An Interview With Mitski
By: Drew Allen | Photographs by: Bao Ngo
DA: “First Love/Late Spring” is #3 on our best of the year list for 2014. It is by far one of the most addicting songs I’ve encountered this year. Where did you get the inspiration for it?
Mitski: Hell yeah, thanks. I got the inspiration from real life. I was falling in love with someone when I seriously could not afford to, considering where my life was at the moment. But it happened anyway because you can’t control that shit.
DA: In the chorus of “First Love/Late Spring” what does the line you sing in Japanese translate to?
Mitski: It roughly means “my chest is about to burst.”
DA: It’s safe to say that many people feel a strong connection to Bury Me At Make Out Creek. It has so many sad and beautiful layers. What were you looking to accomplish when you were composing the album?
Mitski: I’m so glad you got so much out of this record, and that’s honestly redeeming to me because I made it for purely selfish reasons. I wasn’t thinking of who would listen to it while I was writing or recording it, I just needed to write those songs, I was desperate, there was no real practical reason.
DA: What is your favorite song to perform off the album?
Mitski: “I Don’t Smoke.”
DA: Excluding your masterpiece from the running, what was the best album of 2014?
Mitski: Run the Jewels 2
DA: You are constantly interacting with fans on social media which sets you apart from plenty of artists out there, is that something you plan on doing throughout your whole career? What motivates you to do this?
Mitski: I hope I can keep doing it! Lately it’s been stressful because it puts me in a vulnerable position, where people I don’t know who I’ve never met can come at me with whatever their emotions or issues are and hold me responsible for them. I’ve had a bunch of angry boys threaten to rape me, for example, and I’m like “do you know that I’m a person? I’m not just an image on a screen?” I guess that’s also why I hope I can keep interacting with people on a real personal level, to remind them that I’m not a symbol but a real person with a real life, and I in turn always have in mind that whoever is reaching out to me is a real person with a real complex life, and I don’t want to treat them like they’re just another tweet or email.
DA: What song on the album reflects where you are currently at in life the most accurately?
Mitski: “Drunk Walk Home” because I’m still broke and mad.
DA: What is your favorite kind of donut?
Mitski: All of the donuts.
DA: What is the best concert you’ve ever been to?
Mitski: Hmmmm. Honestly? Billy Elliot, the Musical.
DA: How does it feel to be praised and recognized by major publications such as the NY Times and Rolling Stone?
Mitski: It doesn’t feel real, because in a way it’s not real. I’m still living day to day, I’m still a big baby, I’m still always anxious about money, I still embarrass myself every day.
DA: Who are we most likely to hear the influence of in your music?
Mitski: I don’t sound like the artists I regularly listen to, like M.I.A, who we talked about. I think my real influences are out of my control, which are the things that entered my brain when I was a kid growing up. So that includes Japanese songs my mother sang in the house, and a lot of the Smithsonian Folkways recordings that my father was constantly playing. My father was obsessed with folk music from around the world, and I think the countless artists who performed them are my biggest influences.
DA: I know that you have said you admire M.I.A. because she “doesn’t fit any stereotype of feminity.” Who are some icons of femininity you are particularly captivated by?
Mitski: Bell Hooks obviously, Bjork because she’s been doing her damn thing for 30 damn years, Liz Pelly who’s the editor of my favorite publication The Media, ummm so, so many more women. I feel like we’re amassing an army.
Originally published at www.indi-visualist.com on February 5, 2015.
