Last night we had a chance to see Liz Phair play an intimate show at Maxwell's in Hoboken, a kick-off to her tour (which brings her to Bowery Ballroom tonight). Before she went on, we went down to the basement of the venue and sat in a makeshift greenroom with her and Alex Tween of The Forms, who was there to interview the '90s icon for us. The two share someone in common—Craig Wedren—who Phair has worked with, and who recently sang on The Forms's new EP,Derealization (out February 15th). Phair talked about her new album Funstyle, her most celebrated album, Exile in Guyville, and of course the good ol' prostitutes of the East Village.
Rolling Stone called your album Exile In Guyville one of the 500 greatest of all time, and you recently did a tour supporting its re-release where you performed the album from start to finish. I've talked to other artists who have done records that in people's minds are this milestone, and for them it can be as much of a burden as a blessing. My Bloody Valentine comes to mind. And for you this was your debut album. Was there a downside to starting off with so much success? There was. There was a lot of downside to it, because when I was working that record I wasn't happy at all. I was panicked and really wasn't prepared. I had never played out and suddenly everyone's coming to see me play. We're talking like, just throwing someone on the stage, but with reporters and shit. I got minorly anorexic I think. I look back at some of the pictures and maybe fashion-wise I looked good but I don't think I was- I can see that that's not healthy-thin. I just felt assaulted personally. Sometimes I look at Kristen Stewart, the way she's all like that and I can relate to that at that time. And it also became, Everybody just wanted Guyville again. And the best thing I ever did was re-release it for the documentary. Going back, I fled the scene because I so associated it with being stoned and being in the dark poverty level and sleeping with guys I didn't want to or shouldn't have, But going back and talking to every single person that had been important in that record for the documentary was so healing, because first of all you got to see that they'd all moved on too, that that world isn't there any more. It's gone. The buildings are gone. They've been turned into strip malls, the people who were part of it aren't mean and awful any more, they're drinking cappuccinos and moving on with their lives, everything's so much brighter, and to also hear that for them, that record- because it touched them or they were involved in it- had a huge impact that they had to grapple with, it wasn't just me who had to grapple with it. When something takes off like that, everybody around it deals with it, whether people are like, "Hey Brad, do another Guyville," or Steve Albini was like, "Yeah I probably shouldn't have given her that much shit." Whatever it was, everyone had something to deal with, and so we all were just, I look pretty in it, no one else looked pretty. We just were hanging, and talking it out, and it changed everything and it brought my record back to me, and I didn't know that was going to happen. And now it's just like, fucking, I get really emotional right now because it's that big a deal to me. The record really came home. And I went to Matador 21, and theoretically those are the people that had been hating me the hardest. And it was a lovefest! It was chill! I can't explain it. Anything in life, to go face the parent that abused you, to go face whatever it is. I really didn't know that that's what I was doing. I just thought, this is the only marketable thing I could do! Same old record, I gotta give something new! It had very profound unintended results.gothamist For the rest
xoxo
Carrie
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