KAREN O A Date With The Light Karen O Interview Alexandra Weiss Photography Sandy Kim Styling Natasha Newman-Thomas The first time I saw Karen O perform was in San Diego in screaming, she sang—almost whispered—the lyrics to Crush 2004. Fever To Tell, the debut album from her band the Yeah Songs, her debut solo album. A lot had changed in the decade Yeah Yeahs, had dropped the year before, and she was onstage, since I’d seen her in San Diego. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs had caught in her microphone cable. Writhing on the floor, she released three more albums and would soon go on hiatus; screamed the lyrics to the record’s biggest hits, “Date with Karen had married, and was soon to be a mother. the Night,” “Y Control” and “Maps,” songs that over the previous year had taken the band from grimy college punk Fast forward five years—fifteen since first seeing the Yeah rockers to indie superstars, with Karen as their bowl cut- Yeah Yeahs in California—and I’ve got Karen on the phone. rocking frontwoman. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, along with bands Joining us is LA musician Moses Sumney, who performed like The White Stripes and The Strokes, were heralded in with Karen on the Crush Songs tour before releasing the early aughts as the latest saviors of rock ‘n’ roll, hoisting his acclaimed debut record, Aromanticism, in 2017. The leather, louche haircuts, sex and guitars back up the charts, contemporary music industry that lauded the album, a fast- which, for the previous few years, had been overrun with paced world of digital streaming and bankrupt record stores boy bands and virginal pop singers. And there was Karen. where audiences are voracious and music is released at warp Center stage, rolling on the ground, covered in beer. speed, is a far cry from the one that birthed Fever To Tell a decade and a half ago. And yet it’s still hungry for Karen O. The last time I saw Karen O perform was in New York in This March, she will release Lux Prima, the record she wrote 2014. This time, she stood upright on stage in a blue velvet and recorded with Danger Mouse while Moses was working dress, her hair grown out past her shoulders. Instead of on his debut. As the two of them catch up, Karen tells us Dress by VINTAGE BIBA (courtesy of DECADES, INC.), gloves by DRIES VAN NOTEN, shoes by FENDI, necklace by GABRIELLA KISS (courtesy of AUGUST LA), ring by MONDO MONDO 88 89 KAREN O KAREN O about the record (“soundtrack-y” with a “Phil Spector-y” scared? Or are you sort of indifferent about the changes kind of vibe) and the anxiety that comes with releasing it into in the industry and are focused more on your art and life? the wild. She also reflects on how motherhood has impacted her career. In both cases, she’s figured out a way to embrace KO — I started getting nervous about releasing music into a uncertainty and accept the inevitability of sometimes fucking vacuum back in 2006. Now, we’re in 2019, and everything is up. But as she prepares to introduce new music with a new just warp speed. It’s completely changed since 2006. I entered collaborator into what’s essentially a new industry, she can’t the scene in 2000, and our first record came out in 2003, shake the daunting, nervous feeling—“What’s going to when it seemed like there were only a handful of releases happen to our baby?” that everybody knew about. If there was any buzz about a record, it actually had a huge ripple effect on the niche indie In 2004, that question might have plagued Karen, but today scene, but you could also make a mark on the mainstream she’s wiser. “We just wanted to make something that excites in a tangible way. A record cycle would last for a year and a us,” she says of the album. “Then, when you’re finished, half back then, and that’s the world I got started in. So, it’s hopefully you’ll feel good enough about it and yourself, that been hard wrapping my head around how short the shelf life whatever happens in the world, you can be happy and stand is. But now, when I do release a record, like the one with behind your work.” Danger Mouse, the good thing about it—and the good thing about what you do, as well—is, when we started this record, MOSES SUMNEY — When was the last time we saw each we did everything out of pocket, with no expectations from other? I believe it was at the Suspiria opening. Did you like anybody. We just decided to do what we wanted to do and the film? not worry about singles, or pressure, or anything like that. We just wanted to make something that excites us and makes KAREN O — I did. us happy. Then, when I like it whenever you actually have to someone just totally “Life is not black and white, it’s a put it out into the fucking goes for it, and world, you feel kind [Luca Guadagnino] million different shades, and there’s of like, ‘What’s going really just fucking to happen to our went for it with that so much absurdity. From the most baby? Is she just going one. I really respect to be thrown out of that—mad props horrible shit to the most beautiful, the window with the when people just go bathwater?’ At the all in. it’s just such a mixed bag, and same time, if even just a couple of people really MS — Were there even the worst stuff has something dig it, and it really any movies or music resonates with them, from 2018 that you beautiful in it.” then we can’t regret it, really enjoyed? or wish we had done something else. KO — Honestly, my concept of time is just completely all over the place—I have no idea what came out last MS — Well, luckily, both of you do have such big followings. year. I think it’s because I’m a mature mom—I’m pretty But the shelf life of the music industry now is incredibly sure the grey matter in my brain is pretty much destroyed daunting. from it. But movies I saw that I liked were Roma, The Favourite, and I really liked ColdWar. It’s a Polish film and KO — Yeah, I mean, you used to just have to put out a few I’m half Polish, so it really resonated with me. Music, music videos, maybe play on some TV show, and that was it. though—music is harder. I’m just having trouble with Now, it’s just a whole different thing. Making the record is the the whole industry, and I’m quite old-fashioned when it best part, even though it can be the hardest. It’s everything comes to how I listen, so I have no idea what came out else—the three billion other things you have to do now— when. When I like a song, I just like it—it could be from that gives me anxiety. But, with all that being said, I do truly any year. believe that music is the best, and it’s a big deal that people actually want to listen to my music. MS — You’ve got this new album coming out with Danger Mouse, but it’s been a few years since the last MS — When did you and Danger Mouse meet? And at what Yeah Yeah Yeahs record—even Crush Songs came out in point did you decide to actually make music together? 2014. What does it feel like for you to be releasing music in this current era, where everything moves so quickly? KO — We actually met in 2007. We wanted to make music Do you feel excited about it? Or do you feel nervous and together back then, but it didn’t really pan out. Then we Top and skirt by MOSCHINO (courtesy of DECADES, INC.) would see each other at gigs here and there, or run into each I think we both recognized very early on is that we share a other in New York City at a bar or something, and finally, in similar heart in the way that we think about music and the 2015, we had dinner and decided, ‘Okay, it’s time for us to love that goes into it. My record is not devoid of love, and just get into the studio and see what happens.’ I think you can hear that in the way it’s made, even if the lyrics are about isolation, and loneliness, and the absence of MS — Releasing the album as Karen O and Danger Mouse, romance—I think there’s something inherently romantic in did you ever think of coming up with an actual band name? just discussing those feelings. So, when I think about Karen’s music or try to draw a through line between, let’s say Crush KO — I know I never wanted to come up with a band Songs and my first album, they’re actually not that different. name—I already have a band. But it also just felt like a true At the core, they’re both just about connection, and in a way, collaboration, and a partnership in every sense. that’s all the same thing to me.