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M A S S E D U C T I O N G O E S
M A S S I V E
LIZZO | SUPERORGANISM | JUNGLE
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photo by Charles Reagan Hackleman, courtesy of Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival
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DON’T MISS: LIZZO DON’T MISS: SUPERORGANISM DON’T MISS: JUNGLE “DOWNLOAD 15” FESTIVAL SEASON PLAYLIST MAD MIKE’S GUIDE TO GLAMPING YOUR VAN ST. VINCENT + PHILIPPA PRICE: “MASSEDUCTION” GOES MASSIVE JESSIE + KATEY’S ART OF NOISE
GUEST EDITOR RANDY BOOKASTA PUBLISHER ALAN SARTIRANA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF NATE ROGERS, MANAGING EDITOR ANYA JAREMKO-GREENWOLD, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT MIKE LESUER ART DIRECTOR MELISSA SIMONIAN WRITERS DAN EPSTEIN, ANDY HERMANN, KATRINA NATTRESS, JENNIFER ODELL, JEFF REGAN, WYOMING REYNOLDS, SCOTT T. STERLING, MIKE WASS, ALLIE VOLPE ANTHEMIC AGENCY MICHAEL BAUER, ANA DOS ANJOS, JACQUELINE FONSECA, TAYLOR NUÑEZ, RICARDO RIVAS VELIS, KYLE ROGERS
FROM: Houston, Texas HEAR: The Coconut Oil EP SEE: Lollapalooza, Life Is Beautiful, Summer Spirit Festival, Outside Lands, Voodoo Fest
AMONG LIZZO’S MANY SUPERPOWERS: EXTREME MULTITASKING.
LIZZO
When I caught up with the singer to talk about her myriad projects— including her much-anticipated third solo LP—she let me know in no uncertain terms that she’d be working out on a treadmill during our phone interview. “Ah, it’s no big deal,” she laughs, dismissing any talk of her being one of the hardest working women in music, despite ample evidence. After coming up in the Minneapolis scene and self-releasing a series of albums—Lizzobangers in 2013 and Big Grrrl Small World in 2015—Lizzo has become a hardcore road warrior. She’s a regular presence on festival, club, and theater stages around the world, perpetuating her fiercely fun and physical live show/dance party. The singer just wrapped a tour opening for HAIM, and is set to do the same for Florence + the Machine this fall. She even found time to serve as a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race. “I don’t know how, but I was booking festivals before I even had a project out,” she chuckles. “I remember when I put out Lizzobangers, I was playing UK fests like Glastonbury and Reading and Leeds, and the whole time I was like, ‘How did I get here?’ I think we really learned our chops on festival stages. Having to win people over, having to keep the energy up. It’s why when you see me at a theater show, it feels like you’re at a festival.” In terms of Lizzo’s major-label debut full-length (following the acclaimed Coconut Oil EP, her first release with Atlantic), she insists that, at this point, her studio output has become an embarrassment of riches, with more than forty finished songs. “I have no idea what I’m going to do. I recorded three new songs just last night, and they’re all so good,” she reveals. “Going through these songs, I have a rock album, there’s an R&B album, I’ve got a trap album… I’m sure if I keep making songs, the album will reveal itself to me. It has to, because it’s coming out this year. I think the determining
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factor will be performing new songs live, and letting the fans tell me.” One new song, “Jerome,” got such a rousing reception on the HAIM tour that it’s slated to make the final cut. As Lizzo’s workout comes to a close, I ask her thoughts on being turned into a meme earlier this year. A video clip of her being whisked away on a motorized cart and saying, “Bye, bitch” to the camera quickly made the social media rounds. “I’m so proud of myself,” she explains of her meme status. “I was at Beautycon, and I got this free wig from a wig company and was super excited about it. I never get free hair. I made a quick promotional video for them, and as the cart pulled off I had my ‘Bye, bitch’ moment. People just edited it and made it into a meme. It was really special and hilarious. Everyone’s greatest fear these days is becoming a meme. I’m just fortunate that mine was a good one.” BY SCOTT T. STERLING PHOTO BY QUINN WILSON
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FROM: London, England HEAR: Superorganism
SUPERORGANISM
SEE: Lollapalooza, Life Is Beautiful
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EARLY LAST YEAR, A GROUP OF UNKNOWN MUSICIANS HAILING PRIMARILY FROM NEW ZEALAND DECIDED TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND FOR LONDON. During that process, they also ditched
their former band name—and even their own names—in order to create
a project that wouldn’t be defined by something as simple as genre. A
nondescript house in the Hackney neighborhood would serve as their petri
dish of creativity, and as the breeding ground for the group now known as
Superorganism.
Previously called The Eversons, the Kiwi-based outfit met Orono
Noguchi, then a high school student who discovered them randomly
through YouTube, at a show in Japan in 2015. They all stayed in touch,
bonding over meme culture. By 2017, the group discovered Noguchi’s
prowess as a singer and songwriter, and invited her to be a part of their
new project in London. She’s now the group’s singer—and an integral part
More chaotic and spontaneous, Superorganism’s live show strays from
of their forward-thinking image.
traditional instruments, and instead leans on drum machines and samples,
With seven of the eight members living together, Superorganism
which allows them to be more adventurous than a traditional rock band.
developed their sound by sequestering themselves in their rooms where
“Like, we don’t use a drum kit per se,” Harry explains. “It’s a drum kit with a
they cook up the ideas that get chopped into their blend of glossy, swirling
mesh head on it and it has a bunch of triggers on it, which trigger samples.
indie pop. Despite being under one roof, the band shares song ideas online.
There’s a whole world that you have because of computers to put together
Impersonal? Perhaps, but it’s what works best for them.
something more ambitious that isn’t four dudes playing rock. It’s a big,
energetic party.”
“Sometimes we’ll all congregate in a specific room [of the house]
and do a vocal session or work on some parts together, but for the most
part, everyone is in their own room working on their own thing,” says the
festivals this summer—including Lollapalooza and Life Is Beautiful—they’re
guitarist/songwriter just known as Harry. “Someone could be doing some
already working on another album. Harry attributes Superorganism’s tireless
remixes and someone else is working on new songs. It’s kind of all about the
work ethic to their Kiwi background, and says being “the chillest people in
Internet, really.”
the world” is why they’re able to get along so well.
With a group consisting of seven traveling members, one would think
As Superorganism gets set to hit the road and perform at a number of
“The beauty of what we do is that we could go in a direction that’s
that playing live—to say nothing of touring—could be grating. However,
more influenced by hip-hop or electronic,” Harry says. “It’s a really freeing
Superorganism have figured out how to tour without getting on each other’s
experience to be producing this, and it’s also quite funny to put it out into
nerves. “Some [members] will go see the local sites and others will stay and
the world and see how other people perceive it, because it’s not what we’ve
chill,” Harry says. “It’s not like three people are stuck together at all times.”
got in our heads.”
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BY WYOMING REYNOLDS PHOTO BY JORDAN HUGHES
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One versatile ride that knows how to have fun.
Prototype shown with options. Š2018 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. FLOOD
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FROM: London, England HEAR: “House in LA,” “Happy Man” SEE: Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Life Is Beautiful, Treasure Island
WHEN JUNGLE CATAPULTED TO INDIE-FUNK STARDOM IN 2014, NO ONE WAS MORE SURPRISED THAN THE BAND’S CREATORS. Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland were just two sound-obsessive twentysomethings recording music in their Shepherd’s Bush bedrooms before signing to XL Recordings, making the Mercury Prize shortlist, and selling out tours for two years straight. They just loved making music that
JUNGLE
wasn’t quite funk, wasn’t quite hip-hop, wasn’t quite electronica, yet found the sweet spot in all the genres that inspired them. Apparently millions of other people love that sound, too. For some bands, immediate success can be a blessing and a curse. Where is there to go when your debut album gets praised more than you could have ever imagined? The external pressures of making a follow-up can be overwhelming—but not to this English duo. “We put pressure on ourselves to make a better record this time,” Tom explains. “That’s the only pressure you can really listen to—the pressure from yourself to become a better creator, better songwriter, better producer.” While creating their forthcoming sophomore album, Josh and Tom reached deep within themselves to make music that spoke more about their personal experiences. As a result, Tom assures fans that they will get to know them better this time around.
Anyone who’s seen a Jungle show knows what to expect: dancing, and lots of it. However, Tom admits that he and Josh have not always been the
“When we made the first record we hadn’t traveled very much, so it
most confident of performers. That’s all changing this year. “For us, the most
was our view of the world from our little bubble,” he confesses. “With the
fulfilling thing recently is understanding that the people who come to your
confidence we’ve gained from touring, we wanted to tell the story of our
concerts and the people who want to talk to you about your music are there
lives a bit more, so I think this album is much more three-dimensional in
to support you,” Tom says, “so to open yourself up to them is way more
its emotion.”
fulfilling than shying away from that.”
The duo has also evolved sonically, incorporating strings into the new
That mindset has resulted in a more positive energy onstage and a
record to give it a full, cinematic sound. And though the live band is already
stronger connection with fans than the band has ever felt before. “I really
comprised of seven members, the hope is to tour with a string section in the
hope people are going to continue to connect with the new songs, and
future. For now, they have a new singer, Nat Zangi, whom Josh and Tom can’t
hopefully we’ll have some more singles out over the summer as well,” Tom
wait to introduce to American audiences as they tour the festival circuit this
says. But there are two things he can guarantee to anyone who sees them
summer, making stops at Lollapalooza and Life Is Beautiful.
on the road this year: “More dancing, more singing.” BY KATRINA NATTRESS PHOTO BY OLIVER HADLEE PEARCH
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MUMFORD & SONS ‡ CHILDISH GAMBINO ‡ ARCTIC MONKEYS ODESZA ‡ MARTIN GARRIX ‡ A PERFECT CIRCLE ‡ MODEST MOUSE marilyn manson ‡ the revivalists ‡ 21 savage ‡ janelle monÁe zeds dead ‡ tipper ‡ third eye blind ‡ rÜfÜs du sol ‡ awolnation Ty Dolla $ign ‡ rainbow kitten surprise ‡ gryffin ‡ highly suspect ajr ‡ hippie sabotage ‡ goldlink ‡ tom misch ‡ troyboi ‡ lettuce tinashe ‡ elle king ‡ kayzo ‡ boogie t.rio (live band) ‡ lizzo ‡ sofi tukker ravyn lenae ‡ albert hammond jr ‡ shiba san ‡ poppy ‡ claptone The suffers ‡ space jesus ‡ big thief ‡ white reaper ‡ frenship ‡ wallows dorothy ‡ anna lunoe ‡ sunflower bean ‡ nora en pure ‡ droeloe ‡ mt. joy clozee ‡ starcrawler ‡ eprom ‡ thunderpussy ‡ the coronas ‡ caamp loudpvck ‡ brother sundance ‡ gg magree ‡ motel radio ‡ cray ‡ jack harlow FLOOD
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The SiriusXMU DOWNLOAD 15
1. Arctic Monkeys — “Four Out of Five” 2. St. Vincent — “Fast Slow Disco” 3. Jack White — “Over and Over and Over” 4. Jungle — “Happy Man” 5. Parquet Courts — “Wide Awake” 6. CHVRCHES — “Deliverance” 7. Cigarettes After Sex — “Apocalypse” 8. Arcade Fire — “Electric Blue” 9. Rex Orange County (ft. Benny Sings) —
n o s a e S l a v i t s e F PLAYLIST Every week, SiriusXM Radio’s “indie rock n’ stuff” station SiriusXMU counts down the best new songs with their signature show, The Download 15. We asked the SiriusXMU crew to compile a special Download 15 playlist with their favorite songs from this year’s best and brightest festival artists. Check out the results to the side and listen to The Download 15 every weekend on SiriusXMU Channel 35.
ARCTIC MONKEYS 8
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PHOTO BY ZACHARY MICHAEL
“Loving Is Easy”
10. Superorganism — “Night Time” 11. Sunflower Bean — “I Was a Fool” 12. Clairo — “4EVER” 13. Franz Ferdinand — “Feel the Love Go” 14. Albert Hammond Jr. — “Muted Beatings” 15. Hinds — “Finally Floating”
MAD MIKE’S GUIDE TO
GLAMPING Y O U RVAN The Pimp My Ride vet is here to show you how to make the most of your music festival road trip. When “Mad” Mike Martin hits the road, he does so in extreme style. A star in the American glamping scene (where camping meets glamour, for the uninitiated), Martin is famous for his tricked-out and amenitiesrich rides. Boasting a massive self-made tent filled with plush furniture, a working kitchen, multiple big-screen TVs, and a fully functioning bathroom, his “glampsites” are legendary. They’re also perpetually being upgraded, as Martin is never one to rest on past accomplishments—or build-outs. “I told myself I wasn’t going to build a new tent for 2018, but I ended up doing it anyway,” he laughs over the phone. “It’s a little bit different. Not too extreme, but a little bit nicer.” For music fans looking to turn their festival excursion into a fullblown glamping trip, Martin makes a point to emphasize that anyone with the ingenuity and means can follow in his footsteps. First and foremost, double down on the essentials. And before you can start getting fancy, the basics have to be well-handled. “You need food, water, shelter, electricity, and heat,” he explains. “The trick is to figure out some way to get those items out in the middle
of nowhere. That can often be very difficult to accomplish. It’s not the most glamorous aspect, but it’s the most important. You’ve really got to think ahead on how to maximize those things. You’re also going to need something to entertain yourself for when you’re not at the show. There’s more downtime than you might realize.” Once you’ve checked off everything on the essentials list, that’s when you can turn your attention to the aesthetics. Let the world know which festival you’re hitting by writing it along the outside of your ride, and make some new friends along the way. Any decently sized vehicle can be glamped, Martin insists, pointing at his own ride of choice. “My motorhome is an old 1992 Winnebago Brave, and it’s all I need,” he says of the RV that he’s pimped into a stealth glampmobile. “I only really like old stuff, because I’m just going to tear it up anyway,” he chuckles. When queried about how he became such a dedicated glamper, Martin points to his parents, who inspired him to not only go after his dreams, but to literally create them. “I’ve always done things my own way,” he explains. “Because I was poor, I grew up wanting to live like rich people.
by Scott T. Sterling
My folks rehabbed houses while I was growing up, so I learned a lot about construction, plumbing, and stuff like that. Then I was on a TV show and got a glimpse of how rich people actually live. Once I saw the inside of rich people’s houses, I was like, ‘I can build that.’” The TV show Martin is referring to is MTV’s legendary Pimp My Ride, where unsuspecting teens had their ordinary cars transformed into flashy, four-wheeled art pieces packed with unexpected features. He’s proud to reveal that he’s the only person to be featured on every one of the show’s seventy-three episodes. “I love to be creative. I’m not the guy who can just buy a hundred-and-fifty-dollar tent at Walmart to go camping,” he states of his immediate attraction to the world of glamping. “My goal in life is to be one of the few, not one of the many.” Martin was able to flex his Pimp My Ride prowess this year when he was commissioned to customize four unique Toyota Sienna Swagger Wagons, each with their own “personality” inspired by the small town of Marfa, Texas. The results were put on display at Stagecoach 2018, where fans were able to check out Martin’s work. They will also be
popping up at various festivals over the summer, including Life Is Beautiful, Lollapalooza, and Voodoo Fest. His fame has grown to the point that people pop up from the most unexpected places looking for wisdom from him on how to most effectively tune up their own skills. “My girlfriend works at a hospital in Torrance, and the doctors there are always asking her if they can call me for camping advice,” he notes, laughing. “While they were at school becoming doctors, I was in a garage rebuilding cars from the ground up.” When he’s out on the road, Martin says that there are two things people tend to forget more than any others: “Charcoal. Folks never seem to have charcoal. And, ‘Can I borrow a lighter?’ There are a billion smokers in the world, and no one ever has a lighter.” As for the destination of the trip he was set to embark on at the end of the interview? “Buena Vista Lake, up by Bakersfield, California,” Martin reveals of the emerging hotspot. “You have to reserve your space a year in advance. Otherwise, you’ll be out of luck. From Friday through Monday, it’s a huge, nonstop party. It is the most fun you’ll ever have in your life.”
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MASSEDUCTION G O E S
photo by Christopher Miller, courtesy of Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival
S T. AND ROLL
M A S S I V E :
V I N C E N T PHILIPPA WITH
THE
PRICE PUNCHES
Annie Clark and visual artist Philippa Price designed St. Vincent’s latest tour specifically for festivals— and to make you ask, “Is this OK?” BY ANDY HERMANN STILLS BY PHILIPPA PRICE FLOOD
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photo by Charles Reagan Hackleman, courtesy of Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival
“Why are things the way they are?” asks Annie Clark, who, since 2007, has released an unbroken string of beguiling albums as St. Vincent. “And if that reason’s arbitrary, let’s change the way they are. Because you make a couple of tweaks to something and you have, in essence, a new instrument.” Clark is describing the thought process behind the signature guitar line she designed with Ernie Ball. But she could just as well be talking about her approach to everything she does, from her songwriting and guitar playing to the design of her latest tour, which she conceived in collaboration with the visual artist Philippa Price. By constantly tweaking her sound and aesthetic, Clark has continued to reinvent herself even as she’s built one of the most distinctive bodies of work of any artist of her generation. Her latest St. Vincent album, last year’s MASSEDUCTION, is yet another metamorphosis. Largely co-produced and partially co-written by pop mastermind Jack Antonoff of Bleachers and fun., it manages to be both her most accessible work to date and the weirdest since her arty debut, Marry Me. During a talk at the ASCAP “I Create Music” EXPO earlier this year, she described the album’s themes as “power, pedal steel, and programmed beats”—a playful turn of phrase, but also an accurate one. Its songs toggle between strength and vulnerability, artifice and frankness, with synth-heavy arrangements splashed with Bowie-like touches of grandeur, often courtesy of guest musicians, including saxophonist Kamasi Washington and pedal-steel guitarist Greg Leisz, or her own beautifully sharp-edged guitar lines. After premiering the new songs with what she calls a “theater piece show,” which brazenly (and divisively) featured Clark alone onstage with her guitar, playing to a backing track, she returned to a full-band format for her 2018 tour—and turned to Price to create the show’s visual elements. The two first worked together on the video for one of MASSEDUCTION’s wittiest tracks, “Pills,” a delirious mantra for our hyper-medicated times that Price renders as an atomic age phantasmagoria, with wigged dancers moving as jerkily as Barbie dolls across Good Housekeeping lawns and
living rooms cast in a sickly color palette she dubs “nuclear bruise.” As a multi-hyphenate visual artist—director, photographer, fashion and stage designer—Price has built up an impressive list of collaborators, including Alicia Keys, Pharrell, Stella McCartney, Banks, and Rihanna. But she describes St. Vincent and her tour collaborators (a group of “really crazy, creative women,” in Clark’s words) as a dream team. “This was awesome,” Price says. “Everything just worked so perfectly together.” We asked Clark and Price to describe their collaboration in a conversation that, along the way, also touched on the wild energy of music festivals, the power of choreography, and a praying mantis named Ricardo.
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FLOOD: Aside from often playing to a much larger crowd, are there other elements of playing a festival that are very different for you as a performer? Annie Clark: So much is different. You have this kind of raw, lightning-rod, frayed-wire energy from the crowd. Because, you know, they’ve probably walked for miles that day. They might have a little bit of a sunburn. They’re in various stages of intoxication, on various substances. You’ve been outdoors all day. So you’re feral and the audience is feral. It’s chaos, really. Playing festivals is sort of like, “I’m gonna start the biggest bonfire at this place. Look how big this bonfire is. We’ll keep you warm.” FLOOD: Have festivals played a role in the evolution of your live show? Annie: Oh, sure. This show is designed specifically for festivals. It’s designed to be big and bizarre. We had this conversation where [I said], “I just want us at every point to be going, ‘Is this OK?’ and not know the answer. If we’re not sure if this is quote-unquote ‘OK’ then we’re not pushing hard enough. Let’s find out what our own limits are.” 16
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FLOOD: Was that “Is this OK?” feeling also part of your process in making the music for MASSEDUCTION? Were you trying to push things just outside your comfort zone? Annie: Mainly what I wanted to do with MASSEDUCTION was write very honestly about power. And write songs that had the biggest heartbeat, that really just went for the jugular. Not the jugular, actually—just really went for the heart. FLOOD: How did the two of you first meet? Philippa Price: Sort of through the “Pills” video. But we didn’t actually meet during that. Annie, you were on tour. Annie: Yeah, I couldn’t be around for the video. I loved her work and just kind of said, “Go with God.” Philippa: Which is the dream as a director.
FLOOD: Did any of the visuals for the show wind up influencing how you play the songs live? Annie: There was a moment where, in rehearsal, Toko [Yasuda], my bass player, and I were just so enthralled by one of the videos that we both turned
at the same time and were staring at the video while we were playing—and we ended up choreographing it into the show, because it was just cool. Philippa: It really naturally evolved as we were shooting and the visuals came together. Anastasia [Magoutas], who was doing the costumes, took the dancer characters and the look that we’d done for the visuals and brought that a bit into the costumes onstage as well. It was an amazing collaboration. I work very intuitively and a lot of times, working with other people, they want to see treatments and shot lists, and everything is mapped out beforehand. And I’ve found when I have to work like that, it actually kind of stifles the results. Whereas this was the dream situation, where Annie trusted me to let things unfold naturally, which I think resulted in this really fucked-up, awesome world that we created together.
photo by Charles Reagan Hackleman, courtesy of Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival
FLOOD: Annie, once you saw the “Pills” video, were you like, “This is amazing, I want you to design my tour”? Or did that conversation start even before the video was done? Annie: No, I saw the video and I loved it, and then we had a conversation a number of months before the tour about Philippa designing the whole tour. And I think Philippa coined the color palette “nuclear bruise.” Philippa: Yeah, fleshy bruise colors with a touch of atomic radiation. Annie: One of my favorite things about Philippa’s work is just her sense of composition. And there’s a real humor to it without it being silly. I’m trying to think of a couple of moments shooting the video for the tour that were crazy. [At one point] I had a praying mantis on my arm. His name was Ricardo. Philippa, I feel like every day you would come to me and go, “Would you mind if we blew you in the face with a leaf blower?” And I’d be like, “Uh-huh, sure, OK.” Or, “Would you mind if we punched you in the face on slow-motion camera?” “Yes! Punch me harder!” Philippa: Yeah, Annie, every take you were like, “OK, let’s do it again. We can do it harder.” That first day, I think I came to you and was like, “I’m sorry.” I think we kind of did the worst shots on that first day. She got punched in the face, blasted with a leaf blower, there were bugs. I remember having a moment like, “Oh my god, I hope she doesn’t think all my shoots are, like, torture hell.” Annie: But I don’t mind. It’s fun. Obviously I trusted you. I was more than happy to do wild shit to get great video.
photo by Julian Bajsel, courtesy of Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival
“HOW DO YOU ENTER A STAGE? HOW DO YOU EXIT A STAGE? ALL THESE THINGS MATTER. THEY SET THE TONE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. YOU HAVE TO THINK THAT PEOPLE ARE GETTING MESSAGES AND MEANING FROM EVERYTHING YOU’RE DOING, WHETHER YOU INTEND IT OR NOT.” 18
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—ANNIE CLARK
FLOOD: Annie, your last few tours have looked highly choreographed. What is it about choreography that appeals to you—having that controlled movement in your shows? I feel like so many rock shows try to do the opposite of that and make everything seem spontaneous, even when it’s not. Annie: I guess in general I feel like there’s a whole lot of freedom in acknowledging a construct, because you get to remove a layer of artifice. This show is a little bit choreographed but it’s not that choreographed. It’s certainly, you know, a meticulous attention to detail: How do you enter a stage? How do you exit a stage? All these things matter. They set the tone from the very beginning. You have to think that people are getting messages and meaning from everything you’re doing, whether you intend it or not. So why not be thoughtful about at least some, if not all, of that? But it’s not crazy choreographed, this show. It was more these kind of general edicts from me to the band, like, “OK, my drummer’s an animal. Matt [Johnson], you’re an animal. You’re a beast. That’s your energy.” And Daniel [Mintseris], the keyboard player, is a robot. We even had people at the first show we did not knowing if he was human. Toko, she’s a serpent. And I’m just—I don’t know what the fuck I am. I’m an X, most of the time. FLOOD: You’re an X? Annie: Yeah, you know—wide stance, shoulders back. So they were general choreographic concepts, not really fine-tuned. But we did work with a great choreographer, Jasmine [Albuquerque], who did all the choreography for the dancers for the video stuff and helped us polish the show. Philippa: I think from observing it, it seems more like you create these choreographed boundaries, but then there is wiggle room. It creates this feeling of a really tightly choreographed performance, but it’s not perfectly the same every time. Annie: Yeah, Philippa just said that way better. That’s exactly what I meant. FLOOD: Philippa, you’ve worked with a lot of amazing artists like Rihanna and Stella McCartney. In working with St. Vincent, what qualities are unique to this project compared to anything else you’ve done? Philippa: Annie and Stella and Rihanna have all really trusted me and given me freedom to do my thing and were not overbearing with wanting to see
things ahead of time, but I think Annie definitely, out of everyone, super, super trusted me. I put her face on a giant screen behind her getting pretty fucked up. Where she got punched in the face, or the stuff of her jumping up and down where the face goes from really beautiful to pretty ugly—no offense, Annie. Annie: No, no. Philippa: Which is really brave, I think, as a female artist. So yeah, the trust was amazing. And also that Annie liked to take it to that “Is this OK?” level, which I really love doing with my work and a lot of people are kind of afraid to do. Annie: If, as a performer, you’re only OK with looking glam and pretty, you’re really X-ing out a whole lot of colors on the emotional spectrum. I was down to look really glammed up, I was down to look really ugly, I was down to get punched in the face.
JESSIE AND KATEY’S e s i o n f o t ar Inside the world of the Lollapalooza poster artists. by Dan Epstein
“We often describe our work as being like music,” says Jessie Unterhalter, of the art she makes with Katey Truhn. “It’s abstract and it’s fluid. It’s sort of a collaboration of different shapes, like how different sounds collaborate in music. And the fact that we collaborate with each other is pretty cool. We’re a band, basically.” Better known in the art world as simply Jessie and Katey, the Baltimore-based duo have been creating largescale public murals, fine art, and sculptures together since 2011 after meeting as students at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Their work is colorful, dynamic, and features geometric abstractions inspired by the surrounding environment, such as their mural for New York City’s 191st Street tunnel or the four-hundred-foot “Summer Kaleidoscope” floor mural they designed for the Eakins Oval in Philadelphia. Jessie and Katey’s murals have been featured in a number of national mural festivals and showcases, and they’ve created several large-scale framed paintings that have been exhibited in Brooklyn, Miami, Baltimore, and Russia. Chosen by Lollapalooza to design this year’s festival poster, the duo created an abstract design based on a bird’seye view of Chicago’s Grant Park, which incorporates permanent park elements like Buckingham Fountain and the harbors of Lake Michigan along with the movement and flow of the Lollapalooza audience. We spoke with Jessie and Katey about creating the poster, the challenges and joys of making art, and (of course) what kind of music they listen to while painting. FLOOD
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FLOOD: Your Lollapalooza poster reminds me a little of the posters from Chicago’s 1933– 34 “Century of Progress” World’s Fair. Were those an influence at all? Katey: Yeah, we looked at those to get a little inspiration—and we pulled the font directly from some of those posters. FLOOD: How did you hook up with Lollapalooza for this project? Katey: They actually just sent us an e-mail. I don’t know how they found us, but I think they put us in the running with a couple of artists, and we got chosen, which is rad. That’s pretty much all we know! FLOOD: Did they give you any direction? Katey: A little bit… But I think they definitely wanted it to be in our style. The poster had to relate to Chicago in some way. Doing what we do, we kind of abstracted an image of Grant Park. Jessie: We’re public artists—we do really big work in public spaces, transforming environments. So the scale [with the poster] was different for us. But I think we felt drawn to the actual physical nature of the park and using the lines there to work off that environment—that connected our larger, public work to something intimate and small. Katey: Oh, also, we forgot to mention that we are the first women to design a Lollapalooza poster, which is really cool! That makes us very proud. It’s been going on for a really long time, so that’s kind of surprising. FLOOD: Had you been to Grant Park before designing the poster? Jessie: Actually, no. [Laughs.] I know that’s not cool, but…
FLOOD: Well, as a Chicago resident, I think you captured it in a really cool way. Katey: Thank you. It’s a challenge we face a lot because often our work brings us places we’ve never been. We have to get prepared to make work for that place, so it’s kind of similar. Jessie: Yeah, you’ve gotta do some research. FLOOD: How long did it take you to create the image for this poster? Katey: It took us a long time, mostly because rendering the file digitally is hard for us, since we work so hands-on. But to come up with the idea, at first, we went through a lot of designs. Jessie: Yeah, maybe like two or three weeks to figure out what would work, and what we wanted to pull from that would relate to either the music or Chicago. And to find what would make it feel like our style and their style all at the same time—that was kind of a challenge. FLOOD: Plus, I imagine it must be challenging to create a piece of art that stands by itself, but will also have to serve as a background for a list of band names… Jessie: We went back and forth with incorporating the band names into the piece, and in the end we added them to the bottom, but we left the other information in the actual composition. I guess our aesthetic is rooted in formalism, and we thought of the typography as their own shapes and forms that we could incorporate. So they became part of the entire piece, and we just left room for all the band names on the bottom. FLOOD: Collaboration in both art and music can be a difficult thing, in that it can be tough to find collaborators who are on the
photos on pages 20 and 22 (top): Jeremy Fraga; photo on page 23 (top): Martha Cooper; photos on pages 22 (bottom), 23 (bottom), and 24: courtesy of the artists
same wavelength. How did the collaboration between you begin? Katey: Well, we met in college, and we just kind of hit it off. We went to art school, and we learned how to make art alongside each other—so it just seemed like a natural step that we would start collaborating. Jessie: We didn’t even have to really think about it—or vocalize how it would go. It just sort of happened [laughs]. FLOOD: Do you work to music? Is there any particular music that inspires you? Jessie: Yeah, we definitely work to music. It just sort of depends on the mood, you know? Sometimes you want something really ambient, and sometimes you want to get pumped up. Katey: We coined a new term for what we like—Space House Music! I feel like we tend to gravitate toward more spacey techno music. It keeps you going. Jessie: We like a lot of international music from all over, and just finding anything new we’ve never heard before. Katey: I think sometimes, too, we get to the point where, when you’re working every day and listening to music the whole time, you really don’t want lyrics getting in the way anymore—you want to not understand something, and be OK with that. FLOOD: What other projects are you involved in at the moment? Katey: Right now we’re in Cleveland painting a mural for the Gordon Square community, and we’ve got a couple of other projects this summer—we’re going to San Francisco, Virginia, and Detroit.
FLOOD: Are there any dream projects you’d like to tackle some day? Jessie: I think [in general] we both want to get more sustainable in what materials we’re using. So maybe using tiles and incorporating plants… Katey: Stepping away from toxic paint would be a nice move! Jessie: Today we were talking about how cool it would be if we toured elementary schools and gave math lessons [laughs]. Katey: Surprisingly, we have to do so much math! FLOOD: Because you’re always having to figure out how to blow your images up to fit larger spaces? Katey: Yeah, and it’s also geometric. We’re always blown away by how much math we have to do. So we were like, “Art and math… We should teach both of them together.” FLOOD: Do you typically bring people in to help with your mural projects? Katey: Yeah, sometimes. It really depends on the project. We try to do it half the time, having people come and help us. Jessie: It’s more fun that way, and you’re connecting with so many more people from the neighborhood. It enhances the whole experience and makes it feel like you’re connecting with the community. In the end, we go home and the mural stays in their community, so it’s really cool if they can be like, “Oh yeah, we helped paint that!” Jessie and Katey’s limited edition Lollapalooza posters are available for purchase at store.lollapalooza.com
