Kristin Hersh
The Throwing Muses founder and leading light of 90s alt.rock returns with a new solo record.
Since forming Throwing Muses at the age of 14, Kristin Hersh has played a fundamental role in shaping the Gen X alt.rock sound. They were the first American band to sign to the 4AD label, and she went on to perform in math-rock group 50 Foot Wave and enjoy a prolific solo career. Now she has released her latest album, Possible Dust Clouds, a visceral, “chaotic” record she’s dubbed “very fun” – even if no one else agrees.
What have you been up to since your previous album? Touring that album, and recording this one piecemeal, which is what I do now. The last one took about five years and this one took two. And you can kind of tell, because the last one is really intricate and convoluted. I like that, it served the material, but this time I wanted to hear a blast of chaos, so it only took two years!
Your previous album, Wyatt At The Coyote Palace, was deeply personal. Is the new one in the same vein?
I think intrinsically, all my material is extremely personal because I don’t have anyone else’s eyeballs. I have to earn the stories in order to tell them, and I lived them hard. I didn’t ask for the drama in my life, but it isn’t melodrama. There’s no manipulation at play, in other words.
You helped to build the quintessential nineties sound. How do you balance that classic sound with modern life?
I think the nineties aspect is the middle ground of recording the song body itself, and the more modern aspects are in the upper and lower ranges, in the details: the high end, the overdubs and effects, and the low mid-range like the bass or kick drum, the fundamentals in the mix. Those needed to be out of time and out of tune in order to create the impact of a live performance. So this recreates the feel of sound bouncing around a room and that sort of chaos.
How has your approach to songwriting changed over the years?
It hasn’t. I started hearing songs after a car accident when I was fourteen, and that’s what my songs always were. I had a double concussion, and I would hear music that nobody else heard. And that’s what Throwing Muses was. But in the last couple of years I was treated for unrelated PTSD [posttraumantic stress disorder]. So the PTSD was cured but I don’t hear songs anymore. I haven’t written a song since I was cured – all the material I’m working on now was written before that.
“I didn’t ask for the drama in my life, but it isn’t melodrama.”
Is honesty the most important thing to you as a songwriter?
Absolutely. It’s all I’ve got really. And I’m not proud of it. I just didn’t have time to develop the trappings that manipulate a listener – that’s the only way I can put it. I have to be honest; I already learned honesty and I can’t forget it.
What’s the latest news regarding Throwing Muses?
We’re in the studio currently in Los Angeles out here with [producer] Mudrock – he’s like the Phil Spector of noise rock. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a genius, but he has a kind of genius, and we’re sort of intrigued by combining Throwing Muses and Mudrock into this sound that sounds like none of us. This is more than the sum of its parts, it’s completely other than the sum of its parts. BE