Muse of the World: Kristin Hersh interview

Kristin Hersh knows how to laugh. For an artist whose distinct and vast catalogue of work is often unfairly perceived as troubling and difficult, that might surprise some. But her various modes of expression – often, yes, almost unbearably intimate – have always been leavened by a black and absurdist humour. And as we speak (she's at home in Rhode Island preparing to tour new CD/book release Wyatt at the Coyote Palace), she laughs throughout: a full and infectious rumble that punctuates and lifts our conversation.

A generous story teller for over three decades now, she's as compelling in interview as she is on the written page or on record. And boy, does she laugh when asked if we can start at the beginning and share some memories of the early days – in particular the first Throwing Muses headine tour, a 4AD double-header in 1989 with Pixies as support. "Sure," she says. “I may not know the answers. You’ll probably know everything else better than me!" But she's better on the detail than she makes out. "You saw us in Manchester? Yeah, that was a good one. I think..."

"I’ve sold millions of records – it just took years to do it!"

Like many prime movers of the emerging late 80s US alt scene, Hersh has managed to retain her audience, as a month-long tour of the UK in November attests. With the likes of Bob Mould, J Mascis and Thalia Zedek making some of their best work of late, it's a peer group that injects a middle-aged viewpoint with youthful endeavour.

"That’s so nice to hear. That’s really touching," Hersh responds. "We’ve been doing the same thing since we were 14. We knew that nobody would ever care and so, when people did, we sort of didn’t notice. And if they didn’t care, it didn’t matter. You know, I’ve never really paid too much attention to whether I’m playing a theatre or a tiny club. Those things are no indicator as to the quality of your work or how well you’re going to play or how great the audience is or how successful your record is, even. I mean, I’ve sold millions of records – it just took me millions of years to do it! 

"I’ve come to appreciate a simplicity and level of response from the listener," she continues. "That is, to appreciate that this is my day job and for them to get up for it. That’s all I ever wanted: to be able to play. It sounds silly, I know, but it’s everything. It’s working. The music is working. And that’s because it resonates, not because it’s trendy or because there’s money behind promoting it. It’s because the listeners care."

All these years on, it's still a powerful dialogue. Are we still good listeners? "Absolutely you are!  There’s a difference, too, between a fan and a listener. Fans can be scary, and they’re not necessarily into what I do in any great way, and they act... nutty. But a listener... they’re a friend." She pauses. "God, that sounds lame! I just can’t think of a better way to put it. The musician is no different from the listener, in many ways – we all make the song float around the room." Well, maybe it doesn't really exist until we do our bit? "Exactly. And as a shy person, I hate that equation and yet I have found it to be true: that we are social animals and this noise is a social endeavour. But the fact that my listeners continue to allow me to engage in that equation, one that is so off-putting, well... that’s a gift."

Paid for in part by those listeners (the Strange Angels who sign up to her CASHMusic subscription service), Wyatt at the Coyote Palace is a 60-page, two-disc thumbs-down to the casual download mode. “Dave Narcizo [her Muses partner from day one, who Hersh once called a loser for coming second in a poll of the world's best drummers] worked with me on the design. He knew that the beauty of the music was not being expressed in the package. We’d try, you know, but a CD has no inherent value. Nobody cares about it, no matter how valuable the songs on it are. So, to make a book happen, even though it costs a lot of money, means that we’re creating something that can last. We’re making something that people can share without being embarrassed. It’s a little presumptious to ask somebody to adopt your soundtrack, but if you give them a book...”

The album's 24 songs are annotated by accompanying prose pieces and photographs, and a deep relationship between the two emerges. "Well, the music is the product and whatever words and images accompany it are meant to fill in colour and expression," Hersh explains. "I guess it reminds you of stories. It’s that simple. I tell them – that’s all. I certainly would never presume to explain a song. I kind of talk around it, hint at the stories that happen inside of it. A song is never as small as me. It just uses me to tell itself. And the stories around the songs... I just choose the nicest ones. I don’t like hurting people’s feelings more than the music already does!"

Humour and mortality

If Hersh's stories so often feel like fiction, it's perhaps because they're elevated by her oblique wordplay and because the events she recounts so often feel larger than life. The two-person dialogue that accompanies the song Sunblown is a vivid, troubling account of a tour bus crash in the middle of nowhere that revels in the blackest humour when someone mistakenly hears ‘Frank Capra’ as ‘Frank Zappa’. “Well, that actually happened, and it’s a much longer story than I present in the book. I think it’s important to take life seriously but not necessarily take yourself seriously."

Every time the songs and the stories brush with death, a dark seam of humour gives mortality the finger. “Yeah, well what else are you gonna do? I was in a meeting recently and someone said: 'Well, no one’s gonna die.' Well, they are, actually. You can’t really take anything seriously apart from life itself, which deserves a certain amount of gravity and gratitude.

“I always said that there was a lot of humour in whatever I've done," she continues. "People presumed that because it was tangled and noisy, it couldn’t possibly be funny – that to be happy or nice, it had to be dumb or simplistic. People superimposed this dark poetry idea onto what I was doing, that wasn’t really there. I cared a lot. I wasn’t complaining."

Us listeners, we weren't using the music for self-reflection or to suck the poison out. We were making connections that were joyous and celebratory. “Exactly. That’s a really sweet way of putting it. Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s a complex thing but, yes, it was like: if you feel a particular way, you don’t have to be cheered up by it or care less, but let’s remove the shame, say, and invest it with... energy.”

With Hersh as busy as ever – "I have this tour to do but the Muses are in the studio right now in LA, making something very different. And, yes, we’ll tour that" – we finish by talking about her young son Wyatt, whose fascination with a local derelict apartment building gave this latest work both life and title. "He's moved on now," says Hersh.

"It was a beautiful obsession, a circular notion that he eventually excised from his psychology to keep encapsulated as a sense memory. He has the most brilliant mind I have ever encountered. It’s hard to impress him but he’s so kind and I can do no wrong. He was in the studio with me while I was making this record, unless he was in the Coyote Palace. He sees it as very personal to him, like it’s his own big budget home movies." She laughs one more time. "And I take it as a great honour for him to see it that way."

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Wyatt at the Coyote Palace is available now, released by Omnibus, RRP £14.99