Fernando Fernandez at FernTV:
http://www.ferntv.ca/FERN_TV/Mitski.html (DEAD LINK)
If you have lived and travelled to the many places Mitski has around this world, you can bet that you would have a lot of stories to tell. Mitski does just that in Musical for with her recent album release Lush. Now residing in The Big Apple, Mitski tells it like it is on this album and as they say the truth will set you free. Free from sugar-coating, Mitski takes you to the depths in her journeys with those whom have entered and exited her life. It is quite the journey as she tells you the reality of it all. FERNTV talks to Mitski about putting her world journey into a lush perspective.
So tell us here on FERNTV how living in different countries around the world has shaped the music you produce today?
I moved to a different country on an average of every year to every other year, and each new place had a completely different set of customs and languages. Different people would handle this differently, and because I lived nomadically while I was growing and learning about the world and myself, I think I learned to connect and communicate by not relying on culture-specific customs to guide me. That is, because each culture has their own ideas about good and bad, right and wrong, polite and improper, I just gave up on looking for answers in my environment and instead turned inward to my instincts, to the core of me. I’m going on and on because I think this is consequently how I’ve come to write and perform music as well; I’ve learned to write instinctually, to truly listen to what my gut is saying instead of what is correct according to music theory or popular opinion. I try to produce every note and every word because it somehow feels “right” deep within me.
What made you decide to move to the US and specifically to New York and describe this time period in your life?
It wasn’t much of a decision. Although I grew up abroad I’m still a U.S. Citizen, meaning I would ultimately have to go back to the U.S. to get a job (because doing otherwise would either mean adopting a new nationality or forever living and working in a country as a foreigner). And getting a job in the U.S. is generally easier with a U.S. University-education. So I came “back” to the U.S. to go to college. It’s all very realistic and not very romantic. As for coming to New York, now that I think of it, I never really thought twice or questioned why it had to be New York. For some reason I just always had it in my head that I would end up living in New York City, so here I am.
While performing in New York, did you tell yourself that this is the place to make it and is the city more open to a style like yours?
What does “making it” mean anymore?
New York, with all the stories and romance and hype around it, is still a city (albeit huge) where people live and work, just like any other city. The two main things that set it apart from the rest is that there are so many different kinds of people and ways of life, and that it is probably the most convenient place in the world when it comes to getting information and gaining exposure on a global scale. So I could say that, yes, it’s a city that’s more open to different styles of music, but I’ve also found that, because there are so many different kinds of music and people, you end up kind of blending in with the crazy technicolored crowd and ultimately evening out to become just average, or not special.
The only way you really “make it” in NYC is by working really hard to become really good at your instrument or your craft, instead of trying to be new or different, because everything and everyone around you is new or different. Novelty is dead in New York City.
So tell us a little bit about this album Lush?
Lush is my very first album – I’d never produced an album before, meaning I’d never asked and organized people to do things for me in order to make ideas in my head audible. I recorded the album using the studios available in my music conservatory, with my musician friends who were passionate about good music and who cared enough to take time out of their lives to help me produce something good, not to mention meet and embrace the anal-retentive obsessive perfectionist-Mitski that I’ve learned I become in the studio. So far, the bond between people born out of making music together has been better than any great sex I’ve ever had.
*Because you are honest in what you express in your songs and through your lyrics, do you feel that a lot of singer/songwriters are not revealing the whole truth and if they are not, why aren’t they? *
I have listened to a lot of lyrics where I felt underestimated as a listener. I’m not stupid, I’ve felt many different things in my (albeit short) life, and even though we can all be very different as people, I’m still human and made up of basically the same things as other human listeners, so it would be extremely self-involved of me to assume that I’m the only person ever to have felt the things I’ve felt. That’s why I could go as far as say I feel patronized when lyrics are dumbed down, which is a lot of pop music. There seems to be an assumption that the audience won’t “get it”, that certain scenes or emotions the writer wishes to convey would be too specific to their experiences for listeners to relate to, so it’s generalized, to be all-encompassing. But that’s condescending. I want writers to trust that their audience is intelligent and is human, and that we’re not so different that we can’t relate to their most recent heartache. I want you to trust me.
Tell us briefly about your take on love and relationships?
I honestly don’t have any specific take on love and relationships, because romantic relationships are always completely different every time. There are no actual rules set out for how to conduct a relationship, and people will give you all sorts of information throughout your life, but there are actually no real rules, because the rules are made up by the two people involved as they go along. So I would say each relationship is basically the sum of time it takes for two people to make up the rules, for a world they’re trying to create for themselves to live in together.
..I suppose my ultimate take on love is that it’s hard.
What venue was the best setting for your music?
I still remember Vaudeville Park in Brooklyn as giving me the best live show experience thus far. For one, they have a grand piano, which small venues like theirs rarely have. And for my show it was just me and the piano, and all the chairs were arranged in a half-circle around the piano, instead of me being on a stage and separated from everyone. That, plus their dimmed chandelier and their warm, respectful audience and staff of music-lovers, I could say I was able to give one of the best performances of my life.
Here's the beautiful thing about Lemmy and the Fediverse as the whole: Anyone could be a pioneer and create another leopardatemyface community--even in another instance different from lemmy.world. I saw the mod's explanation of locking this community and I think it's a legitimate reason cuz many of us running away from Reddit at least wants something different from the userbase and moderating culture there and .world instance failed to provide it.
Also, I think the .world Admins are aware, and that they have a position on the situation, and most likely they don't give a crap. That's why like I said, any dissenting users could create yet another similar community and try to lure others in to subscribe to it.