It’s all about the words: an interview with: Clara Joy
"I come from a background of art"
Upon entering my and Julia’s shared Bushwick apartment, the first thing our guest, the musician Clara Joy, notices is a poem on our refrigerator. “How do you have this?” she asks. I have to fetch Julia from the office to answer her question. The poem, “A House of Dust,” was written by Alison Knowles, James Tenney, and the Siemens 4004 computer in 1967. The collaboration is one of the earliest examples of a computer-generated poem. Julia was gifted a page of the sprawling work by Knowles herself at a party celebrating the artist. Clara, it turns out, is Knowles’ granddaughter. It’s a fun coincidence on top of another coincidence, which launched this interview.
What I mean by that, is weeks earlier I was in the East Village at KGB Bar when I bumped into Clara. After some small talk, she let it slip that she was a fan of my newsletter. At home, I had a list of potential interview subjects and Clara’s name was at the top of the list. I knew, right then and there, I had to ask her to come on Insufficient Fare. So, I did.
Shortly after I moved to New York in December 2016, Clara released an EP titled discomposed. It’s filled with cheeky poppy political songs featuring Clara’s up-front vocals, jangly guitar, and organ tones. As I was finding my footing, there was a line from the opening song that I’d repeat over and over again in my head: “I wanna feel like I’m a part of something / Instead of something imaginary.”
Even though I was older than most people in the crowd—the audience was mostly teenagers—I’d still attend Clara’s shows for their warm sense of community. When I did door at a friend’s venue, vans full of children would arrive. One of them, Clara’s manager he told me, who looked to be nine, tried to offer me a shekel as admission to the venue. Then he tried to sell me his Lexapro. These were interesting kids. Kids who wanted so badly to be older than the age on their school IDs. While I kept my distance, what I did pick up on was that Clara was royalty to them. They showed up to every show she played and they sang along to all the words like they were part of a liturgical service. It felt special and I sensed that Clara was going to go on to do big things. I still feel that way, which is why I’m excited about the new album she’s working on right now. Clara’s music is smart and relatable, simple but strong. Clara is an artist descended from artists. Clara Joy is the future.
Me: Are you nervous?
Clara: I wouldn’t say I’m nervous. Well, I grew up in the city and didn't go to many people’s houses. City kids usually live in tiny apartments with bad family situations. Now as an adult when I go to someone’s house, I think, “Oh, where do I place myself?”
Me: That’s so interesting. So you grew up in New York. You were born here, too?
Clara: It was a unique situation: I was born in New York City and I lived here until I was eight or nine, and then we moved away to Massachusetts – to this converted mill building/factory for artists. I went to this very conservative grade school in the middle of a cornfield and then a hippy middle school on a hill. Then we moved back to the city for my high school and to be near family. I’ve been here ever since.
Me: Do you feel like a proud New Yorker?
Clara: I do. I used to think New Yorkers were cocky about being from the city. We’ll bring it up whenever we can, but it's because we’re proud. Now I don’t feel like it’s bad to be proud, because I meet fewer and fewer people from the city every year. It’s such a rarity now that I feel like, “I gotta represent my people.”
Me: I’m from Florida. I’m a transplant. I mean, what are the odds that I’ll be born in New York City? The odds that I was born in the United States are already astronomical. So, when did you make music for the first time?
Clara: Right before I moved back to the city, I picked up a guitar for the first time. It was when I discovered Frankie Cosmos. I was obsessed with [songwriter] Greta Kline. I remember seeing her songs on Tumblr when she was doing [her first project] Ingrid Superstar. When I heard her I thought, “Oh my god, this is so amazing because this person is just making solo music and putting it out whether it's good or bad.” She must have posted 50 albums/EPs during this project. It was not planned, it was more like, “This sounds good, I’m gonna put it up on Bandcamp.” And so when I saw that, I knew “Wow, anyone can do this!” because I had never seen that before. The first two EPs I put out – people said, “This sounds so much like Greta Kline”
As a teenager, you have to start somewhere. Greta was the most formative artist for what I wanted to do, as well as Kimya Dawson, Daniel Johnston, and Bob Dylan. They were the artists who I admired because their music was mostly about the words, not reliant on instruments. And because I didn’t know how to play an instrument they helped me believe, “This is something I can do.” I want to say I was probably 15 when I released my first project, Hello World.
Me: That’s a great name. I was just listening to all that stuff yesterday. I was definitely picking up on the Frankie Cosmos vibes. And you just had a birthday, right? How old are you now?
Clara: I’m 22 now, it's a weird feeling.
Me: What’s weird? Being 22?
Clara: Yeah, I feel like a grown woman. For Gen-Z, the pandemic took place during the years where you tend to grow a lot. 19 to 22 is when you go from being a child to an adult. I feel stunted in a way. I’m here and three years have gone by and we’re still stuck.
Me: I guess it happened to me at a less formative time. I was maybe 26 when the pandemic started and now I’m 29. But I’m glad we’re chilling right now. I can turn 30 and hopefully Monkeypox won’t take over by then and I’ll be able to have a nice, chill 30th birthday.
Clara: Well, we’re expected to do shit with our lives, but nothing is happening now. We’ll never get back to the place we were before, the same music communities and art communities—a lot of that has died—but at the same time I feel like everyone’s in this vibe of, “Fuck it, yeah we’re about to turn 30, but there isn’t really an expectation of what we’re supposed to be doing because things are so fucked.”
Me: Yeah, I’m hoping to have a low-key 30th. Expectations do seem low right now. It’s like, “Oh shit, you’re making something? That’s good.”
Clara: Literally any forward motion is good.
Me: What was your pandemic like? What did you get up to?
Clara: I went crazy. I learned that isolation is excruciatingly lonely for me. Even though I keep to myself, I need social interaction way more than I thought I did. I must have dyed my hair nine times in secret. I would dye my hair on the floor. I had green hair, red hair, nobody saw. It was all in secret. The time I did spend away from my solitude was with [my boyfriend] Drew and we became obsessed with Mick Jagger for two months straight. We’d wake up every day and watch, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” – times were hard.
Me: What do you mean by you’d watch “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”?
Clara: There’s a live video of Mick Jagger and his band at this circusy-looking place and John Lennon and Yoko are in the audience.
Me: Oh yeah, that’s a very famous concert that they did together. [The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus from 1968.]
Clara: It’s a great video. I don’t know why we became obsessed with it.
Me: Yeah, send me the link to that later. I want to watch it. My friend Will was just over last weekend. Will really likes The Rolling Stones so we started watching all these videos of them from the ‘60s and ‘70s and my friend Mani was like, “Yo, Mick Jagger, his mouth — iconic.”
Clara: The way he sings, I haven’t seen it anywhere else.
Me: He’s so pouty. … Did you record anything during the pandemic?
Clara: Two singles. I recorded “Breathe in Breathe Out.” The songs are supposed to paint a picture very clearly. I’m trying to write visuals. I’ve always been very interested in music for films. With that song, I was coming home from the grocery store and saw a row of pigeons on top of a Rite-Aid. I said out loud to my dad, “Look at the pigeons perched on the Rite-Aid.” I thought, “I want to write that down. That’s a great line.” So I did and started writing down lines about things that I’d done with others, it became a song about flocks of people and being alone.
The other song was “We’re Not All In This Together,” which is this ballsy political anthem. I like it and I’m happy I released it, but at the same time it’s very hard not to think about how I might have done it differently. The way people reacted to that song was really interesting. I wanted to release it because I was upset about the way people were reacting to the pandemic. I noticed rich people and people who were liberals had this response to the pandemic like, “We’re all in this together. We’re all gonna get better together.” While I was thinking, “We’re not all in this together.” A lot of people I know were stuck in their tiny-ass apartments with their insane parents and no money. I was reflecting on the differences of the time. So, I released it on [Amazon’s] Prime Day because one of the lines in the song is, “While that bald fuck fucks us with his Amazon Prime.” I was talking about Jeff Bezos’s windfall, obviously. It was meant to be funny. Also, I was working with the idea of using the word fuck in every sentence. I was like, “It would be funny if I could use this in every sentence and get away with it as a literary device.” It played a lot. All the money I got from streaming, I donated to people. It featured Griffy Jones and Li from Griffy Jones & the Phantom Band, and Denise Terrero of Sour Cream Queen in the chorus. These are people I had played with for years in the city. My fans are all teenagers—a lot of them, at least. I think it’s strategic to release a song to get people to understand something. That was the goal. I wanted to send a message in a blunt and simple way.
Me: Is it hard to be authentic and not be called cringe?
Clara: It’s so hard. I feel a huge cultural attitude right now, and it might be on a small scale because we’re in a lot of those niche communities, but there’s this thing where if you’re sincere, it’s cringe. It’s almost like being sincere is considered weak. There’s this irony poisoned mindset that started during the pandemic that’s like, ‘I’m sort of serious but I’m not serious’ In it’s momentary chicness, it’s also strategically really precarious. We won’t even know what to believe or think because knowing and being sincere are in conflict. I would say it’s very hard. Honestly, I think it takes courage. A lot of the Dimes Square stuff is interesting because the work that comes out of it has so many layers of irony and we all enjoy it and it’s funny, but it’s only for those people. If you tried to explain any of the things that are inserted in these writings or poems or works it’s very hard for the everyday person to understand. It’s constrained and that’s something, for me, that isn’t a super interesting idea. I don’t think it’s a great idea to project that being ironic is better. Irony can be a dangerous tool used by an entire generation. Look at the sell-out culture of the neoliberals.
Me: What are some examples of things being produced in Dimes Square because, to my knowledge, I thought all those people did was drink martinis?
Clara: To be honest, I can’t even tell who lives there and who doesn’t. I'm associating the things that come out of that area with the writings about it. And some of the work from the people around that area.
In the grand scheme, that scene feels cliquey. There’s a lot of layers to it, but they’re boring to talk about and I feel bad that I don’t sincerely love it.
Me: I think it’s OK though to have standards. From my perspective, I think Forever Mag is a clout chasing operation. Me and all my friends hate Forever Mag. And, as far as Honor Levy goes, I think she’s actually really talented. But she’s part of a scene that if she ever wrote something genuine, she would be executed. So instead she writes these schizophrenic poems that are like, “I’m baby, I’m trad…”
Clara: That one felt like, “This is good but I need you to go more real.” It has potential but if she were to do a piece about something outside of internet culture or her scene, it might not be successful because it seems like that’s the main reason it’s successful. It becomes redundant. That’s way too small for me.
Me: I’d love to see her write a story where there was a character who had actual pathos. You related to the character and maybe something bad happens to them and you see how that person thinks about something bad happening to them. She would call that cringe but I’d love to see her break out of her element. She kind of disowns Dimes Square. I think she and her associate Walter, or Walt, I don’t know what his name is—I try not to keep too close tabs on these people because I think it kind of fries your brain and makes you a little stupid to be so aware of what’s going on in one little corner of Manhattan—but I think both of them have extricated themselves from that scene probably because it’s really toxic. One day you’re in, the next day you’re out. I can’t live, personally, in such high stakes.
Clara: I’ve never felt the in / out thing to such a high extent as now. I was in a totally different scene than these before the pandemic but it fell apart because of Cancel Culture. In that scene it was never a thing of in or out, it was all, “We’re just trying really hard to do something together.” The high-stakes thing is real. This, unfortunately, happens where it’s like, “Is it really about the work or the gatekeeping?” I don’t know. New York is getting extremely expensive. It’s becoming really hard to live here as an artist so when there’s something that pops up that feels like there’s potentially success there, everyone starts to get this pressure of, “I have to be in.” Your work suffers because of that. What’s more important to you right now: making good art or trying possibly to become successful in this community so you can pay your rent? It’s got a dark undertone to it. New York is really suffering. There’s not a lot happening. When one thing is happening in one corner, everyone says, “Fuck, I need a part of that.” And so everything becomes a part of that. I’ve never seen a neighborhood or a scene become a spectacle like this has. This is very new to me.
Me: It totally is a spectacle. My thesis on it is all the irony poisoning and all of that name-calling, like, every time someone does something that’s genuine and it gets called cringe and gets torn down, that’s all just to hide the fact that nobody in Dimes Square is actually doing anything creative. What has come out of there culturally? I don’t even think Honor Levy is a product of Dimes Square. I think she’s a product of Bennington or something like that. And Sean Conroe is a product of Columbia. And there was that one play called Dimes Square. I didn’t see it. We had tickets but it was on Julia’s birthday so I had to cancel. My friends all said it was mid.
Clara: Everyone said it was mid.
Me: My friend Will, who I mentioned earlier, wrote the Dimes Square Baffler article, in which he just zoomed out and gave an idea of the landscape. Even just doing that brought such a wrath upon him. It was like he opened King Tut’s tomb.
Clara: It was incredible. There were so many people with no coherent reason why they didn’t like it. They were like, “You’re a fuckin r*tard.” That’s basically what people said.
Me: The response was so much about discrediting Will and not about discrediting the article, which just proves that there’s nothing coming out of that scene. It’s just about building clout, drinking martinis, gatekeeping. What do these people do besides…have you ever seen The Muppet Show?
Clara: Of course.
Me: You know those two guys [Statler and Waldorf] who sit in the balcony? Every time the Muppets do anything they’re just like, “Oh, that was terrible.” It’s the peanut gallery. Artists stick their neck out by being genuine and creating something out of nothing and then everyone responds to it. But I’ve never seen so much vitriol. Usually, when people make something that’s not good, I’m indifferent. I’m like, “I didn’t like it but maybe there’s one thing in there that was interesting.” But that’s not how this scene responds to that. If you do something that they don’t like, they’ll tear into you and make you regret that you ever put it out there in the first place. They’re not building people up; they’re just tearing them down.
Clara: Exactly.
Me: Do you feel like you’re creating in that space right now?
Clara: In the Dimes Square space?
Me: Not exactly, but do you feel like the irony poisoning has become part of the scene that you’re a part of? Do you feel like you have a scene anymore?
Clara: To be honest with you, I don’t even feel like I have a scene at all anymore.
Me: Tell me a bit about what happened with your scene.
Clara: Well, there were a lot of allegations. It was all minors against minors. Nobody was an adult. That’s just context for the kind of way we all related with one another. There were a bunch of sexual assault allegations that came out about a bunch of band members. Basically, a lot of bands had to just stop working.
Me: Is that good or bad?
Clara: I, personally, am against canceling people. I don’t think it’s the right strategy. I don’t think a personal situation that has happened needs to be shared online. I don’t think that me seeing it is going to help you in any way solve this problem. I don’t think this person being exiled from their community and not being able to make art is going to help either.
Me: What do you mean?
Clara: I started seeing stuff that wasn’t even legitimately serious. It became grievances like, “This person didn’t pay me rent. They should not be allowed to play at shows.” That’s an interpersonal situation. Now, I have to position myself in some way when interacting with them. If I interact with a hurtful person in a kind way, does that make me a bad person? There’s this really great writer, Clementine Morrigan. She writes about Cancel Culture from the background of addiction: In A.A. [Alcoholics Anonymous], a lot of the people who come into the rooms have done horrible, horrible shit. But they’re welcomed into a space where they can change. The problem is when you exile someone, there’s no room for them to change. It’s really dangerous to deny them the community to help them change. If they don’t have that, they’re likely to do it again. The problem is, a lot of people have the idea that when I say this, that means I think the allegations are not true; that I think it’s not bad; that I think the person who is making the allegations is lying. I don’t think any of those things. Strategically, I don’t think it helps. This happened over the pandemic. A lot of people came out saying, “This person hurt my feelings” or “This person assaulted me” or “This person hurt somebody at a show” or “Didn’t pay my rent,” etc. It created a situation where every time you’d go to a show, there was tension in the air. If you smiled at someone who had done something, you were grouped with them – on their side. It’s very black and white. There’s no nuance in the treatment of the situation. That really destroyed the music scene. We were all underage, so we didn’t know what to do with these situations and we still don’t know what to do, but it wasn’t the answer and I think it caused so many rifts.
A lot of the people I used to see, I don’t anymore. I don’t know where they are. I think some people were so exiled, they moved away from the city. People have changed their numbers. That’s not the answer. Then, there were bands that either became successful or bands that completely fell apart. I’ve always been an outsider in these scenes because I’m not in a band. It’s just me and I’m not really so focused on the instrumentals. I’m more focused on the lyrics. I’ve always identified with poets and writers way more than musicians because I’m more aligned with what they’re doing than with traditional music-making. I was always an outsider and that was a gift to me in some ways. That’s why I am successful. But, at the same time, I never had a large support system. Bands have each other to rely on. I have my own personal animosity towards people because I feel that, as a solo artist, the community that I had was really important to me. When I lost that, it felt like, “Oh, wow. This is really unfair because now I feel like I really am solo.” Some of these people are just now starting to make music again. A lot of people have changed their views on this, which is what’s strange. People who have released accusations that were sort of half-clear, half-unclear—a lot of these allegations were really unclear—a lot of those people have now changed their mind. I posted on my page that I don’t support this. This is not the right way to handle this and people were like, “Yeah, I agree with you and I feel bad about it.” You have to think about the consequences. Not thinking about the consequences is a symptom of the way Instagram functions, because it’s so instant and it’s so casual. There’s this assumption that if you post, it can be erased. You can delete it. But people see it and they interpret it. Obviously, the same goes for the people who do that bad shit: there are consequences for you, too. New York is in a moment right now where shit is really hard and it’s feeling like there are a lot of dead ends. Hopefully, what will come out of that is a necessity to create, but I feel like such an observer right now rather than being out there.
Me: Did you face flack? Did you get in trouble for your stance on cancel culture?
Clara: I got in trouble privately with some people. There were some who asked, “Why aren’t you reposting this thing? – This allegation against this person. – Is it because you’re friends with them?” And I replied, “No, it’s because I met up with the girlfriend and we spoke about it in real life and I personally don’t want to get involved.” And I was accused of not believing women. If I don’t think it needs to be posted, it doesn’t mean I don’t believe them. It means I don’t think it was the right strategy. But, I did face minor backlash.
Me: I think about the thing you posted on Instagram. You said something like, “You can cancel someone, but that doesn’t mean when you end up at the gig that they’re not going to be there.”
Clara: Right.
Me: I think about that a lot because I also share similar views with you on cancel culture. I think any intelligent person who has gone through the process of being canceled or seeing people get canceled understands that it’s way more sticky than it seems. It seems like you cancel someone and then you wipe your hands and the situation is done. We live in a very punitive country where people want to see people get punished. There aren’t easy answers. Cancel culture is the easy answer but it’s not the solution to the problem. How do you think you can get the community to come back? What does your future look like? Do you have a plan?
Clara: At this point in time I’m more interested in doing shows with people who are using all different mediums. I really wish there were more shows where you read a poem, then I do music, then someone else does their own thing. It doesn’t need to be so homogenous. That’s the route that I think would be more interesting: to get artists to perform or share work together rather than, “We’re all songwriters, we’re all sharing songs.”
Me: A little more interdisciplinary
Clara: Whenever I played shows with other people we were doing the same thing. We weren’t really learning. That’s why I like going to poetry readings. It’s interesting to see how you relate because how I relate is completely different. It’s closer to me because writing is something that I really identify with. If anything, I’m more interested in going in a direction of being around people who are writers. I also like being around filmmakers. Of course, I’ll still want to play shows with other musicians and I likely will but I don’t think that we’ll be able to revive what we had. What we had was honestly weak. There wasn’t enough strategy or action in it, but it was very beautiful and I’m so grateful for it. It brought me what I have. But it’s not necessarily going to help me grow to continue to do the same thing. Even the new album I’m working on sounds pretty different. There’s a lot of songs where I’m speaking over music instead of singing because I’ve been going to readings and listening to a lot of minimal wave stuff where people speak over a really simple beat. I’m gravitating towards language in general in music. I’ve always been non-band and I know that sounds pretentious, but the reason I say that is because I think there’s something about band culture that is very traditional. I don’t think it’s that interesting as a project. I still would play with bands. But people always say to me, “Oh, are you gonna add drums? Will you get a guitarist? Will you add a bassist?” I will not do that. I don’t think it would add anything to what I’m doing. I think that would be a regression. I don’t think [the scene] will be revived. Something new has to happen. And not even just for my scene but something new in New York. New York needs a huge shift because right now we’re in a really scary Neoliberal situation that it seems everybody feels.
Me: I used to go to five shows a week. I’m older now. I don’t have my finger on the pulse the way I did when I was 23, but the places I used to go to are all defunct. Are there still spaces to go? I know there’s one in Greenpoint. Something Computer?
Clara: Chaos Computer. It got shut down.
Me: It got shut down already?
Clara: That quickly.
Me: Wow.
Clara: I know. To be honest, I haven’t been in the mode of looking for venues to play at but I don’t think there are a lot of venues. It’s definitely hugely significant that the one really cool place that just opened got shut down. I went quite a few times. That shit was so fuckin’ cool. I thought, “Oh shit, there’s hope. There’s hope.” All these crazy noise musicians and you could smoke inside. But it got shut down within, what, three months? I feel like that attests to what’s happening. That was the Glove 2.0 and the Glove got shut down because of gentrification. New York is like the new L.A. right now. Everyone is moving here. And there’s a relationship between why it got shut down and why it feels like this empty sea. Where are the spaces? Where are the artists? I don’t know. I don’t even have my finger on the pulse, because I don’t even know where the pulse is. I have to wait and see.
Me: Do you think stuff is happening that you and I are just unaware of?
Clara: It’s possible. I was going to a lot of free jazz stuff ‘cause that shit is so good. I’m a huge fan. When I was in high school, for many years I was just obsessed with the women of jazz and how they sang. I think Billie Holiday is the best singer ever. I was going to a lot of free jazz because that was the only stuff I could find that was happening all the time. I was going to this place in Brooklyn—I’m not really supposed to give the name because they say, “No more people, no more people”—but they’re doing jazz stuff. Ornithology is doing some cool stuff. It’s a different vibe. I don’t see people there who I would know. I don’t know any of them. Also, NU JAZZ, which is free jazz with Danny [Orlowski] from Deli Girls screaming over it. I loved that so much.
Me: Would you ever stop doing music and become a poet or a writer?
Clara: No, I would not. Performing is my favorite thing ever. It might not seem like it when I’m on the stage, but I love performing. I love getting on stage. I don’t get nervous. If anything, I feel like I want to bring everyone in and tell a story. I’m really interested in doing stuff that isn’t contained to one medium. What I’m interested in right now is poetry meets song where you can insert a reading within a song. I would never want to contain myself as an artist. That’s what I stand by. I never want to be stuck in a box. That’s when I think things can get uncreative. Never let them know your next move.
Me: I ask because I put out a few albums on Bandcamp when I was like 23, 24, 25 that never took off or anything. I realized, slowly, that while I loved the musical element to it—writing a song is like nothing else—the lyrics were always the most important factor. And then I was like, “Well, I’ve always considered myself a writer, but I never really considered the fact that I could become a poet.” It didn’t seem like something I was allowed to do. And then I met someone and she was like, “I’m a poet” and I was like, “Whoah, you’re just allowed to say that? Who’s checking? Do you have a pass that says that you’re a poet?” And then I was just like, “What if I just try to write poetry?” I wrote some really bad stuff but then it got better. I was wondering if maybe that’s your direction but it seems like the music is elemental for you.
Clara: There’s something about being a poet that almost feels like it’s taboo and I really like that. I like that being a poet is almost shunned. It’s like, “C’mon, why would you do that with your time? You’re just writing about the things you see? Why would you do that?” Poets are always categorized as these soft people, but poetry is really ballsy and very courageous to do. There’s a lot more judging in that area than others.
Me: When you’re a musician if your lyricism sucks, but you’ve got an awesome beat and really melodic synth lines, then people are like, “I fuck with this.” But if you’re a poet, you don’t have those things to fall back on. It’s just the words. So if your words suck, then everything you’re doing sucks.
Clara: Maybe that’s what makes me feel so connected to the poets. For myself, I feel, “It’s always about the words,” and when you mess up the words on stage that hurts. When you’re in a band, you can hide your mistakes so easily because other people can cover for you. Everything’s connected to this bigger sound. I never drink before I perform because, if you think about what I do, if I were to be drunk, it would just go horribly. It’s all about the words. If I fuck that up, then what really do I have. I think there’s a relationship between that and the poets. I really respect them. I can be so hard on myself with my performances. I’ll know I did bad and I’ll get off stage and people will say, “That was so good.” I’m like, “C’mon, I know it was bad. That’s OK,” but it’s hard for them to understand. When you see a band mess up it’s really different. It’s not all about you. I’ll practice for two weeks in front of a microphone. I’ll do the whole set. I’m really a perfectionist about that.
Me: That’s funny. I almost always drink before I perform poetry. But I read the poems six times a day for four days beforehand and get the rhythm down. I’ve seen some people go up there and I can tell they haven’t practiced and I’m like, “That wouldn’t be me. That couldn’t be me.” It’s gotta be smooth. Prosody, that’s how the poem moves. There’s gotta be prosody. It’s gotta lilt, and go up and down, and move and dance. It’s like being off rhythm as a dancer. … When I was listening to your early stuff, a lot of your songs are about not fitting in or people trying to tell you what to do with your life. Were your parents disappointed in you wanting to be an artist?
Clara: I come from a background of art. I’m really lucky that I come from that because it helped me become an artist myself. I felt free enough to do it. My parents were OK and accepting and pushed me to be creative even as a child. Both my parents are authentic downtown art kids. My grandparents are [artists] Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, founding members of Fluxus. When I was a child, I performed in some of my grandma’s Fluxus performances. I got up there and she made me do really weird shit like talk about my shoes in a room of people. I thought my parents were complete freaks to be completely honest with you. And all their friends, too. I thought, “These people are crazy,” and I wanted so badly to be normal. My mom did this show on public television where she’d do performance art and my third-grade teacher, in front of the whole class, said, “Clara, I saw your mother on television. She was pouring water all over herself.” I immediately said, “That’s not my mom.” I thought it was the most cringe thing. I thought, “Art freaks me out.” Then, when I became a teenager, I realized, “OK, this is actually cool and I shouldn’t be afraid of this.”
Fluxus is my culture and my background. I started to embrace that because it’s a unique gift. At 12, I did a big photo project on Instagram and it was successful. It was a project where I’d take pictures of myself in really weird environments and it went viral. That was my beginning and my parents supported that. They were really into it. They thought, “Our kid’s turning out to be a freak, too.” Then, I started the music thing. My dad and my mom are supportive but my mother, being an artist herself, knows that it’s very hard to make it. She has always told me to be very careful about putting all my eggs in one basket. I really want to put all my eggs in one basket. This is what I want to do. I know that it’s hard for people to hear, including some of my family, because “What if you don’t make any money?” Well, I’d rather do this and be poor. We’ll see what happens.
The reason the songs were so angsty and “I’m an outsider” is because when I went to high school in the city, I had a serious issue with authority. I would never go to school. I don’t even know how they passed me. I’m serious. I would hide in my closet in the morning and my mom would think I was at school. I just hated school so much. They probably passed me thinking, “Get this person out of here.” It was very difficult for me and part of the reason was they diagnosed me with all these attention problems. They tried to put me on pills and all this stuff. I became really afraid of teachers. I thought, “They’re not here for me. They don’t really want to teach me.” I’m now in college and I still feel this barrier with teachers. That was a huge contributor to all those songs saying, “I hate school, I hate school.” I’m surprised I’m still in college. I thought I would have dropped out by now. I even released a song called “drop out.” Ironically, I’m starting to like school now.
Me: Are you less angsty today?
Clara: No, I think I’m just as angsty. I’m wearing all black today. I was so purposeful. I was like, “I’m going to an interview. I’m gonna wear all black.” I have the angst and I don’t think it will go away. If any Geminis read this interview, they’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Geminis have this. I think it never dies.
Me: I’m an Aquarius so I’m such an anti-authoritarian. I relate a lot to your lyrics. Is there anything you want to say before we end?
Clara: I would just say I am working on a new album. It’s gonna come out soon. It’s taking a long time ‘cause it’s super different from the last album. I’m really excited to share it when it’s ready. A little promo.
Me: You gotta do the promo.
You go Clara!!