How much can an artist go with its art? Can it become something ordinary or ultimately another outstanding artistry? Well, that depends from artist to artist, but one thing is for sure, Chelsea Wolfe as an artist and as a person has revealed an ability to reinvent herself over and over, which the result is always something unique and remarkable. Abyss is the follow-up of the 2013’s superb album Pain Is Beauty and with this new album she exposes how sleep and dream issues can be frightening and influential in the real life. We had an amazing chat with Chelsea about the new album, how sleep paralysis has affected her life, style, Broad City, and much more.
My first time seeing you live was in Amplifest 2013, in Portugal. I was amazed by everything you brought into your performance. Do you remember that show?
Oh, yeah, of course!
What did you like the most about playing that show?
That show did feel really good… I think it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why a show is good, but I think it’s probably just a mixture of really good energy from the audience, the sound and a bunch of different things and maybe even some unseen spiritual things that we didn’t even know about, you know what I mean? It all kind of comes together and just creates the show where everyone is enjoying it and feels good about it. I don’t remember the specific things, but I really enjoyed the show. I think the venue is really cool and there were also so many great bands. I think it’s always more inspiring when you’re playing amongst bands that you really like. We got to play right after Kim Gordon’s project Body/Head and also Russian Circles. That was a really good night and everyone was really nice. It was also my first time there and so it was really special.
Pain Is Beauty was a remarkable record and it was another important mark in your career. Every record you release, you approach new ways to write your songs, but you always maintain your distinct and artistic sound. How does it feel for you to look back at all those transitions to what you have now?
For Pain Is Beauty, there was a lot of these electronic songs that we’ve been playing live for a year or two and we kind of started to adding it more and more, and experimenting with it and that was kind of new for this band because typically it was either just rock or experimental folk music. But for that album, it was the first time that we really did a lot of programming – program beats and sounds – and then mixed live instruments with it to make it a little more human. I think that was a good experience for us as a band because that made us realize that we don’t need to put limitations or rules on ourselves and we kind of experiment with the genre, which is something that I’ve always done, but again that was the first time that we input those kind of songs on a record.
Last year, you released the impressive 50-minute film titled Lone directed by Mark Pellington, which featured songs from Pain Is Beauty – such as “Lone”, “Feral Love” and “The Waves Have Come.” How did the idea for this film come up and how was it like to shoot it?
The film started with the idea of doing a music video with the director Mark Pellington for the song “The Waves Have Come” and then as we started meeting together to talk about ideas and plans, he basically was listening to the album and just felt inspired to make it into a film and do five songs instead of one song, which for me was really an experimental thing because I’ve never done many music videos… So doing a whole film, five music videos included with a big endeavour… As much it has a lot of input in it, I also kind of wanted to give the director a free rein, because for him I think it was a cathartic kind of healing experience and he was really going through a lot of his own memories and reflections back on certain things and family members and I could relate to that, so I didn’t feel like it was too far from my own life or just from life in general… His experiences are vast like he has always done a lot, he has a family… It’s a reflection back and a process of creating this surreal landscape where you can’t tell if it’s a dream or memories or if it’s really happening. That’s more like what I relate to, because I like that feeling of dreaming and kind of being unsure if you’re dreaming or awake.
And that’s what you focus on the new record, Abyss.
Yeah, I focus a lot on that.
You explore the struggles with sleep paralysis – a disorder in which reality and dreaming are indistinguishable. It’s a very curious and enigmatic theme to write about. What led you to approach this theme on your new record?
Sleep issues have kind of haunted me my whole life. When I was a kid, I would always burst out in my sleep or I would have insomnias, so my parents took me to a sleep center at one point. Then just growing up I would have issues off and on like anyone would, but for some reason that sort of day dreaming really started affecting the way that I wrote about reality and about things in the world and it became sort of a slightly surreal version of everything. For this album, I just wanted to go deep into things. I mean, the whole album is about sleep/dream issues and the approach from that point, but anything on the album is kind of going deep into something, whether it’s like your own mind or issues that you care about or someone that you care about, so it’s just about diving really deep and that’s where “abyss” comes from.
How much of dreaming mixed with reality affects your mood towards your music?
Probably… I don’t think I really realized it until my friend Brian [Cook] from Russian Circles wrote the bio for the new album. When we were discussing what the album is about and I told him about my issues with something called sleep paralysis and strange sleep habits over the years, he kind of made me realize how much that has influence on my music and I guess I’ve never thought about that before, which it’s kind of funny because I write about that stuff a lot. I mean, the title “Halfsleeper” from my first album comes from a place of… I used to wake up every hour and have a strange anxiety at that time of my life. It has always been there and it has definitely affected the way I write.
“Sleep issues have kind of haunted me my whole life…”
Do you often get this feeling that your subconscious influences your actions and feelings?
I have a version of sleep paralysis where I wake up and I can see figures of a person in my room… For a lot of years, it was kind of almost dangerous because I would lash out at it or I would grab a knife thinking someone was actually in my room. Eventually I had to pinch myself to know that wasn’t real, just breathe and go back to sleep, but it has happened to me for a few years and it gets really bad from times to times and get really stressed out about something or someone and then I find that if I kind of try to keep my life more calm and quiet when I’m at home it doesn’t happen very often, so that’s nice. [laughs]
What does the “Abyss” represent to you?
First, I just really love that word. I love words like that. That has a real visual meaning, thinking about things that are really deep and vast visually like a deep reef in the ocean or ocean floor or the universe itself and then compared from that it’s like an abyss inside of ourselves. I just like that contrast that it can be something that’s sort of cerebral and it can also be something that’s really huge and really beyond us as human beings.
“Iron Moon” was the first single revealed and it was co-written with Karlos Ayala. How was the process of writing that song?
A lot of my songs are really collaborative… It has been that way always I guess because I just have so many great musicians in my life and I’m able to write with a lot of different people. Karlos wrote the song “Boyfriend” which I covered on the album Unknown Rooms a few years ago and I’ve always loved his style. He’s a writer, mostly. Around the time I was covering that song, “Boyfriend”, he sent us a few recorded guitar riffs and it was kind of like “You can have these… Make something out of it if you want”, which I think it was really cool because he just wanted to give a piece of himself to another artist. It just sat in my iTunes for a few years and then when we were about to go into the studio to record Abyss I found the riff again and started to soldering off a bit and made “Iron Moon”. The lyrics and everything came really fast. I think sometimes the last song that you write for an album ends up being your favorite, because it’s just a nice surprise to have it as a part of the album.
Overall, it feels that the track “After the Fall” is the centerpiece of this record. It also seems to have a special connection with the cover art, where you are falling into what we may call abysm and the words “Chasing the sun, I can’t wake up” kind of resonate in that image. What can you tell me about this song?
Yeah. I mean, that’s another thing that Brian kind of pointed out [laughs] that “After the Fall” was probably the most literal translation of the theme of the album and the title of the album. I kind of feel like that song is maybe the most simple and straightforward song on the album, so maybe that’s why it’s very literal… That’s obviously like a really unique song on the album that is pretty different sound wise, but I think it still fits and that’s why I’ve put it on there. About the cover art, my first inspiration was that classic painting “The Nightmare” [by Henry Fuseli, 1781], where the woman is asleep in bed and there’s a demon sitting on her chest and that’s basically the visual description of those sleep paralysis issues that I was telling you about. That was my first inspiration, but I didn’t want my translation of that to be very literal, so I was just kind of trying to think of a way to translate it and that reminded me of this artist called Henrik Uldalen, who had reached out to me maybe a year before about doing works for me or a cover art, and when I looked up to his work again it was such a perfect fit. A lot of his paintings look like people are sort of degrading or floating in a negative space, and I really related to that for this album. I took some photos and sent them to him and he painted that for the cover.
I really love the cover. When I first saw it I really thought it was a photo of you, but it’s a painting. It’s really impressive how realistic it is.
It really is, he’s just amazing. A lot of people think it’s a photo which is pretty wild. [laughs]
“… it’s like your own mind or issues that you care about or someone that you care about, so it’s just about diving really deep and that’s where ‘abyss’ comes from.”
For the recording sessions, you had quite a great team: multi-instrumentalist and co-writer Ben Chisholm, drummer Dylan Fujioka, Ezra Buchla playing viola and Mike Sullivan (Russian Circles) playing guitar. It was all recorded in Dallas, TX, with the amazing John Congleton. How was the experience to record with him?
I think working with a producer for a band like us who really demo every song out to the point of almost being finished before we go into the studio, like we’re not a band that writes in the studio, we’re not a band that goes into the studio with just a skeleton of a song… Every song already has a bunch of layers, harmonies and parts and then on top of that we’ll add new parts in the studio. In that way working with a producer or any producer, it always ends up a little challenging because there’s kind of a war of who’s gonna get their way with what direction the song is going. But I think that sometimes that can be a positive thing if it is the right force. The way that John approached the album was kind of like cold and technical and the way I’ve reached it was warmer, ease and spiritual and I think that we really met in the middle and in that way I think that it was a really good fit. At times there were conflicts and we would be frustrated with each other or whatever [laughs] but in the end, we’re friends and he did a great job on the record. Everything was good and it was a really interesting experience. It was also really nice to be in a totally new location because his studio is in Texas and we got to stay there for a month, which was really interesting and nice.
After a few listenings, Abyss feels like your darkest, heaviest and most personal album yet, would you agree with that?
I don’t know if it’s my most personal album to date… I think every album, every song really has a little piece of my own life and my life experiences, but most of the things that I write about are outside forces and things outside of myself, stories that I hear on the news, stories that I read, stories that people tell me and then I kind of inject my own personal experiences into that, I kind of become a storyteller in that way. I didn’t think of it as the darkest record that I’ve ever written nor anything like that, but when my record label heard it for the first time that was the first thing that they said. [laughs] I know it’s actually a surprise, but I guess I understand. I think it’s a really emotional album, it is for me at least, so I guess in that way a lot of the subjects are really dark stuff, like people who commit suicide or people who have died because of injustices in the world. It’s kind of strange, but I think about this stuff and for some reason I’m drawn to think about the contrast in the world, not just the good parts but also the bad parts that are there and they exist, you know? I think sometimes it’s cathartic to knowledge those things.
You are part of Sargent House family and it’s just amazing how much they give and and how well they treat the artists and vice-versa. It’s just really an inspiring and admirable community. How does it feel to be part of their family?
I feel very lucky! I’ve been really feeling the family vibe at first, because I’ve never really experienced that before. I had really negative experiences in the music industry at first and everything was just always so hard and such a trial. With Sargent House it was like they’re just great people and they want everyone else to feel good, happy and be friends and family. It’s just a really positive place, which is such a big change and it was so refreshing. Of course, being on a real record label that can press vinyl and that can send us on tour around the world. It’s been so amazing and it totally saved my ass, you know? [laughs]
This fall you’re going to be on the road with Wovenhand for a North American tour. Any plans for a European tour afterwards?
Yeah, we’ll be coming for a full tour probably in October and November. I’m not sure exactly which countries we’re going to do. I think we’ll a month and then next year we’ll come back and come to the places that we don’t go on this first tour. We’re kind of splitting it up, so we’re not there for like three months and so that we can go for a month and a half and then go home for a while and then come back to do more cities and more countries. We’ll definitely be beginning some tours over there, but it probably won’t be until October.
“… most of the things that I write about are outside forces and things outside of myself, stories that I hear on the news, stories that I read, stories that people tell me and then I kind of inject my own personal experiences into that, I kind of become a storyteller in that way.”
Music aside, you have such stunning and unique style. It’s really impressive and artistic the outfits you put together for your live shows and photoshoots. How do you come up with the ideas for your outfits?
It kind of depends on where I am and who I am working with. Growing up as a musician, I mean, during the former years of my music I had a lot of really good friends who were photographers and I was kind of their test subject. In that way, we just started experimenting… If I had some sort of character or idea that I wanted to try to explore, we would just pull it together and do it. Every so often I’m lucky enough to do a shoot with a great makeup artist, a stylist… I worked with a stylist called Jenni Hensler. Those kinds of experiences always teach me a lot and I’m able to take away from that and try to apply it to the next shoot where I’m doing my own makeup and styling myself. It’s really back and forth. If I’m at home, I don’t really go shopping or go looking for clothes or anything, but when I’m on tour, there’s always certain spots that I kind of have knocked out. [laughs] For example, there’s a store called Weekday based in Sweden, but there’s no stores of that company in the USA, so I usually just save up my spending money and I’ll just buy a bunch of clothes when I’m over there. [laughs] I like to find pieces that mean something to me or have like a memory attached to them and then I just combined them in weird ways. I think sometimes I totally miss the mark and look like an idiot [laughs] but sometimes it works out. I just think that style and fashion are really fun. I kind of have anxiety about being on stage and being in front of people, and with a photoshoot or a video you have more control and you don’t really have to think about the audience until you’re done with it. [laughs]
I’ve noticed on your Instagram that you are a fan of one of the best TV shows out there, which is Broad City. What other TV shows or films have caught your attention lately?
I love going to the movies, I’ll see probably almost everything. [laughs] I just saw Mad Max: Fury Road. I was surprised actually how it was done. I’ve never seen the original, but it was much more like stylized and I really liked it. Charlize Theron was really cool on it. I’ve been watching Game of Thrones, of course. That show is so fucked up, but it is so good too. [laughs] You get addicted to things like that. I’ve been really busy lately, so late at night I put on Broad City. It’s just the best and it’s really nice to feel like you can relate to them and they’re just being themselves and not caring about looks or boys or whatever. They’re just living their lives and being strong women and I think it’s really cool. They are just totally hilarious, which it’s nice to feel like a lightness sometimes.
Speaking of Game of Thrones, another awesome thing that happened last year was your song “Feral Love” being featured on trailers for it.
I think it was a long process, because that song when it was just a demo we recorded it a year prior to being on the album. Someone from our label had a contact with someone of Game of Thrones and just kind of sent it over like “I think this is a good fit.” It didn’t end up being used for that season, but obviously did a year later. Somehow, someone still had it and they used for the next season. Honestly, for me it was a big thrill to see my music set in such nice cinematographic and all these crazy themes… It’s really great! We don’t really get played on the radio, so for me being on Game of Thrones is my version of being on the radio. [laughs] It was exciting to see that.