have written several times about them lately, and I have just read on Pitchfork, this interview of Girls frontman Christopher Owens, who looks like a cross between Kurt Cobain, Ariel Pink and Macaulay Culkin; his life sounds like a B-movie about your typical Indie rock star, except that it is not a movie.
First, the guy is a drug addict, he is very open about it (he says that the track ‘Just a Song’ on Girls new album is about his addiction) and he is currently undergoing a drug withdrawal in order to be able to tour:
‘And the line about keeping my feet on the ground is about drugs. 'Just a Song' is the most personal one on the record. It's the closest to what I feel right now. I struggle with an addiction to serious, very heavy opiates, which is the reason I'm sick right now, because I'm cleaning up for the tour. I have to get clean, otherwise I have a bad attitude, or I'm looking for it all the time, or I get sick on the road and I'm bad during the promo, which is not acceptable. I've done this for every tour. Getting rid of this shit is literally the worst hell you can imagine. I don't know why I always go back to it, but I do. It's a big deal to go through, very serious stuff. And that's what that song's about, and I love it.'
He was raised in the awful Children of God cult, and saw his brother die of pneumonia because of the sect’s anti-medicine stance, which made the relationship with his mother (who by the way also prostituted herself in front of him) quite complicated, as you can imagine, and as some songs of his new album (‘Honey Bunny’ and ‘My Ma’) are echoing it.
He explains the title of the song ‘Vomit’, which is about a bad relationship but also a reference to the Bible:
‘But, as far as the title ‘Vomit’, in the Bible there's a book called Proverbs which is written by King Solomon, son of King David, during the time when the Kingdom of Judea was at peace and flourishing. King Solomon was known for his great wisdom and he also fancied himself a poet, a songwriter. He wrote this verse that goes exactly like this: ‘As a dog returns to his vomit, so does a fool return to his folly.’ So, to me, ‘Vomit
is about me, the fool, returning to his folly. This girl is mean and she doesn't want me anymore, but I was like a dog returning to my vomit every time.’
Despite his upbringing, he still reads the bible, and you can tell his childhood has been quite dramatic due to this association with the cult, but, talking about the title of the album, he says ‘I didn't want people to think is that it's some reference to the Children of God, like, ‘Ah, yes, finally, a reference to the torturous childhood.’ It's not that’, adding ‘I thought it was an epic title for an epic album’.
It is also, an album about ‘forgiveness and love instead of hate and angst’, where ‘the idea of creating your own happiness is presented’.
He is a prolific writer and says he has 83 songs that have not been recorded. One of his heroes is Randy Newman, and he wanted Beyoncé to sing his song ‘Love Like a River!!': ‘But she'll never speak to me, and she'll never do it. She doesn't know I exist’.
This is actually not a sad idea in his mind, as his conception of love is so unexpected:
‘So many people wait around for love to be found for them, for somebody to say, ‘I love you.’ But sometimes it's just as much fun to love somebody that doesn't even think about you or talk to you: She doesn't have to love you back, you can just think she's neat, and that's fine.’
There is something beautiful in that statement but how many people can say they are fine with that, honestly!