a meeting with patti smith

By Peter Lucas Erixon, 2006. Page two

- Thank's for giving me of your time. I'm grateful for that.
- I'm not giving it away. We are both working. And the book that you gave me is really nice, I've looked it through about a hundred times.
- Today at the Spoken Word performance you said that you were a tomboy as a kid.
- As a kid, yeah…
- Tell me about that experience.
- I loved Peter Pan when I was a kid and I just didn't really want to grow up. I wasn't really gender conscious, you know, I wasn't really concerned with my appearance or what I was wearing. I just liked to live and to experience and walk with my dogs and make games with my siblings. I loved this time of life where I didn't have to be concerned with so much social rules and gender roles and things like that. It's the kind of kid that people call tomboy. It's not that you're of any different sexual persuasion, it's more like…you're more like a kid, a being, instead of a young lady or something.
- It's obvious that you have had a great influence because on this too; your freedom, so to speak, within this gender thing.
- For me it wasn't anything special. It's just the way that I am. It's nothing I had to develop or anything. Sometimes it's gotten me into trouble but it's how I am. I think it's important that we all respect each other, but for myself I never wanted to be a slave to…social ideas of behaviour and manner and how we dress… It's important that we respect one another and give each other space but I'd never been very good at adhering to what I felt was unnecessary rules and regulations. So if people were effected by that or inspired by that I don't think it is anything wrong with that. I'm not the kind of person who abuses my freedom, hopefully, and I mean all freedom has its cost in responsibility. If you're gonna live 'outside of society' you still are responsible for your decisions. I mean, I'm not an anarchist, I'm not a nihilist. I just like to, just like you, have a certain freedom of movement, and freedom in the way that I choose how to dress or to be.
- Well, when I was thirteen or fourteen and heard Horses for the first time and saw the picture of you on the cover… - that was certainly very inspiring in my life. Because I was in a similar situation as yourself when I grew up… I think my experience actually a lot like Michael Stipe's…
- Mhm!
- I have of course read what he once wrote about you and how he discovered your music. It could almost have been me, my own experience.
- When I recorded Horses I didn't do anything…that wasn't normal to me. And even the cover of Horses…it was just a day in my life, I got up, I put on the clothes I always wear, Robert (Mapplethorpe) went, and I went to shoot the picture. We didn't have any… - plan!
- Yes, I understand that perfectly.
- But I did have a plan when I recorded the album. My plan was that I wanted to communicate with people like myself, who felt lonesome sometimes, a sort of mavericks in society, people made fun of them because the way they looked or the way they were. I suffered a lot of ridicule when I was young, 'cause I was skinny, sort of weird looking…the things I was interested in seemed out of step where I was brought up, and my ideas were different than other peoples. I wanted to make a record that spoke to people and just reminded them that they weren't alone, that I was thinking about them, that I was trying to do work that sort of spoke for a certain group of people.
- If I am correctly informed Joan Baez was the first music act you ever saw in South Jersey back in 1964.
- I'm trying to think… She wasn't the first music act I ever saw. The first music acts I saw was like Motown revues and things, like Smokey Robinson… When I was young they would come in town on a bus and you would go to an airport and see like Smokey Robinson do two songs and little Stevie Wonder do two songs…it was really great. I saw some r&b groups, I saw Nina Simone… But Joan Baez was the first person I saw within sort of this new wave or new genre of musicians in the early Sixties who were concerned with human rights, were concerned with the invironment, civil rights and I liked her very much. And she seemed more like a person that I would like, 'cause she wasn't American looking, you know…the blond pop singer or something. She was somebody that I more physically could relate to. And seeing Joan Baez I was introduced to Bob Dylan through her, I saw her and one day she brought up Bob Dylan. So she introduced me a whole genre of folk music and protest music and, most important, Bob Dylan.
- Has Joan Baez influenced you in any way? I've heard you saying that she was the one to teach you to sing "transgendered songs".
- Sometimes I joke about that. You know, sometimes people would say 'you sing Gloria, it's a guy thing to a girl'. But Joan Baez sang a lot of songs - like Farewell Angelina and a lot of other Bob Dylan songs or certain folk songs - from that male point of view and she didn't seem to be concerned with the gender role she was singing from. I was almost given permission by listening to her records, because she set a precedent for that.
- You met her in Italy earlier this year.
- Yes!
- And you attended a concert in Trento.
- Yes I did, it was really great.
- And you sang together with her in her dressing room.
- Yes, it's true. We sang The Trees They Do Grow High together in her dressing room, which was very moving for me.
- Did you enjoy the concert.
- Yes. I cried through some of it because I listened to her when I was so young and she did Fennario and I remember hearing that when I was like fifteen, so it brought back a lot of memories. She's got a beautiful voice. She's still got a very beautiful voice. Strong.
- Let us radically change subject. What is your opinion of the war in Iraq.
- Well, first of all that it's immoral, illegal, idiotic, stupid. I don't believe in striking any country, occupying, invading and destroying it. I mean, it's obvious - only an idiot would have done such a thing. It doesn't say much for our country that such an idiot is the president of it. I'm so disgusted with the whole thing that it's…difficult to even talk about it. It was wrong to do it and now we look at the result: terrorism is just escalating, there's chaos in their country, we destroyed their infrastructure, their schools, their mosques, their libraries, it's like the Wild West that country and the money we've been trying to pump into it has been ill used, there is huge amounts of corruption. And, of course, to say nothing of the loss of human lives. About three thousand Americans and who knows how many tens of thousands of iraqes.
- Do you consider yourself a pacifist?
- No, I just consider myself a human being that has a common sense. But to say I'm a pacifist…you know, if somebody gave me trouble and a bunch of shit I would defend myself. If somebody tried to hurt my kid I might shoot him in the balls, so…I can't say I'm a pacifist but I certainly don't believe in war. I don't believe that there is any righteous war.
- Speaking about your kids. You have a daughter, Jesse, who is nineteen?
- Yes, and a son, Jackson, who's twentyfour.
- What are they doing?
- My son's a labourer and also a great musician so he's gonna play on my record. My daughter is enrolling for college and she plays the piano and she's also going to play on my record.
- They live in New York too?
- My son's lives in Michigan where he was born and my daughter lives with me. That's nice.
- I know that you aren't too fond of what you see when you look around you in the music business.
- No… I find it embarassing…MTV Music Awards and all of that. When I was young rock n' roll was more revolutionary, t'was different from the grammies and all that. That was main stream culture. And I thought that rock n' roll should never congratulate itself, we shouldn't be giving each others awards. So I find it kind of embaressing that they do that.
- But I know you are an optimistic person too.
- Rock n' roll is for me a very very important form of expression, intensly American, one of the few really important contributions America has given through art to culture. I think rock n' roll holds within it the infinite possibilities of communication, global communication. Rock n' roll has within it the power to communicate, merged with poetry, revolutionary ideas, spiritual ideas. I still believe in it's possibilities. It depends on how people use it as a form. One can use it as a way to make a lot of money or to become some kind of indulgent star who just runs around in big limousines snorting cocain or one can, actually, write a song like Ohio. Or Street Fightin' Man. There's millions of great songs.
- Tell me about the new album you are working on.
- It's a covers album. We are self-produced, we pretty much produced our last albums. Lenny co-produced Gone Again and since then we've been producing our own records. Actually I don't know when it will released because it depends when we get it done and what the schedule of the company is. I'm not really worrying about that. We're gathering our forces, we're gonna be doing certain cuts with some of our friends and that'll be fun. And also, as I said, my son and daughter will be playing on the record. I'm looking forward to the participation of our friends and family and other band members, and we'll see when it comes out. We're just taking it song by song, and we're doing it differently than usual. Usually we go in a studio and hold up for six weeks 'til it's done. We're sort of moving around this time. Like Lenny and I are going to London to do a cut. We just go to different places. I'm gonna go to Detroit to do one of the songs with my son. Different songs will be in different places. It's songs that I like. I'm not gonna tell the songs because it's a secret, but there's a Nirvana song, a Bob Dylan song, Gene Clark, a Lou Reed song, a lot of Jefferson Airplane, Tim Buckley. I like the Sixtees music, obviously. It's songs that I always wanted to do. But we're trying to do them differently, to interpret them our way. That's always an interesting challenge. The theme is…often that…especially that I like the lyrics, it's very important… And also that they meant something to me in my life.
- So has your return to recording and to the music scene been rewarding for you. You have been back now for…eleven years?
- …No, more like nine. I have never really returned to any 'scene', I don't like hanging out on any big rock n' roll scene. I do my work and that's been rewarding. I have met a lot of people. I have lost a lot of people, but I have met, you know, Michael Stipe, Flea, and… I have worked again with Tom Verlaine. Bob Dylan. I've been really lucky to participate in a lot of interesting tours and concerts and recordings with my friends and musicians…working with Lenny Kaye… And also doing a lot of rallys, anti-war rallys and all kinds of things in context with my band and music. It's an important thing that I do but it is only one thing, 'cause I'm always writing and taking photographs and painting and of course, the most important, still raising my children, staying in communication and contact with them. And it's also one of the primary ways I make a living, so it's a good job.
- And you enjoy it?
- Yeah. I mean it's sometimes hard work, but if I didn't feel good about what I was doing I wouldn't do it.
- How did you manage to keep your integrity so incredibly well all these years.
- …Well, first because I never entered rock n' roll with any expectations of huge material gain. I entered into rock n' roll as a political statement. I never really expected to record or to be involved in it so long, but that's how it evolved. I try too give back, hopefully, as much as I get from it. It's a job, we're being paid for it, our services are being paid for, we are not doing it for free. But I try, on the other hand, to participate and to give what I can, not only to earn the money but to add something positive. It's an exchange, you know. Just about every job we ever had we try to give as much as we possibly can in terms of our energy, our focus. As I said, we try to remember the possibilities within rock n' roll. Every concert that we have is always an opportunity to communicate with people about how they're feeling, about our environment, about the economic corruption on our planet, our governments, and also health issues, aids… I always look at concerts as a way to… You're hanging out with people for an hour and a half or two hours, within those two hours, hopefully, you can have a good time, you're gonna have some struggle, som akward moments, some moments of illumination and some discussion about the world view. That's what having a concert means to me. And as much as we can do that, we do.
- It was obvious last night.
- You know, I'm going to be sixty at the end of this year. I think it is part of our responsibility to sort of present…a lot of different things…hopefully a good example, or an example of a survivor, of a positive worker and a person who tried to do their job as good as they could, and also who cares.
- A responsible person.
- Yeah. Responsible. You know, really, in my whole life…even if I in my earlier years acted like an asshole or was aggressive or cocky or whatever I was - I still was always, I think, or most of the time, a responsible person. I've never been really irresponsible. I was the oldest of four kids, often I had to help raise those kids, and I have been working most of my life, so… I try to keep those things in mind, have some work ethic sense. I'm very conscious of…if people come to see you they're paying their money, they're giving you their time they could be spending somewhere else, one has a duty to acknowledge their presence and communicate something, something meaningful. And also have fun!
- And you really have fun?
- Sometimes. I mean, I always have some fun. Sometimes it's just hard work, like last night, delivering an acoustic performance. Sometimes we have just acoustic guitars in front of ten thousand people…and since we're not folk singers… Lenny and I are part of a rock n' roll band, it's sort of our prime directive to sort of go into music through rock n' roll, and it's a challenge to do a concert that big with acoustic guitars. So some of it was hard work yesterday and there were certain songs where I really had to concentrate, other songs I were practically laughing 'cause there was so much fun. Even doing Because The Night…even though it's a popular song, but it's our song and I'm proud of it and the people sang along and I love when the people sing. That always makes me so happy, it's just so liberating when all the people start singing. So I had a lot of fun during that.
- I liked the new song you had in your set last night.
- It's just a little song. I have several of these little songs and probably next year I'll record them. Sometimes when I have a new song I'm working on I just make myself do it live because a song will grow ten times quicker if you go through that, although it's stressful and a little risky to perform a song you haven't even quite written yet. Lenny never even heard it, I wrote it by myself, it's just simple chords, but we're practically writing some of it on stage, I didn't have all the lyrics written. Like yesterday it was struggling along and today, except for one or two lines, it was perfect. I feel that the effort that I made in this little song here was enormous, it would have taken us weeks and weeks and weeks with work instead of two concerts. Because you're forced to focus much stronger when there is thousands of people in front of you. Also I learned something about the song. I thought that the song was much more delicate, today I learned that the song has more…not aggressiveness…but it's a little stronger than I first imagined.
- It was a strong song.
- Yeah, but I thought it was gonna be sort of like…delicate…I was surprised, but that was because I have been working on it by myself with just a light touch on the acoustic guitar and then with the adrenalin of performing live I discovered a whole new level of the song.
- I happen to adore the six pieces in your book Woolgathering. I really like that book. It's a beautiful book too, a small book that you can have in your pocket.
- I was proud of that book. My father was always very critical of my writing and when he read that it was the first time he ever told me that I was a good writer. So I was very proud of that.
- During what period did you write those pieces?
- I wrote it in… Actually right before Fred died.
- All six of them?
- Yes. I wrote them in…1993? …1994? 1994, I think.
- It came out in 1992.
- Oh, it did?... Oh, I was thinking of The Coral Sea, sorry. I know that I finished it on my fortyfifth birthday. So it was finished on December 30th… - 1991, I think. So you're right. I remember they needed it before the first of the year and I had to Federal Express it on my birthday because the next day was New Years Eve and I just finished it in the morning of my birthday.
- What can you say about the publishing company.
- Hanuman. It was this guy Raymond Foye, and I think Francesco Clemente was part of the company. Raymond Foye did live in the Chelsea Hotel and he put a whole series of these books out. And one of the ways he got me to do the book was…'cause I was living in Michigan…is he sent me the book he did by Jean Genet, and when I saw that I fell in love with the book and I thought yeah, I want to do one of these books…
- You published a new book of poems last year, Auguries of Innocence. And now you're writing a self biographical book, Just Kids.
- It's almost done. It's like eighty percent done. I'm just struggling along with it. It's hard to write. It's also hard to let go of, because once I finish it I really have finished that writing and that period of my life.
- Is it a large book?
- It's substantial. A couple of hundred pages. It's a memoir. It's about Robert (Mapplethorpe). A lot of it has to do with when I first met Robert… A little bit about our childhood but mostly about the period from 1967 to 1972 when we lived together in Brooklyn and the Chelsea Hotel, and then it skips to the end of his life. It's about art and friendship. Or art and love, one could say.
- Do you consider yourself a writer as much as a musician?
- I don't consider myself a musician at all. I hope to consider myself a writer, I could say that. But I would never call myself a musician. I do sing and I think I understand about singing, but I'm not really a trained singer and…I'm a pretty flawed singer and I don't really play any musical instrument except a little you know, enough to get by. I play a little guitar, a little piano, a little clarinette, by ear. In the Seventies I really focused on electric guitar, the sonic aspects of electric guitar, and I was really good…you know, with feedback and things like that… But I think I made all my essential statements in terms of the electric guitar already, I don't think I will be developing that anymore. But my self identity is, you know… A worker. A writer. A mother. And then everything else, I do a lot of different things but I don't like to call myself a photographer, I don't like to call myself a painter - I do these things. So I guess the one consistent thing in my life… I've been writing since I was eight years old, so over fifty years I've been writing, so I guess that's where I feel the most comfortable identifying myself. I'm always writing. I have so many projects unpublished and I am always amusing myself one way or the other, writing new poems or… Right now I'm writing some kind of…I don't know what to call it… If (André) Bretons Nadja was a detective book, that's what I'm writing (laugh). I can't explain it really. I'm always writing something. I always have a notebook with me, I'm always taking photographs, always imagining scenarios, I'm always reading… Lately I spent a few months reading Henning Manckell's Kurt Wallander books. I love them.
- You do?
- Yes. I'm really sad 'cause I just finished the last one.
- I'll send you some really good Swedish books.
- But you know I like detective books…
- Well, then I'll send you a very very good novel with a criminal plot.
- Great… I like W.G. Sebald too, do you know him?
- Yes, sure I do, I've read him.
- I just reread The Thief's Journal (Jean Genet). I have a few books that I read… I just reread Hunger (Knut Hamsun). I just reread The Journey To The East (Herman Hesse). I'm always reading. My favourite book is probably Glasbeedgame (Herman Hesse). If you'd put Glasbeedgame and Peter Pan together you'd have the perfect book.
- So how do you feel about turning sixty in December. Does it feel good?
- I'll make it good. For the first time in my life chronology is really profound, 'cause as a human being and a mother I can get a sense of my own mortality. 'Cause ones life is probably two thirds over, if you have a long life. For a part of me doesn't have any comprehension of what that is, I still have that Peter Pan sensibility where my chronology makes no sense to me. But on the other hand I know it's true so I try to be responsible and respectfull to that landmark. I try to take pretty good care of myself. But also it makes me contemplate about how I want to spend my next decade. These last year I wandered around quite a bit, travelling…not even working. Traveling. Sort of exploring.
- For your own pleasure?
- Well, yeah, and I've been studying. Without the band. Or without anyone. Just on my own.
- All over the world? To certain places?
- Yeah, like…the minister of Culture in Paris gave me an office in the palais so I could write, so I stayed in Paris for a while. I was working on a installation in a museum in Milan, so I stayed there for a while and…where I sort of have work. Instead of going in a rock n' roll band, one night here and one night here and one night here, I pick some cities and just stay. I stayed in Rome for five days, stayed in Vienna for a week and got to know the architecture.
- You didn't have any friends with you.
- No. All alone.
- You like it?
- Yeah, I mean it's lonely sometimes but on the whole I like it. I like to be able to stand in front of a building for ten minutes or twenty minutes until I get the shot that I want. If I'm taking photographs I definitely like to be alone, because I don't wanna feel like I'm wasting peoples time and stuff like that. Sometimes I'll get fixated on something, you know. I find a statue of Joan of Arc and I'll spend half the day looking at it and then take pictures of it, sitting and contemplating it. I like the freedom to be able to do that.
- You have a six or seven record contract with Columbia?
- No. I only had two. This one is my last, the cover album. So after that we'll see. I know what I wanna do after that. I wanna do an album of these little songs, as the one you heard. It's just my little songs I write on my own. They are simpler, and I want them to be musically simpler. So that'll probably be my next project. I don't know who I'll do that with. Whoever wants it I guess.

PEQUOD, a Swedish literary website

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