LTW: You describe yourself as ‘no-genre, no label, no agent, no manager, completely DIY’. Is this an approach born of necessity or design?
Kristeen Young: I’ve naturally been this way from the beginning. I’ve always listened to/liked all kinds of music and it all somehow makes it’s way into what I write. I can’t help it. I’ve tried.
You directed, shot and edited the videos for The Beauty Shop yourself. You also wrote, arranged and produced the album, as well as playing multiple instruments on it. Is it important to you to have artistic control?
Ummm. I guess so. But, that’s not really the reason I do all of it. I do it for a couple of reasons; maybe more than a couple. I’m a bad communicator, or I’ve been one. And I often have a hard time explaining what I want or what I’m hearing and seeing. Another reason is because if there is a man present in the room when I’m making something, everything I do will be attributed to him even if he just switched on the light and left. Another reason is I have no money.
The Beauty Shop is described as a series of musical snapshots in the life of a serial killer. Is it based on anyone in particular or is this a fictional character of your own invention?
It’s an amalgamation. It’s a metaphor for this culture in the Divided States of America. It’s my mom. It’s me. The serial killer and the victim is often the same. If you look closely, from a certain angle, they might look similar. I like to watch murder documentary series on the ID channel like Evil Lives Here, or Family Massacre (these are real shows) and it feels like therapy to me. I feel at home in them. Yes, from the years of abuse I lived through, but simultaneously when I was a child I thought I might be a serial killer myself because I had no feelings. I had had to cut them off.
The idea of creating multiple videos to illustrate the album fits perfectly with the narrative concept. Was this something you always intended to do when writing it or did the visuals come later?
When I was recording the album I would get a core visual for a song, something I knew I wanted to centre everything else around. With Life Kills I kept seeing heads falling back into shampoo bowls like in a guillotine. With Your Mouth is Going to Get you In All Kinds of Trouble it was the vomiting up curlers and other beauty shop accoutrements. With Sue Veneer I knew I wanted to fly. With Sara Get the Baby, it was babies coming out of ovens between my legs. Just basic things like that. Then they get fleshed out, in often surprising ways when I’m making them. I’m going to make two more videos for the album. Almost finished with the next one and it started the same way: one core idea that is spinning into other ideas.
I remember seeing pro-choice protest art using the coat hanger as an iconKristeen Young in the mid ’90s, imagery you evoke now in your song Life Kills. Does it feel incomprehensible that we are in a position where this is still politically relevant?
Absolutely, my whole life… probably your whole life… we’ve heard the Roe v. Wade argument surface every few years… like a threat? Like a weapon? I mean, I always think “we’ve discussed this more than fully, can we move on PLEASE? There are other important things to get done.” And now they finally did it. And of course it’s really just a situation of not having SAFE abortion for working class and poor people. Rich people and middle class will be able to go somewhere, in a medically secure environment where a professional doctor performs the abortion. It will just be the rest of us who suffer. Typical. SO UN-civilised. SO backwards. SO 19th Century.
In a similar vein, Sara Get the Baby deals with the subject of commercial surrogacy. This remains something of a taboo subject in contemporary feminism, in part due to how it intersects with gay adoption. Do you believe surrogacy is unethical in all scenarios, or is it something that can be legislated around to prevent exploitation?
I heard people in the media, or tv shows, or podcasts, whatever, I observe and listen. But, I heard people, all kinds of people, talking about “their surrogates” never the person’s name. And they’d talk about all their reasons for using a surrogate (usually a rich woman or person talking) and I just started writing them down. So almost all of the lyrics for Sara Get the Baby were REAL things I heard people who were using surrogates say. I’m not presenting an opinion. I’m presenting you with phrases people said and you can decide what they mean to you. It’s that kind of song: a reflection. I’m not involved. But we COULD maybe grow other things inside of you. It’s scientific.
You have an impressive back catalogue including collaborations with artists like Bowie, Morrissey and Tony Visconti, yet you still have the raw energy of a new artist. How do you keep your passion for performing and recording at full speed?
I love NOW. It’s important to be cognisant of now and what is going on. I don’t look back very much. I hate nostalgia. I love ideas, I want to grow. I want to learn something new with everything I do. I never think anything is good enough or I’ve arrived at anything. In fact I hate everything I’ve done. Fuck Bowie. Fuck Morrissey. Who needs TV when you’ve got yourself? Do you know what I mean?
You sing into a literal hairbrush in your video, what was your favourite ‘hairbrush song’ as a kid?
I never sang into a hairbrush as a kid. But, I did grow up singing to Teena Marie, and an old Renaissance record (Live at Carnegie Hall) because both of the singers had high voices like me. Annie Haslam was the singer in Renaissance. I always regard these two singers as being my teachers. I hate to even narrow it down to two artists because I’m really influenced by so many people and so much music. But, I used these singers songs as vocal exercises – and Prince records. And this was when I was very young, that time period. 12?
From: https://louderthanwar.com/kristeen-young-interview/
