Cat Power

Photography by Samuel Hayes
Published in Kaleidoscope

In a career stretching over 30 years, Chan Marshall, under the moniker of Cat Power, has created some of the most emotionally powerful music ever recorded. Reimagining songs by everyone from Frank Ocean to The Velvet Underground to Bob Dylan, she can turn cover versions into moments of transcendent beauty.

Felix Petty: I'd like to talk to you about Miami and Bob Dylan.
Cat Power: No one ever wants to talk about Miami.

Do they not?
I've lived there for 22 years, and every time someone asks me—even if I've known them for 22 years, they ask me—"Where are you living now?," my answer is always the same: I say, "Miami," and they say, "Miami?" Like I said I live on the moon. And it kind of is like living on the moon.

I was watching an old interview of yours yesterday, the one with Ian Svenonius…
Oh my God. All my friends are in the audience and I didn't realize it was being recorded. I was trying to fuck with Ian but I was hopped up on antidepressants. I was sober. I was dating a boxer. I'm just acting like a fucking buffoon.

But there was a moment in this where, it’s almost the same question, he says, "Where are you living now?" And you say, "Miami," and it's like he thinks you're living on the moon. But then you say, "Living in Miami is like being in Manhattan after a nuclear war." Which I thought was a nice description of the city.

I mean like 60 years after—when the fallout’s gone, most of the people are dead, the water’s clear again, everything got rebuilt smaller. It's like the little version of Manhattan, but with sun and wildlife and you can walk everywhere.

You grew up in the South, right? Would you class Miami as a Southern city? Because it's not, really.
No, absolutely not. That's why I moved there. Back then, all those buildings that you see on South Beach, like the Delano and the Raleigh and the Shore Club, were all abandoned. They were all boarded up. There were no luxury hotels then. There was much less tourism— all of those high rise luxury buildings were not there. It was only two-story deco buildings. There were tons of empty lots all over South Beach. It was like Manhattan after the nuclear war! And now it's like the oligarchs’ playground. It's pretty distressing in that way. But the local people are still there. They haven't been bought out. They still own the condos that they were born in. 

Do you feel like a local now that you've been there for so long?
Oh, absolutely local. When people ask where I’m from, I always say Atlanta. And I still have the same little rent-controlled room that I’ve rented for 32 years here in New York City, which I've had since I'm 20. It's very cozy and I love it. I thank all the stars because without the education from New York City, without having been able to be safe in New York City and have a safe roof over my head here, I don't know where I would've ended up. New York gave me the tools to travel the world. Once I lived here and figured out how to live here and how to work here, all that individual spirit and self-sufficiency, then I was able to see the world. I really have so much gratitude for New York City.

That's one reason why I cite Miami as being the mini New York City, or the cherry on top of the ideal that New York represents. Because Miami has a thriving art scene. They make shit happen like they do here, because there's more space, there's more places, there's more accessibility in Miami because of the culturally diverse life. You can infiltrate somewhere and make friends and try to community up together. It's very easy there to be friendly. Everybody's coming from this diaspora, like New York and like London. It’s a melting pot, which is what I mean when I say it's like Manhattan. The class system is completely... You really see it more in other towns in America. Right across the railroad tracks, you'll see the disparity between the racial divisions of the class system and the color lines. But in Miami, it's a little more mixed.

Both, are cities of refuge where you might be an outsider in a small town or from somewhere else, but it's like the city is a space of reinvention almost. You come in as one person, or not even as a person, and you creatively get molded into ideally who you are meant to be.
Well, you get molded because of the community there.

I was reading another older interview, and you were saying that your son doesn't like you singing beautiful music, because he sees that it makes you sad. I thought this was the most innocent, but perfect and beautiful reaction to music, but also your music specifically. There's something so beautiful and emotional that almost allows you to feel sad in this safe way.
To be your authentic self, which is a thousand shades of senses, nuances, feelings, thoughts, and memories: I think that's what music has done for me since I've been born.

I was in the incubator until I was three months old; I was very, very sick. My grandmother actually got me from the hospital and raised me until I was five. But I think that's why I'm a very intense person. Because I was born and then completely alienated. My first few months of life were completely separated without touch—I couldn't see; I couldn't hear; I had pus in my throat and eyes and ears; my whole head was infected.

Oh, shit.
Gosh, I had no idea what happened, but I'm glad it did.

Maybe this is a good point then to transition into talking about the new album and Bob Dylan.
Yeah. Okay.

And maybe an opening question about this is: To me some of your covers and your approach to covers is usually more emotional, but the idea of recreating a whole concert is quite conceptual—
Well, maybe to you it is. When you're singing Bob Dylan live on stage at the Royal Albert Hall it’s fucking intense and emotional. And to think that I have the balls to even attempt such blasphemy. 

Where did the idea to cover the whole concert come from?
I got an offer to play the Royal Albert Hall. And I've never stepped inside of that building, and the only reason I know it is because of that Bob Dylan documentary Don't Look Back, by Pennebaker. Which I saw when I was like 19, and fell in love with—I’d always been a Bob Dylan fan—but when I saw that documentary, it was different. I fell in love with this person in that movie. That's what I felt. I felt I was in love with him in my heart. So when I saw the Royal Albert Hall for the first time, I lost my fucking mind. It felt really magical to be standing there, like I was at Temple or something.

And that concert occupies an almost big bang kind of moment in musical history, it’s the central point, the epicenter. It’s the beginning of everything. 
And that moment. When he chose to go electric, when he realized he's not going to change the world going to protests all the time. He knew real changes aren’t going to happen sitting around with these fucking same old people doing the same old songs. So he shook them up. Everybody had their formula. Children of the fifties were given their formula, their box to stay in. When he went electric it was like emotional bloodshed. It fucking changed the world. Everybody got turned on. Everybody had something to say. 

That’s why I loved him so much, because he was able to figure out a way to sing songs that woke people up. And Bob was able to give this sort of individual power of critical thinking to a ton of young people's minds.

And that was necessary at that moment in time, especially politically in America. Then the revolution popped off and people were like, "We're not going to go to Vietnam." Standing up—people that would never have gone to a protest all started joining in the movement, and it was a big moment in history.

How did it actually feel, on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall, being Bob Dylan, performing those songs?
I will never be Bob Dylan; I'll never want to be Bob Dylan; I'll never try to be Bob Dylan. How did it feel as a 51-year-old lady? It felt like I had been an outfielder or a pinch hitter that had a wounded elbow my whole career, and then, holy shit, all the players are together. Everybody's in the same field, and we're all fucking winning from the beginning of the game till the end of the game. We're all on the same team; we're all fucking getting home runs, grand slams: everybody's a pinch hitter; everybody's a hundred-mile-an-hour pitcher. No fucking referees. The referees take their shirts off. It felt like we all were on the same team, and we all won. It felt like everybody in that room were like little kids at kindergarten that took over the school. That's how it felt. It felt like we were all on the school bus having a fucking party at five years old, and some five-year-old was driving the bus and we were all just having fun. It just felt like a huge party. It felt like we were all on the same page.