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Honest Alanis
01/10/2000 4:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Dave DiMartino
Alanis Morissette's debut smash Jagged Little Pill sold
an impressive and an almost unheard-of 20 million copies, especially for
an artist who, besides being a child celebrity in the great white north
of Canada, was a virtual unknown here in the States. Now that Morissette
is known the world over for delivering such emotionally honest songs as
"You Ought To Know," her follow-up, Supposed Former Infatuation
Junkie, and recently released MTV Unplugged album
continue to strike the same chord that her debut album did the first
time around.
The supposed former queen of angst-rock recently spoke one-on-one with
LAUNCH executive editor Dave DiMartino and reflected on what her life
and career has been like since she catapulted to super-success.
Video excerpts of the conversation can be viewed in Issue No. 26 of
LAUNCH on CD-ROM; an exclusive live performance of "Are You Still
Mad?" can also be viewed on the same disc.
LAUNCH:
With the unbelievable sale of so many records on Jagged Little Pill, your life must have changed dramatically. What impact did such massive fame have on your life?
ALANIS:
It was very confusing for a while--there was so much stimulation, and I needed to get away from it to regroup and see the beauty in it all. There was a lot of illusion within it; there's a lot of illusion that comes with being famous and being in the public eye. While I felt motivated by the desire to express myself, I felt that others around me were motivated by money, fame, or status--whatever it was--and that's all valid, but there was this dissonance between what my motivations were and what theirs were. So I definitely needed to get away and stop and breathe.
LAUNCH:
So many of your songs seem very personal. That seems like a huge emotional risk to me--to reveal that much of yourself in song. Why do you do it?
ALANIS:
I used to write fictional songs when I was younger, and while it was very entertaining for me to write them and perhaps entertaining for others to hear them, I didn't really feel connected enough to the music for me to be able to continue to sing those songs with conviction. So it reached a point where I was safe enough with the environments I was in--writing with Glen Ballard and writing alone--that I could write vulnerable, honest, truthful things and have it be something that I wanted to translate into music as well. It was really gratifying for me as soon as I started writing in that way.
LAUNCH:
Where were you coming from when you went back into the studio to follow up Jagged Little Pill? Were you intimidated by people's expectations of you?
ALANIS:
I think it would have been difficult for me to jump right back into the studio [after] having toured. I didn't have enough objectivity on everything and on myself. I really needed to go within myself to be able to represent myself properly. It has reached a point where I can't control how I'm interpreted, how I'm looked at or perceived as being, but I can control how I represent myself, so it became very important for me to know who I was in order to express that. That's why I took the time off. So again, I think anything I create--whether it's music or film or a video or conversation--usually tells me more about the other person than it does about me because I'm relatively consistent throughout everything. If I read someone's interpretation of me as being something negative or positive, it tells me a lot about them.
LAUNCH:
Do you find that you write a different kind of song when you are alone than when you collaborate with Glen Ballard?
ALANIS:
When I write alone, I feel like I'm even more vulnerable, if that can be possible.
LAUNCH:
Tell me about writing a second album with Glen. Did things change at all from your first collaboration?
ALANIS:
It was the exact same, and I think the only thing that was different from the time before was our willingness to evolve and stretch and use different instruments and write about different things. I had always been gravitating towards minor-augmented, diminished chords, and I have always wanted to play in that area a little more, as did he. Plus, we had changed and grown while we had been separate, which is great, because I didn't know if we would be compatible anymore, but in the first few minutes we knew it was going to be fine.
LAUNCH:
Getting back to the personal nature of your songs, so many of them seem to be about real people. Do you ever get flack from friends or ex-boyfriends about the specificity of the lyrics? Do people recognize themselves in your music?
ALANIS:
We were about to master the record, and every time I thought of the song "Unsent," I felt uncomfortable with the fact that I knew people would hear it and it was specific enough for them to see themselves in it. I mean, it wasn't specific enough that it would tell the world who it was, but specific enough so they would see themselves in it. So I called almost each one of them, not just in "Unsent" but in "Joining You" and "The Couch," as well. I connected with them and gave them the option of my not putting the song on the record or changing it, and they all appreciated the call and were fine with it.
LAUNCH:
Do you find that people harbor some major misconception about you?
ALANIS:
Not one particular misconception. I think, in general, people have the misconception that I am--and that everyone else is--a one-dimensional human being, and that's just not the case. One song, one interview, one conversation cannot begin to represent an entire person. So I would basically think that this in the only misconception at this point.
LAUNCH:
Tell me how you came up with this title, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie?
ALANIS:
When I was writing "So Pure" I just came up with that line and sang it or read it to Glen and he was laughing his ass off. It's basically me just busting my chops, with this record being so contemplative and introspective and me taking responsibility for a lot--whether it be in a humorous way or a serious way. I wasn't being overly precious about it. It just intuitively felt like the kind of title I wanted this record to have.
LAUNCH:
How have you changed in the years since Jagged Little Pill hit the charts?
ALANIS:
I just feel like I accept myself and others so much more. I feel like I accept my own human condition and fears better than before. I'm a lot more compassionate toward myself and I feel that that's translated onto other people.
LAUNCH:
What is your relationship to your fans?
ALANIS:
I always dug expressing myself and that would naturally translate into me adoring my audience, but more for the sake of connecting and communicating and not necessarily for the sake of my ego being stroked. There are many different reasons why people enjoy audiences, and I enjoy mine for the connection.
LAUNCH:
When you look back on your career to date, are there things you regret? Anything you would change?
ALANIS:
Well, it was tough just getting my bearings early on when Jagged Little Pill was released. Just learning how to do interviews and learning to connect. I was thrust into an environment where it was presumed that I knew exactly what I was doing and I didn't.
LAUNCH:
Tell me who inspires you.
ALANIS:
I love Jeff Buckley and I love artists like Bjork and artists who don't feel self-conscious about expressing themselves. And it's not so much that I want to emulate their style, but more so the place where they come from, which is just not being self-conscious. When I'm in the studio, in the vocal booth, I don't really think about what I am and how I'm singing. The priority is just expressing myself.
LAUNCH:
You work so hard. How do you avoid burnout?
ALANIS:
Pacing myself. I don't think I'm of any value to anyone when I'm burned-out creatively and emotionally. So my priority is to be intimate and connect with people I love. So I just say no a little more often to certain things, and say yes a little more often to other things, and working with people that I feel much more connected with. I'm able to delegate more now and work with people who I trust. I'm much calmer now.
LAUNCH:
Being an artist, your time is consumed with performing, promotion, press, etc. Are there things that you wish you were able to do that your lifestyle doesn't allow?
ALANIS:
I used to be very athletic, and there's that proverbial fork in the road where you have to make a choice between creating and writing or playing sports. I obviously made a choice that was right for me. When I took my year-and-a-half off, I had a list of about 20 things I wanted to do, from camping and snowboarding to painting and learning to cook--and I did all of them. I was ready to start writing again when that list was finished.
LAUNCH:
The last time we spoke, you were not a big fan of computers. Where do you stand on the issue these days?
ALANIS:
I've changed. I used to consider the Internet and anything to do with computers to be the anti-Christ. I thought of it as keeping people separate from one another, but now I see how it actually connects people. Over the last two or three years, I've become quite enamored of the computer, and I go online all the time now.
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