Karen O: ‘David Lynch asked me to work on Twin Peaks … I didn’t have childcare’
After a nine-year hiatus Yeah Yeah Yeahs have finally released an album. Vocalist and pianist Karen O discusses the group’s indie legacy and Australian tour.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs are coming back to Australia for the first time in more than a decade, how are you feeling?
It feels like it has been a bit too long. Ten years feels like the absolute limit of how long you should be away from fans that you have a rich history with and places that you love. We always have a great time in Australia, and the best meals we’ve had on the road have been here. I remember how excited we were the first time we came here; we were just kids and it left a deep impression.
After a nine-year silence, the band returned with Cool It Down last year. Why did it feel like the right time to release a new album?
There are certain artists who can make a record each year. I don’t want to do that because I feel like in order to write a great record it feels like you really have to live. Our last record before Cool It Down was our last record with a label, so I always had to make a record every two or three years, whether or not I felt ready. Once we were out of that this big weight lifted off my shoulders and I was like “Next time I make a record, it’s going to be because I’m really ready.” I didn’t think it was going to take nine years …
In the past, you’ve said the making of Yeah Yeah Yeahs records was a fraught experience. You said while making Cool It Down you felt “so joyful it was almost explosive”. What was it about this album that was so different?
We were talking about getting back into the studio in 2020, right before the pandemic. After it hit, we were confronted with the reality that we might never get to make a record again. None of us ever conceived that would happen. I think the appreciation for things that are special in life goes up exponentially when they feel threatened. Being in the room with Nick (Zimmer, guitarist) again, starting to write a record playfully like kids in a sandbox, was joyful. After almost a decade without it and going through challenging times where we couldn’t be in the same room, the music came flooding out. It felt like a joyous reunion. Music is mysterious, and I wasn’t sure if we would connect after not making music together for so long. But we aligned supernaturally, and there was little tension. It just felt meant to be.
Lyrically this album takes on some high-stakes themes – environmental collapse, the knowledge that your son is going to inherit a world burdened by increasingly apocalyptic natural events. What compelled you to express the things you are writing about?
When I write music, I don’t intentionally think about themes, they just bubble up from below and probably from above too. I think living on the west coast of America, we’re feeling the climate crisis acutely. Wildfires have been raging since 2018, and 2020 was a particularly bad year. We were facing it in real-time and it’s been weighing on me in ways I haven’t fully processed yet. Music helps us reflect on the bigger things that are difficult to process. It’s a container for both the hardest stuff and the most joyful. You can have a great time dancing to songs that are heavily laden with crazy shit – it’s that magic elixir.
As a performer, you’re known for being totally unbound – physical to the point of injury. You have previously mentioned Nick Cave and Lux Interior as two of the best live performers you’ve witnessed, both of whom were in their fifties when you saw them perform. With that in mind, have you thought much about what performance is going to look like for you as life ticks on?
I think about that a lot because I’m still doing this at the tender age of 44 and I’m aware of what my limitations are, but also what seems to be getting stronger. When I saw The Cure in 2017, it blew my mind and I’ll never forget the power of it and the joy that Robert Smith exudes. It’s the real deal. I aspire to be able to do that, to perform and have that connection – it’s a super nice thing we get to do as rockers.
It’s so rock star that in the early 2000s, you were this young, Asian-American woman totally shredding up stages with these arty, angsty songs in the white-male bastion of indie rock. And now, there’s been this massive shift in representation, and it’s artists like Japanese Breakfast, Jay Som, Mitski, Rina Sawayama, and The Linda Lindas who are totally dominating the genre. How does that make you feel?
My brain is still trying to process and catch up. Is this real? Has this actually happened? There’s been a shift, and there is a connectivity between these artists that didn’t exist when I was coming up. I was floating on my own, like a lonely island, doing my thing back in the early 2000s. But that’s not the case any more. Everyone knows each other, plays with each other, and supports each other. It’s easy to reach out and connect with each other.
I felt very much like Sisyphus, like I’ve been pushing a boulder up a mountain to get recognition in the rock community. Rock has only recently started to become more open and embrace the change, but once it happens, there’s no going back. It just keeps growing and expanding.
My idealistic way of thinking about it is that it just keeps going further, and you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. It’s exciting to see women like The Linda Lindas, who are teenagers but taken seriously. They’re adorable, but they also rock and are funny. It’s been hard for women in rock to be taken seriously, but that’s shifting too. As someone from the “before times,” trying to make my way and pave my own road as a female frontwoman in a rock band, there was no guidebook. I was making up the rules as I went along, and that’s one of the best parts. But having support and a community is something I wish I had, and I’m glad it exists now. It’s empowering, and I hope more women step into that and rock out.
And how does it feel when you hear artists like Japanese Breakfast crediting you for helping to pave the way?
It’s awesome because you never know the ripple effects of such things. There have been many moments in my career where I’ve wondered why it seems like all the dudes are getting those slots or the credit when it feels like we’ve earned our place. I used to feel bad about it, but then I realised that people reached out to me, like amazing fashion designers or artists I follow on Instagram, thanking me for my music. They felt like freaks in small towns, and my music made them feel it’s OK to be themselves and do what they want. So you never know the impact. Stick to the art and the joy of it. Any benefit may not be about popularity, but the ripple effects are yet to be determined.
You earned an Oscar nomination for Moon Song, which you contributed to Spike Jonze’s film Her. Is there a dream director you’d like to collaborate with?
I’ve been lucky to work with David Lynch on his record [Pinky’s Dream], although I didn’t get to soundtrack his films. He’s my ultimate. He actually asked me to do a song for the Twin Peaks redux, but it was six months after I had my baby and I didn’t have any childcare, so I couldn’t do it. But yeah, if he ever does anything again …
Yeah Yeah Yeahs are performing at Splendour in the Grass on July 22 and at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on July 24.