9q with Violet Clark (part two)

photo by Nate “Igor” Smith at Siren Festival 2009

This is part two of my interview with Violet Clark of the band Grand Duchy. If you missed part one, check it out. Otherwise, read on to hear Violet talk about her musical background, influences, dorky facebook posts, and how she manages creative projects, including how she handles balancing her own career and kids while her husband, Black Francis, is on tour with The Pixies or as a solo artist. Good stuff, right? You’re welcome.

4. Is your artistic background rooted in a formal education or more DIY? If your kids follow in your footsteps, will you provide a formal education in the arts (visual or performing), or take a more DIY approach to hone their skills?

My musicianship is 100% DIY, idiot savant, self-taught. I play bass guitar and synths, and I play fully by ear. (I did take organ lessons for a few months in fifth grade, but I could not stand having to read music when I could easily recreate the song by just listening.) Everything I do comes from a naive place, not just the music. I spent a dozen years studying other people’s art, but I never had the patience to take art classes myself. I like to dive right into things and learn as I go. I think you end up with something really unique by not thinking things out, and by being spontaneous.

We have musical instruments all over the house, and our kids are into fiddling around on the marimba and then going over to the piano and composing quite pretty things. But I am hesitant to get involved in the “lesson thing” until one of them shows the proper discipline, and it feels like it’s really coming from them, and not being forced by me. That forced thing doesn’t tend to work, I can’t stomach it, and I don’t see why I’d want to force them in a direction they don’t already want to go in. I mean, sure we do acting camps, art classes…Whatever any of the kids decide they want to pursue in earnest as they get older, we will fully support and fund, whether its an art program, marine biology, or just taking a year to travel or to make a record. We have no pre-conceived agendas for them.

5. When or where do most feel the urge to create? As a parent, how often are you able to act on that inspiration, and how do you make it happen?

I have a constant need to create, but it doesn’t have to always be a worldly project with recognition at the finish line. I can spend an afternoon in my art room, or rearranging my closet, and feel blissed out. More cyclically come the Big Urges to do Big Things. That is an ebb and flow. And I’ve learned to strike while the iron is hot when I get those sorts of feelings. It’s usually after being super domestic for a period of time that I will feel like it’s time for a change of pace.

As a parent, I am lucky to have a spouse who is not a 9-to-5′er, which means that, when he’s not touring and he’s home, he can tag team with me to get the kids’ needs met while I am in the studio. Bringing kids to the studio is fun once in awhile as a novelty, but it is not a real option for getting to do real work; it is very stressful for me to do that much multi-tasking. I have to be able to focus.

When Charles is away on tour, it’s a bit tricky. Last year I had two amazing girls working for me so I could leave the baby, get out of the house, go to “work” making demos, and be “off” by 2:30 pm to start picking up kids from school. God I was spoiled. The girls are traveling over in Europe now for a year, and I have not been in a hurry to find a replacement, since it’s summer and my mom, who’s a local teacher, is off and can help a lot. It looks like Jude will get to start Warldorf preschool in November so, fingers crossed, I won’t even need to find help. Truth be told, life feels richer without the help. I’m insanely picky about who I trust, etc. Plus, I love that sense of primacy, of total involvement in my kids’ lives.

6. What would your dream studio space look like?

An abandoned factory of some kind. Old beat-up concrete floors, 30 foot ceilings, and crazy huge windows letting volumes of light pour in. Then I’d superimpose a modern aesthetic on top of that, with danish modern seating, sleek industrial light fixtures, and maybe some raw plywood partitions creating “rooms” within the open space but still dwarfed by the space. Like a series of playhouses within this gargantuan space. Also a yoga/napping mezzanine would be great.

7. Name three artists/musicians who rock your world.

One: I have just gotten in to Karen O lately [of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]. Her look, her voice…she’s freaking “sick” as the kids say these days. I long to get specific with my image to the degree of someone like a Karen O, or like Annie Lennox did it in the 80s. Neither of them were moms when they formed their bands, though, so they have had a lot more time to sit around thinking about their look than me. I’m getting there.

Two: I sort of idolize David Byrne. He once said that he knew he had a poor voice, but that it’s “whatchya do with it” that counts. I love that humility, that willingness to “do your thing,” not based on guarantees, or because you’re the cream of the crop, but because it’s your right and freedom to be a creative entity. (That was my own lesson that I had to learn.) And therein lies the potential for brilliance: being willing to just be honest and lay it on the line, and being okay with the idea of other people potentially not “getting” you. Additionally, David Byrne has always been one to meld the visuals with the sounds. Talking Heads were always a very very conceptual band, which I appreciate.

Three: And then there’s Andy Warhol…who cares about the art? His legacy was coining the term SUPERSTAR, and then blazing that superstar trail for the rest of us. I worship the man’s conceptual prowess, even as I am repelled by the seeming decadence and soullessness of his enterprise. The glamor, the cleverness, the hip artistic democracy that he cultivated, titillated me as a youngster and still captiveates me to this day. To be a scenester at the Factory woulda been something else! The new Grand Duchy record we’re working on, “Let The People Speak,” owes a lot to the contemplation of all things Andy Warhol.

8. What are your current goals both professionally and personally?

The professional goal at the moment is to finish our record and get it mixed by the end of September. Then, videos, because we didn’t really do videos for the last record. Then releasing the record at the beginning of the new year. Then touring like the dickens with everyone’s kids in tow.

Personally, my husband and I are both doing a lot of Bikram yoga, which is a pretty heavy duty life commitment. It’s the hot yoga. Ninety minute classes. I had a breakthrough recently and have been able to go much deeper into some of the more challenging postures, so I’m excited to just keep showing up to class to see where my body leads me. To what distant horizons of health and fitness go I?? It’s exciting.

9. As parents, we try to be on our best behavior to set an example for our kids…what grown-up vice(s) do you still allow yourself to balance a little naughty with the nice?

I guess my one lingering vice is the wine, the champagne, which is not often. Maybe once a week, or not at all for a several weeks. Then I’ll go through a phase where I crave it a little more. I do want the kids to see two grown adults enjoying a glass of wine now and then, and not losing their mind on it, because I grew up with a teetotaler mom and it made alcohol that much more exotic and desirable to me as a teen. Thus I had a poor relationship with booze in my youth. I am very moderate in my drinking now. But if I don’t eat enough before I have a glass of champagne, I do tend to forget that I was hungry in the first place, and just tend to sip on the alcohol all evening. Then I may post something dorky on facebook or something. That’s about as crazy as I get. That, and I dropped the f-bomb on the last record. I’m still getting flak from the kids about it…

Grand Duchy on myspace.
Grand Duchy official website.
Grand Duchy’s album Petits Fours on iTunes.