Equal parts piano siren, art agitator and punk-pop priestess, Amanda Palmer's performance instincts have energized her band The Dresden Dolls' gothic cabarets since 2001. But she has since decided to take a stab at a solo effort, and called upon everyone from David Lynch and Neil Gaiman to Ben Folds to help her formulate the ambitious Who Killed Amanda Palmer.
Palmer grew up in Massachusetts, graduated from Wesleyan, founded drama troupe Shadowbox Collective and even busked as a living statue in Harvard Square. Her street theater smarts came in handy once she teamed with drummer Brian Viglione and formed The Dresden Dolls, which churned out a series of full-lengths and EPs that further blurred the boundaries between art and music. Along the way, the duo regaled Radio City Music Hall and collaborated with the American Repertory Theatre, paving the way for Palmer's solo mindmelds with the Boston Pops and Ben Folds, who produced and starred on her recently released debut effort after sending the Doll a love letter via email.
Listening Post caught up with Palmer to chat about Twin Peaks, Folds and Gaiman, performance art and why techno with ukelele from a Mac laptop totally blows.
Wired.com: I'm guessing by the title of your solo debut that you are a stone-cold Twin Peaks fan.
Amanda Palmer: I'm a massive fan of David Lynch and Twin Peaks. Blue Velvet was one of those wonderful revelations. When I saw it as a teenager, there was that wonderful feeling of, "Jeez, I'm not alone. Somebody else, making real movies, has just as beautifully warped an aesthetic as I do! Maybe this'll work out after all."
Wired.com: What was your favorite thing about it?
Amanda Palmer: The perfect stylization, which didn't make things overly ironic or tacky. It was so incredibly untrue to life and yet so perfectly exposing at the same time. We all know that chicks living in the Northwest don't hang out dancing in diners and wear skirts and sweaters with cone-shaped bras. But Lynch somehow got away with making it seem perfectly wonderful, instead of tasteless and sexist. He is a miracle man. I think television is such a magical medium and it makes me sad that not much else has ever achieved that level of artistry. Then again, I might not know, I haven't really watched TV since 1988. But what I glimpse looks pretty bad. I saw the entire first season of Twin Peaks after the seasons were over when I was in my 20s. My step-brother had them on VHS, and I watched the whole first season over the course of four long nights.
Wired.com: Why the solo effort? What about this project made you want to complete it apart from the Dolls?
this audio or video is no longer availableAmanda Palmer: This project started out as a much different beast. It was originally supposed to be a stripped-down voice-and-piano record, very simply recorded in Boston. The original track listing was a bunch of ballads that were always vying for a spot on a Dolls record, but always got bumped. Things changed when Ben Folds approached me about producing it; all of a sudden, I had a huge Nashville studio filled with toys at my disposal. Not to mention Ben's genius on the songs: He played and produced up a storm. There was no going back after that. New material came onto the table, and all of a sudden we had a full-on epic rock record on our hands.
Wired.com: You happily merge music and performance art. Is that a skill set being lost in the age of Pro Tools?
Amanda Palmer: I think performance art comes from a simple place of wanting to express things beyond just sound. That urge is universal and timeless. I don't think the modern age is killing it at all. In fact, I see a lot more performance-oriented rock bands lately. If anything, the grunge era sort of squashed that performance instinct a good deal by ushering a trend of street-clothed, humorless earnestness as the new black. But things are slowly swinging back to interesting. More and more bands are defying the paradigm that dictates in order to be cool, you must don a hipster costume and look as bored as possible on stage. Hopefully, that whole trend will someday completely vanish. Whoever thought of that in the first place should feel guilty. The world needs actual excitement and emotion more than it needs cool people.
Wired.com: How did you hook up with Folds?
Amanda Palmer: Folds emailed the Dolls website with a great fan letter. He was writing from some random Japanese hotel room and exclaimed that he was hitting his head on the desk in gratitude. The best part of working with Ben is that he is one funny motherfucker. We cracked each other up the entire time we were in the studio. I can't work with serious people. I'd go crazy.
Wired.com: How about Neil Gaiman? What drew him to the project?
Amanda Palmer: Neil Gaiman swooped into my life though another friend, Jason Webley, who knew we were fans of each other's work and introduced us via email. Neil and I, like me and Ben, just hit it off instantly. Sometimes, when you meet a person, even through just a few emails, you just know you love them. And Neil and I became fast friends, talking about art and writing and blogging and fans and everything under the sun. When I hit upon the idea to release my album artwork in coffee-table book form, I asked Neil to write the text and he, to my amazement, said yes. He's brilliant. I feel a little too lucky this year. What the fuck?
Wired.com: What gear did you use making this record?
Amanda Palmer: You know, I was going through a growth phase in my teens where I was starting to collect keyboards, gear, samplers and drum machines. I was teaching myself how to use MIDI and creating sequences using a Korg M1 and the ancient Master Tracks Pro on my beloved Mac Classic. Meanwhile, I was writing songs on the piano and dealing with a serious Catholic guilt that I wasn't ever practicing or becoming a so-called good piano player. And one day, pretty much out of the blue, I decided to just put all my gear in the closet. My four-track, my keyboards, everything. I just decided to try to put my effort into being a good songwriter and let other people press the record button. And I've pretty much kept things that way.
Wired.com: So you're basically saying that tech hasn't made your job any easier.
Amanda Palmer: One of my problems in life is that I just want to do everything, and I try very hard not to let my attention get too scattered by endless possibilities. I think tech hasn't made things any easier or harder. One thing I've noticed is that for all the wonderful tools out there, a good song is still a good song. If it's played on a ukulele and recorded with a laptop microphone, it might strike a deeper chord, and with more people, than a $100,000 pop track with every bell and whistle. I love that. It's just the way the human soul is engineered. Your heart's emotional response to music doesn't give a shit about Pro Tools. Techno, on the other hand, is a different story. Techno made on a Mac laptop with a ukulele usually sounds like ass!
Photo: Beth Hommel
See Also:
- Twin Piqued: Lynch's TV Legend Makes Musical Comeback
- Video: David Lynch Thinks IPhone Is Unsuitable for Movies
- David Lynch's Weird, Wired World
- David Lynch Interviews – Uncut
- New Behind-the-Scenes Featurette on Neil Gaiman's Coraline
- Improv Everywhere Talks R.E.M., Mass Freezes and Cavemen
- We Are Not Cinematic: An Interview With Film School
