“You’re Loved, Then You’re Hated, Then You’re Loved”: A Candid Chat With Liz Phair
25 years on, Liz Phair still doesn't care what you think.
Liz Phair has lived through the best and worst of rock stardom, from the continuing accolades for her lo-fi insta-classic 1993 debut Exile in Guyville, which anticipated the droll frankness of Courtney Barnett, to the backlash against her mega-produced radio hits in the ’00s.
But then, she’s always shrugged off the very idea of selling out and indie credibility. Her latest album, 2010’s much-maligned Funstyle, sees her actually rap on the glossy meta oddity ‘Bollywood’. That’s a far cry indeed from her early alt-rock rallying cries like ‘Supernova’ and ‘Fuck and Run’.
Fans are coming back around to Phair in a big way, though. Maybe that’s partly due to a lack of antagonistic new material since 2010 — Phair has spent most of this decade quietly scoring TV shows and raising her son.
But key to her current reappraisal is last year’s 25th anniversary of Guyville and a recent box set that pairs that influential milestone with her beloved early tapes under the name Girly-Sound. In fact, Pitchfork gave the Girly-Sound to Guyville box set a perfect 10, after famously giving her 2003 self-titled album a zero.
Phair is heading to Australia in March, where she’ll be part of a killer Golden Plains bill, and she’s releasing a quasi-memoir next year too. She’s also enjoying an invigorating burst of songwriting, recording and touring that’s sure to spell new material soon.
Whatever she does next, you know it’ll be just as sure to piss people off as to please anyone who loves watching Phair not give a fuck.
I was revisiting your records and noticed the song ‘Alice Springs’ [on 1994’s Whip-Smart]. Is that about a trip you took there?
No, actually, I wrote it before I’d ever gone to Australia. I was reading about the opal mining, and something about gems that were covered up by land and sand … I related to that. I felt like my own talent was buried under a whole bunch of dirty sand. [Laughs]
I related to the metaphor of having to dig for the gems that you knew were inside of you, but no one could see them.
How does it feel to play your early songs a couple decades later?
It’s really weird, because on the one hand, I feel proud that my songwriting was kind of advanced. And then on the other hand, there are moments where I’m so idiotic and immature. It really runs the gamut — one moment I’ll be sitting there patting myself on the back for the song craft I had at the age of 22, and then the next moment I’m cringing in embarrassment for some stupid thing.
I never really thought anyone would hear that stuff other than a few likeminded souls. I thought I was making like two tapes for friends, who then ended up making [and circulating many more copies].
Are you tempted to change things when you play those songs now?
Oh, I do. There are things I just won’t play the way they were on Girly Sound, because it’s not as good as the way I developed later. [Laughs] I one-thousand-per-cent will take edit liberties to make a song better.
There are a lot of bands coming up now who have talked about how you were a big influence on them, like Snail Mail and Speedy Ortiz. Is it cool to see that you’ve had this impact on younger musicians?
Absolutely. And the feeling is mutual, because what they’re doing right now inspires me. Part of why I’m working again is because I’ve been inspired by these young female artists and what they’re doing. It just feels like a moment I don’t want to miss — I want to be part of it. It’s incredible.
Are you making progress on your next record?
I am. We just got out of a couple days in the studio with the band I’m touring with, and we’re gonna go back in [soon]. I’m writing up a storm. The session that we did, [we had] five songs, three of which I wrote that week. So it’s pretty strong amounts of new material coming out right now.
Is that due to feeling energised from touring?
Yes. I don’t know how I would do it without that, because I think I just get too precious when I’m left to sit in my room too long. [Laughs] Then I write these songs that are very deep and meaningful and me, but no one else gives a fuck. It’s really important to get back in front of your audience.
What have you been up to between albums?
I did a lot of television scoring. I worked on The 100, 90210, In Plain Sight, The Client List. Mostly instrumental guitar stuff, some vocal [and] keyboard stuff. And just raising my son. We did the Guyville reissue in 2009 and played the whole record [on tour]. But I wasn’t working the way I am now.
“I just never understood why people want their artists to sound the same all the time.”
I have a book coming out next year on Random House called Horror Stories. They are short stories in memoir form, talking about experiences from my life and my career. I’m kind of poking fun at the short story genre, which is so popular right now, but it’s also an exploration of the little things that maybe don’t even have to do with our lives that shape the kind of people we are. Looking at the micro interactions between people and showing how some of those are emotionally impactful, outsized to how they factor into the plot of your life.
You’re so known for your lyrics, so what was it like to score television?
Y’know, it was so interesting. I found that the dialogue became my lyrics, and I really took to it. I really enjoyed scoring in terms of using the writing that was there. I was surprised at how quickly I took to it.
Are there any clips of it online?
No, there’s not! That really chaps my ass, because I’d love for people to hear the cues we did. But it’s embedded in the shows, and the [producers] want you to [watch] the whole show to hear the music. But I wish we could. I’d like to listen to it! [Laughs]
I mentioned your lyrics, which had a lot of casual swearing early on. Did you become wary of that, almost like people were expecting it?
There was a point, yeah, where I felt like I had to deliver something lusty or shocking. It wasn’t until [2003’s] ‘H.W.C.’ [featuring the chorus “Gimme your hot white cum”] where I actually had an authentic song that felt real [again] and like I’d written it in the same sort of pure way that was subversive. That was the first one that came naturally the way I would expect, rather than just something expected.
But to be honest, I didn’t feel like playing ‘H.W.C.’ during the #MeToo situation. [Laughs] I was like, “Sorry, no.” It just depends what kind of mood you’re in.
Have you ever thought about returning to the lo-fi demo feel of Girly Sound or Exile for your newer material?
“There was a point where I felt like I had to deliver something lusty or shocking.”
I’ve thought about it, but when I actually try to do it, I can’t recapture that same instance. I definitely record voice memos constantly — I have hundreds and hundreds of song ideas [and] fragments that will probably never see the light of day. It’d be nice to have them done the way I did Girly Sound, just in terms of finishing my idea, because it’s far too easy to just do a voice memo and be like, “Okay, I’ve got it. And if it’s not it, I can come back to it.” So yeah, I do miss [that] way [of working], trying to finish a song [on the spot].
You made your name with these early albums that were so unpolished, and later you made quite commercial-sounding records. I know there was a backlash — did that feel strange, like you were having to choose between these two extremes?
It felt weird because at the time I didn’t understand, as much as I do now, how it felt for the fans. In my mind, I had gotten married, I had moved to Lincoln Park [in Chicago], I was raising a toddler. The things I was listening to were different, the scene I was in was very different.
But to the fan who’s just waiting for another Liz Phair record to come out, I think it felt jarring and shocking and upsetting, as if I’d sold out. And to some extent that’s true, because I found myself suddenly on a major label without any of my indie support, because of how Matador divested from Capitol. So I was kind of in this sellout position, because that was the only game in town. That was where I found myself.
I didn’t not enjoy recording the pop stuff. The pop stuff was some of the best to sing live, and afforded me a lot of live opportunities I never would have gotten. I just never understood why people want their artists to sound the same all the time.
It’s a huge difference: your early singing is quite deadpan, and then ‘Why Can’t I?’ has this cathartic outburst of feeling.
It’s just a giant pop song. But to my mind, when you listen to The Girly Sound, you hear a lot of the pop elements that came in later. To me, it’s all different things for different times.
Except I did get tired of people telling me that ‘Why Can’t I?’ was really profound. I’m like, “Really? That’s the one?” I’m thinking, “Did you listen to anything else on the record?”
How did it feel to get an actual Top 40 hit with that song?
That was really fun. Those were some of my best touring times. That was quite exciting, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything — backlash and all. It’s part of life’s rich pattern. [Laughs]
You’re loved, then you’re hated, then you’re loved, then you’re hated. You’re just going along, making music from whatever part of the journey you’re on.
Doug Wallen is a freelance writer and editor. He is on Twitter.
Liz Phair is playing Golden Plains and touring Australia next month — for all dates and details, here here.