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k.d. lang Interviews and Articles

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02/12/08 10:14:11

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Constant Creating: k.d. lang

by Daniel J. Levitin

[This is a modified and expanded version of the article originally appearing in Grammy Magazine, December 1992.]

I'm sitting in k.d. lang's front yard, in the Hollywood Bowl neighborhood of Los Angeles, watching the birds foraging for food while a police helicopter circles in the distance. It's 1:00, the appointed time for our interview, and a hundred degrees outside. At ten minutes after one, k.d. pulls up, riding what is at once the most beautiful and the fiercest-looking Harley I've ever seen in my life. It has chrome everywhere in several layers - even the chrome has chrome. And it is painted a sort of Packard green that makes me think of the thirties.

"It's not real old," she says, in response to my appropriately enthusiastic ooh-ing and ah-ing. "I just made it look like that."

"What do you mean?"

"It's brand new, but I put all this chrome on it, and I painted it this old color." She takes off her helmet. "I'm sorry I'm late."

Relaxed and athletic-looking, wearing a grey Gap t-shirt and jeans, she invited me in to her house and poured us both a glass of water to assuage the heat. What I can see of the house is sparesly furnished. A bed and nightstand in her bedroom, and in the living room a single table with three chairs. Her bookshelf has only three books - a dictionary, a telephone book and a crossword puzzle dictionary. While she pours the water, I study her remarkably eclectic CD collection - The Carpenters, Mahalia Jackson, Milt Jackson, Chris Isaak, Patsy Cline, Anne Murray, Vera Linn, Jobim, Percy Faith Themes for Latin Lovers, Shirley Horn, Sheila Jordan, The Best of Ballroom Dancing, Leonard Jackson, Marlena Dietrick, Malcolm McLaren...

k.d. is enjoying a new kind of success as "Constant Craving" hit number one on the adult contemporary charts, and on the day we met it was climbing it's way up the Top 100. Her new album "Ingénue" deftly transcends genres and is a clear landmark in the 30-year old Canadian's career. The album finds Lang more personal and introspective, and the songs provide a rich showcase for her seraphic vocals. Musically, the album creates novel textures throught the use of unusual instrument combinations, employing accordion, violin, vibes and foregoing drums on all but three tracks.

k.d. and I sat on her front porch most of the afternoon, watching birds and talking about her creative process.

DL: Do you keep a schedule and try to write every day or do you write whenever inspiration hits?

KDL: Well, one things is, I never write when I'm on the road. When I'm ready to make another record, I block off some time and I get into a real introspective mode. I start taking long walks, thinking. We - Ben Mink and I - set up a studio wherever we are, with pretty primitive equipment, maybe 8 or 16 track equipment, whatever we can get; we don't get too elaborate - and we write in there. For Ingénue we wrote the whole thing in my apartment in Vancouver.

We try to keep a schedule - like we'll be in at 3 every day, and we write whether we feel like it or not. If you're not feeling particularly creative, it's good to have a partner, because we work as catalysts for each other. If one person's feeling particularly creative the other person can go for a walk, or the other one can kick them in the butt and start them up. Sometimes if we're not feeling creative, we'll go to a movie, or we'll go CD shopping. But we'll do something that feeds the writing.

One of the biggest things about being a writer is that you have to realize everything you're doing is working, as long as you can apply it to what you want to do. Going for a walk is very important, going CD shopping is important. You have to keep in mind that everything you do has to be for your writing. That was one of the biggest hurdles that I overcame as a writer.

DL: So you only write when you're in "writing mode," working on an album?

KDL: Pretty much, yeah.

DL: What if you get an idea while you're riding your horse?

KDL: (lowers her voice and looks a little sheepish) I don't actually ride horses.

DL: Well, okay, what if you're taking a walk, or riding your Harley and an idea just pops in your head.

KDL: I make a mental note of it.

DL: Do you have a little dictophone that you carry around?

KDL: No, and I never write anything down. I don't really keep a log, like a writer's log of any lyrics or any song titles ever when I'm travelling. I just make a mental note. I really let my body and my soul act as a filter and do the editing. I let everything get stored in my body as data and let whatever goes in emerge on its own time and place.

DL: So the good ideas pop out eventually.

KDL: Exactly.

DL: How do the songs come together in your writer's studio?

KDL: We write the basic skeleton of a song together and we try to eliminate our learned knowledge and really write from a gut level, from an instinctual level. From sort of a naive place. When we're finished with the basic musical format of the song, Ben will start demo-ing and arranging it, and I'll go off and write the lyrics and the melody. Then we might start applying our knowledge. But for the actual conception of the song, we try to be very open.

DL: So you never write the lyrics first...

KDL: No. Sometimes I might have an idea for a song title or a song theme, but I never get a set of lyrics and write a song to it. I find that very difficult.

Did you see that (pointing)? That's a woodpecker.

DL: Are you sure? It kind of looks like a scrub jay to me.

KDL: But the beak is longer than a scrub jay's.

DL: Are you talking about that one right there? (pointing).

KDL: Yeah. Well I can tell you for sure. I've got a book inside. Do you want me to go get it?

DL: Yes, let's do that a little later. You said Ben demos it the songs -

KDL: Yeah, he adds a lot of the parts...Also, I write a lot of the instrumental lines, the accordian parts. But he's more patient and he writes parts on the violin; he basically does the arrangements, but really, we both come up with the parts.

DL: Where do you find artistic inspiration? Do you read books, lyrics?

KDL: I don't. I only read three things, the dictionary, graffiti and the yellow pages. I don't have the patience to sit and look at a page in a book and read. My concentration just can't handle it. I don't read anyone's lyrics, except Joni's [Mitchell] but who else's is there? I'm not a reader. Who's to say that I won't become one but I haven't been for the last thirty years.

My inspiration comes from nature. From looking at animals, salamanders, birds, trees. I like watching how nature deals with situations, I find it really applicable to how we are. Like the salamander can sit on a rock and pretend that he's invisible and not move and some people like to think of themselves as invisible. And it's funny how it can parallel an emotional situation that you're going through.

For me, nature provides a good way to use imagery and some nice metaphors for how people are. I would include in all this human nature - people are fun to watch if you're not judgmental, but just absorb the interaction between human beings.

I take long walks. Every day during Ingénue I walked in Vancouver, which is a beautiful place to walk.

DL: But down here, in LA...where do you walk here?

KDL: There's places, in the hills. Nature's everywhere - there's ants, birds, trees, here in my yard. I bike. And films are good for me, foreign films.

DL: Thinking films.

KDL: Yeah, thinking films.

DL: Are you a loner?

KDL: Absolutely. Well, there's a part of me that's an absolute loner, but I enjoy the social thing, too. (Thinks a minute.) I'm changing my answer from the first thing I said. I am a loner, because you know, I enjoy doing things that are for one person, like walking or biking. But there's a social side to me. I don't go to parties or anything, but I enjoy my friends.

Now that one there is definitely a scrub jay.

DL: Definitely. [We watch as the scrub jay perches on one of K.D.'s two huge feeders, hanging from the roof and overflowing with bird seed. They jay is a sloppy eater, and seeds go flying out in all directions.]

K.D. They're so cocky.

DL: Yes, they're fearless.

KDL: They think they can just spill seeds everywhere. And right in the middle of an interview. Are you getting all this down?

DL: Yes. (Writing) "Jay is spilling seeds everywhere." Two of your countrymates who are songwriters have talked about almost opposite songwriting styles. Joni Mitchell said that she labors over her lyrics, and goes back over them - sometimes for months - honing them to get them just right. In contrast, Neil Young told me once that he feels it is important, when you're writing a song, to go from the beginning to the end without stopping; that if you go back later to touch it up, it will always feel different.

KDL: It goes off in a different direction, yeah.

DL: Which style do you use?

KDL: I'm in between. I used to be like Neil, where I would just refuse to change my stream of consciousness work, because I thoguhtt hat was pure. But now, I'm a little bit like Joni, where I'll go back and I'll see if I can polish up a word, or just switch a word around. I analyze it a little bit. Or if a word doesn't sing easily I might switch it or find a new phrasing for it, but I don't work on it too hard.

DL: So, for example?

KDL: Well, on Season of Hollow Soul I laboured over the line "sour the fruit of neglect," I was looking for the word fruit for a long time. That seems funny now because the word is so simple, but I couldn't find it. I wanted something that sours, but that's also sweet, something that was a product of a process...I searched for fruit for about four or five hours and all of a sudden it came to me. The song is built around the whole essence of a tree, so that fit well. Another one was in "The Mind of Love" where it says "Where is your head, Katherine." I really wondered whether I wanted to use "Kateherine" because to use your own name in a song is kind of weird.

DL: I've got to tell you though, that's my favorite part of the song. I think it's cool.

KDL: Yeah, well I asked Ben, that's what I do when I have a problem usually. So I said "do you think this is like, really queer or really geeky to say 'where is your head, Katherine,'" and he said "no, I think it's really vulnerable and really good."

DL: What it does for the listener is it calls the listener back into realizing it's about you and that's nice. Because so many times when we listen to a great song we think it's about us.

KDL: Yeah...

DL: ... And we think, "oh yeah, I feel that way," and "the reason I like this song is because it's explaining how I feel." And it's this nice pull back...

KDL: mm-hmm...

DL: ...a reminder that you wrote it about you. It makes it more intimate.

KDL: Yes, I'm really glad I did it now.

DL: And to use Katherine instead of k.d. makes it even more personal, because I imagine that's how you think of yourself.

KDL: Well, Katherine is my more feminine side, and it's more like what my mother uses when she's made at me. So it's a very private side to say Katherine.

DL: There are a couple of other songs where the songwriter uses their name.

KDL: Yeah, there's Billie's Blues by Billie Holiday, ooh, there's that one where Roy Orbison goes "makes old Roy..."...

DL: Paul Simon did it too. "Went to my doctor yesterday/She said Paul you better look around..." Also the line "Are you ready, Freddie" in Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

KDL: Yeah, that's cool. I think Joni used it too when she sang "Jonah and the ticking whale."

DL: Yes, she obviously knew what she was doing when she wrote that, that her name and Jonah sound so much alike.

There's another line of yours I really like, in The Mind of Love: "I'm trying hard to escape/this constant pull toward ache." The word ache is so good there...

KDL: And it could be either positive or negative ache. As an artist, I like to have some sort of emotional intensity to stimulate me. Although you try to escape some of the pain associated with that, you don't really want to. Part of it, of course, is the ache and pain of love. Love hurts as much as it feels good - that's really what Ingénue is about. I would say love is the basis for all art. Love is the most powerful force there is, and I think all art stems from that.

DL: (pauses to think) Do you really think that's true? What about Salvidore Dali's "Persistence of Memory," with all the warped clocks. Is that based on love?

KDL: Well think about it. He had to be remembering something.

DL: Right.

KDL: Whether it's love of God, or love of someone else, or love of nature or even love of yourself, that is what all art is about. It's powerful. I really do believe that.

DL: (pointing) What is that?

KDL: I think that's a finch of some kind.

DL: Mm-hmm. Oh, but look, he's got a bit of crest. Could it be a warbler?

KDL: No, I think it's a finch.

DL: Are there any songs you've heard that you really wish you had written?

KDL: There's a zillion-thousand-infinite number of songs I wish I had written - I wish I had written Happy Birthday.

DL: You mean because of the royalties you would've gotten?

KDL: NO! NO! From an artistic point of view. There's so many songs I wish I had written - there are so many genius songs, too many to mention. I find that as I get older and as I change, a song that I hated last week and I just broke up with somebody will become my favorite song. It's just a matter of timing and how a song touches you.

DL: What's the last song you heard you wished you had written?

KDL: Don't Smoke In Bed. Written by Willard Robinson; Peggy Lee sings it.

DL: And you like the Carpenters - have you heard their boxed set?

KDL: Mmmm, delicious.

DL: People give me a lot of shit for liking the Carpenters, they're supposed to be so unhip.

KDL: They're not! They're the best group ever.

DL: And her pipes!

KDL: She's one of the best singers ever.

DL: My friend Jeff Kimball will die when he hears about this.

KDL: I love the Carpenters, and they've been a big influence.

DL: I'm not crazy about the song Sing.

KDL: No, I don't really like the song Sing.

DL: But Rainy Days and Mondays...

KDL: (whew) Great. And their version of Superstar. So even the fact that she changed the line "to sleep with you again" to "to be with you again," I like that, you know? 'Cause she took from Rita Coolidge's and Leon Russell's version and made it hers. I remember Rita Coolidge singing it. (Sings like Rita Coolidge) "Long ago, and oh so far away..."

DL: Is there a song of yours that you're suprised you wrote? Something that seems much better than you thought you could do?

KDL: I feel that way about all of them; it's hard for me to believe that I wrote any of them. There's some dogs, but I'm very fond of "Pulling Back the Reigns" and "Wallflower Waltz." But it's hard, I don't even know that they're mine. Because really you're just a channel, aren't you? The surprise isn't because I think any of my songs are so great, it's just a surpise that I could do it. Even that I'm able to finish a song.

DL: To what extent are images of celebrities manipulated through marketing and such?

KDL: I think that really depends on the artist.

DL: In your case, how much of your public personality and personna are manipulated?

KDL: It really depends. I don't even know if it's manipulated. It's just an exaggeration of a feeling that I have. I don't have people saying "you should dress like this or this." I have friends who say "you would look good in this," and I listen to the people that I trust at the record company like Carl Scott, and think of them as artists, artists at what they do. I'm very lucky to be at Warner Brothers and I'm very happy to be there. They let me be myself. And they signed me as a "development" artist, they didn't sign me thinking that I was going to produce hits for them right away. I think if an artist has a strong enough vision and a strong enough focus of what they are, then there's no need to manipulate it. Prince is a good example.

I think the record company really has two different functions, to make money and to develop artists. And I happen to be lucky that they've let me develop.

DL: Lots of music fans think about the artist, "what is she really like." And in some sense, they have a lot to go on, but in another sense, the artist actually gets to control for the most part the window through which everybody sees them. You only have to let us see what you want us to.

KDL: I'm not sure that we're that capable of knowing where we should place that window. I think this goes for all artists, but I think we're all just trying to do our best. Even if some people look like they're being really commercial and manipulative and just doing it for the money, ultimately it all stems from the right place. I think the need to create and the want to create comes from a very pure and innocent place. And you're not really in control of where you place the window, you place it where you can handle it. So if it's easier to be formulaic and stay the same, that could just be the easiest way for them to adapt to their celebrity.

DL: You wonder though if some artists project an image that really isn't them. Like Lennon projecting an image as the raggety hippie, and yet it turns out he was totally into material things and actually hoarded lots and lots of stuff. Or Springsteen trying so hard to project this working class image when in fact he's a millionaire several times over. Is he really the common man or is that a facet of him?

KDL: Well I think that's a very good question and I've heard theories about it. There are two ways to look at this. One is, when you're physically ill there's an occasion when you crave what you're trying to get rid of - sugar, or salt or alcohol. And another theory is that the emotional make up of a musician actually has a black hole where music should be and they create to try to make up for that. That's a theory that has been recently put forth. So it's interesting - maybe we try to be exactly what we're not. But then there are instances where you crave exactly what you need, so I don't know! I don't really have the answers to that.

You have to realize, Dan, that image is a form of art. It really is, a performance art. It is an extension of the musical art. Prince's clothes probably influence his music.

DL: When I think of you I imagine you having a ranch in Canada...

KDL: Yeah, I do...

DL: My vision of k.d. lang is that she's wearing chaps and riding horses through the open countryside all the time...So seeing you with a place in LA is jarring...

KDL: I like LA because I grew up in a small town for seventeen years, and to be a city that's so vibrant and so manic is really interesting to me. I also need the balance, so I have a farm in Vancouver when I need to chill, and when I need an urban assault I come to L.A.

DL: For awhile, I guess, you were considered a country artist.

KDL: Yeah, I spent some time there. I grew up with country and it was natural. Maybe because of my upbringing, I also saw the sense of humor of country, the kitsch-ness of country and that attracted me to it. And I also felt I had some legitimacy to sing country because I grew up with it.

DL: I'm glad you mentioned the kitschiness, because the thing about your country records is that they were never mainstream country, there was always something subversive about them. You're right, it's the humor you brought to it. That approach brought you fans from an alternative base, I think, much as what happened with The Stray Cats ten years ago. Or Elvis Costello.

KDL: Absolutely, that's exactly right. There is a progressive edge that you add to a traditional style of music. They lumped us all into that "new traditionalist" movement, Dwight and Lyle and I, Nancy Griffith, K.T. Oslin, Steve Earle - anybody that was a little odd they'd lump into this new traditionalist category. But we're all quite different. What you nedd to have is a historical awareness of your relationship to the music but you also have to be progressive and add something to it.

DL: That is something you all have in common. Then there are the new traditionalists who really are traditionalists - Randy Travis, Ricky Skaggs...

KDL: Well, I didn't want to be a traditionalist because I didn't see country music that way and I didn't feel country that way. Because I always understood that there was something very funny about it. So I couldn't lie, I couldn't hold it back.

Lyle and I have a lot in common. Lyle is an example of someone who is steeped in a music of his upbringing, and unfortunately has been a little bit trapped by the industry. The country influence of Lyle is wonderful but I don't look at him as a country artists - he's a songwriter, a singer/songwriter, and there's no real place for someone like that. Even the "folk" artists like Suzanne Vega and Tracy Chapman aren't just folk artists, but people want to keep you there. Lyle and I toured a lot, I opened for him at the beginning.

DL: So in a sense you're both in the same genre predicament, in that you're both doing music you want to do, and you're not trying to tailor it to radio. You're forcing radio to take you on your own terms, and sometimes it works...

KDL: And sometimes it doesn't. Yeah.

DL: There's a mischief about you that comes through all that. In your performance of some songs, in your poolside introductions in your new video compilation...sort of a wise-cracking mischief, like you're standing back and looking at it all and seeing how funny it is.

KDL: Mm-hmm. Yes.

DL: I don't see the mischief today...

KDL: No, I'm not feeling mischevious right now. I go through periods of being that way and the country stuff was, I felt mischevious. I was young - for my first record I was 21 years old, and I had been influenced by the punk scene, and I came from a performance art background. I couldn't just completely eliminate it. The juxtoposition between performance art and country music is what totally turned me on.

DL: How did that affect the way country reacted to you?

KDL: Well, you obviously understand that humor was a part of my music and still is; even on this "serious" album, with Miss Chatelaine.

DL: Does taking care of the business part of career take up a lot of time?

KDL: Yes, it really does. But you get addicted to it. There's a part of me that just wants to be an artist and not be bothered with it, but there's another part of me that's very competitive that wants to be a very precise businesswoman and very very fierce. To be competitive and get on the phone and (pounds fist on the table) stir it up.

DL: If you hadn't been a singer/songwriter what would you have done for a living?

KDL: That's just too outrageously hypothetical. A roller derby queen? I mean, I always knew this is what I would do, there was never any doubt, it was just a matter of getting it done.

DL: What kind of jobs have you had?

KDL: I was a mechanic's assistant at a heavy equipment rental shop, you know, compressors and jackhammers and stuff. That was my first job, and the only other job I had was manager of the classical records department at a record shop.

DL: How has the financial part of your success felt?

KDL: Well, I've attained a lot of my material goals, but it's funny - you go through a period where you feel very scared because it brings up your feelings of mortality. And it is a sad reminder that spiritual goals are not nearly as easily obtained. When I reach material goals, they frighten me because I have this feeling of imminent fatality, whether it be creatively or my body. The biggest goal I have is to stay creative, but then when you have material success - or a number one hit - you fear that it may all go away. I think it is important to replenish the sources, my muses, to stay true and honest to where I think I get my stuff from.

My artistic goal is to not get redundant, and to feel that I'm evolving as an artist, and producing something worthy. My spritual goals are to become more in tune psychically and emotionally with the dynamics of life, and with people.

DL: It seems an interesting irony that, as a loner, one of your goals it to become more psychically in tune with people.

KDL: Well, that would mean that I could be alone easier.

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kennedyflair

k.d. Lang Blue Magazine August 1995

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02/12/08 10:19:33

From: jools (Original Message)

Sent: 22/03/2003 07:45

Hi, I said I'd start looking through some mags to find interesting interviews/articles to put on here and this is the first. It's an interview from an Australian magazine called 'Blue' and this was issued in August 1995. It's an oldie but kind of interesting.

---------------------------------------------

After coming out, and heading home to canada in the wake of the media frenzy, kd lang is stepping out with a new album and world tour. philippe cahill talks to her about her muse, her music and the madness that is the music industry.

"You know, it's kind of weird having your schedule already pencilled in for like a year and a half in advance. I mean, being a little bit scared of commitment.... " kd lang pauses to laugh somewhat ironically about the daunting prospect of a new album and world tour (which she promises will include concerts in Australia) scheduled for later this year.

It's early June, and lang is on the phone from Vancouver, where work on the as-yet-untitled album is nearing completion. She's been writing and recording new material with long-time collaborator, Ben Mink, since September last year. It's a ten-year professional and personal relationship that lang describes as so comfortable it's almost symbiotic. And, yes, she's happy with what they're producing although she warns that it's very different from previous offerings. "The new album is as personal as Ingenue, but it's... less... vulnerable. It's more direct and happy-go-lucky, and it's not so tender. It's more outgoing, brash and fun, like a pesky teenager." Unfortunately lang is loathe to reveal much more.

Content with her recent work, lang is now faced by a rather more frightening challenge. She must soon leave the sanctuary of her Canadian farm hideaway to mix the new album in Los Angeles, before hurling herself into the jaws of the music industry's global publicity machine as the album's October 10 release date looms closer.

The long lead-time allows for plenty of photo-shoots and interviews, although as things stand this is only the second interview lang has given in two years. Apart from a relatively minor promotional jaunt downunder last year for the Even Cowgirls Get The Blues soundtrack, she happily admits that she's been "laying low" in light of the media circus surrounding Ingenue and her public coming out. "I've spent the last year living full-time in Vancouver, being around friends I've had for like 15 years - pre-fame friends. It has definitely got me refocused on who I am and what I feel. It's kind of settled me down, which has been really great. I feel refreshed and rejuvenated."

lang maintains she doesn't read what is written about her. But her alleged 'fear of commitment' is a perfect example of the many kd lang 'facts' that abound in her press clippings. In that context, lang's subtly ironic laugh takes on a burden of significance: a way of semaphoring her great distaste, not just at being booked up for the next 18 months, but at the thought of opening herself to further journalistic scrutiny and invention. After all, lang has always maintained that she is primarily interested in representing herself as an artist rather than as an icon, lesbian or otherwise. But the media has consistently had other ideas. Consequently, she remains uneasy about the interview process.

"That also has a lot to do with me. As a young artist you hear all the horror stories, and I used to think everyone was after me. I used to be really defensive. Then, finally, it kind of occurred to me that everyone's just doing their job. When I realised that, I relaxed a lot."

It also helps that lang is more comfortable with herself these days, facing the media from a self-assured position of benevolent power rather than as a cornered, potential victim. "I'm unharried at the moment but that could change. It depends on what you ask me," she says, a subtle cue for me to watch my plodding journalist feet.

For one thing, these days she's reluctant to discuss her experience with therapy except to icily say that, "I'm in a better position that I was. Actually, I find therapy very interesting but I'm kind of over artists talking about it in interviews". Having bared so much in the past, lang obviously doesn't want to precipitate yet another media-feeding frenzy.

"It makes me queasy a bit, but at the same time I'm really excited to get back on the road. And I'm excited by what I'm doing in the studio. So, I guess, you just sort of have to take a deep breath.... " she says, rationalising away the burdensome mechanics of a successful music career.

"I'm kind of sad about leaving here because the West Coast has a similar vibe to Australia. It's very laid-back, you know, unlike Los Angeles which is a bit of a scene. I find Vancouver very conducive to the initial writing of the music. But we're mixing in LA because I also find the pressure of the industry and the presence of other artists, the buzz and the vibe of what's happening there, helps me be a little more competitive. You know, a little more edgy in terms of laying down the final touches on a record."

Still, lang considers herself "one of the lucky people who can leave LA when I need to, which is essential". I suggest to her that it is actually a matter of personal choice, which is significant in terms of what it implies about who she doesn't want to be as a person and career professional. But she's loathe to comment on the problematic lack of differentiation between the public and private faces of artists such as Boy George, Michael Jackson or Roseanne.

"It's not something I would want to perpetuate myself. I would feel completely out of control with stuff like that. I always try to keep my art pretty reigned in, direct, deliberate, real, attainable and containable. That way, I'm in control of it. I know exactly how I feel about it, and if it fails or succeeds, I can understand why. But it also depends. I actually sometimes admire people like that because thay have no qualms about drawing the line [between private and public, fantasy and reality]. You know, there's no line, so they don't feel a loss because they don't know the barrier."

But lang has long known such qualms, and as consciously moved away from the sort of high-profiile music career madness which threatened to engulf her at the height of her lesbian/Ingenue fame, just as it engulfed Boy George in the '80s. "Boy George sold 18 million with his first record, which is a little severe. I mean, for me it's been much more gradual. He was also super, super pop so there were like major, major marketing concerns at work. I have nothing but empathy and compassion for him." But she also admires the reconstructed '90s Boy George and his latest post-therapy, post-infamy work. Thankfully, all of lang's anti-media angst appears to have paid off for her as well.

"I feel lighter, stronger, in that I'm not so focused on stuff like that. I suppose I've kind of accomplished some of the things that I set out to do. So, now it's more about enjoying myself."

lang attributes a number of reasons to this attitude change. One factor was exorcising the all-encompassing desire for professional success. "I mean, we're talking superficial goals, right? Because I don't think I will ever attain my deepest personal goals, they're a little unattainable as a human. But having a hit, a successful record, has slowed me down a lot. Which is a good thing, getting that out of my system."

Another factor for lang was leaving behind the mind-set which inspired the lush, melancholic genius of Ingenue. That album will forever be etched in the popular psyche as the product of lang's self-confessed unrequited love for a married woman. However, more recently, the ever-evolving lang has allowed herself the right to claim the work as more profoundly her own, so that she could let go of it and move on artistically.

"I don't feel like I need or want to repeat myself. Life is completely changing at every moment; growing and shifting. Every time I turn on the tv, watch the video channel, listen to new music or see a new film, I've changed forever, so I could never formulate myself that way."

What hasn't changed, lang says, are her concerns as a singer/songwriter of the heart. "I tend to write exclusively about love, and human relationships, the self and the mind. I just think the difference is where I an emotionally at the time of the writing process. with Ingenue, I was in the middle of a mess, so the record tended to reflect that mess."

The third factor in her evolutionary process was the spate of high-profile celebrities who followed lang's lead in coming out, such as Melissa Etheridge and Janis Ian, and who relieved a lot of the pressure initially focused on her. But she pooh-poohs the idea that not much has really changed at a societal level, depsite the superficial nature of the gains of lesbian chic.

"It's a slow process, but I think things have eased up a lot. Before, in Canada, you would never even hear the words lesbian or gay. I mean, you come from the most advanced country in the world about these issues. In other parts of the world it's pretty slow but things are changing, ever since Clinton talked lesbian and gay issues in the last American election."

But increased acceptance, says lang, as proved to be wanting as solely an end in itself. "I think we all got caught up in the momentum of mainstreaming. When we achieved it, in some ways, it made us reflect on what we actually wanted. It's like you fight so hard for something simply because you don't have it, but you don't necessarily want it either. It's one of the downfalls of reaching acceptance because part of gay culture has always thrived on oppression, being unique and alternative."

On a personal level, this change as at least given lang the space to get more comfortable with her sexuality. "I think coming out was the best thing I ever did, for myself. It just feels so right, so comfortable and so... nothing. Of course, the record companies have started trying to sign up lesbians and gays now because we sell records. You know what I mean? There's a little bit of a trend towards that now but, you know, they'll work anything to death."

If the niggling fear of how much being a media superstar can corrode one's sense of self and lifestyle is a recurring theme in our conversation, lang's not particularly worried. "Let me put it this way: I go through a cycle of increased fame and then I'm screwed up. Then I have to stop, pick up the pieces, put them back together and then I'm okay. But if you talk to me in about a year, I'll probably be a little scattered."

Underneath that fear, however, lies the realisation that a new album and tour offers a myriad of opportunities for lang to reconstruct herself in the public arena. "I'm scared, as you always are when you're about to release a baby into the world for the wolves to eat up, but I'm feeling good about it too."

Pressed further on new directions and influences in her current work, lang cites a combination of cutting-edge women artists and new-wave British bands - particularly PJ Harvey, Oasis, Blur and Radiohead. "It's their unadulterated disregard for seriousness. There's something about the pop aspect of that which really turns me on," she enthuses.

lang seems to have lost, however, her enthusiasm for acting since the critical disaster of her first major film Salmonberries. "I enjoyed the experience very much. Whether the movie was bad or good, it was great for me. But I'm a musician, and musicians are completely different to actors. I've spent my whole life trying to hone in on who I am through my art, so it just strikes me as incredibly ridiculous to now be taking up an art form where the point is to try and be things other than yourself."

Although as an avowed loner lang has found the search for a fulfilling personal relationship difficult, she still doesn't imagine it to be impossible. "It's a matter of being with the right person, where you both understand each other explicitly, as well as the need for independence. I think being comfortable enough to allow someone space and being honest enough to take space is very important. But I think that's something you have to earn and learn."

Beyond that, the one-time "prairie rose" maintains that ultimately she's found contentment. "I'm happy. Happy with knowing that I have improved as a friend and as a person and hopefully as a musician. I also know that I have a lot of work to do on all of my levels: spiritual, personal and musical. But, yes, I'm satisfied that I'm moving ahead and doing my best."

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fruitcake

[-]

02/12/08 13:17:18

,,, I also know that I have a lot of work to do on all of my levels: spiritual, personal and musical. But, yes, I'm satisfied that I'm moving ahead and doing my best."

may it ever be, kd.

thanks, ladies.

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soozie55

k.d. interview - Vintage Drop In - The Australian - 7 March 2003

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09/12/08 12:06:58

She's travelling thousands of kilometres to sing in a West Australian vineyard. But Iain Shedden finds k.d. lang in serious chill out mode.
There's one thing a lot of people don't know about k.d. lang - she's lazy. She'll tell you so herself if you ask her. In fact, when pressed, the Canadian chanteuse describes herself as "the least working person in show business".
Odd, then, that someone so loath to put in the hard yards is putting in some extraordinary kilometres to appear in Australia this weekend; stranger still that the only two concerts of this tour will be at a vineyard at Margaret River in Western Australia. "It is a long way to come", she agrees. "But it's a nice opportunity to go out to the Margaret River area. I've never been there before." The two shows, at the Leeuwin Estate Winery, are the latest of the company's annual high profile concerts, which began with the visit of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1984. Since then luminaries such as Kiri Te Kanawa, Julio Iglesias and Tom Jones have graced the winery's outdoor stage. But for the moment, lang is not in work mode. You can tell from the relaxed, almost nonchalant manner in her voice. She has no album to promote, no world tour to go on, no project looming, just a much coveted period of rest and recreation. As for recording a new album, she hasn't given it a moment's thought, even though it's been three years since her last solo studio album, the decidedly up beat Invincible Summer. "I'm not really working on music so much", she says. "I'm doing a few little things like Margaret River and a few fundraising projects, but really I'm just waiting until I get struck with an idea for the next record. It's nice to have a break. The music industry is a tumultuous environment right now, so I'm not in any hurry." Scratch the surface of her itinerary and it becomes clear that the WA trip is part of lang's extended holiday from the demands of the music business. If the peace and tranquility of WA's wine region is new to her, appearing on stage in Australia is not. Four months ago lang sang here celebrating her 41st birthday and performing her hits Constant Craving and Crying and a rousing version of You'll Never Walk Alone at the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2002 Gay Games. At the time the singer, a long established gay icon, played down the "we're here, we're queer" aspect of the games, saying it was more a celebration of the community. Although she says that "noone throws a party like the kings and queens of the Sydney scene", she prefers to acknowledge the broader fan base she has here. "I'm always honoured to be able to play Australia. It's one of my favourite places to play. Since the first time I came there to play live, it has been a kind of mutual love between Australia and myself." That love was last shared nationwide in 1998 when lang toured to promote her album Drag. Since then she has released Invincible Summer (2000); a live album Live By Request (2001); and late last year issued a collection of duets A Wonderful World with veteran star, Tony Bennett, with whom she also toured. The album featured songs associated with Louis Armstrong and the title track was nominated for a Grammy award. "Tony came up to me one day on the tour and asked me to do the record and I was honoured, not just to work with him but to go through the Louis Armstrong songbook. It was a great experience. Tony is a real gem. He's 76, which is very encouraging. I would like to be performing when I'm that age. I don't think I could work as hard as Tony, though. He works so hard. I'm kinda lazy, but I sure would like to be still singing when I'm 76." That's that lazy thing again. Her activity in the past 12 months seems to blemish any notion of idleness on her part, but it also illustrates what a broad sweep her career has taken since she ruffled the feathers of the country music establishment in the mid 1980s. "I don't know what direction the next record might be. I do what I do as a natural instinct. I see myself as a singer and a stylist, and interpreting and writing are two different aspects of who I am. I can't imagine sticking to one genre. I would find that oppressive." Her pen has skimmed from pop to torch song to Latin and even jazz in the past 10 years, although hints of her main influences are there to be heard. "I always gravitated towards people like Ray Charles, Peggy Lee and Roy Orbison, people who sang in many different styles", she says. Lang's constant lazing of the past few months has involved "this and that" (she won't be drawn further), but she has found time to listen to the debut album of a fellow Grammy winner, Norah Jones, with whom she has stylistic similarities. She describes Jones' much lauded album Come Away With Me as "very nice", but shies away from any suggestion that Jones' multiple awards at the Grammys two weeks ago have anything to do with the public turning away from packaged pop acts to more sophisticated singers such as Jones and herself. "I have no qualifications to read the public whatsoever", she insists. "I'm very lucky that I have loyal fans. More than that, I have the confidence to put records out that come from my own inspiration. I've been lucky that I have a record company that sticks with me and lets me do that." She's also lucky that said company, Warner Bros, is willing to indulge her lackadaisical attitude towards her next recording project. She hasn't written any new songs for another album. "To the best of my abilities, I'm in control of my career", she says. "I only write when I have to write. I find writing a completely arduous task. Hopefully she will find the stage less demanding over the weekend. "I'll be having a few glasses of wine come Sunday night", she says.

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fruitcake

[-]

09/12/08 19:23:41

another good one!

thanks, soozie.

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johnniehall

[-]

10/12/08 18:18:02

Yes, indeed. thank you nice far away Soozie for that article
Chantal

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johnniehall

[-]

10/12/08 18:42:22

About that interview posted by Jools.
there is I find a reassuring continuity in k.d. views on life and art as well as spirituality.She is on a certain quest from the very beginning and her very honesty in describing her goals, her efforts to go on improving as a human being on all levels has been so consistent over the years that you cannot doubt her sincerity about these. She is constantly improving and developping while being totally true to her basic values. Quite an achievement and to me an unmistakable sign of strenght of character. A woman more than worthy of admiration on many different levels, her voice being I think, the expression of the rest
thank you Jools and kfs
Chantal

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fruitcake

[-]

10/12/08 19:35:49

**She is on a certain quest from the very beginning and her very honesty in describing her goals, her efforts to go on improving as a human being on all levels has been so consistent over the years that you cannot doubt her sincerity about these.**

well noted, chantal.

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soozie55

Interview from Australian Who Weekly, 27.11.95

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11/12/08 12:20:21

All You Can Meet - Singer k.d. lang hits the road running in Sydney to promote her new album, All You Can Eat, by Kristina Johnson.
It's a warm, sunny Wednesday morning in Sydney and Canadian singer songwriter k.d. lang, three days into the first leg of an Australasian promotional tour, is about to go on air with radio host Angela Catterns on the national Triple J network. "Now, let's try and rinse that Midday taste right out of your mouth," executive producer Craig Donarski jokes as lang, who appeared on the Nine network's Midday show the day before, settles into her seat and pulls on a pair of headphones. The On Air sign lights up on the studio wall and lang and Catterns are off.
Lang might not have been interviewed on Triple J before, nor on Midday, but after promoting her album all you can eat for three months, there's not much about radio stations or TV studios that is alien to the 33 year old. "I started promoting this record July 28, four days after I finished it. And I've already been to Europe twice," says lang two days earlier, rearranging her long legs into yoga poses on the floor of her hotel.
On Monday, November 6, lang began her 2 1/2 week tour of Australia and New Zealand, London, New York, Oslo, Madrid, Toronto, Los Angeles and Tokyo may be behind her but before she flies to Brisbane on Friday evening she will have 35 scheduled interviews, appearances and photo calls. "And that's typical for an international artist," lang says. "It's not like I'm setting a precedent for hard work." The one thing she fears about the coming week, she says, is over exposure. "I don't want a big thing like Michael Jackson's $14 million History clip," she says. "That was just embarrassing."
Jackson's penchant for the big gesture would certainly not sit well with her. Unaffected, unassuming and unadorned, lang doesn't wear make up and prefers a comfortable pair of jeans with sneakers when she has a choice. "She has her own style", says lang's assistant, Darlene Blaeser. "She certainly doesn't stand in front of the mirror and frou frou around a lot."
The next day, Tuesday, lang has frou frou'd enough to don silver satin jeans, a spotted pink shirt and wrap around dark glasses for her Midday appearance, where she's due to sing the first single off all you can eat, "If I Were You". It's 11.30am and her first call of the day. Lang doesn't start work before 11am. The morning is her "sacred time" and today she spent it jogging through the Royal Botanic Gardens and enjoying "a long shower". Intensely private, she focuses on staying healthy when on the road. She drinks litres of mineral water, pops a lot of vicatmin C, tries to get to bed by 9.30 and mostly avoids alcohol, "although sometimes you just need a beer, you know what I mean?" she says, laughing. "For me, discipline adds to my ability to get through the tour. It's like a game then."
The Midday segment goes off without a hitch. lang performs flawlessly and then engages in a little verbal sparring about jogging and breasts with host David Reyne. Lang loves what she calls "high energy banter", and would have indulged for a bit longer, but says, "He wouldn't go there with me! I finally had to pull back and just answer the questions."
Most of which she's been asked many times before. But then, her story is interesting even when repeated. After all, the music world is hardly over stocked with Canadian vegetarian lesbian singers with three Grammys and two platinum albums (Ingenue and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues; all you can eat has turned gold in Australia after only four weeks).
And while she has heard most of the questions "I try to give it up fresh every time", she says with typical candour. "I think if you go, Oh fuck I've heard this one before, then you're going to give like, Oh fuck, here's the answer."
With another two radio interviews before lunch and six more before dinner, lang graciously takes her leave of the Midday stage. The audience, many of them young and most of them women, give her a standing ovation.
By Wednesday morning lang's cumulative jet lag has taken its toll. She hides behind a pair of bright yellow tinted glasses as she enters ABC radio headquarters in Sydney for her interviews on Triple J and then on 2BL-702. Last night, at Darlene's behest, lang spent several hours in her hotel room autographing posters and photos for fans. Does she just sign her name or is there a message with each one? "No, I sign other artists' names," she snaps sarcastically as the lift doors open to the Triple J floor.
Standing there is 22 year old Helen Vujanovic, a superannuation administrator who has been camped in the lobby since 9am. "Ummm, I wanted to give you this card for your birthday and can I get a picture with you?" Vujanovic asks. "Yeah, sure," says lang, brightening. "I'll take the picture," says a frantic publicist, grabbing Vujanovic's camera in an attempt to keep everyone on time for the interview. It works. Suddenly lang is in the studio, leaving Vujanovic to savour her 30 second brush with fame.
Half an hour later, back in the lift and heading for 2BL two floors down, lang sighs when asked about fans door stopping her. "You can never give everyone what they want," she says. "I'm kind of discombobulated 'cause I'm working ... and trying to conserve my energy ... and then, I end up PMS'd and I can be a real bitch." Which she wasn't to Vujanovic or Angela Catterns. "We have a lot of pop stars who come into this place," Catterns says. "And only one or two of them are as unaffected as k.d. lang."
There's a break in the schedule that afternoon and lang and assistant Blaeser unwind with a picnic at McMahons Point on Sydney Harbour. "Dealing with nature can totally chill her out," says Blaeser, who has worked for lang for eight years. "To speak about yourself 10 times a day, the same story, must drive you nuts." Lang also finds refuge in regular massages and relishes time alone. "I don't have a day off where it's not for travel or somethng social," she says.
That evening brings a social event, the all you can eat launch. The party, hosted by Warner Music, is being held in the southern pylon of the Harbour Bridge, a lift ride to 89m above the water and 201 further steps above that. There's a mixed crowd, the music industry, media, drag queens, a couple coated in black body paint with "k.d. lang" scripted down their spines. Model Cindy Crawford, in town to promote her film Fair Game, and former NYPD Blue actor, David Caruso, pushing his film Jade, are rumoured to be coming, but neither show. The star attraction arrives nearly an hour late (she's been running behind all day) and after half an hour with a chosen few, joins the throng. "I don't mind all the people as long as I have somebody I know around me," she says as cameras flash and the crowd pushes forward to wherever she's standing. "I can't stay and talk with one person for too long and I can't really hear. They're usually so noisy and I just get drained." Where to after this? "Home to bed."
Thursday morning arrives and lang seems to be sitting her stride. She has survived another round of interviews and is ready for a signing session at HMV's city shop. Hundreds of fans, mostly women, have queued outside the store. At the front of the line, Louise clutches a book of poems she's written. Emma, a singer, says, "You can tell that every note that she sings is coming from within." "Aww!" says Joh, standing next to her, "she's just a babe!" At the other end of the line, they're worried about lang suffering writer's cramp. "Shit!" says one young woman. "I'll spew if I can't see her."
But lang does not disappoint. Armed with six black pens (she wears out three), she signs her name some 1,200 times and gives an impromptu performance, singing along to several of her CDs playing in the store. "I love to give a show - more than anything. It's a type of freedom, it's my element, it's where I feel most natural, most purposeful, most spiritual, most cocky, most appreciative of my gift. It's about being completely transported to another place."
Her appearance that evening on Denton proves a worthy ending to the day. Backstage at the Seven Network studios in Epping, lang has 10 minutes outside her dressing room for a chat with fellow Denton guest Cindy Crawford, whom she met two years ago when they posed for a Vanity Fair cover. "I'm friends with Cindy - she's a good girl," says lang later. "But she was not feeling well, she had strep throat, so we had to keep our distance. It was good to see her."
Onstage, lang gamely matches wits with Denton. "She was just a real person, a good soul," he says, and during breaks turns her charm on the audience, inviting a heckler ("Do something else with that voice, your music is shit!") into going down to the stage to perch on her lap. She also treats the studio audience to a few bars of her bluesy Black Coffee. "Yeah, I was having fun," she says with a grin.
Too much fun, as it turns out. On her last day in Sydney, she has a 2 1/2 hour fashion shoot for Marie Claire magazine but cancels Who's visit to the session because she's tired. "Last night kicked my butt", she says, before packing for her 7.25pm flight to Brisbane. Not surprisingly, she already has plans for the coming weekend. "I'm definitely going to get into nature," she says, "and hopefully swim naked in the ocean. That's something I really want to do. Love, love, love to do that."
As long as it's on the schedule.

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fruitcake

[-]

11/12/08 13:13:32

**"and hopefully swim naked in the ocean. That's something I really want to do. Love, love, love to do that."**

that makes two of us, kd.

i hope you got your wish.

thanks again, soozie.
and thank you, kuddlyduck.

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soozie55

Interview from HQ Spring 1992 - Getting Personal - by Shona Martyn

#10

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12/12/08 12:57:03

k.d. lang speaks out about animal rights, but when it comes to her private life, mum's the word. Now the country singer is copping flak from some gays for her reticence.
There is an assumption that famous people should be prepared to lay their personal lives wide open, to reveal things to us that even our best friends wouldn't. They should champion causes close to their hearts, confess past indiscretions (drug abuse, crime, bulimia, incest, etc), in short, expose all to a public that supports them by buying their CDs or going to their movies. But if those kinds of revelations make racy reading for fans, for the celebrities the price of such publicity can be strained relationships and embarrassed families. It's not surprising that some of them aren't prepared to play the game.
Canadian singer k.d. lang is one. Apart from being the winner of the Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1989, lang is also a staunch vegetarian and a lesbian so she has had plenty of opportunity to ponder how publicity can affect not only her but also her family.
As a spokesperson for a group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, lang has publicly championed animal rights, but not without personal cost. The problem is that the singer grew up in the backblocks of Alberta and her mother still lives in Consort, a conservative town of 650 rural folk. A while back, lang filmed an anti-meat ad in which she said "Meat stinks. It's bad for your body and the environment, not to mention the animals. I know. I'm from cattle country and that's why I became a vegetarian."
Although he commercial never ran, news leaked out and caused a storm back home. "That 'I'm from cattle country' was a knife in their back," lang has said since. "I didn't mean to hurt anybody. I've been a vegetarian for 11 years. It's not a fad for me, it's a religion. The meat people's response was a personal attack on me and my family. In my home town there was a sign that said 'Home of k.dl lang' and they defaced it and knocked it down. My mother got frightened and that put a lot of pressure on me to straighten out, but I can't because I'm an artist - that's who I am."
But the question of her sexuality has proved far harder to deal with, The 31 year old singer, known for her androgynous style - spangly trouser suits, bolo ties and cropped hair in contrast to the bouffy hair and low cut gear of traditional country music gals - has long been either politely deflective or downright defensive when asked about her personal life. Her reasoning : the important thing about her is her music; her sexual preference is incidental. Although she would never deny being lesbian, it was not a topic she would explore with interviewers. Her fans were left to make their own assumptions. Understandably, lang's stand has been viewed with disappointment by those who are keen to have prominent people make their sexuality political rather than private.
The criticism has obviously rankled. "I get criticised by the gay community because I don't take things far enough - why should I be criticised when I've given that much? If you just go around screaming 'I'm a lesbian', what good is it?" she said to British journalist Cherry Smyth of Everywoman magazine, who tackled her on the role model argument earlier this year. Wrote Smyth, "Her tone rises and I sense she feels I've overstepped the interviewer's mark." Lang also told Smyth "I'm more involved with animal rights than gay rights because it moves me more."
But the singer must have expected that the pressure would build when she agreed to star in German director Percy Adlon's new movie, Salmonberries, with its Obvious Lesbian Content. Adlon, director of Bagdad Cafe and longtime champion of larger leading lady Marianne Sagebrecht, met lang when she asked him to direct a video for the AIDS fundraiser/Cole Porter tribute Red, Hot & Blue. Inspired, the director wrote a script with lang in mind - the tale of two very different women who meet in the wilderness of Alaska and, much to their surprise, fall slowly in love.
"I was rather nervous when I sent her the script", says Adlon. "It took a week or two until I got her response and those two weeks were pretty painful. If she had said 'I don't like this at all', then I would have had to throw it all away."
Lang was interested - she wanted a break from music but not from creativity. "I hate reading and I barely managed to complete the script. I saw I didn't have much dialogue, I saw I had to take my clothes off and I saw I had to carry a dead fish in one scene. These things all concerned me, but as an artist it excited me, because as an artist I think anything you find difficult is intriguing."
The eight week shoot in the Arctic wastelands of Alaska was tough going. Co-star Rosel Zech, who played a prim German librarian, was at one stage required to walk barefoot in the snow, reciting a lengthy monologue, when the temperature was well below freezing; lang, playing an Inuit loner, found it hard to carry the fish because of her "spiritual belief". "I cried. It was huge and bleeding. It was so hard. And I smelled of fish for hours, days". Of another startling scene where she casts off her snowgear to stand naked (and, ah, the relief at seeing a normal, fleshy female form on screen) she says, "I found it uncomfortable, but you must bite the bullet and do it."
Although the film stops short of showing the women having sex, it offers a sensitive and unambiguous exploration of the start of a lesbian relationship. Consequently when lang went to Britain to promote it a few months ago, she had a tough time claiming that the film was about loneliness, not lesbianism. (Of course, it is about both).
Cherry Smyth for example, wondered if lang used her own experience as a young lesbian for her character, Kotz, and was disappointed that the singer seemed "frightened of jeopardising her career by admitting how much of her own sexual orientation she brought to the role", particularly at a time when lesbians are seeking positive representations in film to counter Hollywood's homophobia.
"I don't want to be defensive", replied lang. "I don't really think that's important. What's important is that Kotz is acting on a completely instinctive level. She's attracted to this person because she'a accepted by her and, by helping her, she has found herself and also falls in love with her. So when they kiss, Roswitha (Zech's character) is also attracted to Kotz and she's surprised by her own attraction to her. This scene is a blatant example of what learned behaviour does as opposed to natural behaviour. Roswitha wants to do it, but her learned social behaviour says 'No, that's not me'."
Lang admitted that in some ways she would have liked the characters to be shown making love, but, she said, "then people thaink that you are just being trendy."
Later, in a lengthy interview with American journalist Brendan Lemon, for the US gay and lesbian news magaxzine The Advocate, lang confessed she really disliked talking about her sexuality. "It's not the thing to me. I don't feel political about my preference.I just don't. I'm sorry! I don't want to disappoint you hard cores, but I don't! I think as human beings we all feel discrimination at some time; we all feel oppression.
"There should be strong examples in the sub-culture and I think there should be people fighting for our rights. But I don't feel it's my passion. I feel like it's a part of my life, my sexuality, but it certainly isn't my cause. I have never denied it. I don't try to hide it like some people in the industry do. I just am what I am."
Alothough she thinks most people are aware she is a lesbian, she plays down her sexuality so as not to distress her mother, especially after the upset of the anti-meat commercial. Her mother, to whom she "came out" 13 years ago, has asked her, even recently, not to come out publicly. "I don't want to lie, I'm not a liar; I try not to be. And yet you go, 'Is your job as an artist more important than the love between mother and daughter? Or is lying to protect your mother the biggest sin of all?'"
Lang told Lemon she was very worried about speaking so frankly to him because of the repercussions. "Man, if I didn't worry about my mother, I'd be the biggest parader in the whole world."
The singer says her new album, Ingenue, a move away from her traditional country feel, is born fronm her unrequited love for a married woman. "It's not really over. It's just that it's kind of an unattainable love. It's just a feeling for somebody that I can't have right now. I was more than a year into it when I started writing the songs. But it's basically about the process of being in love and it's really about mee. It's not really even about the other person."
A patriotic Canadian, lang lives with her older sister and a small menagerie on a farm nearVancouver.
Lang describes herself as a "total woman" : the androgyny is "just a way of surviving - outside". But she does not believe a career in rock music is compatible with motherhood. "Do careers and babies match? I personally don't think so, my music is my lover and my child. I think one of the reasons I changed at 30 to a softer kind of music was because I couldn't see myself jumping around on stage at 50. Of course, I've never really been attracted to rock and roll anyway. I find it disturbing. It's a very male thing."

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manon

#11

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12/12/08 13:17:24

soozie, you are providing us with some really fine articles. Thank you

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fruitcake

#12

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12/12/08 15:15:25

agreed.
it's always interesting to read about our girl especially when the piece is well done.

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vigilceo

#13

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13/12/08 05:07:17

Thank you guys for posting those articles. I had not read any of those before! Very cool!! Robin

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soozie55

k.d. interviews from long ago

#14

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13/12/08 11:17:47

Hi to anyone interested
I have not read these interviews for a very long time, they have been in a folder which I have not accessed for ages as I tend to spend time now on the internet.
I have quite a few more to post and as long as you all enjoy them and want to read them, I will keep adding them.
I do like this site very much. Thank you kf for setting it up for us.

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fruitcake

#15

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13/12/08 12:40:55

please do post them, soozie.

they are much appreciated.

(and your pup is too cute! s/he reminds me of kd's stinker)

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manon

#16

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13/12/08 12:53:03

soozie, please keep posting them, just whenever you have time, we love them.

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soozie55

k.d. interviews

#17

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13/12/08 12:59:23

I'm glad you are enjoying the articles, I am enjoying reading them all again too.
Fruit, my i.d. photo is Boo Doggy Bear. He is an Aussie Terrier and today he had his annual summer crew cut. He now looks like a fat rat.

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fruitcake

#18

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13/12/08 13:09:52

hahaha!
let's hear it for cute fat rats!

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Lieut Kusa

#19

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14/12/08 01:39:45

Yes yes please! I'm still reading a lot of the interviews and articles. Whatever you are willing to share would be great. Thank you so much.

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soozie55

k.d. interview - Australian Campaign magazine, December 1995 - a la carte k.d.

#20

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15/12/08 12:19:56

k.d. lang has feasted on fame but found her hunger satisfied by a simpler lifestyle and music. Phillippe Cahill finds he could just eat up the crooning charmer.
My, how time flies. Only six months ago k.d. lang was in Vancouver feeling somewhat refreshed, rejuvenated and perhaps a little restless as she prepared to return to the business of music. Six months later her new album, All You Can Eat, is finally on the shelves; a world tour is also about to kick off with an Australian leg confirmed for June 1996; and Ms lang is definitely right back in the swing of things, looking ever fabulous, if feeling a little tired and harried.
It's no wonder. Sporting a spunky, new short hair cut and that very special 'I'm-only-suffering-jet-lag' glow, lang hardly has a moment to herself these days. A woman who needs her space and freedom, she's only been back at the job of music a few short months, and already she's even consented to make the long, arduous journey into the southern hemisphere for a tightly scheduled, Aussie pit stop on a packed world promotional tour. It must all seem a far cry from the relaxed life of herbal teas and tiny cakes in the studio on the farm.
"I suppose I'm feeling scattered in terms of where I live right now, because I really don't live anywhere and that's going to continue for some time. You know, I really just travel at this stage. That's all I seem to do. But actually I don't mind. In some ways I'm more resigned to it than I've ever been."
Having obviously recovered her equilibrium after the fuss surrounding her coming out, lang knows now what to expect from the pop music promotion machine. She's learnt to counter the straight media's obsessive need to rustle her into the position of everywoman-vego-lesbian spokesperson. And although it bothers her that people don't seem particularly interested in discussing her latest music, she's also not letting the somewhat tentative reaction to her new album get her down either.
"I understand it's going to take some people a long time to really come to this record. It took at least 12 months with Ingenue. Actually, it's like people have to wait for someone to go 'no, I'm totally into it' before they'll really listen," laughs lang wistfully.
"But albums are kind of like lovers in that way, you know, I don't think I want to put out an album - as I mature and realise how things kind of work - I don't really want to put a record out that you're immediately attracted to and fuck on the first night. I actually want to put out a record that you keep on seeing. This thing that, kind of like, keeps popping up in your life. And you're 'well, I don't know, I'm not sure how I feel about this,' and then later, 'well maybe yeah,' till finally, all of a sudden it's like 'wow, okay' and the relationship is established. Of course, right now, everyone's going, 'I really like Ingenue, and that's what they want to talk about. They don't say anything about this record. But to me, All You Can Eat is actually a better record. It's a better, more accessible pop record. It's like people have to live with my music when it changes, before they can embrace it. You know, people get very staid and they like things to stay the same. But this album is going to be fun to tour", she adds. "I'm really looking forward to taking these songs on the road because they'll be great live. Better than Ingenue."
If the Sydney reaction to her presence is anything to judge by, lang doesn't have a lot to worry about. It may be several years since k.d. ruled the charts with constant cravings of unrequited love. But her few days spent schmoozing downunder showed that kathy dawn still at least rules in the many hearts, gay, lesbian and otherwise, which call the harbour city home.
Consequently, it won't take very long for people to embrace lang's new work wholeheartedly, with the passion of inveterate true believers. On first listen, All You Can Eat may be a bit stylistically unfamiliar and bare. But what it lacks in terms of the immediate emotional impact of Ingenue's lush cinematic melodrama - what lang now sees as perhaps being a little "precious" - All You Can Eat more than makes up for in lyrical and musical wit, depth and subtlety.
Listen long and closely enough and you'll find it in the carefully crafted, punchy compact phrases, the simple repetitive counterpoints, the fatly sensual, slow groove bass lines, and a dearth of reverb. This is not an album wallowing in the mock grandeur of melancholy. Rather, it's a tightly packed, upbeat reflection on love, sex and the human condition presented in a deceptively simple package. The feeling, as lang says, is altogether more carefree and jaunty, like "getting up in the morning, putting on your jeans and boots, and swaggering off on your motorbike" for a long, leisurely ride. But it still kicks back quite a punch when you really engage the listening throttle.
"Yeah, well it is like that, because I wanted to make an album that was very minimal and direct. I mean, if I could only be the queen of popularity, what else is there to say about that. You know, I really wanted to precisely hit the point without overdoing it," lang says, emphatically tapping the table.
"And the landscape of this album is different too. You know, we worked a lot looking out over the city, and there was this bridge we could see with traffic going back and forth across it constantly. And that's reflected in the sound. Like this record is definitely a hypnotic soundtrack. Because what Ben (Mink) and I really wanted to do was make a record that would enhance people's lives rather than impinge upon it or be obtrusive. To me really good music is easy listening. It should be easy to listen to, but deep enough and multi-dimensional enough that whenever you put the headphones on you never stop finding things. And the treasures are buried there, but they're quite hard to find. It's really subtle. Very, very subtle."
Perhaps even too subtle for the beats-per-minute generation? I'm not sure. But in the meantime, while we're waiting for the penny to drop in the collective pop consciousness, Ms lang knows how to win friends and generate positive copy. She is a consummate performer off stage, shamelessly wooing the public and the press with her effortless media savvy and grace.
She may be wary of all the hype, but lang definitely knows how to manipulate. Or perhaps she just does it instinctively. Whichever it is, k.d.'s protestations of love for the "tropical Canada" of the southern hemisphere was exactly the grist to the milk needed by our greedily insecure, adolescent culture, desperate to hang on the kind words and affirmation of strangers. I mean, if it doesn't get them in the shops buying copies of All You Can Eat for granny's Christmas stocking, nothing will!
"Yeah, I love it here. Actually, I considered relocating a great deal yesterday. You know, I love the ocean and the nature, I like the multi-culturalism. And I like the temperature. That's a big asset. Tropical Canada."
We wish. Of course, the irony doesn't escape either me or her when finally I come face to face with a wilting "prairie rose" a few days later, slumped in a hotel chair on an unexpectedly swelteringly humid Sydney day. So much for Australia's seductively attractive "tropical Canada" climate, she languidly smiles. Not even a fully serviced, ducted hotel-scale Frigidaire can save us from this unrelenting heat. Definitely not conducive to feeling particularly creative, I'm sure.
"And I had to do a photo shoot for Marie Claire this morning!" she moans. Just one of the many prices of fame, I suppose. Although I don't envy lang such responsibilities, especially as they don't always sit well with her sense of herself as an artist rather than just another pop commodity.
"I find it can be a handicap. What I thrive on as an artist, for the most part, is being an observer, being amongst people, walking in nature. When you spend too much time being in the public eye and concerning yourself with what you're wearing and going to all the big events, I find that you get caught up in the superficiality of art rather than what the core motivation is."
Admittedly, concerns such as these have haunted lang for a long time. Perhaps more so than a lot of other pop music artists, many of whom claim to thrive on such energy. With lang, however, the conflicting demands of art and commerce appear to be increasingly irreconciliable, perhaps even mutually exclusive.
After all it was not so long ago that she fled the city of fallen angels specifically to escape all the glare and backslapping in favour of a somewhat healthier, more grounded lifestyle on the farm. As lang said at her press conference "L.A. tired me out, you know. It's very, very intense and scene oriented. There's a lot of focus on your celebrity and less on your art." Unfortunately, coming back to it all seems only to have increased her doubts in light of the relief she apparently found back home.
"It was a great year in Vancouver. I mean, I'm not going to be back there for a couple of years now. I've already been gone since June. But really it was a great year. I was around my oldest friends, you know. And just being able to go for a walk on the beach and feel totally secure, that there's not a paparazzi hanging around or something. It was such a relief," sighs lang, pondering the increasingly attractive possibilities of retirement.
"I think that one of the things I really want to accomplish is to remove myself from the publicness of my art and mature as an artist on a really private level again. Like I did from age one to 21. I want to do that again. I want to go off into a really private setting, paint, mature as an artist emotionally, and then maybe act, or put out records and not have to do the big pop media promotion tour. Put out a record and say, you know, I don't care if it sells three copies, this is my latest work., You know what I mean?"
Interesting words given the relative failure of lang's soundtrack for the film Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. The album was, of course, much better than the disappointing film, leading one to suspect had the film not been such a unmitigated disaster, perhaps the album would've fared better.
Still, dropping in the space of one album, from US sales of 1.5 million to just over 270,000 units must have been some kind of severe wake up call. Regardless of the market forces involved, lang maintains the experience very much jerked her back to reality. But she also says it was something that needed to happen. For although lang may have never really sought celebrity, she admits being not exactly immune to its intoxicating effects.
"I think I'm pretty level-headed about success. But after Ingenue, even I was thinking like, 'great, every record I put out now will be a success.' I mean, you can't help it. It definitely went to my head. It's seductive. But it's also not like one day you just go, okay I'm over that now. Every day you have to adjust and balance if you want to keep your shit together. You know, sometimes I find myself getting really egotistical. That's when I just have to sit myself down and have a talk with myself. I mean, it's not something that I'm claiming to have risen above, but I am trying to keep my head above water."
The battle to keep her feet on the ground and her ego in check is an important one for lang, but it's only part of the struggle., Of late she's been quite vocal about her search for love, and the increasing desire to settle down with one good woman and true. It hasn't happened yet, but she's still looking.
Also, despite her distaste for the pop music business, lang's still driven to create. Even if she does take extended shore leave, she's unlikely to stay away for good, or to ditch music entirely for another medium. As lang says, she has a "divine understanding" of what it is to sing.
Moreover, All You Can Eat is itself very much a product of lang's need to constantly extend herself, to push the boundaries of what she understands and knows about her art. In its very challenges lies the seeds of her next quest, when once again the muse will call lang to reinvent and push the boundaries of her musical vision, towards a new and better artistic honesty and truth.
"You know, I don't think there's ever 'too open or raw'. That's an artistic goal which I don't think I'll ever succeed at. But it's also an ongoing challenge, you know, to become more open, more vulnerable and more honest. And that's just a process within yourself. You know, I don't think that giving honesty and vulnerability is a scary thing."
Perhaps not k.d., but then again perhaps you're a braver woman than most.

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k.d. lang Interviews and Articles

k.d. lang Interviews and Articles