Tuesday, May 13, 2008
DIY goddess Ani DiFranco on political responsibility in the Bush era, the "lying, whoring media," life in New Orleans and her bottomless pit of self-loathing.
Jun 10, 2003 | You have to see Ani DiFranco in person to appreciate her fully. As she herself observes in "Evolve," the title song on the album she released earlier this spring, "It took me too long to realize/ that I don't take good pictures/ 'cause I have the kind of beauty that moves." She has an energy that translates best onstage -- an intensity that makes you want to watch her and an authenticity that's refreshing in the age of manufactured pop idols.
She's also one hardworking woman. In the past year, she has put out a double-disc live album, "So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter," the new studio album and a documentary about her life, "Render," all on top of a grueling tour schedule. If anything, the pace is picking up -- and the goddess of do-it-yourself music is doing even more of it herself this time. She's finishing up another new album in her New Orleans studio to be released by this winter, and for the first time she's handling all aspects of the recording process personally. "It's just me and an eight-track reel-to-reel," she says. "Not even an engineer."
This past year has been a time of change for DiFranco, from relocating her recording studio to New Orleans to her separation from her husband to going solo again after years with a band. As usual, she's chronicling her life through her music. And, as usual, this includes a close examination of politics, from time-honored topics like abortion and the death penalty to the actions of the Bush administration. It's hardly surprising that she was among the artists to speak out most forcefully against the U.S. government's reaction to 9/11, especially the war in Iraq. But for all that, she's self-deprecating and bubbly. After talking to her, it's easy to understand why she has such a legendarily devoted following. Salon spoke to her by phone during a break in her New Orleans recording sessions.
So why New Orleans?
Oh, it's just so musical! I'm in love with this town. I found myself out here more and more over the years. It's just so inspirational. I came down here years ago and recorded a few records at a studio in town that used to be here. So I kind of got a jones for it.
How are you able to produce so much work in such a short amount of time?
[Laughs.] Well, if you cut out the sleeping part of the day and add in the nighttime, then you can get a lot more done. I mean, it's kind of true, I am a legendary insomniac. And, you know, part of it is my emotional problem, whatever the hell that is. But then part of it is just like literally having more creative ideas than I can manifest. So I find I lie down and my head starts spinning and I just start thinking about all these things, whatever there is to think about. Part of my great privilege in life is that I can do what I love for work. So not only is it impossible to turn it off, I wouldn't want to turn it off! Music and politics are just kind of a 24/7 thing with me, I guess.
You've always been very political, but since the Bush administration came to power, your political songs, like "Self-Evident" and "Serpentine," seem to have gotten more sweeping and complex.
Well, the escalation of wrongness is terrifying. It's deflating and it's maddening and enraging. Things are getting to a world crisis at the hands of, you know, imperialist America. We're all feeling it, so of course that's coming out. And it doesn't come out in small packages, I guess.
And part of it is that I'm growing up. I've always looked at my writing as political, you know, because I look at everything that way. So even when I'm writing about a love affair or something very private as part of my experience as a young woman in the world, I think of it as very political stuff. I'm aware of it as being so. But now that I'm, whatever, 32 or something, it's like it's my problem. My government, my country and the current political international crises are my problems because I'm an adult American. I find that, unwittingly sometimes, I feel more connected to the superstructures of society. We're born into these systems, but we're very much outside them when we're young. It's like it's not our society. We have no power. We're only learning, really, how it works and what our role in it is. I'm writing about big-P politics for the first time, just because it's more a part of my life now. Suddenly I'm a voting adult and it's my job to fix it.
The 10-minute song/poem "Serpentine" is very emotional and ambitious. In an interview on your Web site, you say you "cried and cried" when you finished recording it. Why did you write that song?
Well, you know, when those big buildings fell down in New York, it seemed like a whole lot of chaos ensued in so many people's lives, on a macrocosmic and a microcosmic level. It sort of makes one wonder about the connection between all of these things, you know? A lot of people I knew underwent real tumultuous changes and losses. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of death and transition and even birth, in addition to the precipice of chaos that our whole society felt. So, that's when I started writing "Serpentine." It took me a long time to write. My instinct was to connect in a big way all those levels of change and make myself accountable on each one of those levels. I guess I see myself as an analogy for my country.
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