Angel Olsen's Personal Best

ANGEL OLSEN: “Acrobat” stuck out to me because we've played it the most of any song and it's grown and changed over the years. We’ve flipped it and stretched it out, and it’s become more and more like that Caetano Veloso version of “Cucurrucucú Paloma”. It kind of has that feel to it now, whereas in the beginning it was really rigid and folky. Like, I'm telling a story and playing guitar super staccato, almost like a harpsichord.

You could tell what was popular in the era of “Acrobat”. Like, even if I didn't like Joanna Newsom’s music and I didn't really listen to it, it still sunk into the way that I was affecting my voice or changing the way that I wrote. I felt safe because Joanna Newsom was popular. I felt like I could write a song that was telling a story in a poetic way without people being bummed about it.

That style became part of the zeitgeist and part of the way that people were understanding music at the time, so I thought that if I could find my own way of doing it and express myself honestly, I could also use it as a way to reach people.

BEST FIT: The lines “Who cares? I'm not a moralist / I'm just a lady with some time” are some of my favourite lyrics of yours. What inspired those?

I think it was my way of saying, ‘You don't have to protect me,' you know? I just want to explore and keep searching, you don't have to do that patriarchal stuff.

Also, I think it was the first time I was really touching on my queerness and how I felt about singing about it. I was aware of it then; I had just always been with men. I’m pansexual, so it was harder to figure out if it was just me ‘dabbling’ or me experiencing whether those feelings were real. I just played that side of me down for many years.

Actually, I’d had a two-month relationship with a woman around the time I wrote “Acrobat”. I also had a boyfriend at the time, and he didn’t like that very much. It didn’t end well. I was like, ‘Aren’t you supposed to like this?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, not like that.’

I remember hearing “Acrobat” in 2012 and being totally stopped in my tracks. It’s a very physical song but also kind of cosmic. Can you talk a bit about the recording process?

I was playing principally with Bonnie "Prince" Billy [aka Will Oldham] in those days, and I think I had maybe one more tour to do with them. My boyfriend at the time, Emmett Kelly, produced the record and then Ben Boye, who played piano in Will’s band, played harmonium on this recording. People from the music scene in Chicago.

At the time I didn’t have any money, so it was a case of ‘I’ll pay you as we go’ and thinking we were gonna do the whole album in one day. I think we did it in three or four days in the end, and then we ended up taking a little bit of a break to mix it. It’s funny, because I didn’t know this record would take off, so when it did well I had to kind of retrace my steps and make sure everyone was good.

It's so weird to be thrown into situations like that. As I get deeper and deeper into the music industry, money becomes this weird thing. It’s like a snake. It’s like a slippery slope. If you don't communicate what your needs are and what your expectations are, money can become such an offensive thing. It kinda makes you think, ‘Oh, music is ugly,’ or ‘This is gross, I wish I had thought this through.’

I think I've learned from that process to always state what I expect and what I want. But I didn’t have any idea what I was doing at the time.

BEST FIT: My Woman was the record where you really expanded your sound, so it’s interesting that you’ve chosen “Pops” here as it’s just you and a piano. Can you talk a bit about why you’ve picked this one?

ANGEL OLSEN: Yeah, obviously a lot of things happened on the My Woman record that sounded bigger. But I chose “Pops” because it was like I was allowing myself to go back to minimalism, in a way. I think it took the songs getting bigger and bigger for me to really appreciate the idea of just playing piano and singing.

Also, I think I was writing really differently than before. This song is something I couldn’t have written in 2012, you know? My sound was really changing, and I think “Pops” was the first time that I really felt the urge to play piano again. And from then on I incorporated piano a lot more – there’s a lot of piano stuff on All Mirrors – and I think “Pops” represents the beginning of that change for me.

"Pops" is the one song on the album that stayed more or less the same as my home recording. We tried to re-record the piano but the demo just sounded better so we decided to keep it. We added another piano underneath and mixed it in, to make it a little bit stronger. The vocal is also originally from my demo. I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m gonna get a better vocal of this.’ It was totally in the moment.

Some people interpret “Pops” as being about the music industry and about how it can be incredibly isolating. Is that a valid interpretation in your eyes?

Yeah, I think so. At the time I had become really popular in the music industry and it was kind of jarring. I didn’t know how to say no to interviews because I didn’t feel like I could. I didn’t feel like I could take a break and I never allowed myself time to just be a human and relate to people, and I just felt really alone in all that.

There were certain people in my life who were like, ‘Oh, but you have all the love you need because you’re getting it from your audience.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, that's not the kind of love that I want.' I mean, it’s nice to be appreciated but nobody really knows me out there. That’s not the kind of love I need. It's not the kind of love I am asking for.

Also, I guess band members and people around me were seeing me change. They were seeing me enjoy the attention, and I think I was probably annoying. But I was only in my twenties. I was growing up and I was enjoying making an impact, you know? But “Pops” was kind of like the beginning of me saying, ‘You know what? Fuck you!’. And by the time we get to "Endgame" on All Mirrors, I was like, ‘Okay, really though, fuck you!’

“Pops” is an interesting title because, like “unfucktheworld”, the most immediate interpretation is not one that seems to be related to the song. Where did the title come from?

I thought it sounded more like a pop song than anything. In my demos, for the longest time it was just called “Pops”. There’s no esoteric meaning to it, it’s just a pop song. To me it sounded more like something I could hear Adele singing.

Weirdly, that's a cover I’d like to hear.

Yeah, me too. I'd love to quit my job! [Long and weighted laugh]

I’d love to go to Hawaii for a year. If she could just maybe learn one of my songs and sing it for about a year, that'd be nice. I’m trying to get Miley into it, too, but I don’t know if she’s down.

ANGEL OLSEN: This song is interesting. I wrote it after a queer relationship I had for three months before I publicly came out. We’d had these really intense conversations about how, because of the pandemic, I was in the relationship out of convenience. And, oh my god, that is probably the worst thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about me. I was like, ‘Wow, do you hear what you are saying? It’s so fucked up.’

Even if they believed that was true, they could, like, lessen the blow and just not tell me that [Olsen starts laughing]. Like, I don’t know who told them they had to be so completely honest, but that person was wrong. It was a really shitty thing to say. I was like, 'You! You just be quiet!'

I ended up writing a couple of songs after that, just out of anger, and “Ghost On” was one of them. We are friends again; they know now not to say those things out loud. And I don’t think the relationship was out of convenience. I just think it was easier to say that because it was so easy to become co-dependent during the pandemic. It was, like, ‘Okay, you’re my person, right? We’re good, we’re safe.’ And I think we were both lying to ourselves, because of the experience.

BEST FIT: This song fits a theme of refusing to fit into the image that other people have of you, and more broadly speaking that’s kind of something that you've dealt with throughout your career: Angel Olsen the person versus Angel Olsen the star.

Yeah. I think everybody who makes music or makes art kind of projects the person they want to be through their work. I feel like the writing and the making of things are really what you aspire to be, but it’s only one facet of your personhood. You’re still a shithead. You still don’t consider everyone. And you are still insecure about dumbass things. Like, you’re still bad at math and calling your mother.

As a songwriter maybe you’re aspiring to be this poet person with a gift, and there are moments when you are channelling that, but it doesn’t mean you’re a good person, necessarily. Like, just because you wrote it down once, it doesn’t mean you actually practice it in your everyday life.

Let’s talk about the electric guitar solo.

This is the one song in the show where I get to play a solo, and it’s been really fun. You know, I’ve always been too afraid to play guitar solos because I’m a singer. But now that I’m so deep in with my music, I’m like, ‘Okay, I can try to do this as well.’

During the pandemic I spent a lot of time playing around with a loop pedal, just coming up with guitar lines and getting into the practice of repeating them. Sort of developing that hand-to-brain memory of where everything is. Then you have to think about how nervous you’re going to be on the night and how you’re going to forget stuff. You can never really know how it’ll affect you when you go on stage in front of people. I fuck up sometimes, which is fine. But I’m getting to a point where I can sort of look up halfway through the solo.

So, yes, I chose “Ghost On” because it’s my favourite from the new record. It’s so simple and to the point, and – selfishly – because I get to play guitar. I get to show people that that’s something I’m experimenting with. Also, it’s kind of like a throwback song. It reminds me of old soul songs, in the way that it swings. When I imagined how it would sound, it was almost like something Candi Staton might sing. Or something Cass McCombs might write. I don’t know. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, and it’s interesting how those can show up in different forms in my own songs.

Could you see yourself going more into a soul direction in a later record?

No. I feel like I've touched upon it. But it's hard to say, because I never thought I would make an Americana record, you know?

Everything's on the table!

Yeah. I’m like, okay, next album’s gonna be all textural sounds like Brian Eno [Olsen laughs at her own joke – at least I think it was a joke…]