Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: Evening everyone, and welcome to this new episode of Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: Not just a new episode, but a sneaky bonus episode.
Speaker 2: Regular listeners will know that we put one of these
Speaker 2: out at midnight on a Thursday every fortnight, but well
Speaker 2: we were feeling generous, so we've thrown in an extra one.
Speaker 2: Think of it as a late Christmas present or something.
Speaker 2: Last week was Stuart's conversation with Welsh artist Gueno. Check
Speaker 2: that one out if you haven't already. Fascinating hearing about
Speaker 2: her experience of leaving home at seventeen, leaving Cardiff and
Speaker 2: going to Vegas to start in Michael Flatley's Lord of
Speaker 2: the Dance, amongst other things. Some great stories from Gueno,
Speaker 2: so do check that one out. We will have another
Speaker 2: podcast next week as well, so loads of Midnight Chats
Speaker 2: for you at the moment. But onto my guest tonight,
Speaker 2: someone who has seen a lot of life, as they say.
Speaker 2: Back in the late nineties, Casey Spooner, an artist and
Speaker 2: photography assistant at the time, got together with the classically
Speaker 2: trained songwriter Warren Fisher in New York and formed the
Speaker 2: art pop duo Fisher Spooner. Unbelievably, that's two decades ago now,
Speaker 2: and as Casey says in the conversation, You're about to hear,
Speaker 2: it was never designed as a career band. The group
Speaker 2: was supposed to be this conceptual, outlandish of the moment
Speaker 2: electro clash project that was deliberately timed with the turn
Speaker 2: of the millennium and all of the hedonism and the
Speaker 2: hysteria that accompanied that weird period. Fisher Spooner famously played
Speaker 2: their first show in a Starbucks in the East Village
Speaker 2: and were signed by the label Ministry of Sound for
Speaker 2: a fee that at the time was rumored to be
Speaker 2: around a million pounds. Now, you've got to remember this
Speaker 2: was happening in an era when the newly connected world
Speaker 2: was getting very excited about the New York indie rock scene,
Speaker 2: The Strokes, YAA Yeahs, Interpol. Fisher Spooner were the flamboyant
Speaker 2: alternative to all that, both in the way they looked
Speaker 2: and the way they sounded, with tracks like Emerge and
Speaker 2: their debut album Number One. So it's easy to forget
Speaker 2: their influence too on the likes of Scissor Sisters a
Speaker 2: few years later, and then much later the likes of
Speaker 2: Lady Gaga and Kati Perry. Two albums came after number one,
Speaker 2: Odyssey in two thousand and five and two thousand and
Speaker 2: Nine's Entertainment. That album in particular struggled to make an impact,
Speaker 2: and Casey goes into the reasons for that. But there
Speaker 2: is a new album. It's called Sir, and it's out now,
Speaker 2: and while it's taken almost a decade, there is good
Speaker 2: reason for that, all of which Casey goes into, it's
Speaker 2: kind of extraordinary what's happened in between this and their
Speaker 2: last release. Interestingly as well, Sir is produced by Michael Stipe,
Speaker 2: formerly of Rim of course, but on a personal level,
Speaker 2: he was Casey's first boyfriend, his first gay relationship, So
Speaker 2: he talks about that and what it was like going
Speaker 2: to Michael's studio in Athens, Georgia to make the album
Speaker 2: during a period where a lot of other things in
Speaker 2: his life were not necessarily going to plan. So for
Speaker 2: all of the delays and the challenges, though, it does
Speaker 2: feel like all of that happened for a reason, and
Speaker 2: I've got the impression that this is very much the
Speaker 2: beginning of a new chapter. Thank you again to Casey
Speaker 2: He was great company, really entertaining. When he arrived for
Speaker 2: our conversation, he was wearing a spectacular bushy coat and
Speaker 2: some very cool aviators, great mustache as well. An amazing life,
Speaker 2: an amazing character. This is Casey from Fisher Spooner on
Speaker 2: Midnight Chats. Casey, welcome to our Midnight Chats podcast. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much, thanks for joining us. You've pretty much
Speaker 2: just got into London, cold old London.
Speaker 3: I just got down last night.
Speaker 2: Am I right in thinking it was your birthday a
Speaker 2: couple of days ago.
Speaker 3: It was my birthday on Friday, February second, And how
Speaker 3: did you celebrate? Oh? My god. I had an incredible birthday.
Speaker 3: It started on Thursday night, at midnight. I was at
Speaker 3: this little bar called Lapel in Paris and just had
Speaker 3: some drinks, hung out, got a great birthday kiss. It
Speaker 3: was a blue moon. My day started super early, lots
Speaker 3: of phone calls, lots of friends. Went to the Esadine
Speaker 3: Aliyah show, which was incredible with a friend of my Jerome,
Speaker 3: and then I had a kind of a There was
Speaker 3: a photographer I met at the bar the night before
Speaker 3: and we did a photo shoot in the afternoon. So
Speaker 3: we did this great fun photo shoot. One of the
Speaker 3: photos just went live on Vogue dot com today three
Speaker 3: days later. And then went had an amazing dinner this
Speaker 3: really cool little brasserie down by the river, and then
Speaker 3: I went to this cabaret in Paris that I love
Speaker 3: called the Manco, and had birthday cake and drank way
Speaker 3: too much vodka, and you know, ran home and passed
Speaker 3: out at four am.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, what's time to do with that? Finish?
Speaker 2: That's great?
Speaker 3: And people wanted to keep going, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I got I'm you know. And then I recovered a
Speaker 3: little bit on Saturday and went to my favorite cafe
Speaker 3: in my neighborhood, La pro Gray and had to croak
Speaker 3: my dam. And then I went to the Cartier Foundation
Speaker 3: and saw the Malik Citabey show.
Speaker 2: You've just recently moved to Paris from New York, So
Speaker 2: was part of the attraction of moving to Paris just
Speaker 2: all of the cultural options You've been able to kind
Speaker 2: of dip in to see things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I feel like in Paris, I'm constantly
Speaker 3: seeing art and around culture and music, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's such a beautiful city and it has such a
Speaker 3: long history of culture that you know. I didn't plan
Speaker 3: to go see the Aliyah show. I just ran into
Speaker 3: a friend and all of a sudden, I'm in this
Speaker 3: beautiful exhibition. And then I had been trying to go
Speaker 3: to the Malik Citabey show for a long time because
Speaker 3: I love the Cartier Foundation. They've done a lot of
Speaker 3: great shows over the years that I love. I went
Speaker 3: to Paris and I just I've never felt like I've
Speaker 3: been able to see everything, and now even living there,
Speaker 3: I'm constantly you know, I've missed the Forsyth show, I
Speaker 3: got the Irving Pin show, and I still haven't been
Speaker 3: to the Oh my god, what's the museum. I'm Gustave Moreau.
Speaker 3: It was one of my favorite painters and he has
Speaker 3: a museum that I didn't even know about. And I
Speaker 3: finally made it to the Rodain Museum, but it was
Speaker 3: during the Dior Ball, so I kind of have to
Speaker 3: go back.
Speaker 2: So there's like it's busy, diary not a lot.
Speaker 3: And I made it to Peril Chazz finally, but I
Speaker 3: never made it to Jim Morrison's grave. I only made
Speaker 3: it to Oscar Wilde's grave. I need to find Maria
Speaker 3: Colossus Gray, you know, so I need to. I mean,
Speaker 3: I love per La Chez.
Speaker 2: So what prompted the move to Paris was it? Is
Speaker 2: it like a kind of a fresh start thing, just
Speaker 2: once to do something different.
Speaker 3: It was really it was an accident, honestly. I finished
Speaker 3: shooting two music big music videos, one for Top Brazil
Speaker 3: and one for Butterscotch Goddamn, and then the next day
Speaker 3: I went to Brazil for two weeks with a friend
Speaker 3: with some friends of mine, this promoter from New York, Ricardo,
Speaker 3: who does a particle Harder and so he was doing
Speaker 3: Harder parties in Brazil. And because it was like a
Speaker 3: Brazilian theme too, a couple of songs on the record,
Speaker 3: I thought it was good strategy to go and also
Speaker 3: a nice way to recover from work. So a group
Speaker 3: of us went down and I did two like little
Speaker 3: nightclub performances and DJed one night and did a fashion editorial,
Speaker 3: shot a music video for the song oh Rio, and
Speaker 3: then I raced back to New York. I packed a
Speaker 3: carry on for two days and flew to Paris to
Speaker 3: just comfort two days to see a premiere a friend
Speaker 3: of mine, Alex Eckman. It's a big choreographer and he
Speaker 3: had a peace premiering at the Gardnier, so I came
Speaker 3: in to go see his piece premiere at the Garnier.
Speaker 3: You know, I had these incredible two days. I came in,
Speaker 3: I went and recorded with Mere Way. I you know,
Speaker 3: had this amazing fitting with this new designer Ludwick, who
Speaker 3: made an evening gown for me to wear to the opera.
Speaker 3: And then I just had this like kind of magical
Speaker 3: night where we had the run of the Garnier. We
Speaker 3: drank way too much champagne. We took all of our
Speaker 3: clothes off. It was a scandal. I was hungover. I
Speaker 3: had a bit of a romance, and I just woke
Speaker 3: up the next day and I didn't feel like leaving.
Speaker 3: I knew I also didn't want to be in New
Speaker 3: York for the winter, and so it was a lot
Speaker 3: of things. It was also being outside of the political
Speaker 3: climate of America felt really nice. I was out of
Speaker 3: kind of the crazy zone, not hearing about American politics
Speaker 3: all the time, and so I sort of relaxed a
Speaker 3: little bit. And my lease was coming up on my apartment,
Speaker 3: and you know, I'm single and didn't work. Was kind
Speaker 3: of done, so it just weirdly was this moment where.
Speaker 2: It sounds like the planets kind of aligned and we're
Speaker 2: telling you something.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then a week later, I had decided that
Speaker 3: I was going to leave New York and I was
Speaker 3: going to sublet my apartment and I thought I was
Speaker 3: going to move to Madrid because I have a real
Speaker 3: strong connection to Madrid. I went to the airport and
Speaker 3: I missed my return flight right before the holidays by
Speaker 3: five minutes, and you know, I had to carry on.
Speaker 3: It was fifty five minutes before the flight. They still
Speaker 3: wouldn't let me on. So I knew when I missed
Speaker 3: that flight because I had scavenged to find a return
Speaker 3: flight and everything was sold out and extremely expensive because
Speaker 3: it was a week before Christmas. So then I missed
Speaker 3: that flight. I went back into the city and I ran.
Speaker 3: I went to an opening at a gallery Bleiche Hurtling
Speaker 3: and Danielle like Bleiche's an old friend of mine. And
Speaker 3: when I got there, he was like, what what are
Speaker 3: you doing here? And I, you know, I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I just missed my flight. And he was like, where
Speaker 3: are you staying? And I was like I don't know,
Speaker 3: and he was like, well, you're moving in with me
Speaker 3: and I was like okay, and he's like, what are
Speaker 3: you doing for dinner? And I was like, I don't
Speaker 3: have any plans. And he was like, well, you're coming
Speaker 3: to dinner and I was like okay. And then he
Speaker 3: said and you're moving to Paris. And when he said it,
Speaker 3: it was like one of those moments where you're just like.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think I am shit.
Speaker 3: I think wow, you just articulated what I didn't really realize.
Speaker 3: I was already thinking. And so then from there, I
Speaker 3: spent the holidays in Paris by myself, which was kind
Speaker 3: of a little lonely but kind of amazing. Yeah. I
Speaker 3: found a room in the Marae and I called my
Speaker 3: assistant in New York and I had him pack up
Speaker 3: the New York apartment and I put everything in storage
Speaker 3: and I never I'm still you know, I came with
Speaker 3: a carry on and.
Speaker 2: That's it sounds like you've been too busy to miss
Speaker 2: New York in any way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going back. I'm going back to New York,
Speaker 3: you know, this week for album release, so we have
Speaker 3: two release parties and there's you know a lot of
Speaker 3: stuff going on, so I'll go. I miss my friends,
Speaker 3: you know. Of course, but it feels good, and I've
Speaker 3: you know, I really have always wanted to speak another
Speaker 3: I'm terrible. I don't speak any language other than English,
Speaker 3: and I've studied, you know, I've taken classes, but it
Speaker 3: never really sinks in. So I know, the only way
Speaker 3: I'm really going to learn French or Spanish or you know,
Speaker 3: any of these Romance languages is I have to be
Speaker 3: immersed in it. So this is a way for me
Speaker 3: to not be xenophobic.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the effect that politics can have on your life.
Speaker 2: How did you feel that person when you're in America?
Speaker 2: Did it just feel a bit claustrophobic, like you couldn't
Speaker 2: get away from it? We explain that part.
Speaker 3: Of this, well, I mean, the night of the election
Speaker 3: was and I don't say I don't say his name
Speaker 3: because I don't I feel like it gives it power,
Speaker 3: so I just don't say the name. But the night
Speaker 3: of the election was so traumatizing, and I was you know,
Speaker 3: you couldn't sleep. Yes, I felt claustrophobic. I felt like
Speaker 3: I was living in some kind of a nightmare, like
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe this is possible. And so like panic, claustrophobic, denial,
Speaker 3: and so I was going to leave New York. Basically,
Speaker 3: I was looking for an apartment in New York last
Speaker 3: November and I kind of decided that I was gonna
Speaker 3: leave New York because it was too difficult and too expensive.
Speaker 3: And I kind of reluctantly went to look at an
Speaker 3: apartment and it was a great apartment, and my friends
Speaker 3: were like, you really should take it. I had an
Speaker 3: appointment to meet the landlord, the landlady, and it was
Speaker 3: supposed to be on the Tuesday of the election, and
Speaker 3: she slid the meeting to eleven o'clock on the Wednesday
Speaker 3: after the election, and so I was up all night
Speaker 3: long from the election, and I went to meet her.
Speaker 3: And when I went to meet the landlady to talk
Speaker 3: about the apartment, you know, I was like, listen, I
Speaker 3: don't know why I'm meeting you. I don't know why
Speaker 3: I would rent an apartment. I don't know why I
Speaker 3: would stay in the United States. I don't know why
Speaker 3: I would stay in New York. You know, I'm I'm
Speaker 3: I'm out. I got money in the bank, I can
Speaker 3: go anywhere. I'm I was like, I'm I'm leaving, and
Speaker 3: the landlady was very aggressive and she was like, no,
Speaker 3: you're staying. You should stay. And I don't know if
Speaker 3: it's because she was a Polish immigrant and she had
Speaker 3: feelings about the United States or but she really was
Speaker 3: very aggressive with me, and I did everything I could
Speaker 3: to not take the apartment. I was like, look, i'm
Speaker 3: an artist, I have terrible credit. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: get approved. She was like, no problem, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: Someone will make someone else sign something. And then she
Speaker 3: was like, the rent is X amount of dollars. I
Speaker 3: was like, I can't forward that. She's like, fine, I'll
Speaker 3: lower it, you know, six hundred, I'll lower the rent.
Speaker 3: She lowered the rent. No one does that in New York.
Speaker 3: She lowered the rent, and then I even avoided I
Speaker 3: was busy in rehearsals getting ready for show Mexico City.
Speaker 3: I avoided filing the application for the apartment, and she
Speaker 3: asked me to file applications. So finally, you know, this sweet,
Speaker 3: sweet Polish woman kind of forced me to stay in
Speaker 3: New York and rent this gorgeous apartment for one more year.
Speaker 3: And I think it was good because it well, I
Speaker 3: needed to finish the album. I needed to finish mixing.
Speaker 3: I needed to kind of finish everything that had been
Speaker 3: in process. But you know, it also gave me the
Speaker 3: opportunity to I don't know. I mean, I felt bad
Speaker 3: about leaving New York. And the thing that I deliberated was,
Speaker 3: was I being you know, disloyal or unpatriotic because I'm
Speaker 3: not there kind of fighting for the nation that I
Speaker 3: believe America that I believe in.
Speaker 2: Did you feel yourself and presumably yourself and other people
Speaker 2: around you really wrestling with your identity as an American
Speaker 2: post that action result?
Speaker 3: No, because I don't think that represents America. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, he didn't win by the popular vote. There's
Speaker 3: a whole electoral college thing, and so the actual numbers
Speaker 3: are the majority of the United States did not vote
Speaker 3: for him, So the majority of the country is sane.
Speaker 3: You know. I live in New York also, so New
Speaker 3: York is kind of you know, the more exceptional kind
Speaker 3: of land, very you know, mixing of cultures and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of tolerance. And New York is such a
Speaker 3: magical place because it's this you know, all these extremes
Speaker 3: of like wealth and power, but also this kind of earthiness.
Speaker 3: It's I mean, my life in New York. I really
Speaker 3: mix with a lot of people, and so you feel
Speaker 3: that is the best kind of America. And so I
Speaker 3: have a lot of faith in the kind of the
Speaker 3: ideals of democracy and American values. But a friend of mine,
Speaker 3: Kate Hardy, an artist, said something that's really stuck with me,
Speaker 3: and it's something that I'm trying to put into practice,
Speaker 3: is that I come from the South. I come from
Speaker 3: a very conservative family. They're all Trump supporters. They all
Speaker 3: voted for Trump. I said the name, let's see, it's bad.
Speaker 3: And my friend Kate, her mother is a judge in Texas,
Speaker 3: and Kate said to me, she said, you know, if
Speaker 3: we can't convince our families not to vote for this person,
Speaker 3: who can we convince. So now as we go into
Speaker 3: midterm elections, I've sort of taken it upon myself to
Speaker 3: try to figure out how to engage with my family
Speaker 3: and to have political discussions and how to convince them
Speaker 3: that when they support this administration, they're actually working against
Speaker 3: me on a very personal level.
Speaker 2: You managed to do that without wanting to run out
Speaker 2: of the house screaming on Thanksgiving, then.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that is definitely you know something I
Speaker 3: have done, and I have to deal with. But I'm
Speaker 3: trying to change the way I connect with people who
Speaker 3: disagree with me, and so I think that's really the
Speaker 3: big lesson for me, is that to not come at
Speaker 3: it with anger and not to come with I mean,
Speaker 3: anger is awesome, and I've been enjoying being angry and
Speaker 3: you know, combative and aggressive. But also if I want
Speaker 3: to have an impact on people like my family, you know,
Speaker 3: anger isn't the way. And so I'm trying to grow
Speaker 3: because of this situation and use this horrible experience as
Speaker 3: a way to change the way I talk about politics
Speaker 3: and change the way I relate to people that disagree
Speaker 3: with me.
Speaker 2: Sounds like you've taken some personal positives from a not
Speaker 2: great experience, obviously, but do you think I mean, it's
Speaker 2: very hard to talk about whether America as a whole
Speaker 2: because you can't really speak for America, But do you
Speaker 2: think there are bigger lessons that have been learned from
Speaker 2: this or could be learned. Do you think there's a positive,
Speaker 2: any positives there in the future, or are you just
Speaker 2: still in the anger stage.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been exciting. I was never big into
Speaker 3: protest and I was very passive politically the day after
Speaker 3: the election, I went and protested and it was the
Speaker 3: only thing that made me feel good. And it was beautiful. Actually,
Speaker 3: everyone marched up Fifth Avenue and everyone gathered around you
Speaker 3: know Who's hideous building. The energy was intoxicating and incredible.
Speaker 3: I had never experienced like being in that kind of
Speaker 3: a space with that kind of energy kind of gave
Speaker 3: me a different perspective and a renewed faith on protest.
Speaker 3: I always kind of looked at it. It's like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, like drudgery or like work or an obligation.
Speaker 3: I never thought of it as like therapeutic and a
Speaker 3: release and community and connection and kind of spiritual and
Speaker 3: so you know, that's a positive. I think it's made
Speaker 3: people really think about how to make changes and how
Speaker 3: to People are being more thoughtful now, I think because
Speaker 3: if you if we're lazy and we're not vigilant, you
Speaker 3: end up with, you know, a situation like this. So
Speaker 3: now it feels like, oh, we've got work to do.
Speaker 2: I'll ask you about how that feeling, that kind of
Speaker 2: proactivity that came into my mind the new album sir,
Speaker 2: But before we do that, it's been a while since
Speaker 2: you've done you've promoted a new album. Since you've done
Speaker 2: all this come and done the interviews and yeah, talked
Speaker 2: about yourself, et cetera, et cetera. So how does it
Speaker 2: feel to be back on that in the in the
Speaker 2: promotional trail?
Speaker 3: If you like, I guess you're right. I haven't done
Speaker 3: pr in a while. I mean, it feels fine. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm a storyteller and so I like talking to people,
Speaker 3: and I'm not opposed to publicity, you know, and I
Speaker 3: treat it as kind of like a theater. It's also
Speaker 3: like theater and performance. So to me, press is kind
Speaker 3: of an extension of already my craft. But also I've
Speaker 3: learned a lot, you know. I didn't know how to
Speaker 3: create boundaries before. I didn't know how to maintain a
Speaker 3: kind of personal balance when I've gone through press before
Speaker 3: I was actually thinking about it reasons. It's one of
Speaker 3: the reasons why it's I chose to stay in Europe.
Speaker 3: Also is because in the past, whenever I had to
Speaker 3: do European publicity, I would have to cram it all
Speaker 3: into like a week, and it would be really difficult,
Speaker 3: and I would sort of allow publicists and managers to
Speaker 3: book up schedules, not really knowing that I could turn
Speaker 3: things down or I didn't have to do ten interviews
Speaker 3: a day in a different city every day for two weeks.
Speaker 3: I thought that I had to in order to be successful.
Speaker 3: You know, the more I did what I was told,
Speaker 3: the better things would go. And I've kind of learned,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know, I'd feel like I don't
Speaker 3: work that way anymore. I'm and I'm determined to enjoy
Speaker 3: success because in the past I've had a lot of
Speaker 3: success and I didn't enjoy it at all.
Speaker 2: You didn't allow yourself the time to do that.
Speaker 3: Cool, I guess, you know, I just was I get
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's like, sometimes I have a hard
Speaker 3: time taking care of my self, and I love my work,
Speaker 3: and so I'll do anything in order to be a
Speaker 3: working artist. But I found that if I don't kind
Speaker 3: of create very specific boundaries, I end up losing myself.
Speaker 3: I end up losing a personal life, I lose I
Speaker 3: end up kind of getting too absorbed in work in
Speaker 3: a way that I don't think happens for other people
Speaker 3: that have like, quote unquote real jobs. You know, when
Speaker 3: you're an artist, it's a job that can completely you know,
Speaker 3: consume you and so yeah, so now I've just kind
Speaker 3: of learned, like if there's something that doesn't get done,
Speaker 3: because there's kind of always something that's not getting done,
Speaker 3: that it's okay.
Speaker 2: This collection of songs Ensor You recorded them with Michael
Speaker 2: Stipe in Athens, Georgia. Yeah, but where was the genesis
Speaker 2: of these songs? Did you write them a few years ago?
Speaker 2: Did you write them with Michael? Where did the process start.
Speaker 3: It's a long and funny path, but we Warren and
Speaker 3: I started working with Chiever Michael Chiever Michael Lane Chiever
Speaker 3: January twenty thirteen, Okay, first week of January. I can't
Speaker 3: remember why, but Warren asked me to. He asked if
Speaker 3: I wanted to work on music. And we had had
Speaker 3: a rocky couple releases. Entertainment was very difficult that it
Speaker 3: was an economic collapse. We were partnered with a label
Speaker 3: that folded the month of release, so it was didn't
Speaker 3: go well. I was very proud of the creative but
Speaker 3: business wise it was a mess. And then so you know,
Speaker 3: and the music business was not It wasn't I just
Speaker 3: it wasn't working for me. So I was really had
Speaker 3: kind of moved on.
Speaker 2: You ready to step away from music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I was like, but I always, you know,
Speaker 3: I was always doing other things as well. Was working
Speaker 3: with the Wooster Group, doing performance. I made a feature
Speaker 3: film called Dust. Warren and I had been working on
Speaker 3: a couple of books. I did a web series for
Speaker 3: about a year interviewing people about creativity. So I had
Speaker 3: moved on to other projects and didn't feel like fighting
Speaker 3: you know, kind of the lost cause of the failing
Speaker 3: music business. And also never really felt like my process
Speaker 3: fit in the music business, quote unquote, or that they
Speaker 3: could fully kind of comprehend all the facets of what
Speaker 3: I did, which was, you know, not just music but
Speaker 3: also film and photography and performance and how they were
Speaker 3: all one big, kind of cohesive endeavor. So anyway, I
Speaker 3: had moved on from music and was focused on other things.
Speaker 3: Warren asked me to work on a song, and I
Speaker 3: reluctantly agreed to it, and I also said, you know,
Speaker 3: if we're going to work on music, he's famous for
Speaker 3: dragging out the process, and I was like, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to work on a record for two years, So
Speaker 3: you know, let's make a couple songs, Let's make an EP,
Speaker 3: let's do it quickly, you know, I'll commit to this
Speaker 3: for six months. That was January twenty thirteen. So then
Speaker 3: we started working. And when I went into it, I
Speaker 3: had it was I matured in a way because I
Speaker 3: almost I knew what the record was about before I
Speaker 3: started it, which isn't always the case. A lot of
Speaker 3: times I go into writing kind of looking for what
Speaker 3: something is about. But this I knew. I don't know why.
Speaker 3: I knew I wanted to make a record about queer narratives,
Speaker 3: and I was living a really exceptional, beautiful, amazing queer life.
Speaker 3: I felt like I was having these experiences that I
Speaker 3: had never really heard about, were you know, had felt
Speaker 3: that they had been properly portrayed, and so I was
Speaker 3: going into it trying to make very clear queer narratives.
Speaker 3: The other thing was I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 3: change my recording kind of process because when I work
Speaker 3: with the Wooster Group, you work on a performance and
Speaker 3: every day and rehearsal you're required to perform fully. So
Speaker 3: it's not a traditional kind of theater process where you
Speaker 3: kind of mark through or you learn your lines, or
Speaker 3: you know, you get the costume two days before. When
Speaker 3: you work with the Wooster Group. You rehearse in the costume,
Speaker 3: you rehearse with full sound, with full light, and you
Speaker 3: rehearse in full kind of full focus, full character, full energy,
Speaker 3: And it seems crazy, but what it does is it
Speaker 3: really kind of elevates all the elements and they become
Speaker 3: so interconnected. And also you really develop the kind of
Speaker 3: a stamina you know. It's just it was something I
Speaker 3: wanted to bring to the recording process, and so I thought, Okay,
Speaker 3: when I record, I'm not gonna because a lot of
Speaker 3: times I would record and I write a lot on
Speaker 3: the mic, and sometimes it's more sketching and not fully
Speaker 3: committed vocally, and so I knew when I was going
Speaker 3: into record that I wanted a more committed vocal that
Speaker 3: I was delivering almost from the get go, and those
Speaker 3: kind of two things had a big impact. I think
Speaker 3: ultimately the record was like being more committed to a
Speaker 3: vocal performance, not relying on trickery and trying to perform
Speaker 3: a song well, just with a raw vocal. And then
Speaker 3: also this kind of queer narrative. And then I set
Speaker 3: about writing for I would say that was about a
Speaker 3: year and a half. I worked through twenty thirteen, and
Speaker 3: then I think in the spring of twenty fourteen, I
Speaker 3: was pretty much felt that I was done, and there
Speaker 3: were twelve songs and Michael came in in the spring
Speaker 3: of twenty fourteen. There was a last song was a
Speaker 3: track called Empty that I love that still hasn't made
Speaker 3: it out of the studio, but a very difficult piece
Speaker 3: of music, kind of brutalist. Has this big kind of
Speaker 3: booming section and then it has another section that's very
Speaker 3: pretty and lilting, and so it's a very interesting and
Speaker 3: extreme piece of music that Warren made and I could
Speaker 3: not figure out how to write over it. I had
Speaker 3: Jake Shears come in try to work on it. I
Speaker 3: had Coded Creechlow come in and try to work on it.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of people come in, and nobody
Speaker 3: could figure out how to work on this piece of music.
Speaker 3: Michael came in and within an hour he knew how
Speaker 3: to write over this music. Wrote something incredible, and he
Speaker 3: had a very unique process that I had never seen,
Speaker 3: where he recorded in the room with the engineer on
Speaker 3: an s M fifty eight with no monitors, no headphones,
Speaker 3: so he wasn't isolated in a booth. So he had
Speaker 3: like a technique, and so he instantly kind of figured
Speaker 3: out how to attack this piece of music. He was
Speaker 3: coming in to work on that track, which was supposed
Speaker 3: to be the last track on the record, and every
Speaker 3: time he was busy and traveling and this and that,
Speaker 3: and so he would come in every so often, and
Speaker 3: when he would come in, I would be working on
Speaker 3: one of the other twelve songs, doing you know, quote
Speaker 3: unquote like final vocals, and so I was going through
Speaker 3: and like reperforming or editing or cleaning up or doing arrangement,
Speaker 3: and he would come in and he you would hear
Speaker 3: what I was working on, and then he would get
Speaker 3: distracted and he would say, you know, can I give
Speaker 3: you notes on you know, what was originally Top Brazila
Speaker 3: was originally called grinder Blues. And he was like, can
Speaker 3: I give you notes on grinder Blues? And I was
Speaker 3: like sure, And so then we went through and he
Speaker 3: got pretty aggressive and he would really chuck out big
Speaker 3: sections and rewrite parts with me and push the melody
Speaker 3: and the performance. And he did that on which was
Speaker 3: tough because I had been working on these songs for
Speaker 3: a year and a half and I basically thought I
Speaker 3: was at the finish line, and then he was ripping
Speaker 3: them apart and rebuilding them. I think part of it
Speaker 3: was because he had disbanded RAM. He wasn't working in music,
Speaker 3: he was focused on visual art. But I think he
Speaker 3: couldn't resist the process. And I think also there was
Speaker 3: some kind of a freedom in it that it wasn't him,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't his moniker, and it wasn't his character,
Speaker 3: and that he was able to kind of access all
Speaker 3: of his knowledge and love of music but via me
Speaker 3: and I kind of became a mask for him. At
Speaker 3: a certain point, I mean there was I would say
Speaker 3: there were stages. So anyway, he came in, he messed
Speaker 3: around on like four or five of the twelve songs,
Speaker 3: never finished the first song that he came to work on.
Speaker 3: And then at a certain point, you know, I was like,
Speaker 3: do you want to get more involved formally? Do you
Speaker 3: wanna you know, how do you want to be credited
Speaker 3: for this? Or do you you know? And then Warren
Speaker 3: was like, should we ask him to be the producer
Speaker 3: on the record? And I was like, I mean maybe,
Speaker 3: I guess, And so then we asked him if he
Speaker 3: wanted to be the producer and he said definitely no.
Speaker 3: He was like, no, I'm not. I don't work in
Speaker 3: music anymore. I am just here giving you know, advice
Speaker 3: as a friend. I don't expect credit. I don't expect
Speaker 3: you know. It was very casual and yet compulsive. Then
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks later he came back around and
Speaker 3: he said, you know what, I would consider being the
Speaker 3: producer on the record. And I said okay, and he said,
Speaker 3: but I have to have final say on everything, and
Speaker 3: I was like okay. And then Warren agreed to it
Speaker 3: as well. And then once we did that, then everything
Speaker 3: clicked over from him being kind of doing song doctoring
Speaker 3: as a friend and then things got serious and he
Speaker 3: was like, okay, I'm the producer. I have final sand everything.
Speaker 3: And then he took basically, you know, half of the
Speaker 3: record I had written and threw them all out and
Speaker 3: was like these songs are not going on and I
Speaker 3: was like, uh, okay. And then process shifted where we moved.
Speaker 3: I had been writing in this little room in New
Speaker 3: York and Michael we went to Athens and we started
Speaker 3: working in Athens with Andy LeMaster. I would kind of
Speaker 3: get locked into Michael's compound and we would go in
Speaker 3: these very intensive writing and recording sessions with Andy. Then
Speaker 3: we moved into kind of more of like a co
Speaker 3: writing phase where Warren would send a track and then
Speaker 3: Michael and Andy and I would write lyric and melody
Speaker 3: and do arrangement, and that went on for a year.
Speaker 3: I would say maybe, and then while we're working on
Speaker 3: that too, my personal life is going through a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff. Like it's almost the minute Michael kind of
Speaker 3: jumped on his producer, I started having difficulty at home.
Speaker 3: I was happily in a relationship for fourteen years and
Speaker 3: that started to kind of unravel as we were working
Speaker 3: on this latter half of the record. So not only
Speaker 3: was my time in Athens sort of a writing retreat,
Speaker 3: it was also a kind of a safe space as
Speaker 3: my personal life went into chaos. So we wrote through
Speaker 3: a lot of you know, we wrote through a big breakup,
Speaker 3: we wrote through the aftermath of that, We wrote through
Speaker 3: there were a lot of things that happened in the
Speaker 3: next year, and so through twenty fifteen into twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: we continued to write. Then it kind of moved into
Speaker 3: a phase later towards the end of the writing. Andy
Speaker 3: and Michael really they have a very intense musical connection.
Speaker 3: And for instance, like on the song I Need Love,
Speaker 3: there used to be a point where it's like on
Speaker 3: try Again, you know, it'd be like I'd write a line,
Speaker 3: Michael write a line, Andy write a line, you know, strut,
Speaker 3: I'd write a thing, Andy write a thing. We kind
Speaker 3: of bounce around, and then by the time we got
Speaker 3: to I Need Love, at that point it felt like
Speaker 3: Michael had gotten so into my head and so into
Speaker 3: my world and so into my persona that he could
Speaker 3: write as me for me, and he and Andy really
Speaker 3: went into a very focused writing period on I Need Love,
Speaker 3: and there was kind of a moment where it would
Speaker 3: be like I thought we were in our you know
Speaker 3: period where we would you know, bounce off of each
Speaker 3: other and Michael write a line and Andy write a line,
Speaker 3: and then I'd be like, oh, I have an idea,
Speaker 3: and they'd be like, you know what, it's okay, just
Speaker 3: just stand, just smoke weed and stay in the corner.
Speaker 3: And then you know, they have an idea, and then
Speaker 3: Andy have an idea and they'd be like, I have
Speaker 3: you know what. So then so kind of as we
Speaker 3: got towards the end, which was fine because I also
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of great songs, the singer didn't
Speaker 3: write the song. They're songwriters that write songs for singers,
Speaker 3: and that's more of what the history of music has been.
Speaker 3: So I fine sitting back and having you write for
Speaker 3: me because you also know exactly what I'm saying and
Speaker 3: where I am and what I'm going through. That was
Speaker 3: kind of a moment where I stepped back. But then
Speaker 3: the last song that we wrote in kind of the
Speaker 3: most intensive period was Butterscotch Goddamn. Michael wrote almost all
Speaker 3: the words and I wrote the majority of the melody,
Speaker 3: and they happened really fast and like at three o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning, in a one hour period, so you know,
Speaker 3: so there were different phases of writing, and so that
Speaker 3: was kind of the process. And then we finished the
Speaker 3: record in February two thousand and sixteen. We waited and
Speaker 3: waited and waited for the record to release. We waited
Speaker 3: for the deals to come in. We waited, and it
Speaker 3: took a really long time, was very slow, and then
Speaker 3: finally we signed a deal in February of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: So for a year I sat around waiting for the
Speaker 3: record to release, which made me absolutely crazy. Because also
Speaker 3: in that year, my building was sold in New York
Speaker 3: and I got evicted. So I kept losing. I kept
Speaker 3: losing my relationship, I lost my pets, I lost my home,
Speaker 3: I lost my mind. It was like I kept losing
Speaker 3: everything I had while working on this record. But the
Speaker 3: thing that was great was that because the record was
Speaker 3: postponed a year later than I thought, the election happened,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, making a queer record became
Speaker 3: way more relevant. Kind of all the delays and all
Speaker 3: the problems have paid off, and I have this new
Speaker 3: motto which is really working for me, is that I
Speaker 3: love my problems. I've got great problems. It's like, what's
Speaker 3: your problem? My record got delayed a year. That's an
Speaker 3: awesome problem. Because then the thing that was also exceptional
Speaker 3: that happened it was a great problem that got delayed
Speaker 3: a year is then Boots got involved and exactly a
Speaker 3: year later from the record being finished, we ended up
Speaker 3: writing Half Fun Tonight. And that was also a big
Speaker 3: result of me getting trapped in Fire Island because I
Speaker 3: lost my home. So basically I was like a beach
Speaker 3: hobo in this gay resort and it kind of tweaked
Speaker 3: my ear for gay culture, and I was really struck
Speaker 3: by Ariana Grande's So Into You, and so I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I need to make like a queer version of an
Speaker 3: Ariana Grande song that's going to play, you know, for
Speaker 3: all the queens on the floor. So anyway, Boots got involved,
Speaker 3: and then because Boots got involved in Stuart White got involved.
Speaker 3: And then when Stuart got involved, then we redid the
Speaker 3: mixes on all the singles. So it was like, that's so.
Speaker 3: So the record took a really long time, and there
Speaker 3: were a lot of problems and a lot of delays,
Speaker 3: but basically they were all exactly what needed to happen.
Speaker 2: It's an incredible and this so much has happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so sorry I didn't let you ask me. But
Speaker 3: two questions.
Speaker 2: Going back to Michael Stipe briefly, as you mentioned just there,
Speaker 2: your relationship during the making of the record change this.
Speaker 2: He is involved with McKim moore. He obviously was a
Speaker 2: very strong minded producer, took a lead on the project.
Speaker 2: Have you known him long enough for that to be
Speaker 2: like okay, and you trust him well enough for that
Speaker 2: to be fine? All were their moments of contention?
Speaker 3: What was that like well, I mean, Michael is my
Speaker 3: first gay lover and my first boyfriend. We met in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight on the dance floor. He loves to
Speaker 3: say this, and I'll say it for him. He took
Speaker 3: my virginity, and so we've known each other a really
Speaker 3: long time, so we have a lot of history. It
Speaker 3: was great to work with him. He's such an amazing
Speaker 3: creative and I mean it was a little intense because
Speaker 3: you know, I was sort of trapped in his celebrity compound,
Speaker 3: and so it times it was very claustrophobic because we
Speaker 3: were working together, we were living together in this very
Speaker 3: confined environment. It was kind of like boot camp and
Speaker 3: kind of like a spa and kind of great and
Speaker 3: kind of awful because he worked crazy hours. We would
Speaker 3: work from six o'clock at night till six o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning. I wouldn't get a lot of sleep. I
Speaker 3: would usually wake up around noon. Then I would do
Speaker 3: some kind of like physical training because I had made
Speaker 3: my body a big theme, so I needed to stay
Speaker 3: in shape. So I would do pilates or some kind
Speaker 3: of body work, and then you know, I'd happy to
Speaker 3: be time to go back to the studio and we
Speaker 3: did that, you know, at some days, twenty three days straight,
Speaker 3: and so by the time we get to like the twentieth,
Speaker 3: the twenty second day, I'm not sleeping. I'm fatigued. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think it was a technique for him also because
Speaker 3: it made me super emotional and very raw, and so
Speaker 3: I think he sort of intentionally exhausted me and made
Speaker 3: me a little bit crazy because it led to better
Speaker 3: writing and a better performance.
Speaker 2: Some master techniques coming in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But also it was really interesting because you know,
Speaker 3: the record is about homosexuality, and I'm back in the
Speaker 3: house where I had sex with a man for the
Speaker 3: first time when I was eighteen, and that man is
Speaker 3: the man who I'm making the record with. So the
Speaker 3: continuity of that was so crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a cyclical thing to that, isn't that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm like, I'm sitting in that space and
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about, like where am I? What happened to
Speaker 3: my life? And you know, it's thirty years later, and
Speaker 3: you know, what did I Who was I? Then? What
Speaker 3: am I now? You know? What does it mean to
Speaker 3: be gay? You know who?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: It was just crazy to be able to just the
Speaker 3: air and the house and the location and the to
Speaker 3: be kind of you know where I was born in Athens, Georgia,
Speaker 3: and so it's like to be work, to be going
Speaker 3: to go back to where I came from to make
Speaker 3: this thing with this person. It was magical and crazy.
Speaker 2: This year marks twenty years. Am I right in saying
Speaker 2: that Fisher Spooner becomes twenty years old in twenty eighteen?
Speaker 3: In August of Yeah, in August of twenty eighteen. I
Speaker 3: just got a chill, it will be twenty years.
Speaker 2: Did you ever think? No?
Speaker 3: Okay, hell no, no. I mean when we started, the
Speaker 3: idea was that it was a turn of the Millennium project.
Speaker 3: It was supposed to be a one off kind of
Speaker 3: thing that I imagine we would do a performance in New
Speaker 3: York at the stroke of midnight in the year two
Speaker 3: thousand and This was kind of the piece. This was
Speaker 3: the project that was reacting against all the kind of
Speaker 3: like fear and paranoia of Y two K and so
Speaker 3: it was really like my party, like it's nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: nine project. So I was like, okay, if I'm gonna die,
Speaker 3: you know, and everything's gonna like every computer chip isn't
Speaker 3: going to work, and every elevator is going to stop,
Speaker 3: and there isn't going to be any water, and it's over.
Speaker 3: You know, the city is stockpiling body bags. I was like,
Speaker 3: I am gonna be I'm gonna go out dancing in
Speaker 3: a motherfucking jockstrap covered in sweat and glitter. That was
Speaker 3: the initial impulse. So no, I was supposed to have
Speaker 3: a serious career as a gallery and museum artist. Was
Speaker 3: not supposed to be some kind of you know, showbiz
Speaker 3: party sex clown.
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