There is a good bet that a fairy did not miss with the call when the petite Liz entered his first cradle. To say of the young lady whom it has the nimble spirit would be an euphemism: in the kind beautiful mechanical intellectual it is rather impressive and almost a luxury to have created a disc which resembles traditional extremes. Leaving with martyrdoms professionals the care to climb to them it reconciles with an astonishing flexibility passion and dilettantism. If Claire Bretecher had exchanged her pencils against a rhythmic guitar, it would not have put more lively ferocity at the portrait of the small people rock'n'roll...

LIZ PHAIR: I was born in a very middle-class family, my father is a doctor. My parents played classical music and also Beatles, Joni Mitchell and jazz. I remember to hearing rock and roll operas like Jesus Christ Superstar, music was held in high regard in our family. But my parents did not like pop culture, in fact, my father hated it. Thus, in a sense, one can consider the fact that I put myself in rock'n'roll as a small act of rebellion. When I was child, I took lessons of piano and guitar, I wearied myself to make exercises and practicing. Thus, I undertook writing my own songs and then I entered college. I chose guitar because my best friend took guitar lessons and I was very jealous. I took courses and the same thing occurred: I did not have any desire to play the songs of James Taylor and thus, I began with composing my songs. I was supposed to play the songs of the preferred artists of folk my teacher of guitar liked but I really did not like that. I never took much pleasure with lessons. I liked all this music on the radio, the rock'n'roll, the pop, but I never remembered the names of the albums. I must have a half dozen albums at home, a Jesus & Mary Chain, the Replacements, Soul Asylum and reggae dub, songs of monks...

And "Exile on Main Street"...
LIZ: I listened to it a hundred and fifty times! It is the only record that I never got tired of.

Did you think of the album the Stones did when you composed the songs "Exile in Guyville"?
LIZ: Not, not exactly. I did not write according to the Stones album, but I was used for myself about it to structure my record. I juxtaposed my songs on those of the Stones, that allowed me to give one to them command.

Thus "6'1"" would be the equivalent of "Rocks Off" and "Strange Loop" would correspond to "Soul Survivor"?
LIZ: Exactly. It is right a question of personal preferences, I adore this group...

"Exile on Main Street" is perhaps the most unmethodical disc of Stones, and your album gives the impression dêtre by-product rather than overproduced. Is this voluntary?
LIZ: Yes, toot with fact. I was noticed by Matador because I had recorded on one four tracks and that the tapes had not badly circulated. Then, I do not have voulo to move away too much from what I had done. I accepted that one adds some details, but the least possible. I am neither a large singer nor a super guitarist, these are my songs that I wanted to emphasize.

Your play of guitar evokes sometimes that of Keith Richards and on "Mesmerizing", you have a way of singing "I like it" which makes think of "It's only rock'n'roll"...
LIZ: Yes, and yet these songs had already been written when I decided to copy the layout of my disc on that of Stones. I think well of having managed in this field by satisfying me with small allusions and echoes... But I never took again the songs as of their, with share "Beast of Burden".

Stones practised the provocation with sexual connotations a long time, and you could notice that all criticisms quote the same extracts of your album. Words as "I want to be your blowjob queen" quickly returned you celebrates...
LIZ: It is idiotic, but thus functions the press. I do not take that too much with serious and my parents either. The fact that in fact always the same quotations accrocheoses arise does not prove anything if not the incapacity joornalists to find something of interesting or original to be told. I was done there.

When in "Fuck and Run" you speak about a twelve years gamine which multiplies the one night adventures, it thus should not be taken too much with the sérleux one?
LIZ: Of course qur not. It is pure and simple imagination. It is what many people seem to have of the evil to include/understand. This disc is not a private diary. I write without inevitably confessing me! I creé a small imaginary world in which I tell stories which are not necessarily autobiographical.

There are lighter titles, as "Soap Star Joe" oú you seem to treat to Ia head of the American such as the tele one represents it...
LIZ: Yes, the Americans believe themselves obliged to see themselves in these terms. One raises them in their inculcating ridiculous ideas and they avalent that any round. The model to which they try to conform is only one character of television; a small paste board puppet. But they make large efforts to resemble to him and they are very proud when they reach that point. It is a so hollow ideal which one can only make fun about it. Even those which today claim to have nobler aspirations are not basically different. Maintaining it is very has the fashion to be caught for a great conscience, but that does not prove anything.

And do you believe that the teenagers will take their racket of tennis and will pose in front of their mirror while playing of the guitar like Liz Phair?
LIZ: I am sure! I already saw that occurring. But there are no yet clones of Liz Phair, because I do not have look very easily identifiable. I get dressed in a very ordinary way.

And do these photographs stripped on the booklet of CD, from which come?
LIZ: It is not me which poses on these photographs; except on the demière. II acts of a named girl Christie Stevens who poses, I wanted that the small pocket illustrates the way in which the image of the woman is worked by the men. Christie poses and the photographs of boys who remain bée mouth are passably ridiculous. It is a joke, a kind of small comic strip...

You thus play on ambigüté of these photographs, and your words also little wind being with double edge, and even frankly mysterious, as on "Help me Mary", where you sing "They play me like a pitbull in a basement". What do you want to say by there?
LIZ: It is my way of evoking the processing which I sometimes underwent in the rock'n'roll medium, and the pitbull is a reference to the way in which one draws up the watchdogs by exciting them, by causing them and by beating them at the bottom of a cellar. People whom I aimed in this song are the "rock'n'roll dudes", the connected guys rock'n'roll, which really put me in anger. It is for that which I sing that "I close my gate with key...". These guys are like putain of army! All the types which want to be "rock'n'roll dudes" must wear same clothing, to carry out the same life, to have the same collection of same discs and to buy the fanzines! It is completely régenté! And all this kind of thing disgusts me, therefore when I saw that my life threatened to be invaded by these guys who carry out small lives dénsoires, I reacted! They all are similar, they are not better than shopgirls, even most intellectual of them follow the movement like lemmings! They are prided to be original individuals but they are completely ringards. Therefore a woman who manages from there to make rock'n'roll without have followed the orthodoxe course and who has a point of view which was not contaminated by small fetishism male rock'n'roll will fatally have an ironic glance on these guys. If you go to the college to America, you will see the "jocks" (large arms not very smart) being caught some with the "wimps" (the intellos binoclards), and thus when the intellos grow, they are in anger and they form their own army, they are useful of their intellect as of a weapon and they consider that they know some more than everyone. They adopt a uniform, wear flannel shirts and large shoes of work, which gives the virile dêtre impression to them and to belong to the working class...

It is from there that comes the word "guyville"?
LIZ: Yes, Guyville it is that. It is the army B army A is made up of people who have the physical force and the army B of those qoi holds the intellectual force, and which go to the step without using this intellectual force to live free. They use it to train a clan and to feel in secority. They form the battalion of the connected meet rock'n'roll. It is Guyville! I would prefer to die rather than to leave with an inhabitant Guyville!

With the obviousness, you are not easily impressionable kind. How these types react do vis-a-vis to you?
LIZ: Follows they adorcnt, that is to say to me they completely refuse to deal with me. In Guyville, which it is necessary is to be able to say what one thinks. It is for that that a type like Steve Albini, who does not chew his words, is idolâtré by the "rock'n'roll dudes". It is a small constant play which wants that you prove that you never deflate. Moreover, I now try to put a little water in my wine, because I spent so much time to react against Goyville that now I try to live with normal human beings, to become again mol-même.

Did you have a reputation of emmerdeuse castratrice near these types?
LIZ: I follows itself makes to a reputation of mangeose men... One me contidere as one cassepieds with which it is impossible to work, I know that me was called "Princess", and surely well of other things still. It is said that I am a spoiled child, a intrigante. But the girls like me. They are the young women who react most favorably so that I make: they are recognized rather easily in my songs. I follows from there besides delighted because I suspected a long time that many girls tested this kind of dissatisfaction. But that about which I speak to you there relates to only this album in particular. When I record my second disc, I will pass to other thing and one will see well then if that touches people as much. This album was very calculated, very built and it has its own internal coherence. But the majority of my other songs have nothing to do with the guys, nor with my stories of love.

You analyze yourselves your disc with a perfect clearness and a selected vocabulary. Is this the fruit of a thorough education?
LIZ: During my teenager, I was a model pupil. I liked to learn, I had the competitive spirit. Towards the end of my years of college, I more or less dropped all that, I lost the taste of success for success. I had of it enough of all this pressure which weighed on me, I had enough always having of it to exceed me. It is only at the University that I really found my rate/rhythm and that I could concentrate me on what I really liked. I studied the history of art and the visual arts. One rather connaistait me as such as in so much quc musician.

And you gave up all that?
LIZ: In fact, I would like to resume my studies. I follows jealous of my friends who are with the FAC in this moment and who work. The rock' rolI is not a dant field which one has so much the occasion to make function its spirit! Often, intelligent people who invest in the rock'n'roll only make it encanailler, to have the illusion to discover a Bohemian way of life; I think of being a little too cerebral to be satisfied with that, I would like to confront me with more stimulative challenges, to write a book, to take risquet... That being, I learned not badly from things thanks to "Guyville": before I was able to study and write, but I was not stalemate able to clear up me in the everyday life, now, I follows become a small businesswoman warned enough and that does not have stalemate taken to me so much time.

You referred to the visual arts and in "Stratford on Guy"; you compare a landscape seen of plane with film credits being held on a screen. Would you be film enthusiast?
LIZ: And how! I will put in scene my next video which I already started to film and as regards C cinema, I am straightforwardly compulsive eater. I love the scenario writers who worry about the visual impact their images, which do not worry only about the bottom but also about the form. Yesterday evening, we went to see " the Beautiful one and the animal " of Cocteau and we then spent the hours to discuss in the way in which it creates a fantastic atmosphere by using relatively simple processes. It is especially a question of lighting, play between the shade and the light... I passed my life to see films...

The film of Cocteau is included in the category which one formerly called " Art and Test ". Is this there what you prefer?
LIZ: Not, of course that not; I am all except a snob! I adore "Star Wars" or "Alien", I card-index myself to know if a film is oneself saying artistic. For example, I adore "Simple Blood" of the Coen brothers, because of the small surprises which reserve the scenario. But when the Coen brothers become too theatrical, I like them less. I preferred them when they remained closer to reality, and were satisfied to add a small sinister key to it.

You will be received high the hand with your U V of cinema! And "Barton Fink", that did you think about it?
LIZ: I liked it much, but that did not really touch me at the emotional level. I found the history very skilfully built, but I did not really attachcée myself with the character. There is this scene at the end where Barton Fink seems to be unaware of the fire, so that one wonders whether this one takes place really. It is skilful, that creates an interesting ambiguity; it is not like the end of "Angel heart", where so that all the witnesses include/understand well that one deals with the devil, producer insisted that the eyes of Robert De Niro launch red flashes. There, they take people for imbeciles, and you see, when an end is trafiqucée like that, I am irritated frankly. In "Barton Fink", the scéne where it awakes beside Judy Davis assassinated is brilliant, very surprising, but it seems to me a little free. One does not know if Barton is supposed to test the least feeling at this time, it is a film virtuoso but a little free, whereas in "Simple Blood", one really smelled oneself entramé following the characters, even when they went in a field to bury a corpse.

To return from there in "Stratford on Guy", it is the song most abstracted from your disc, I want to say by there that there are no emotional reports/ratios, contrary to the majority of the other songs.
LIZ: It is true and, in fact, it is more representative of the songs than I usually write. For "Exile", I started from a history of love which I lived, a rather fuzzy history that I never managed to draw with light, a history full with not-known as, which mainly proceeded in my head. I tried to transcribe in the disc what I believed to have occurred. However, the majority of the songs had been written a long time before this history does not occur and, in fact, it is rather in agcncement disc that I tried to return on what had arrived to me. And in the "Exile" of Stones, the words of Mick often seem to refer to specific characters.

One of the characteristics of the "Exile" of Stones is that the song is lost at the bottom of the mix and that the words are quasi indecipherable you voluntarily did use the same process?
LIZ: Yes, it is one of my small ideas. But in the disc of Stones, even if I do not include/understand all, it seems to to me that I have a rather good idea of what sings Mick. I listened to this disc so much, that gradually while adding with the bits of words, I managed from there to have the impression to include/understand well what occurs in these songs. For example, in "Rock'n'rolls off", there is a character who returns at his place, after having been sent in the air with a dancer, and it meets a woman which tells him "What's the matter with you servant boy, you don't come around No more, is this gonna closed the door one me...?" Therefore there is this woman who has the impression that Mick detache of it, and I am misc it his place, but I sing that I measure one meter four twenties instead of one meter sixty and that I do not have of it anything any more to make of him... In the disc, is I tackle the same subjects as Stones but by adopting a female point of view, either I answer the words of Mick, or still, I contradict it. They are my three possible strategies there.

It is rather not very frequent to meet an artist who partly acknowledges to have built his æuvre in riponse with a æuvre anténeure. The majority do not like the comparisons. How do you react when you read your name and that of PJ Harvey in the same sentence?
LIZ: **time-out** PJ Harvey be very well, but it be nevertheless revealing that it there be if few of artist female that automatically one me compare with it. However, we do not make the same thing! But indeed if it were necessary for me to even to be compared me to someone else, I would undoubtedly choose somebody like it, would be this only because of his position within industry. It is independent, it controls all the aspects of its career, its vidéos. I appreciate that.

It comes from a corner lost from in English countryside, which adds to its image of independence. In did your case, the fact of working in Chicago have an influence on your image or your music?
LIZ: Not really. I discovered the music with the liking of my removals, I lived in New York and San Francisco. With the college, I listened to Buzzcocks or them Ramones but I never took the music too with the serious one. Today still, I can leave you the theories on the cinema until dead follows from there, but if you me branchcz on PJ Harvey, I quickly will be bored. For me, the music is a little like food: I swallow you, digests it, then, that arises... It is closer to a food process than of an analytical process. As regards Chicago, I live in a district which appellc Wicker Park, it is there that occurs all that is music or ant. It is the district of "avant guard", but it is also a very ugly place. The inhabitants is rather poor, much are latinos, that does not have anything pretty cd., in this moment, when comes November, it is frankly very ugly, at the point almost to become alarming about it. But there, I return of unc turned and to choose, I still prefer the life with Wicker Park.

You are not sensitive to the old myth of the life on the road?
LIZ: What a gatère! Trimbaler its equipment that can become frankly painful. To have to take refuge deritère its book to have peace...

You read much?
LIZ: Not as much quc I would owe it, I am a little the shame of my family because my parents are large readers and often reproached me not for making some enough in this field. But there, I have just finished "Time's Arrow" of Martin Amis.

History of the former doctor of the camps of dead who sees his life passing to back?
LIZ: Yes, it is rather horrible but there is not chechmate of black humour inside. In fact, it is a super book and in round, it is vital to have some under the hand. If not, one would quickly become totatement moron.

On does scene, which effect that make you play these old men riffs in Keith?
LIZ: In concert, that goes. People were good public until now and I can be dissimulated behind my guitar. It protects me from the witnesses, if somebody throws me above something, it can be used to me as shield. But that is of nothing a substitute with an unspecified phallus! I was already kind with knowing what I wanted a long time before playing about it and I really never needed a supplement of male hormones!