*Jenny Owen Youngs Interview

(Photo Copyright: Joe Cereghino)



Interview with Jenny Owen Youngs (Oct 14th 2007)

Jenny Owen Youngs is a lot of things, but disingenuous is not one of them. Not-so-simply put, she’s a feisty, hypersensitive, disease-free singer-songwriter and reformed Girl Scout who politely requests that you make room on your lap for her songs. Raised in the eastern deciduous forests of northwest New Jersey, our heroine spent her youth engaged in such rural activities as rock-skipping, bear-chasing, and waterfall-diving. She also logged countless hours spinning her mother’s copy of Revolver and learning every last word to Jesus Christ Superstar. Jenny seriously dated both the flute and the tuba before exchanging enthusiastic vows with the guitar at the tender age of thirteen. She adores sharks – a residual fascination left over from teenage ambitions toward a career in marine biology. Her album, “Batten the Hatches” is out now on Nettwerk.

I sat down with her before her show at Night and Day café supporting Jim White;

LG: So tell me how the UK tour with Jim White has been treating you so far?

JOY: It’s been going really well so far with the exception of… man it took us about 7 hours to get from London to Liverpool and as you may know its only about a 2 hour drive.

LG: Bad driver or Bad roads?

JOY: Highways were closed down, there was a lot of traffic, a lot of going around things, overall very bad… also I don’t know if you know this but London is constructed in a way that means no one is ever meant to leave, you’re just meant to stay in London for ever circling for ever…

LG: While you were making batten the hatches what were your main musical influences?

JOY: Well I’m always listening to the Beatles, I feel like they’re the bedrock of civilised society and between Dan (the producer) and I, Dan listens to a lot of Beatles, David Bowie, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev. and I guess around that time I had just started listening to a lot of Broken Social Scene and Nick Drake, Elliott Smith and all that fucking like boo hoo bullshit. Let the record state that I just gave Lauren a thumbs up.
Can’t see that on the tape.

LG: What’s your favourite song on your record and why?

JOY: I guess i'm rather partial to “Voice On Tape” because I don’t really feel like its similar to anything else on the record and its nice and repetitive, doesn’t really go anywhere. These are the things I look for in songs. No but I like that song, I think Meredith (of Gregory & The Hawk) did a really great job with her singing, I think it sounds really great.

LG: People will notice that Regina Spektor is on the intro for “Voice on tape” how did that happen?

JOY: Oh yeah, that message, Regina left me that message when we first became friends which was when I was a freshman in college and I did something awesome and she left me that message but it was about 3 minutes longer than you hear on the song. I saved it at the time because I thought I wanted to use it for something at some point and then it just seemed like the thing to do for that song.

LG: Awethsome.

JOY: Did you just say Awethsome?

LG: Yeah I think sometimes words with a lisp sound cuter.

JOY: It does, no you’re right.

LG: Is it a co-incidence that your initials spell out joy? Or was that something pre calculated on your parent’s part?

JOY: No it was pre calculated, my parents wanted me and my brother to have happy initials my brother got Gavin Andrew (Youngs), much to his elementary school dismay. That was a rough one.

LG: Can you share with the world an explanation for your obsession with sharks?

JOY: Yeah when I was 8 or 9 my brother had this book that I read about this diver’s experience working at an aquarium, taking care of sharks and it was really intense and that I started watching shark week every year and then I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist for a long time but then it turned out I wasn’t very good at science so then you know the music thing instead…

LG: Shark week, for those of us who don’t know?

JOY: Once a year in July or august the discovery channel runs all shark programming all week and it’s super badass and you should check it out.

(Bring out a baseball cap with the remaining questions in it)

LG: Now comes the fun part, for your JOY and your JOY only… Hat question time!

JOY: Yaaaay!

(Jenny draws from the hat)

LG: Fuck was I, was played at a really important moment in the TV show “Weeds” how important do you think TV is becoming in launching new artists?

JOY: TV is invaluable. It’s the new radio in a fucking post apocalyptic world where radio means nothing because it’s all bought and paid for. So now, you know, a lot of independent artists are looking to TV placements and music supervisors to fucking break them. Our friend Ingrid Michaelson recently got a few placements on Grey’s Anatomy and that lead to, among other things, an Old Navy ad and now she’s the number 1 indie artist on myspace and she’s selling 7000 records a week, its ridiculous, so TV is invaluable.

LG: I’ve heard you have an obsession with top 40 radio? What’s your current favourite song and why?

JOY: It’s been kind of bleak the last bit of time I’ve spent listening to the radio, like “Umbrella” that song was really big and I hate that song. As much as I want to like Rihanna because she’s so little and cute… no you know what I do love, her duet with Sean Paul, where he’s all like telling her to shake her body and she’s all like well I guess ill shake my body then…

LG: I love that he’s never told anyone to do anything else!

JOY: (Laughing) that’s true, he has no other priorities. I also really liked the Timbaland and Pussycat Dolls song, wait a minute girl why you trippin' like that...

LG: Her surname’s fabulous, the lead girl, it sounds Jewish and German and she’s obviously neither, it’s like “Scherzinger”

JOY: Jesus H Christ. You think she would have had the decency to change that so nobody would ever have to try and say it.

LG: Who has been your favourite person to sit on the lap of?

JOY: Not applicable, it’s a trick question because my favourite person that I’ve done something inappropriate with is Aimee Mann who I got to grab my ass the last time I was in London. Well I can’t think of any lap that’s been better than Aimee Mann grabbing my ass.

LG: Who are some of your favourite British musicians/bands at the moment?

JOY: Radiohead are good.

LG: How do you feel about the Amy Winehouse/Lily Allen crowd?

JOY: You know what I do like them both up to a point, after a point I cant really…they’re both so specific and really… (Overhearing a conversation on another table about meatloaf) YEAH that’s exactly it, like you’re ordering the meatloaf and you’re just getting the meatloaf. That’s exactly what they are. Amy Winehouse is meatloaf and you’re not going to get anything else apart from meatloaf.

LG: When “Back To Black” came out America went crazy

JOY: Yeah you know what I can say a lot of things about that, I will say only a couple, you know, Mark Ronson got the Dapkings in for it, and the drummer is a friend of mine from college. Sharon Jones has been making that sound for years and years and years and then you slap it on a little skinny Jewish white girl and a bazillion records have been sold. And I think Sharon Jones is probably more deserving of that kind of a mantle.

LG: Now on your bio it says, “Jenny is also a space camp survivor. Ask her about it sometime.” Care to tell us about it?

JOY: Oh yeah, sure. I went to space camp when I was I guess, 12 and I got to go on little simulators, train and run fake missions. At the time I was very shy and awkward and I didn’t like myself very much at that point because I was 12. Maybe I was a little early; I don’t know when normal people don’t like themselves? It was definitely interesting, i'm really glad I went but it was definitely lonely, i'm sure I cried a whole bunch. WEEEEE.

LG: Tell me five fun facts about Bess Rogers (friend and fellow musician). I saw the “youtube” video of her dancing. It was quite something…

JOY:
1) Jew.
2) Back when we were in school, Bess’ apartment was the place where we went to hang out, one time Bess and I were making pancakes at like 10 am and also trying to open a bottle of wine to go with the pancakes at 10 in the morning and Bess broke off the corkscrew so then she started kneading in the cork trying to get at the wine, she didn’t care how she jut wanted the wine. So she finally got it but it went everywhere. So Bess was once covered in wine during a pancake making party.
3) The other day we were driving to Jenny O’s house, who has a very similar name to mine and Bess is like oh i'm going to call her. And my phone starts vibrating and i'm like ooh Bess is calling me so I pick it up and i'm like laughing like “hey Bess” and she starts talking to me as if i'm jenny O even though i'm sitting right next to her. And that went on for a good 15/20 seconds before she looked over at me and was like oh, oh god.
4) Up until recently she ran a rock and roll camp for kids which is why videos about her theory on wine had to be taken off the internet, the theory is how 1 glass of wine is good for you, so your second glass of wine is really your first. So when you would have had 9 or 10 glasses you’ve actually only had 8 or 9 at which point its totally safe to drive a school bus of children anywhere.
5) (Long pause) OOOH she’s lactose intolerant. She’s lac-tarded.

LG: Ok Pop quiz literally, Britney, Paris and Lindsay are all in a life threatening situation, you can only save 1, who and why?

JOY: Britney…because there is no salvation for either Paris or Lindsay. We’re taking a very large poster of Britney from her glory days on tour with us in the states to remind us of how she was.

LG: You love doing covers, which artist would you like to have cover you?

JOY: That’s a really good question, way to go Lauren… Someone super top 40 that would sell a million records so I could make tons of royalties, but you know from an artistic standpoint… Metric.

LG: In the spirit of Q magazine publishing Avril Lavigne’s 10 commandments (look it up, they’re appalling) what would five Jenny commandments be?

JOY: Avril made commandments?! Do I get to keep this?! My five commandments are… to England: make better coffee, sort out your streets, drive on the fucking correct side of the road and give up the whole monarchy thing. You gotta let that go. And number five… man; give me an annual present for being awesome.

(Reading the Avril Lavigne's Commandments)
JOY: EW she has the fucking chutzpa to say, “Someone like Kelly Clarkson is beautiful and has a pretty voice but with me you get a much stronger image.” She is a moron!

LG: Have you started recording for the new album? Tell us a little about it.

JOY: Yeah I have, Dan and I have sketched out 4 songs and i'm touring through the end of the year i'm going to be home maybe 3 days, i'm coming right here from LA so I am not doing a whole lot of writing right now. But the idea is when I get back from tour is to take 3 months off and do some writing. I just wrote a Christmas song, my publisher asked me to and now that’s out of the way maybe now I can do some non-Christmas related songwriting.

LG: You come across in your songs as really genuine, do you feel like all your songs come from a really honest place/beginning?

JOY: Yes I do. Thank you for asking.

LG: Do you think it’s unfair that British people tend to assume a lack of understanding of sarcasm by the general American public?

JOY: Yeah, you guys don’t get sarcasm. What’s up with that?!

LG: No we get it! A lot of Americans, excluding you and your friends who all have a firm grasp of it, they just think you’re trying to be clever when you’re trying to be hilarious. Or they think you’re being rude and you’re just not. I just think they struggle with it…

JOY: Noo listen, I’ll give you some struggle. Some of the people who have come to these shows do not understand sarcasm…

LG: I love all your cover versions, Spice Girls, Boyz II Men, The Postal Service one was a favourite. Any special ones planned for this tour?

JOY: Dude! Someone posted the postal service one?

LG: Yeah it’s on youtube.

JOY: Oh good! Dude I gotta find that, but no I’m not actually doing covers on the UK tour, I played "Hot in Herre" the first night and it felt really weird and for the first time ever I lost my place and forgot where I was because I was so frazzled so I decided to can it and not play any covers.

LG: Not even if people heckle?

JOY: Well maybe it they heckle.

LG: Ok, i'm going to heckle.

LG: How was making the igloo video for hot in herre and who is the amazing older Santa figure in it? Did you have a stylist and all those fancy things?

JOY: Yeah there was a woman who came to dress me which is why i'm wearing dresses in the video, as you know that’s not my natural state. Everyone in the video with the exception of two of the penguins, works at Nettwerk (Jenny’s record label). But it was really hot and sweaty, there was no AC, we were at a sound station in LA and it was like 103 degrees.

LG: Finally… what are your best memories from being a college student?

JOY: Me?? Dude, everyday! Everyday was awesome, you know the people that I went to school with - we were all drunk all the time. Its better now though because were all actually doing stuff but at the time it was a lot of fun.

JOY: (laughing) You literally put all the questions in a hat...