Lydia Loveless
“I don’t think I’ve had high hopes since I was a small child.”
Five-foot-nothing with a quick-fire mouth, Lydia Loveless could have been the subject of Shakespeare’s line: “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
Born Lydia Ankrom in 1990, and raised on her family’s Ohio farm, she was a rebel kid who grew into a loosecannon artist. Her four-album catalogue frankly addresses her problems – alcohol, divorce, stalkers – over music that takes in alt.country, punk rock and power-pop. But it’s the recent documentary Who Is Lydia Loveless?, which tracks the singer as she records her 2016 troubled album Real, that really gets under her skin.
Are you pleased with how you come across in the documentary?
Sorta. It’s always awkward to see yourself on film, and that was filmed during not the greatest time in my life. Real was pretty bad for me. I mean, my marriage was definitely over… it’s kind of the pre-divorce record. I was kinda messy, sloppy, drinking a lot, not being my best self. It’s interesting to be on the other side of that.
You’ve described your home town as “religious” and “redneck”. Did the community approve of you trying to become a musician?
Within my family it wasn’t frowned on. My family is pretty rebellious. Everyone else probably thought it was pretty stupid. But I guess, looking back, it was pretty easy to think you were special in that town, because there weren’t a lot of interesting or artistic people there. I kinda believe your mindset is most of getting things done, and I’m probably too stupid to realise that things are too hard to accomplish [laughs].
Hollywood has been disgraced. Do you think the music industry is any better?
No. I mean, even in the small indie world, it’s really not that much better. If you’re a hot white guy with a guitar, you can get away with most things. I guess I was raised by iconoclastic people who taught me that the world was bullshit, so I think that’s helped me barrel through all the hurdles that society throws at you, mainly in the entertainment business.
You say you get asked a lot of stupid questions. Which are the worst ones? Any question that refers to your gender as far as what subject matter you might be ‘allowed’ to sing about. Definitely the dumbest one was: did I think it was odd for a woman to sing about darker subject matter or sad emotions? I was just flabbergasted and couldn’t answer the question. So hopefully this guy had a sort of epiphany that it was a terrible question. Or maybe not.
It’s difficult to pigeonhole your music. Is that intentional?
Not really, because I don’t think it
necessarily benefits me to be that way. But the music I listen to is all over the map, so the music I make is the same way. There’s definitely a lot of weirdness in my record collection. I think that has to do with being easily depressed and affected by music. So I kinda have to balance out a lot of the sad-bastard stuff with electro-pop.
People sometimes tag you as ‘country’, but you’re very different from the female singers you hear on country radio, aren’t you?
I guess it’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly, but I think a lot of that is production – I don’t always go for standard country sounds. But maybe it’s just an attitude thing, lyrically. It’s not like I’m breaking new ground, exactly, but it’s maybe just a little more snarly than people want to hear on the radio. Has anyone ever tried to polish me up? There’s certainly people who have suggested it. Maybe I’m just stupid, in the business sense, for not listening.
But I guess I like where I’m at musically.
Do you have high hopes for 2018 – or do you think it’ll be another dark year?
Every year of my life has been slightly dark. I try to be a little more positive these days, but I don’t think I’ve had high hopes since I was a small child. Who Is Lydia Loveless? is out now via MVD. Real is out via Bloodshot Records