Amanda Palmer. Always honest, never one to shy away from the provocative or the controversial, the artist has always been about sharing her truth and constructing an artistic environment that not only encourages creativity and eclecticism, but pushes boundaries. Currently in Australia for a run of shows that have seen her take to festival and headline stages alike, Palmer is in an interesting moment of flux and change.
She isn’t out here promoting an album. She’s not out here for any one particular album. She’s not even out here to be writing anything new, specifically.
No, Palmer is back on Australian turf to reconnect with fans – her ‘global village’, as she mentions – see what comes out of rehearsal time booked along the way and also, introduce her baby to a whole new landscape. When I called Palmer on Monday morning, she was en route to Melbourne’s Bakehouse Theatre, where she would be sitting down at a piano to, as she describes, kick her own ass back into it.
“It’s been a whole new Australia, coming here with a baby,” she mentions. “But I’m really happy. I always find Melbourne really inspiring; there’s always just been so much resonance in Melbourne and I keep waiting to come here sometimes and find that the magic has worn off, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
Playing the Sydney Opera House tomorrow night before continuing on to venues in Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide, Canberra, back to Melbourne and Cairns, Palmer reflects on how her recent shows have come together and why she thrives on bucking against the conventions the music industry oftentimes puts on its artists.
“I worked a bunch of shows this winter without anything in particular to promote,” she says. “Mostly as a way just to kick my own ass into getting back behind the piano without any particularly stressful agenda. Anyone who knows me, knows that that’s the way I work. I work backwards to the rest of the music industry. I find it so enjoyable to just play shows and be with people and make things up and not have to promote a huge project. I actually prefer touring when I’m ‘off cycle’. I’ve booked out rehearsal time [too] in a rehearsal space every day and again, I don’t have any specific agenda, I don’t have an album I’m specifically trying to write, but I’m trying to sit my ass down at a piano every day to see what comes out.”
As she prepares to take to the Opera House Concert Hall’s renowned stage, the challenge for Palmer lies not in the intimidating nature of the venue and its history, but in ensuring the vibe of the concert is more akin to a gig than it would be a formal event.
“One of the things I really love is trying to make a giant show with 2500 people feel like a show with 250 people.” she explains. “A space like the Opera House can be really intimidating, not just for the person onstage, but for the people in the audience who feel like they’re supposed to comport themselves like in a tour audience. You get a really different vibe from the audience at the Sydney Opera House than you would from the loud pub down the street.”
“I actually always really enjoy the challenge of trying to make a place like the Opera House feel like a bar and to remind the audience that they’re actually there and so am I. The fact that we’re in this giant room doesn’t really matter. That means still taking requests and bantering with the audience and flouncing around and not paying much attention to the stage, which is harder to do in a larger space than in a bar. When it works, it’s that much more enjoyable.”
When it’s come to a venue like the Sydney Opera House – the Contemporary Music program of which has really stepped up its game in recent years – striking the balance between reverence and a frenetic club show vibe is a difficult one. For Palmer, it’s part of the job.
“A lot of your job as the entertainer on stage is to admit that your job, along with ‘entertainer’, is ‘ground traffic control director’.” she laughs. “The audience will always follow your direction. If you give them no direction, they will make the most conservative choices possible and if you give them total permission to run around and be freaks and sit on the stage, they won’t all do it, but you’ll definitely open the gate to a lot more possibilities. The question is, and it’s difficult for a lot of performers, but how much energy do you want to spend during your show dealing with crowd control? How much time do you want to have eaten up by explaining to people what they can and can’t do? Where they can and can’t sit and what sort of noises they should be making?”
“One of the things I love the most about my shows and my crowd is that they never expect me to play any hits,” she furthers. :I don’t really have many hits. There’s a larger hit, that hit is that you actually get this experience of being with me and it’s totally different. I love the fact that entire tours can go by where I don’t play any songs by The Dresden Dolls or Coin Operated Boy and no one notices. [Laughs] It wouldn’t necessarily be like that if you went to see some 90’s band where, of course, they’re going to play the song that was big on the radio in 1996. I love that because it means that people are coming to see me and they’re connecting with things for the right reasons. That makes me feel incredibly good.”
Of her recent inspirations, Palmer has been particularly struck by Nick Cave‘s recent work Skeleton Tree and its accompanying film, One More Time With Feeling. As anyone who has seen the film will remember, the honesty and rawness that came through onscreen was undeniable. For Palmer, it was on a whole other level.
“I would really like it if Nick Cave invited me to come and cuddle up to the bottom of his three piece suit for the entire show.” she admits. “I’m actually going to see him in Sydney in five days, I’m very excited. I went and saw the film the day the album dropped in the States. It mainlined a needle of creative inspiration into my arm. I was like, ‘Oh my God; here I am, feeling sorry for myself that I have this newborn and I’m freaking out about what I’m allowed to say and how I should be creative and how this is going to work,’ and I’m watching him tear himself open with such honesty, but also with such composure and such grace and such authenticity. I sat there watching him on screen and it was just such an important reminder that we’re making up the rules as we go along and nothing is sacred. That’s what makes you a good artist, if you don’t follow anybody else’s rules.”
“Another thing that I found so inspiring and so humbling about watching Nick discussing this record, is that so much of what we feel our job is as musicians, is to impress people.” Palmer adds. “There he was saying like, ‘I don’t need to impress you, I just need to make this thing. Here it is and you make of it what you will, but there’s a larger kind of work going on. There’s a larger message that has nothing to do with entertaining and impressing you, I have a bigger job to do’. For him to be able to articulate that and to invite a film crew into a room while he did that, I was just on my knees in awe at his ability to do that.”
So while we ponder on the concept of a Cave/Palmer collaboration, we look ahead to a new year of new music and projects from the artist. A Patreon user, Palmer now has over 9000 supporters (or ‘Patrons’); a network that has provided her with such a crucial platform to creat from.
“‘On cycle’ doesn’t really exist.” Palmer says, commenting on the nature of Patreon. “I’m always artistically cycling! Especially, as a new mother, I cannot tell you how liberating that is, that I’m not just going into a room with a bunch of suits ever 18 months saying, ‘Let’s talk about your new record cycle,’ because I have always found that so artificial and so stupid. I’m writing all the time, I’m travelling all the time; I’m making things all the time and I just want to put them out. I’m finally able to that and get paid.”
“After I got off the label,” she adds. “I was able to do that, but there was no way to monetise it. If I wanted to just put music out spontaneously as I was making it, I was going to have to financially feed it. Now, I can put out a single, charge my patrons and make $30,000 and go along my merry way with a budget to make the next project. It’s so fucking awesome, especially because I’m a mother and I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do or not do.”
And speaking of baby Anthony, introducing motherhood to the lifestyle of a touring musician, activist, writer and feminist has been a natural fit.
“It is a very corny trope,” Palmer laughs. “But that thing of, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ is true. I feel like, because I have these 9000 people all giving me a little bit of money to work on whatever schedule I want, I have this global village of supporters who are not only supporting me, but my kid so that I can bring him with me and work how I want, where I want. It’s pretty phenomenal; as a mum and a feminist, I feel like it’s a massive win.”
Amanda Palmer will be appearing at the Women’s March in Sydney tomorrow, January 21st ahead of her show at the Sydney Opera House. Check out the official Facebook event here. For more information about Palmer’s Patreon – head here.
To grab your tickets for Amanda Palmer’s Sydney Opera House show, visit www.sydneyoperahouse.com. For complete tour dates, head to www.blog.amandapalmer.net.
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