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Chris Connelly: A "welcome back" seems in order, doesn't it? Fiona Apple: Yeah, I guess so. It felt like coming back when I got to the airport, and I heard somebody be, like, "There she is!" and then there's a camera with a light and stuff, and I just kinda felt really weird. I was all, like, airport gross. Connelly: Was it hard to want to re-enter this thing? Did you want to take more time off, or were you ready to go back in and start working when the time came? Apple: When I got off the road, I took, like, six or eight months where I didn't do anything, and I didn't, like, really play piano or anything like that, and I just didn't think about it at all, 'cause I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure I wanted to come back. I wasn't sure, I wasn't sure, and I took some time, and I didn't really think about anything like re-entering it, and then, after a few months, you just kind of forget what it was like. So I just kind of naturally started writing songs again, and then once I wrote songs the decision is made, 'cause if you write songs and you're proud of them, then you kind of have to do something with them. Connelly: What sort of image do you think you had when you left the road that time? What did people think of you? Apple: It depends on where they were looking. If they were going to a lot of shows and not really reading a lot, then they probably had a lot truer view of me. Connelly: What was the wrongheaded view of you, in your mind? Apple: That I'm just, like, a sad brat with no sense of humor, you know? Connelly: You could sort of sense that out there from the stuff you would read and from the response you would get to people? Apple: Well, yeah. Didn't you? [Laughs] Connelly: I know what you're referring to. Apple: It's a really weird feeling to be, like, reading a piece on yourself, and then see the letters that come after it, and kind of agree with the letters, because the way you came off in a piece was kind of like a moron, or kind of ridiculously. But man, that was not my fault, you know? I can talk two hours in an article, there'll be like two quotes to corroborate whatever the writer was going to write anyway. And that just happened with me a lot, and I don't really know what the reason was. Connelly: Did you feel very exposed on the basis of your personal history? Did you feel you had given a lot of yourself away? Apple: Yeah, but that was mine, that was my... I mean, I did that. So the things that I've done that, like, kind of slap me in the face, I can deal with that. That doesn't give me any anger. But I've had cases where, like, I've just been set up, because it's like, "We're going to do this issue of our magazine, and she's a great one to make into the little terror child, and I'm sure we can get her to say something we can blow up into a pull quote. I'm sure we can rile her up." And it could. Connelly: Did you, any part of you, sort of enjoy being a little provocative, though, in the things you would say publicly towards the end of your run last time? Apple: No, but cause I was honestly not doing it to be provocative, I was, like, being selfish for everything. I have selfish reasons for doing anything that I do, and my selfish reasons are just to teach myself lessons. Speak when I have something to say, just so that whether I'm in this business or someplace else, 20 years from now, that I've trained myself to be outspoken. I didn't really read the press that came after what I would say for a long time. I just kind of was like, "Oh, if I get into that head, I'm just gonna become fake." And so I wouldn't read it, so I didn't learn what would happen, and then when I started reading it, that's when I kind of see that it doesn't matter if you have good intentions. If someone else doesn't, then you are in their hands. Connelly: When you look back on what's happened over the last few years, do you have any regrets about stuff you've said or talked about or did? Apple: No. Connelly: Why is that? Apple: Because I learned my lessons from 'em, and because, man, I don't see why I have to be perfect all the time and, like, not embarrass myself sometimes. I'm talking about, like, somebody who's trying to do something and just kind of gets it wrong a little bit, and then, and then you see them get it right, I just... you don't see anything develop in anybody, you don't see anybody really, really being human. I just kind of feel like everything's so rehearsed. And also I learned a lot personally for myself, whether or not I'm in this business. I did what I wanted to do, and that's something to be proud of. Who cares what happened? Who cares if those other people were idiots and somebody wants to pick on me? Connelly: So you were happy to leave that behind for a good six to nine months for a while? Apple: Yeah. Connelly: And then how did the songs start to come? Apple: Just the way that they always came, just because I would get pissed off and I'd just be like -- Connelly: [Laughs] Apple: 'Cause I just feel like [there are] certain times in life where you just feel that you have an argument and you just want to make a point, but there's really no point in making that point to someone. You just kind of need to make it for yourself, to figure out exactly how you feel about something. I'd just be alone in my house and be like, "Ahh, piano," and it just started to be the way that I would deal with things. It was the way I deal with things three or four years ago, when I was writing songs for the other album, and then it kind of stopped being the way that I would deal with things. I would kind of deal with things then by just saying things to people a lot, 'cause I wasn't around the piano a lot, except for doing the shows. But after some time away from the piano, it started to become attractive to me again. Connelly: Your last record, though, seemed to encapsulate a lot of your personal history.... Is this record more of a snapshot of what your last three or four years have been like? Apple: I wouldn't say it was a snapshot. It's not a snapshot for other people to see my life. It's a snapshot of mine that I've taken of my life, but I'm the only one who could really understand it. The "you"s in my songs are really just similarities that I've noticed between many people in my life, and [I] just made those similarities a character to speak to. It's all autobiographical, but I'm not revealing anything truly. It's all disguised. Connelly: What sort of things were you working out, though, as you wrote those songs? What kind of emotions were you dealing with in your life? The big things? Apple: The big things, yeah, I guess. What do you mean? Connelly: Well, were you in love, were you not in love, were you angry at people? What kind of things were playing against your head? Apple: All of those things. All of those things. Connelly: Has it been a happy time, or kind of unsettling [or] troubling the last few years? Apple: It's been a happy time. I've made a home for myself. I have friends. I took all that time working last time to kind of figure out [how] to make my own place in the world, and then now, once I had my own place and I kind of knew what did with my life, I knew what I did for a living, and I had that knowledge about myself. It was great to kind of settle down for a while and make friends, now that I was an actual person. Connelly: People are often very intimidated by making that second record after a big success the first time. Sounds like you didn't actually have that problem once you started writing. Apple: No. 'Cause I started without thinking, "I'm going to start trying to write now for a record." I just started because it was at that moment, "I want to write something down." I think people run into that problem because they pay way too much attention to it early on. I think they start going, "Okay, well, this is going really good. How am I going to top this? What is my public image? How am I going to top that?" I didn't need to worry about topping my public image, and I'm really proud of the songs that I write [and] that I've written for this [album], and I was proud of them when I was writing them, and I knew they were good when I was writing them, so there was no worry about that. If I hadn't been sure that they were great, I just wouldn't have made the album. |
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