Interview

SJ: [laughs] Well, I was never looking to make a pop album. It's not to say that there's not a place for pop-it's just not my cup of tea. When I first started working on the album, I got some great jazz musicians together and we recorded a bunch of rough tracks, but it all sounded awful. I realized that trying to recreate Tom Waits's sound with my voice . . . it just sounded really camp. I knew what kind of sound I wanted in my head, but I realized that I needed someone to help me get there. I was looking at certain producers who would be into the idea, and someone said, "Have you ever met Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio?" I have always been a huge fan of that band. I love that kind of massive sound that they have-so I was really curious to meet Dave. Then once we spoke, it was very obvious to both of us that we shared the same ideas.

SM: Waits's songs are obviously very narrative-driven-they tell little stories and create little character sketches. How did you approach interpreting the songs the way you have here? Was it different for you from interpreting a character based on something you read in a script?

SJ: I think that a lot of the singers and artists that I love are very theatrical in a way, even if it's somebody like Freddie Mercury or Marianne Faithfull, so it's a very similar process. I mean, you spend enough time with the lyrics and they begin to take form in relation to your own life.

SM: It's actually sort of funny to hear you sing about "the whiskers" on your "chin" on "I Wish I Was in New Orleans."

SJ: [laughs] Obviously, with a woman singing those lines, there's a certain irony. That song is written from such a masculine point of view that some of the lyrics took on completely different meanings. I felt very attached to that song from the beginning. It was very emotional for me to record it.

SM: Why did you feel so attached to that song in particular?

SJ: I think just because I've always felt such an attachment to New Orleans. I've worked there before and spent time there-I shot a film there called A Love Song for Bobby Long [2004] which is kind of a valentine to that city and the lifestyle that Tom Waits is sort of singing about in that song. I think that with the devastation had happened there . . . even though it's still such a mess and such a disaster, people have stayed there and stood by it, which I think is a testament to human endurance in a way. So I felt like sort of making that song almost like a lullaby, keeping it really intimate and kind of spare.

SM: How did you first get into Tom Waits?

SJ: I first got into Tom Waits when I was, like, 11 or 12. A friend of mine, her dad listened to Tom Waits all the time, so I was introduced to his music pretty young. Then I had a boyfriend in high school who was a huge Tom Waits fan. I guess Tom Waits was always a part of my adolescence. It's funny how the songs mean something different to me now than they did when I first heard them. I remember listening to the songs when I was a kid and laughing. Some of them are almost silly in a way, like "I Don't Wanna Grow Up." When you're 12, that means something completely different to you than when you actually recognize that there's a grown man singing that song. Just listening to certain songs, like "I'll Shoot the Moon"-they're very opusy and attractive for a kid in the same way that Alice in Wonderland [1951] would be or something.

SM: I have to ask you: How did David Bowie get involved in all this?

SJ: Bowie became involved in kind of an amazing way. It was incredible, actually. When I first wanted to do the Bette Midler-Tom Waits duet, I was thinking about who would I duet with, who would make it interesting. I thought, Maybe, you know, David Bowie. I've always loved his voice and everything about him. So I thought it would be great if he could sing the Waits part-or if he could sing the Bette Midler part and I could sing the Waits part, or something like that. I mean, a duet with David Bowie-that was, like, my 13-year-old fantasy. Then, totally fatefully, I met him at a dinner. Bowie already knew Dave Sitek because he was a big fan of TV on the Radio, so he said, "Oh, I hear you and Dave are going down to record. Good luck." So I jokingly said, "You know, let me know if you want to come! Anytime-I'll drive you!" And then one day when I was in Spain shooting last summer, I got this call from Dave, and he was like, "You'll never guess who I have in the studio right now." And, sure enough, it was Bowie. According to Dave, Bowie came in totally prepared with the sheet music and everything. He already knew what parts he was going to sing. I just, you know, basically peed myself when I found out. [both laugh] So that's how it happened. Pretty exciting.

SM: You mentioned earlier that you were into musical theater when you were a kid. Do you remember the first musicals that you sort of cleaved to?

SJ: My mom is of the baby boomer era, and those kinds of films were, obviously, popular in the '50s, when they made all these bright, Technicolor versions of the stage productions, like Oklahoma! [1955] and Carousel [1956] and South Pacific [1958]. I loved Flower Drum Song [1961] and all of those Rodgers and Hammerstein movies. I also always went to see a lot of musicals. So I started auditioning for that stuff. I really wanted to be in musicals when I was a kid, but my voice was kind of deep, so it was hard to find a part I could do.

SM: I wanted to ask you about that, actually, just because your voice is obviously a huge asset for you now, but I was wondering, as a kid who wanted to be in musicals, how that worked.

SJ: Or didn't work. I struggled with it because, you know, young Cosette in Les Misérables is not singing in a baritone voice. Neither is Annie or any of the orphans. [both laugh]