WOMAN ON THE VERGE
Neko Case

WHO IS SHE? With a heart true to country, roots in punk and membership in alt-rock darlings the New Pornographers, 30-year-old Neko Case is a diva too large for labels of any kind (including the majors). After beating the drums in all-girl punk band Maow, the Tacoma, Washington native stormed the independent country scene with 1997's The Virginian. Furnace Room Lullaby, her second album with Neko Case & Her Boyfriends, caught the attention of anyone who'd given up hope for authentic, articulate country songs of love and loss.

WHAT HAS SHE DONE? While in Vancouver drumming and singing in Maow and earning her BFA, Neko found time to record The Virginian for Mint Records. On the road in 1998, Neko played South by Southwest with the Sadies and Lilith Fair with the Local Rabbits. The release of Furnace Room Lullaby in 2000 added mainstream critics to the long list of her not-so-secret admirers. This year, her soaring and diving vocals on the New Pornographers' power-pop attack Mass Romantic leave us feeling all the more inadequate.

WHY DO WE CARE? Neko's heart-shattering voice, genre-defying talent and ballsy attitude have us bewitched. Her Bloodshot Records bio describes her as "far and away the most photogenic member of the Bloodshot cast" and, while we mean no harm to others on the label, "photogenic" is a little too beauty pageant-speak to sum up this straight-talking chanteuse from the Pacific Northwest.

Playboy.com: You've gotten a lot of attention in the press lately and were photographed for features in GQ and Esquire. Does your punk background make you wary of becoming too mainstream?

Neko Case: I don't really think that I'm in danger of being too well-known, because I'm not gonna be on TV, really. I don't look like the formula, I don't sound like the formula. I don't appeal to that audience, so I enjoy doing photo shoots for magazines like that just from an anthropological standpoint [laughs], like it's kinda great to be able to tell your friends what it's like to go and be in a photo shoot for Esquire.

PB: So is there any truth to the rumors about you getting naked onstage in Chicago?

NC: No. One time in Chicago I pulled the top half of my dress off because I was too hot, but I was wearing this giant bra that was like a shirt. It was so not getting naked.

But when I did a photo shoot at [Chicago music club] the Hideout, basically they were making me wear these really stupid outfits, and I was like, "God, I'd rather be naked." And he was like, "Would you? Would you be naked?!" So I took my clothes off and they took these pictures while I was wearing heels, which was the funniest part, because the most hilarious thing about pornography to me is always that they have to be wearing shoes, and they have to be pumps!

PB: I understand you're a big fan of Playboy.

NC: Yeah. I think I, like many ladies, have been reading Playboy since we were kids. You know there's always those coming-of-age movies where they show boys looking at Playboys.... All the girls looked at Playboys, too, totally.

PB: What was your impression of the magazine at the time?

NC: I just remember thinking the Playboy angle on feminism seemed a lot more human than the feminist angle. The feminist angle seemed like the most hard-line, limiting angle, I thought. It didn't sound like there was room for sexuality in it, and that's not a criticism on feminism in general, but as a result of that, I would be really hesitant to label myself a feminist. I would probably consider myself more of an individualist.

PB: Don't you think feminism has changed in the Nineties, with Camille Paglia and Madonna bringing sexuality back into feminine power?

NC: I guess I feel like when addressing sexuality, it should never be directed at just men or just women; it should always be both at the same time -- like everybody should get the same address at the same time so there's never that separation of the sexes. We're all these sexual beings, and we're all animals; please don't get rid of your instincts, because that's one of the only great things you have and that's your link to your subconscious and all the things that are pleasurable. It's just not necessary to turn yourself into a sterile saltine cracker of a human being.

PB: Did you have any favorite pictorials from Playboy?

NC: The Sherilyn Fenn one -- the black and white one back in 1990. That was great, 'cause it looked classic and old, but they didn't use stupid props to make it look like she was in a Bette Davis movie or something. She just looked natural, she had classic makeup on and she just looked good. And all the guys I talk to, that's the one everybody remembers.

PB: If you posed for the magazine, what kind of pictorial would you like to do?

NC: Basically, I would just want to represent for the regular ladies. That's why I want to pose for Playboy. I look pretty regular, pretty normal, I think. When we took those pictures of me naked...I don't really think I'm an exhibitionist, necessarily, but I don't really have a fear of it, because I know that you can make things look better, and I know that Playboy isn't gonna let some zit on your butt show. I saw those pictures of myself naked, and it made me feel really good about myself, like I didn't look like the ladies in the magazines, but, I thought---

PB: ...she looks like a real person.

NC: Yeah. I like it if there's variety -- all different kinds of naked ladies.

PB: You named your band Her Boyfriends. Do you field a lot of questions about whether they're really your boyfriends?

NC: Yeah, people ask that. They're not. In general they're all married and doing their own thing. You shouldn't date anyone in your band; it's a real bad idea. [Laughs]

PB: Why?

NC: Well, nobody likes to be confined in a van with two people fighting. It's not polite to your bandmates. People being all lovey-dovey can be pretty nauseating at close quarters, as well.

PB: What's the story behind the name of your other band, the New Pornographers?

NC: Carl [Newman, who founded the band] made it up. He found out later it was related to some Jimmy Swaggart rant against music, though. So it turned out to be very appropriate.

PB: So, what do you consider pornography -- and are you a fan?

NC: I like it, yeah. I tend to lean more toward the more erotic or leave-it-to-your-imagination kind, more suggestive rather than full-on.

PB: Do you have any porn favorites that you take on the road with you?

NC: Well, when I go on the road with [Bloodshot artist] Kelly Hogan she always buys Leg Show. We're big fans of Leg Show. The magazine has a woman editor and she always seems to cover more bases than a lot of other pornography does.

PB: You started out playing in punk bands, and then you moved to country. Now you're also in the New Pornographers....

NC: None of it's really that different. Punk and country are pretty much the same thing. It's the same process. You play the same bars for the same people -- gotta do everything yourself.

PB: So, how does somebody from the Pacific Northwest become a country singer?

NC: Well, they do broadcast it all over the world and it's one of the most popular forms of music in the world, so you really can't help but hear it. And there's poor and rural areas in every part of the world. I guess that's kinda where country music comes from, so people in other poor and rural areas of the world definitely identify with that.

PB: You're a big fan of Loretta Lynn. What is it you admire about her?

NC: She's just so down-to-earth, so frank about things, and she writes her own songs and she does other people's songs. She's very revolutionary without calling a lot of attention to herself for that fact. She just states it the way it is.

PB: OK, we're gonna throw out the names of some current country artists, and you tell me what you think about them in a few sentences. Reba McEntire?

NC: Well, I really don't like Reba McEntire's music at all, but I really like Reba McEntire for some reason. She just seems like a super-nice lady. And she was in Tremors, the movie about the giant worm! You gotta be cool to be in Tremors. And she always does that Travis Tritt thing where she insists on acting in her videos, too, which is always good for entertainment.

PB: Shania Twain.

NC: She's kinda the cheese-filled hot dog of country music. It's a hot dog -- but there's extra!

PB: The Dixie Chicks.

NC: You know, I started out feeling pretty snotty about the Dixie Chicks, and then I saw their live TV concert and I loved 'em. Their music isn't necessarily what I'm into, but I just thought they were sooo cool, and they were going for it, and they were playing their instruments so hard...and then I realized, You know, it's really cool that they actually play. That sounds really condescending 'cause I'm sure they've been playing a lot longer than I have and they're way better musicians than I am, so I didn't mean that with any condescension. I just meant that I watched them and I was like, That's cool. I'm glad that young girls are checking them out.

PB: You've cited Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams as influences. Any rock acts you especially admired when growing up?

NC: I was pretty into Heart when I was a kid...and I noticed that the lady [Nancy Wilson] was playing guitar, and I thought that was pretty weird. I knew that it was a very different kind of music than the country music that my grandmother listened to, but the ladies of country music played guitars, so....

That sounds like a pretty hyper-feminist thing to go talking about, but when you're a little girl, you're just like, "What can I do?" In the Seventies, it seems like there was a really big thing about what women do and what men do, and, especially when you're a kid who watches a lot of TV, you see lots of advertisements for kids' toys. The girls' toys were always so sickening -- you know, wipe its ass and there you go -- and the boys' toys were always very macho, so it was confusing.

PB: Have you had any difficulty in the music industry being perceived as a woman performer, rather than just a performer?

NC: The music industry is the most fucked-up institution in the world. It is the most criminal, unfair racket that there is, so people do a lot of deflecting of things, like they want to talk about your problem as a woman in the music industry. Nobody wants to talk about what musicians have to do to do what they do. Or nobody ever wants to talk about the fact that it is an art form and it isn't considered an art form unless you're a symphony. Or that musicians hardly see money from the music that they make.

PB: What advice would you have for someone who wants to get into the business as a recording artist?

NC: If you want to make music, try to do it as much yourself as you can. If you're gonna sign a record contract, be really careful; there are landmines all over them. And don't ever think that because you're a musician, you're just lucky to be there. The attitude of the clubs and the record companies a lot of times is, "Hey, you know you can take it or leave it," which isn't true. What you do is so much more valuable than that.

PB: What's the ideal future for you?

NC: Mostly trying to put out my own records or license them to others to put out. I don't want to be with a major. I would consider it, if it were something really good, but like I said, there are always landmines in those contracts.

So, I could give advice to people who are looking to make a career for themselves, and to be involved, but I don't think I could give advice to someone who wants to be famous, other than, "Prepare for great disappointment." [Laughs]

by Samantha Bornemann
Published 06.01
at Playboy.com



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