reason to exist.”
Did you know it was leading to something big?
“I definitely had that feeling. Again, it was another get-out-of-jail-free card. I got this idea in my head that I wasn’t just going to leave this small town I grew up in, but I was going to leave the country. And then next thing I knew I was living in London, and I have been now for 10 years.”
