Interview with Patti Smith about her new album Banga

 

By Mary M. Lane

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Patti Smith in New York, June 07, 2012.

Patti Smith’s 2004 album, “Trampin’,” received attention for its politically charged themes, namely the War in Iraq. Her newest endeavor, “Banga,” takes much of its inspiration from topics like Nikolai Gogol and Amerigo Vespucci, but even arcane muses have their hardcore fans. “I was out getting coffee the other day and this guy runs up to me shouting ‘Finally! I’ve waited years for someone to write a song about Piero della Francesca!’” she told Speakeasy after band rehearsal last week, dressed in a baggy men’s blazer covered in cat hair.

Read an excerpt from our conversation with Smith.

This album was based around travels since 2008—to Italy, Russia and the Mediterranean. It’s the first of your albums to revolve around traveling. Is this part of being an empty nester?

It absolutely has a lot to do with that. I haven’t done a studio album since 2004, and at this point my children are fully grown. My daughter will be 25, my son will be 30. So I think it was a combination of [their] coming of age and [my] having more freedom and wanting to see the world. When I started public life again in 1995, after the death of my husband, I had to limit myself around their school schedules so I could only tour intermittently. So for the first time in decades I could go where I wanted, when I wanted, and it did change my lifestyle, [which] resonates in the record.

You wrote “This is the Girl” about Amy Winehouse’s death. It’s very similar lyrically to “About a Boy” written when Kurt Cobain died in 1994.

I was old enough to be either one of their mothers, so there is some shadow of parental concern in these songs. I didn’t know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse but I was affected by both of their deaths  because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce. I can’t talk about whether my assessment is accurate or inaccurate.

It seems from the lyrics to both songs that you view their deaths as the end result of destructive fame.

I don’t think public life in and of itself can destroy you. I think it’s the way people react to it, and some people are more sturdy than others…I don’t think any one faction can be blamed for a person’s self destruction–a certain amount of that has to be innate. I don’t have that chip, so I don’t know what that feels like.

The opening line of “Gloria,” (1975) is “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.” You wrote in “Just Kids” that means you hold yourself accountable for rebellion’s consequences. Is that part of not having that destructive chip?

Well for one, I’m really grateful to have a gift. I always wanted to be an artist, writer and poet since I was seven, and one has to live long enough to evolve as an artist and do one’s finest work. It’s really a simple thing: I like being alive, I like working. I love that Jimi Hendrix line “Hooray! I wake from yesterday.”…That’s my motivating force: work, doing good work. There’s nothing equal to the opportunity to do something new every day, better than I did it the day before.

The song “Nine” was Johnny Depp’s birthday present. How did you meet?

I met Johnny four or five years ago, though it seems now like I’ve always known him. He’s like our brother, really. He and Vanessa and Lily-Rose [his ex-partner and child], came to our concert in Los Angeles and afterwards they came backstage, we started talking and never stopped.

In “Nine” you say he’s “shy and beautiful.”

He’s both of those things. He’s also mischievous—like a good brother. He loves to read. He has a beautiful [manuscript] collection. The first time I visited his house [ in CA], we sat on the floor for hours looking at letters written by Dylan Thomas and Kerouac. We both collect writers’ letters. He has beautiful things he treasures like I do—thinks of other peoples, that can be very humble, like an old friend’s cigarette pack. He’s very loving towards his friends and such a good father.

Your song “Mosaic” was partially inspired by Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist in “The Huger Games.”

I saw the film–I didn’t read the books–and I was quite taken by her. When I was younger, I would have loved to play a part [in the film]. There’s a bit of Joan of Arc in her; she’s going to be the salvation of her people. Her weapon of choice, the bow and arrow, is very romantic like Artemis, so that seeped into the song, the line “to the pulpit of the arrow,” and when I improvised in the breakdown (“I hunger for the cooling flame, I hunger for the infinite game”) that was my salute to “The Hunger Games.”

Most of the artists you emulate—Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Jim Morrison—are men. You band is also all men, and only one of the covers on your 2007 album “Twelve” is by a woman. Why the dearth of female inspiration?

As I grew up, one of my strongest allies has been my sister. When I was young it was Louisa May Alcott writing about Jo March [in “Little Women”] that made me want to be a writer. I love Nancy Drew, Joan of Arc, Darlene Love, the singing style of Grace Slick. It’s just because–moving into the arena of rock and roll when I did–the strongest role models in rock and roll were male. I fashioned myself after and was influenced by people like Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, but in terms of my life–many of my muses, my inspiration–comes from females…I play a lot with my daughter. Her style is very akin to her father’s. On “Bang,” she plays piano on the Niel Young song (“After the Gold Rush”) and on “Tarkovsky.”

Robert Mapplethorpe once complained you didn’t write songs you and he could dance to, and you said “I’ll leave that to the Marvelettes.”

If I could have written a song like “Heat Wave” or “I Sold my Heart to the Junk Man” I would have done that. It wasn’t anything conscious. It’s a gift. A special gift. I’m not a musician, I’m not driven by music. I don’t hear compositions like that. That’s not why I’m here. If we accidentally write a hit song then I’ll be happy.