interview by Alan Pedder | view as PDF    

Critics love it whenever Thea Gilmore unleashes a new album upon the world; it’s one of those special occasions when they get to rummage deep down into their secret black book of superlatives for that just-so phrase that will get them up there on the billboards. Indeed, with so many accolades, it’s a miracle that Thea can even walk through a door these days without her head getting wedged in the frame. When Alan Pedder was told to meet her at The Hospital one lunchtime, he nearly brought her flowers, a bunch of grapes and a hacksaw. Fortunately, it turned out to be a private members’ club in London’s trendy Covent Garden instead, and as it happened, Thea was firmly in the pink of health (and the blue of expletive).

As we ensconced ourselves in the rather opulent surroundings — a glittery poster of Che Guevara notwithstanding — we broke the ice over a mutual feeling of utter displacement. As in many of her photos, Thea’s cool, intelligent gaze comes at you in person through a swept over fringe; sometimes guarded and steely, her slight aloofness understandably comes from hard-won experience after seven albums and similar sessions with truckloads of interviewers, some of whom must have tried their luck at tripping her up, no doubt failing in the process.

Luckily, Wears The Trousers was the very first stop on the promo locomotive and Thea’s fierce intellect was in mighty fine fettle. Harpo’s Ghost, the latest addition to her spotless and — for someone who’s only 26 years old — impressively vast discography, is perhaps her most formidable statement yet. And that’s saying something for a woman who, just a few weeks later, surveys an antechamber full of promoters and pluggers and announces her arrival on stage with a flatly emphatic, “yes, the bitch is back”. Thea Gilmore, you see, has a reputation to uphold. Let’s get to it.

It’s been an unusually long time since we last heard from you, well, relatively anyway. Almost three years! But it was certainly worth the wait. Congratulations on the excellent new album, how are you feeling about it?
I love it! It’s certainly the record I wanted to make. With every record I’ve made, it’s become closer to the finished product that I actually wanted, which I guess is a symptom of moving on and progressing and growing up a little bit.

Yeah, about that. How do you feel when you listen back to your early records like Burning Dorothy?
Mildly scared! There’s so much teen angst there. And Burning Dorothy is one thing, but The Lipstick Conspiracies is another! I actually want to hit my 18-year-old self because I sung in an American accent and I can’t understand why I did it. But that’s one of those things that will haunt me for the rest of my days. I do really like the songs on it and I like the production of it. I like the sound of the record apart from my voice — little “Minnie Mouse American accent girl”. It’s not good.

You’ve had a tough time of it lately from the sounds of things; family illness, a bout with depression and all sorts of head mess...
It’s a bit boring to talk about really. I don’t want to get into “my depression hell” because everyone goes through that shit. I just realised that there were a lot of issues from my past turning up nasty dark stuff that I hadn’t really dealt with. I’m not one who talks about things very easily, but I’m kinda getting there. Medication is a fine, fine thing. Bring it on! It certainly rescued me — that and my doctor. And music, obviously.

How have these things affected your motivation and morale?
It didn’t affect my motivation in any way. It affected me because I wrote more than ever before, which I know is strange because I haven’t released an album for a while, but that’s more because I’ve been touring the States so much and changing labels and stuff like that. Just writing non-stop, but morale wise I found that the music industry got on top of me. Usually, I can laugh off the shit that goes on but for the last three years I’ve been slowly succumbing to the kind of drudgery and depression and how hideous the whole thing is. There’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to be a part of it, but the other part of me knows that if you wanna make music, you gotta be in it — so take the pills!

There’s been more upheaval, too, with a new record deal with major indie label Sanctuary, which should have much better distribution and marketing. Although, given the label’s well documented financial troubles of late, are you anxious at all?
It’s nothing to do with me! It doesn’t worry me at all. The reason it doesn’t worry me at all — I mean it would be a pain in the arse if your record company went bankrupt before your album came out — is because I’ve spent nigh on ten years doing it on my own so I don’t need a record company. It’s useful sometimes and certainly useful to get a record into the shops, and there are certain things that you do need a record company for. But I hope that they don’t for their sake because they’re a good company and they’re the world’s biggest independent record label and who could not like that? I’m sure there are people working for them who aren’t doing them any favours, but that’s business. You gotta get used to it. I’m kinda getting used to things going wrong when I touch them, like the gigs that I play…very soon after, the venue goes bankrupt. These things never comes as a shock, I guess I just bring them bad luck. There have been at least three gigs that I can think of. One of them went into receivership two days after I played there — and it wasn’t my fault, the gig was sold out! — but I think they were in so much shit there was nothing I could do. One of them burnt down — that definitely wasn’t my fault, something to do with the chef — and I think another one went close to bankruptcy. I seem to have this effect on commercial institutions. The moral of that story is don’t book me and don’t sign me!

Speaking of signings, you must have gotten sick of being hounded by the major record labels...
Yeah, but I think they’ve given up on me now, which is great! I find the industry as a whole entirely depressing. It’s becoming more and more like McDonalds. You know how McDonalds have started selling salads in a bid to try and make you feel that you’re getting healthy food? Well, I feel that the music industry is doing that — it’s very cynically trying to sell you what you would consider musical ‘roughage’ to keep you regular, but it’s shit! It’s full of fat, it’s full of sugar — it’s just dire and I’m really fucking sick of being polite about it now. I hate the music industry. I cannot stand the way music is sold to young people and it needs to fucking change; it must, otherwise it’s just going to eat its own tail.

Well, you’re certainly no stranger to taking a pop at the music industry and a number of your songs have either directly or indirectly done so. It’s incredible how quickly the way in which we consume music has changed in the last ten years. Do you think now’s a better time to be an independently minded artist than when you first started out?
Yes, I think it is, but I would question whether there are that many truly independently minded artists because there is so much…to use the term ‘dumbing down’ would be a cliché, but I guess that’s what I mean. There is so much control and so much pressure exerted over people who make music to make a type of music that is easily consumable and easy on the ears. The term ‘easy listening’ comes with all sorts of images attached, but there is a whole lot of easy listening music out there and it totally dominates the charts. To be truly independently minded? I’m not sure it’s entirely possible — sometimes you need that corporate machine to kick in and you have to use it to a certain extent. But now I’m on the biggest label I’ve ever been in my entire life, so who am I to talk? But you’ve got to remain in control of what you do and being truthful, I think, is the main thing. To allow the elements of the corporation that you can actually use and that you need to use in order to get the music out to people, to open out and broaden your scope. No musician wants to stand on stage and play to ten people. Everyone wants to reach as broad an audience as they possibly can and I’m no different, but I think independence is a very tricky word and possibly needs redefining in the dictionary.

As someone who has taken the slowly-does-it approach to building a career, what do you make of Sandi Thom?
Sandi Thom? Well I wish she was a punk rocker with flowers in her hair! But she’s just a product. There’s no doubt the girl has talent but she’s an absolute prime example of a McDonalds salad. [laughs]

Do you think that women are more liable than their male counterparts to suffer from the “flavour of the month” tag, achieve moderate-to-massive success and then be ignored thereafter?
Without a doubt, you know. Like it or not, it’s an entirely masculinised industry. It’s almost the last bastion of extreme sexism that exists in this country and I think women are readily marginalised, always. If you haven’t got a pretty face or a gimmick to hang it on, then it’s very rare that you’re successful. I suppose KT Tunstall would be one exception, possibly, but it’s not heavyweight music. Again, she’s obviously talented and I have respect for her music — I think she’s an incredible musician — but it’s not weighty enough for me. I’d like to see more weighty issue-based female songwriters breaking through. She doesn’t offend me, but I find music that doesn’t offend me or make me wet my pants is often more offensive than anything. If I hate it with a passion, then great, then it’s worth something. In America, if you’re trying to get on the radio they talk about having a ‘perfect 3’ record. They mark records out of five — if it’s a 1, then it’s too bad to get on the radio, and if it’s a 5 then it’s too good to get on the radio. There are always gonna be people who either love or hate something, but if you get the perfect 3, if you aim it right in the middle — total middle of the road — then you’re not gonna offend anybody. Therefore, people aren’t gonna turn off your radio station. That’s the music industry that we live with. I don’t want 3s. I want 5s and 1s!

Do you listen to the radio much?
Occasionally. BBC 6Music is one of my favourites and I also really like Radio 4. I like the fact that you can listen to a piece about trees! That’s fantastic, I’m into that! Unfortunately, music radio is a product of the industry in which it serves, isn’t it? You need pop and you need weight and that’s the way it’s always been, and you can bleat on about manufactured artists and stuff like that, and I really actually like a lot of pop music, but what I do have a problem with is pop that’s posing as leftfield, artistic music. That’s a lie. Music, for me, is about honesty. There’s no shame in telling the truth about some boy you met down a club and wanted to shag in a pop song; there’s no shame in that! That’s what pop music is there for. But there is shame in lying about your intentions and that, to me, is unfortunately what seems to have gotten its claws into my fucking industry! This is my world and I wanna take it back.

What about music TV? With the demise of Top Of The Pops, you’ve gone down in history for having the lowest-budget video ever shown on the programme [the promo for Mainstream cost just £38!]. That’s quite an accomplishment and one in the eye for the corporate monster, eh? So much money is wasted on videos that have the artistic value of a juggling newt – all novelty, no substance and, in a lot of cases, a lack of dignity. Does that make your blood boil too?
Yeah, I guess so. There’s some shit who will spend £300,000 on a music video to justify his take-home salary. It’s just dull, and I find music videos insanely tedious anyway. Who wants to watch a woman’s arse gyrating for three and a half minutes, ‘cos I don’t. Certainly not mine, that’s for sure! I would question anybody who would want to watch that, its not good. Spend as little as possible and have as much fun as possible I say. I guess that’s kinda the strapline for my career! And being truthful.

Are you sad to see Top Of The Pops go to its televisual grave? I read that it’s one of the only TV shows you watched as a kid just so you could relate to your school friends who hadn’t memorised every note of Subterranean Homesick Blues by the age of twelve?
Yeah, it was my only touchstone to popular culture at the time because I was so immersed in the Sixties as a kid. I think it has long since outlived its lifespan though, more because the singles chart is so dull now. Fucking hell, I grew up with Bros and shit like that, but at least there was a bit of variety and a little bit of spice and never quite knowing what was going to happen — the classic being when Kurt Cobain and Nirvana appeared on the show — but it’s all been ironed out now. I think the only true representation of music on TV is probably be Later…with Jools Holland. Although there’s a new one with [former Kenickie frontwoman] Lauren Laverne, who I love — she’s just a goddess. She has a brain second to no one, she’s just incredible. I’d love to meet her one day, I just get the impression we’d have a great laugh. The Chart Show was alright, at least it dealt with album charts and indie charts, but TOTP, I’m not going to mourn its passing. I don’t think that downloads have really affected the singles chart yet, but I think they will in a positive way, just because it’s so much easier for more independent spirits to break through, and you don’t need so much of the marketing spend to get your single in HMV or Virgin as you do to have your single as a download. The singles game is just a total fucking racket — they give them away, they actually give them away! If you’ve got the money to give away 200,000 copies of your single to Virgin and HMV then of course you’re gonna get in the top ten, ‘cos they’re gonna rack you as high profile as possible. You don’t even have to have a brain — a child of two could operate a business that works like that.

How ridiculous was the whole Mattel debacle over your lampooning of Barbie on the Mainstream single artwork? Sufjan Stevens had a similar incident with DC Comics over the use of Superman’s likeness on his Illinois album. It’s madness!
Yeah, it was crazy. And I tell you what, that cover was fantastic as well and I was really hacked off that they made me take it out. But, y’know, getting into a lawsuit with Mattel was not a good idea, so I thought, shit, better run on this one…make a stand somewhere else. It was such a great cover though. One day, I’m gonna sneak it up on the internet and put it up somewhere. I’ll have to find a copy. I wonder if I can sneak it onto MySpace or something?

Do it! Anyway, getting back on topic, some of the songs on Harpo’s Ghost seem a little more vulnerable than on recent albums — a bit less steely and a bit more bruised. Did you ever think you were in danger of writing too many oh-I’ve-seen-it-all songs?
Yes, it’s very easily done. For a long time, I’ve kinda been able to keep myself locked in this little bubble and there has always been a kind of ‘outside looking in tee hee hee’ from me. And while people possibly like the music that I make, it’s not very easy to get close to. With all the stuff that’s been happening in my head and in my life over the last few years, I just haven’t been able to do it because certain walls have broken down. It takes a long time to rebuild them — if you want to rebuild them at all that is — and some of the problems that I first faced anyway were down to the fact that I keep people at such a distance. I didn’t intend it to be this way, but I guess it seems only natural that it comes out in the music. The only thing I did make a conscious effort to do was use a few less words, because a classic songwriter trick is to hide behind the words that you write. I find that I can confuse people as much as I can educate people with the words that I write, and I enjoy doing it, but there was a point where I just thought, “hang on a minute, actually say what you mean for a change and don’t piss about!”

Did you ever worry you might be turning into Alanis?
[laughs] That’s never crossed my mind but I’ll think about it now!!

Of course, as with all your albums, Harpo’s Ghost still has a healthy dose of swagger, and musically you’re somehow managing to sound even more sure-footed with every album. I think it’s safe to assume that you wouldn’t have signed the deal if you weren’t guaranteed complete artistic control, but will the deal affect your prolificacy? Would you be able to go back to releasing records every year if you so chose to?
The truthful answer to that is ‘I don’t know’, but the equally truthful answer to that would be that I’ll give them hell if they don’t let me, and I would imagine that they would expect that of me — they’re not stupid people and they know who they signed. Um, I don’t know whether they’ll want me after this album, we’ll see. They may think, “she’s far more trouble than she’s worth, we’ll let her go”.

That’s allegedly what happened to Nellie McKay. She fell out in a big way with Sony when they supposedly refused to release her second album with 23 songs instead of the 16 they had chosen.
That’s unbelievable! I tell you what, I was at the South by Southwest festival in 2004 and I walked into this amazing record store in Austin, just browsing, when I heard this voice. For some reason, I automatically assumed that there was some 45 year old woman getting kinda raunchy at the piano and I thought “this is really good”…I really enjoyed it so I went and asked who it was and I bought the record before I realised how fucking young she was. I was like “Jesus, this woman is incredible!”

Much has been made (and rightly so!) of your interpretive skills and genius way with a cover. But I’ve often wondered why you haven’t covered more songs by women…why do you think that is?
It’s a good question actually. I don’t think it’s conscious, necessarily. My remit for choosing covers is that you have to bring something of your own to it. When I did the covers album [2003’s Loft Music], I was really close to a Kirsty MacColl song, but I didn’t feel that I could bring anything new to it. She’d done the definitive versions of all of her songs, so what can I do? I think that, sometimes if you’re covering something by someone of your gender, there is almost less interpretation because when people listen to it they’re expecting a female voice. With a different gender, there’s almost more of a “that’s a new take on it” feel. Of course, sometimes it’s not entirely liked, like with the Buzzcocks track. A lot of Buzzcocks fans absolutely hate that track, it’s really funny; they don’t like a wispy girly voice singing it. I think it’s a sincere form of flattery for someone to cover your song. I would be very chuffed if someone like McFly decided they wanted to cover Mainstream, it would be great! It would make me giggle!

Given your political interests and propensity for springing surprise projects on your fans, what do you make of Neil Young’s Living With War?
I actually haven’t heard it yet. I think it’s a good thing that he’s done it, but I was extremely disappointed in his take on the fact that he was waiting for someone younger to take up that particular ball and run with it. I think it’s a shame he didn’t look further than his own doorstep because there are people out there. They may be doing it quietly, because it’s very difficult to do it loudly — especially if you are a new artist, it’s very difficult to be overtly political and be on a huge stage with it — whereas he has the benefit of being Neil fucking Young, y’know. Everyone’s gonna listen to him! I mean look at Coldplay; they’re not my favourite band but they’ve tried to be political and got smacked down for it, and they’re almost as big as it can get these days. To say that there are no young bands trying to be political is a bit narrow-minded. Go out and find them, don’t just expect them to land on your doorstep. It doesn’t work like it used to. I think it was a real shame that he said that — I always know when I get angry because my head starts to itch — and I remember reading that and thinking right…okaaay. And it’s not often that I get angry with Neil Young because he’s a big hero. I’ve always had huge respect for him so I will listen to the album…I just have to get over my fury first!

As you’ve said before, you feel that artists have a duty to be political, and your fans have come to expect to hear your opinions on a wide range of topics, concerning both home and away. They won’t be disappointed with Harpo’s Ghost…there’s references to Hurricane Katrina and the ever-advancing doom of capitalism, among others. What in the world is making you most nervous right now?
I think what’s making me most nervous is pretty much the same as its always been. The world changes, shit happens, people go to war…horrible, horrible things happen all the time. Governments are crooked, presidents need to be impeached (as Neil Young once said) and all of that happens, and it goes on all the time, but what needs to change is people’s apathy about it. That’s the scary thing, that we’ve developed into a world that is so sodden with media and TV, so totally overtaken with sitting on our fat arses and just watching these things unfold in front of us, that nobody really wants to do anything about it any more. The truth of the matter is that people have more power now than ever before and we have a duty to use it. We all could change things, in small ways…and I’m not saying it would change overnight, but nobody sees the need, or if they do see the need, they don’t see the worth, because we are so blinkered. We’re living in dangerous, dangerous times and we need to do something about it.

Thankfully, there’s salvation in music, as Harpo’s Ghost’s hidden track asserts. Are you throwing your audience a bone with that after what is quite a dark album, something to lighten the mood?
I think as a songwriter you always have the propensity to shift towards the dark aspect of your psyche, because a lot of the time that’s where the therapy comes from when you write. But I always try to show a way out, because there is always hope. It’s important not to wallow — there’s nothing more boring than listening to someone fucking wallow all the time. It’s like “get over it, you have an amazing life”. I have an amazing life, I’m lucky. I’m a lucky person to be able to do what I love, and goddamn it, I feel like shit sometimes but I’m not going to wallow in it. The last thing I want to do is make someone too depressed to put the record on again. I want people to feel hope as well as despair. That’s what life is all about.

I also wanted to talk about your friendship with author Neil Gaiman — he’s really into your music, isn’t he? And I hear you have a track on a new Gaiman tribute album…can you tell me more about that?
I just got asked by the company putting it together…Dancing Ferret, great name! You just want to be involved with a company with that name. But yes, I have a huge amount of respect for Neil and his work and he’s been a constant source of inspiration, help, interest and just friendship for me. This is just my way of tipping my hat to him. It was just so difficult writing a song about one of the characters from his books. I based my song on Shadow from ‘American Gods’, which again was kinda hard because the guy lives up to his name and he’s not easy to pin down, so the song lives up to that. It’s probably one of the least linear lyrical songs I’ve ever written!

Interesting! I heard you’ve also become firm friends with Martha Wainwright recently – how did that come about?
Yes, Martha, bless her! She’s incredible. Watching Martha and her mum Kate [McGarrigle] and her aunt [Anna McGarrigle] work together, they’re just so funny, they’re like a fucking comedy show, y’know, but the music they make is just exquisite…it’s just like breathing to them and Martha’s grown up with it. It’s real folk music — if I dare use the ‘f’ word — but it is in its essence. It’s not about beards and pullovers, it’s music that is totally about the musician and the people. I’d love to see whether she can sing on one of my records. I have asked her and she said yes, but she’s one of those people who’s quite hard to pin down. She’s a free spirit. We’ll see what happens — I hope she’s still up for it.

Stop me if I’m namedropping too much, but a real added bonus of the new album for me is that you’ve got Kathryn Williams on a few tracks. What inspired you to work together? She’s brilliant, isn’t she?
Superb! We haven’t been friends for that long to be fair. I met Kath for the first time when we were asked to do this strange gig called the ‘Daughters of Albion’, which is an interesting concept. So I met Kathryn and Eliza Carthy and we were like three witches cackling together, like the youngest of the troupe, and it was great fun. Kath has got a wicked sense of humour — she is just such a cool person. I really wanted to get another female voice on the record, because you can become so male-centred — most session musicians and everyone from the engineers to the producers you work with are male — and Kath seemed perfect. She offered at exactly the right time and what she brought to the record is just incredible. The songs she’s on came alive when she sung on them. They were okay tracks just sounding like me, then she came along and put these amazing vocals on them…and the way her brain works in terms of harmony is really female. She’s got an incredibly female take on melody and it’s not obvious, whereas I will always come up with the obvious. I will always stick to rigid harmony and stuff like that. Kathryn will always dance around the melody and she’ll find these intricate details that just make a song. It was great watching her in the studio, and she was four months pregnant at the time!

Yeah? I saw her play at this year’s ‘Daughters Of Albion’ show at The Barbican and she was eight and a half months gone by that point!
Yeah, I kept getting texts from her going, “ooh I’m really ripe now!” [laughs]

Unbelievably, an interviewer once said to Kathryn that she was the “new Katie Melua”, despite having been around and independently releasing records way before she was ever a twinkle in Mike Batt’s eye. Imagine if Harpo’s Ghost were to be a huge commercial hit and an ill-informed journo were to remark that you were the “new Sandi Thom” – how would you react?
I would probably do exactly the same. I would be fucking furious! It’s just lazy, lazy, lazy journalism. Her response was extremely good and that was one of the first things that made me really like Kathryn...when she mentioned wombles. And didn’t she say she wanted to put her in a dustbin and set fire to her records? I brought that up once and Kath said, “ooh don’t mention that!”...I think she bumped into Katie Melua once and had to run. I think she may look like a little dolly but she’s quite tough. I can take ‘er!

And Sandi Thom?
Both! At the same time!

Harpo's Ghost is out now on Sanctuary Records.