IPOD
RADIO
Imani Coppola
By Erin Broadley
Nov 6, 2007
Imani Coppola is less concerned with writing a hit single and more concerned with, as she puts it, creating music that feels like having a line of coke blown up your ass. This ballsy, Brooklyn-based beauty coolly disregards designer-imposter pop stars who claim to push boundaries, when in truth, the only boundary they're testing is our ability to stomach any more empty calorie pop songs.
However, Coppola is no stranger to the major label machine. The 29-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist signed with Columbia Records during her freshman year in college, churned out a hit MTV single "Legend of a Cowgirl" off her 1997 album Chupacabra, and was then dropped -- sadly, an all too familiar story for new talent these days. But that was then, and this is now.
Imani Coppola stepped back into the limelight in 2006 when she joined forces with the multitalented Oddfather of Rock, Mike Patton, as singer and violinist for Patton's Peeping Tom ensemble.
Coppola's The Black and White Album, out November 6 on Ipecac Records, marks her eighth studio release and is her most self-assured and eclectic album to date.
SuicideGirls caught up with Coppola to talk about life as a starving artist, paying one's dues and the problem with today’s singer/songwriters....
Erin Broadley: Hey, it’s Erin from SuicideGirls.
Imani Coppola: Hi, Erin. How are you?
EB:
I’m all right. How are you doing?
IC:
I’m okay.
EB:
So how is press going for The Black and White Album so far?
IC:
Pretty good, the reviews have been dope. It’s exciting, very exciting.
EB:
This album, though, you put it out on your own and now Ipecac Records is going to re-release it. What led to you kind of deciding to release it off an independent label after the fact?
IC:
Yeah, I put it out digitally on my website. But then I got really excited about the idea of it being printed on a hard copy. You know, old school.
EB:
[Laughs] Right. In the past -- after your experience with major labels, leaving Columbia and then putting music out on your own -- you said you were only interested in really doing something that was personal and would boost your self-worth as an artist from the inside out.
IC:
Yeah, I mean, my story has definitely changed since that whole mantra. When you’re younger you have a little more fire and you haven’t been beaten down so much by economical, financial crisis in your life. You know, you approach 30 and you realize you’ve got to get your shit together for your future, for the sake whether or not you plan on having kids all that stuff.
EB:
Is this release with Ipecac a one-off deal?
IC:
Yeah, pretty much.
EB:
I assume that you connected with that label after hooking up with Mike Patton's Peeping Tom project and subsequent tour. How was that experience for you?
IC:
Yeah. It was good. Definitely the touring and the traveling and working with different kinds of artists, DJs ... everyone was so quirky and themselves. Mike Patton creates this palette and people who can just be themselves, you know, and not have to mold themselves into [something else]. It's a completely artistic method of self-expression. He lets you be you and everyone got to be themselves, so it was really cool. We did several tours that were very long and we became family and it was fun.
EB:
Like a lot of creative freedom, for you.
IC:
Oh yeah, totally. So, yeah, stepping out of that world is like putting whatever demo I want, no matter how rough, onto my website and selling it [laughs]. I felt like this was a good next step because it’s a lot better than a rough demo but there is a certain self-worth and self-esteem involved in delivering a product that’s salable and having it packaged, distributed and promoted. That you can’t do by yourself, you know.
EB:
Right. What’s amazing is, like you said, there’s such a small group of people running the show at Ipecac but at the same time it doesn’t feel that way. I mean, what they do with little manpower is phenomenal.
IC:
Yeah, it’s totally cool. I have a certain pride when I walk over there [to the Ipecac offices] on Bowery and the door is open, the lock is broken.
EB:
Yeah, I know! [Laughs].
IC:
It smells like garbage when you walk up the stairs and it’s just like a crowd of boxes everywhere.
EB:
People are smoking. There are boxes of all these amazing CDs waiting to be shipped.
IC:
That’s kind of how you want to see the machine work. There’s no mystery. It’s like, when you put out records on major labels, you don’t know where the fuck this shit happens. But with Ipecac, it happens all in this office. You see that scanner? That’s pretty much where your artwork is getting made.
EB:
I read a previous interview where you discussed your experience after leaving Columbia and how you had a vision of how you wanted your shit to sound and that there were just too many cooks in the kitchen with a label like that. And too many men interfering.
IC:
Yeah. Right.
EB:
Was it something that went against what you felt as a woman and what you wanted?
IC:
Well, it’s a very male dominated business.
EB:
Most women are publicists.
IC:
Yeah, right, it’s like, “Here, take care of the children. Take care of the babies." Part of the problem with me is that I never really know what my vision is as an artist, as a musician, and as a songwriter. I love music. I love all genres. I love experimenting with all genres and part of the problem with flirting with major labels and the managers who are all male and everything is they really, really want you to be one thing. I understand it; they’re a business. They want to sell a product. They think they know best, which is weird because, how in the world can they know what’s best for your art? They’re not the artist making it. It’s a weird thing being an artist -- you have so much time thinking about what you need, what you want, what your vision is. It’s kind of like a privileged place to be, whereas in any other sort of job you don’t have that. I’m lucky but I also think there’s a dark side to [having] all of that time to yourself [because] it can get to you.
EB:
Self-indulgence can rear its ugly head.
IC:
Oh my God, yeah! Part of it is just being completely self-absorbed and trying to dig yourself out of whatever holes you fucking create.
EB:
You draw the line between having your art being all-encompassing and having it be completely alienating at the same time.
IC:
Right, oh yeah, alienating.
EB:
You were so young when you hooked up at first with a major label.
IC:
Yeah, I was young for 1997, you know. Nowadays they’re signing fucking 13-year-olds. But, oh my God, I was so not with it, I didn’t have a fucking clue.
EB:
Yeah, well how did you get through that? It’s so hard because so many young artists get disillusioned and don't want to continue.
IC:
Right. Well, after the Columbia experience, I was 22, and I felt so much older than any other 22-year-old that was just graduating college. I dropped out of college to tour the world. It was really hard for me to identify with people my age and it’s been hard for me to identify with people my whole fucking life.
EB:
[Laughs]
IC:
So this made it even worse, I was even more alienated from the universe and the way my brain was trained to write, my whole shit was just a little diluted, convoluted and when I wrote it wasn’t pure for years. I didn’t ever get that pureness like, “Ah, this song came from me.”
EB:
Like you owned it.
IC:
Right, right, I was trying to write a hit for like fucking 10 years.
EB:
[Laughs]
IC:
It’s like, “Holy shit!” It definitely morphed my songwriting ability. It could be a good thing. It could be a bad thing. I don’t really know. I’m not really sure. I think as far as being an artist, being a songwriter like Nick Drake, or Elliott Smith, my craft as far as writing songs, I don’t know. Elliott’s had some good hooks and so did Nick Drake. I feel in a pop commercial sense, I’ve been seriously convoluted. I was very young when I started writing and became a professional songwriter, and as soon as I started writing songs, I never really got to explore the art’s heart.
EB:
It’s hard because definition of what’s popular changes so often. As soon as you feel like you’ve got something that works, all of a sudden it’s changed again. It’s almost impossible -- and potentially destructive -- to base your artistic identity on a hit or a pop song.
IC:
Oh God, yeah. I just decided that I was a songwriter at a certain point because I wanted to write in every genre. I knew how to write a pop song and I knew how to write an alternative song and I was like, “How am I ever going to pull all of this off as an artist?" It’s just not possible. So I decided to write whatever the hell I wanted to, for myself. It was just like, "Let’s have some fucking fun. Let’s kill it." I’ve just been hustling so long, it gets pretty exhausting. Your brain takes in too much clouds and disappointment and you get burnt out, basically, but every now and then something restores why you’re doing it. It’s usually when you reach somebody and you help somebody change their life with what you said ... what they couldn’t put together in words and music as just a normal person. You’re able to change the course of their life because of the words that you say.
EB:
Well one thing that really interests me about this album is that this is the first time the world has really ever heard what your songs sound like.
IC:
Right.
EB:
How do you separate your songs from the collaborations you do with other artists and projects like Peeping Tom? How do they function together and how do you keep one from overshadowing the other?
IC:
I’m a unique individual and I know that I come up with some unique shit. There’s a very clear line between when I’m writing for another artist, or when I’m shooting a commercial or I’m asked to do something on spec. My brain changes, my thought processes, my body language changes, the way I work changes. If it’s just for me, typically it just comes naturally when I'm cleaning up, waking up, drinking coffee, playing with my cat, something comes out of my mind. But, when I have to write something for another artist, I get online, I do research, I listen to iTunes top 10, I friggin go to websites that rhyme. When you do work for other artists, it’s definitely more of a job and it requires a lot of tools. I try to pull from my own personal experience. I definitely have to say that the way I live my life, I try to have the most amount of experience no matter whether it’s good or bad.
EB:
Just take it all in.
IC:
Oh my God, yeah. I walk through life really open. I don’t get my ass kicked but I might someday just do so [in order to] write a song. I call it method songwriting.
EB:
Method songwriting [laughs].
IC:
Which is something people used to do in the '60s and it wasn’t a big fucking thing.
EB:
Well, when you write for yourself, instead of getting online and doing all your academic research for other artists, what’s your songwriting process like? Do sounds and the music come first for you because of your classical background, or do lyrics come first?
IC:
Right. Lately it’s just been lyrical. Sometimes I just have song titles. You know, just interesting song titles and sometimes I just have inspired moments of lyrics and melody. I was actually going to try to sit down and strum a little guitar tonight and see if I still have it in me to just write a song on a guitar. Because it used to be really therapeutic.
EB:
Kind of back to the basics.
IC:
Yeah, it used to be really therapeutic and it felt so good to write a song straight through, in one sitting, and understand what you’re saying and feeling. I haven’t done it in so long, you know, it just doesn’t pay. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I feel like every song that I’ve written is my therapy, just for me. I don’t know, why should I subject the world to the shit that I go through? I don’t know. I have a problem with singer/songwriters for that reason ... I liked it more when it was a mystery. [When] people were a mystery. Everybody now, they’re not. Now they expose themselves and they like it. They get attention because of it. It’s a selfish time.
EB:
Coming from a position where you've been there, done that with major labels and also smaller labels like Ipecac, what ideally is the next step for you in the next few years with your work?
IC:
Well, I’ll tell you what’s happening. I’m going through the major label process once more with the wisdom I have from being an independent broke-ass artist, you know, poetic but pathetic. I’m taking it to a mature level and I’m going to look at it as a job and just a stage and a method of expression, with not so much hatred for commercialism and being exposed at that level. I’m just trying to look at it as a method to be able to express and teach. I’m trying not to look too deeply into it. It’s just time, I’m really ready for a paycheck. I’ve learned. I’ve paid my dues.
EB:
It’s all kind of romantic and fun to consider yourself a "starving artist" until you’re actually starving and then, you know, it’s not so romantic anymore.
IC:
Oh no, not at all. I’m weird because my parents are both artists and we starved, we went through a lot of fucking difficulty growing up because of their choices in life. But I have mad respect for that, you know.
EB:
That they persevered and were diligent about doing it their way.
IC:
Yeah, but I have a little resentment because when it comes down to making important decisions about my life and my foundation, you know, their artistic side haunts me. Like maybe I should just do what they did.
EB:
That's interesting. Most musicians come at it from a point of view where their parents weren’t artists.
IC:
Yeah. Right. Like, "I hate my dad so I’m going to go and paint.”
EB:
I’m going to live in a closet.
IC:
It's like, “My dad sucks so I’m going to get a record deal.” [Laughs]
EB:
Exactly [laughs].
IC:
[Laughs] “Fuck you, dad.”
EB:
What are your plans for touring with this record? Are you going to?
IC:
Well, yeah, if it generates the money where I’m able to. But I’m a one-man band and I don’t know if anyone will tour with me for free. I don’t even have a car. I don’t know, I would love to put together at least one banging show together for this album. Definitely, it deserves that.
The Black and White Album is in stores now. For more information go to ipecac.com or imanicoppola.net
Imani Coppola is less concerned with writing a hit single and more concerned with, as she puts it, creating music that feels like having a line of coke blown up your ass. This ballsy, Brooklyn-based beauty coolly disregards designer-imposter pop stars who claim to push boundaries, when in truth, the only boundary they're testing is our ability to stomach any more empty calorie pop songs.
However, Coppola is no stranger to the major label machine. The 29-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist signed with Columbia Records during her freshman year in college, churned out a hit MTV single "Legend of a Cowgirl" off her 1997 album Chupacabra, and was then dropped -- sadly, an all too familiar story for new talent these days. But that was then, and this is now.
Imani Coppola stepped back into the limelight in 2006 when she joined forces with the multitalented Oddfather of Rock, Mike Patton, as singer and violinist for Patton's Peeping Tom ensemble.
Coppola's The Black and White Album, out November 6 on Ipecac Records, marks her eighth studio release and is her most self-assured and eclectic album to date.
SuicideGirls caught up with Coppola to talk about life as a starving artist, paying one's dues and the problem with today’s singer/songwriters....
Erin Broadley: Hey, it’s Erin from SuicideGirls.
Imani Coppola: Hi, Erin. How are you?
EB:
I’m all right. How are you doing?
IC:
I’m okay.
EB:
So how is press going for The Black and White Album so far?
IC:
Pretty good, the reviews have been dope. It’s exciting, very exciting.
EB:
This album, though, you put it out on your own and now Ipecac Records is going to re-release it. What led to you kind of deciding to release it off an independent label after the fact?
IC:
Yeah, I put it out digitally on my website. But then I got really excited about the idea of it being printed on a hard copy. You know, old school.
EB:
[Laughs] Right. In the past -- after your experience with major labels, leaving Columbia and then putting music out on your own -- you said you were only interested in really doing something that was personal and would boost your self-worth as an artist from the inside out.
IC:
Yeah, I mean, my story has definitely changed since that whole mantra. When you’re younger you have a little more fire and you haven’t been beaten down so much by economical, financial crisis in your life. You know, you approach 30 and you realize you’ve got to get your shit together for your future, for the sake whether or not you plan on having kids all that stuff.
EB:
Is this release with Ipecac a one-off deal?
IC:
Yeah, pretty much.
EB:
I assume that you connected with that label after hooking up with Mike Patton's Peeping Tom project and subsequent tour. How was that experience for you?
IC:
Yeah. It was good. Definitely the touring and the traveling and working with different kinds of artists, DJs ... everyone was so quirky and themselves. Mike Patton creates this palette and people who can just be themselves, you know, and not have to mold themselves into [something else]. It's a completely artistic method of self-expression. He lets you be you and everyone got to be themselves, so it was really cool. We did several tours that were very long and we became family and it was fun.
EB:
Like a lot of creative freedom, for you.
IC:
Oh yeah, totally. So, yeah, stepping out of that world is like putting whatever demo I want, no matter how rough, onto my website and selling it [laughs]. I felt like this was a good next step because it’s a lot better than a rough demo but there is a certain self-worth and self-esteem involved in delivering a product that’s salable and having it packaged, distributed and promoted. That you can’t do by yourself, you know.
EB:
Right. What’s amazing is, like you said, there’s such a small group of people running the show at Ipecac but at the same time it doesn’t feel that way. I mean, what they do with little manpower is phenomenal.
IC:
Yeah, it’s totally cool. I have a certain pride when I walk over there [to the Ipecac offices] on Bowery and the door is open, the lock is broken.
EB:
Yeah, I know! [Laughs].
IC:
It smells like garbage when you walk up the stairs and it’s just like a crowd of boxes everywhere.
EB:
People are smoking. There are boxes of all these amazing CDs waiting to be shipped.
IC:
That’s kind of how you want to see the machine work. There’s no mystery. It’s like, when you put out records on major labels, you don’t know where the fuck this shit happens. But with Ipecac, it happens all in this office. You see that scanner? That’s pretty much where your artwork is getting made.
EB:
I read a previous interview where you discussed your experience after leaving Columbia and how you had a vision of how you wanted your shit to sound and that there were just too many cooks in the kitchen with a label like that. And too many men interfering.
IC:
Yeah. Right.
EB:
Was it something that went against what you felt as a woman and what you wanted?
IC:
Well, it’s a very male dominated business.
EB:
Most women are publicists.
IC:
Yeah, right, it’s like, “Here, take care of the children. Take care of the babies." Part of the problem with me is that I never really know what my vision is as an artist, as a musician, and as a songwriter. I love music. I love all genres. I love experimenting with all genres and part of the problem with flirting with major labels and the managers who are all male and everything is they really, really want you to be one thing. I understand it; they’re a business. They want to sell a product. They think they know best, which is weird because, how in the world can they know what’s best for your art? They’re not the artist making it. It’s a weird thing being an artist -- you have so much time thinking about what you need, what you want, what your vision is. It’s kind of like a privileged place to be, whereas in any other sort of job you don’t have that. I’m lucky but I also think there’s a dark side to [having] all of that time to yourself [because] it can get to you.
EB:
Self-indulgence can rear its ugly head.
IC:
Oh my God, yeah! Part of it is just being completely self-absorbed and trying to dig yourself out of whatever holes you fucking create.
EB:
You draw the line between having your art being all-encompassing and having it be completely alienating at the same time.
IC:
Right, oh yeah, alienating.
EB:
You were so young when you hooked up at first with a major label.
IC:
Yeah, I was young for 1997, you know. Nowadays they’re signing fucking 13-year-olds. But, oh my God, I was so not with it, I didn’t have a fucking clue.
EB:
Yeah, well how did you get through that? It’s so hard because so many young artists get disillusioned and don't want to continue.
IC:
Right. Well, after the Columbia experience, I was 22, and I felt so much older than any other 22-year-old that was just graduating college. I dropped out of college to tour the world. It was really hard for me to identify with people my age and it’s been hard for me to identify with people my whole fucking life.
EB:
[Laughs]
IC:
So this made it even worse, I was even more alienated from the universe and the way my brain was trained to write, my whole shit was just a little diluted, convoluted and when I wrote it wasn’t pure for years. I didn’t ever get that pureness like, “Ah, this song came from me.”
EB:
Like you owned it.
IC:
Right, right, I was trying to write a hit for like fucking 10 years.
EB:
[Laughs]
IC:
It’s like, “Holy shit!” It definitely morphed my songwriting ability. It could be a good thing. It could be a bad thing. I don’t really know. I’m not really sure. I think as far as being an artist, being a songwriter like Nick Drake, or Elliott Smith, my craft as far as writing songs, I don’t know. Elliott’s had some good hooks and so did Nick Drake. I feel in a pop commercial sense, I’ve been seriously convoluted. I was very young when I started writing and became a professional songwriter, and as soon as I started writing songs, I never really got to explore the art’s heart.
EB:
It’s hard because definition of what’s popular changes so often. As soon as you feel like you’ve got something that works, all of a sudden it’s changed again. It’s almost impossible -- and potentially destructive -- to base your artistic identity on a hit or a pop song.
IC:
Oh God, yeah. I just decided that I was a songwriter at a certain point because I wanted to write in every genre. I knew how to write a pop song and I knew how to write an alternative song and I was like, “How am I ever going to pull all of this off as an artist?" It’s just not possible. So I decided to write whatever the hell I wanted to, for myself. It was just like, "Let’s have some fucking fun. Let’s kill it." I’ve just been hustling so long, it gets pretty exhausting. Your brain takes in too much clouds and disappointment and you get burnt out, basically, but every now and then something restores why you’re doing it. It’s usually when you reach somebody and you help somebody change their life with what you said ... what they couldn’t put together in words and music as just a normal person. You’re able to change the course of their life because of the words that you say.
EB:
Well one thing that really interests me about this album is that this is the first time the world has really ever heard what your songs sound like.
IC:
Right.
EB:
How do you separate your songs from the collaborations you do with other artists and projects like Peeping Tom? How do they function together and how do you keep one from overshadowing the other?
IC:
I’m a unique individual and I know that I come up with some unique shit. There’s a very clear line between when I’m writing for another artist, or when I’m shooting a commercial or I’m asked to do something on spec. My brain changes, my thought processes, my body language changes, the way I work changes. If it’s just for me, typically it just comes naturally when I'm cleaning up, waking up, drinking coffee, playing with my cat, something comes out of my mind. But, when I have to write something for another artist, I get online, I do research, I listen to iTunes top 10, I friggin go to websites that rhyme. When you do work for other artists, it’s definitely more of a job and it requires a lot of tools. I try to pull from my own personal experience. I definitely have to say that the way I live my life, I try to have the most amount of experience no matter whether it’s good or bad.
EB:
Just take it all in.
IC:
Oh my God, yeah. I walk through life really open. I don’t get my ass kicked but I might someday just do so [in order to] write a song. I call it method songwriting.
EB:
Method songwriting [laughs].
IC:
Which is something people used to do in the '60s and it wasn’t a big fucking thing.
EB:
Well, when you write for yourself, instead of getting online and doing all your academic research for other artists, what’s your songwriting process like? Do sounds and the music come first for you because of your classical background, or do lyrics come first?
IC:
Right. Lately it’s just been lyrical. Sometimes I just have song titles. You know, just interesting song titles and sometimes I just have inspired moments of lyrics and melody. I was actually going to try to sit down and strum a little guitar tonight and see if I still have it in me to just write a song on a guitar. Because it used to be really therapeutic.
EB:
Kind of back to the basics.
IC:
Yeah, it used to be really therapeutic and it felt so good to write a song straight through, in one sitting, and understand what you’re saying and feeling. I haven’t done it in so long, you know, it just doesn’t pay. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I feel like every song that I’ve written is my therapy, just for me. I don’t know, why should I subject the world to the shit that I go through? I don’t know. I have a problem with singer/songwriters for that reason ... I liked it more when it was a mystery. [When] people were a mystery. Everybody now, they’re not. Now they expose themselves and they like it. They get attention because of it. It’s a selfish time.
EB:
Coming from a position where you've been there, done that with major labels and also smaller labels like Ipecac, what ideally is the next step for you in the next few years with your work?
IC:
Well, I’ll tell you what’s happening. I’m going through the major label process once more with the wisdom I have from being an independent broke-ass artist, you know, poetic but pathetic. I’m taking it to a mature level and I’m going to look at it as a job and just a stage and a method of expression, with not so much hatred for commercialism and being exposed at that level. I’m just trying to look at it as a method to be able to express and teach. I’m trying not to look too deeply into it. It’s just time, I’m really ready for a paycheck. I’ve learned. I’ve paid my dues.
EB:
It’s all kind of romantic and fun to consider yourself a "starving artist" until you’re actually starving and then, you know, it’s not so romantic anymore.
IC:
Oh no, not at all. I’m weird because my parents are both artists and we starved, we went through a lot of fucking difficulty growing up because of their choices in life. But I have mad respect for that, you know.
EB:
That they persevered and were diligent about doing it their way.
IC:
Yeah, but I have a little resentment because when it comes down to making important decisions about my life and my foundation, you know, their artistic side haunts me. Like maybe I should just do what they did.
EB:
That's interesting. Most musicians come at it from a point of view where their parents weren’t artists.
IC:
Yeah. Right. Like, "I hate my dad so I’m going to go and paint.”
EB:
I’m going to live in a closet.
IC:
It's like, “My dad sucks so I’m going to get a record deal.” [Laughs]
EB:
Exactly [laughs].
IC:
[Laughs] “Fuck you, dad.”
EB:
What are your plans for touring with this record? Are you going to?
IC:
Well, yeah, if it generates the money where I’m able to. But I’m a one-man band and I don’t know if anyone will tour with me for free. I don’t even have a car. I don’t know, I would love to put together at least one banging show together for this album. Definitely, it deserves that.
The Black and White Album is in stores now. For more information go to ipecac.com or imanicoppola.net
The Black and White Album is in stores now. For more information go to ipecac.com or imanicoppola.net
loading your activity feed...