Last Tuesday, as the rain clouds rolled back in over San Francisco, I was joined by the lovely and talented Lola Kirke, before her show at the Swedish American Hall on the tail end of The TMI tour. The actress, musician, and now memoirist has lived a thousand lives, and I was lucky enough to come in from the rain and have a brief conversation on some of those lives and her journey. We discussed favorite cities, the success of her film Sinners, her journey towards music and writing, and more.
Lola is a truly generous subject and conversationalist. We swapped stories about country music, radio, and discovered that many years ago, she had found herself in my hometown, high out of her mind, with her original clothes left in a dressing room after a spontaneous shopping spree.
As an interviewer, I try to stay mindful of my subject’s time and not ask too many questions, but when the recording ended, the conversation continued to flow, and now I felt like I was being interviewed! We took a quick picture before she went on stage; she was outfitted in a gorgeous velvet, fur-belted dress. Not included in the photo was her pink bedazzled Yeti cup (a regular Yeti cup on stage is far too ugly in photos, she says) and comfy slides.
The whole interview felt very serendipitous, as my first interview ever for KZSC was in the basement below us, at Cafe Du Nord, where I interviewed Kaitlin Butts, whom I discovered Lola through, because I was (and still am) obsessed with their cover of “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?” by Paula Cole.
Her opener was Sabine McCalla, an artist based in New Orleans, who combines gospel, folk, soul, and blues. Her voice has a distinct vintage and commanding quality that left the room in silent appreciation.
Lola’s set was one of the most unique and intimate I have ever witnessed. She is just as generous a performer as she is a subject, reading stories from her memoir Wild West Village before playing each song they inspired. On stage with only herself, her guitar, her multi-talented steel player and guitarist Sam Smith, and special guest and tour manager, Chloe Kimes, whose voice blew me away, especially on their cover of “Maps” by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She and her band seem to understand the concept of “less is more” and shine brightly.
She closed the show with “Wild Mountain Thyme (Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go) but rather than the haunting rendition she performs as Joan in Sinners, the track felt hopeful and nostalgic; it was a perfect end to the evening.
Thank you to Lola and her team for a wonderful show and interview!
Interview Recording
Interview Transcript
A: I’d love to start out talking about Trailblazer. Obviously, the name hints at it, but the album mixes a lot of subgenres and sounds. What were your biggest inspirations while making the project?
L: Daniel Tashian, who produced the record, had sent me the Trinity Sessions by the Cowboy Junkies and Guitar Town by Steve Earle, which were two…I guess there would be more Americana-y type records, so I think Steve Earle falls kind of between the two. And I listened a lot to those records, but I was kind of curious. Before we made the record, I didn’t really know what we were gonna get, Daniel and I had been writing a lot andI had been really inspired by more kind of like straightforward country songs, and I’m actually really grateful that the record came out a little bit left of center, because I feel like that’s the truth of who I am. I think I’ve spent a long time trying to seem like a normal person, but it’s just not working. It’s just not true. I’m glad that Daniel saw that in me and encouraged me to be, you know, let my freak flag fly, as the kids say, or they don’t, like the boomers say.
A: Is there a favorite track that you like to perform most off the album? It’s like asking you to pick your favorite child, I’m sure.
L: No! I really like singing Mississippi, My Sister, Elvis, and Me, particularly when I get to sing in harmony with someone else. That feels really special.
A: Yeah, that one’s a lot of fun. I really love that one.
L: Thank you.
A: I said earlier we caught your set at Hardly Strictly [Bluegrass Festival], my favorite is Trailblazer live, personally.
L: I love singing that one, too.
A: Do you have a favorite city that you’ve been to so far, or one that you’re looking forward to most?
L: I mean, I love San Francisco.
A: Yeah.
L:I feel like whenever I come here, I get to reconnect with that, you know, part of myself that left her entire outfit stoned in a Fairfax head shop, and I think that that makes me, I don’t know, that makes me feel very happy.
A: Yeah [laughs] I know you were born in London, grew up in New York, and did you live in LA or just spent some time there?
L: I did live in LA for five years.
A: And then now Nashville.
L: Yeah.
A: Do you have a favorite city, like, that you find most inspirational? Or are they all in different ways?
L: All in different ways. I find New York to be pretty magical because, I mean, like San Francisco, you get to walk, and I think there’s something about the spontaneity of walking that, and just being in constant contact with other human beings that’s really, really inspiring, and inspiring, you know, for better or for worse, it can be really annoying. It can inspire you to feel angry, but it moves you in a certain way. And I think having to adjust your rhythm to other people, as you do in a big city all the time, is really important for humans, but also for artists, and especially musicians. You know, you have to listen to things and understand how to move in a bigger way.
A: My favorite collaboration of yours is with Kaitlin Butts – “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” I specialize personally with covers, I always cover episodes on my show, I love any kind of different cover. Do you have a favorite collaboration you’ve done so far?
L: I mean, I love, I love that song. I’m kind of shocked no one in the country space thought to cover that song in that way before. I’m like, it’s just so obvious to me. But I mean, I’m really proud of getting to have a duet with Rosanne Cash, who’s a hero of mine, so that feels pretty special. I also really love the song, I mean, having a First Aid Kit feature on “All My Exes Live in LA”, that was just such a beautiful experience because I got to go track vocals with them in Sweden, and they’re just such great people, and of course I love the song that I have with Willow Avalon as well, the “Maps” (by The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s) cover.
A: Love that one, yeah.That one actually got quite a few texts in when I played it on my show, because I had friends that recognized you who love the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, so they were surprised to hear a different take on it.
A: You’re a multi-hyphenate musician, actress, and now memoirist. Is there a single path you found yourself drawn to, or did you kind of think you were going to pursue all of them at some point?
L: I never thought I would do anything besides be an actress. It never occurred to me that I could, I think, in a certain way. When I was growing up, it wasn’t as common for women to play music, and my father was a musician, and I didn’t see that many women playing music around him. I saw women orbiting musicians in different ways, as wives and girlfriends and daughters. So I just had this intense passion for listening to music and developed, um,I don’t know, I mean, I wanted to learn everything I possibly could about listening to music, and I’m so glad that I had the impetus when I was in my early 20s to start playing. And then as far as writing, that’s another thing I never thought I could write a short story, let alone an entire book of essays. And you know, [that is] kind of what the song Trailblazer is about is, like, I wouldn’t have gotten to discover that I had these, like, abilities without having a lot of rejection come my way, so hearing no made me have to find other other kind of ways to say yes to myself.
A: Mentioning a little bit about your memoir. I’m a literature major, so it’s on my to-be-read list, but I’ve got a lot of books to read right now, so I haven’t gotten it just yet, sadly. But, I’d love to know what was the catalyst that made you write that, like, or made you decide that it was time?
L: Yeah, so I, during the pandemic, a friend of mine was sending out these really fun prompts, which was like, “write a story and you have to use the word, like, spatchcock in it” and I’d be like “I don’t even know what that means” so I started writing these stories, and my boyfriend and I would just be so, so bored, and I would just read him these stories, and he was like “I like that story you should write more, you should keep writing” so I kept writing, and then I also decided that I – my life was, like, you know, kind of not worth writing about. So I started writing a novel about people very much like me. In fact, I kind of, like, fragmented the Judds – the country band the Judds, into women like my family. And then I was like, I should just write more truthfully about my life. So I started writing my own book, and then, or it wasn’t a book, like, I just was writing little pieces, and I was putting them online, and an agent reached out to me, and yeah.
A: Were you doing Substack, or just posting it on Instagram?
L: I was doing Medium .I really wish I’d found Substack earlier.
A: I love Substack!
L: I feel like that’s the kind of social media that I don’t – I like feel okay getting bogged down [on], because it’s literary.
A: Yeah, it feels different.
L: Yeah, sure.
A: Were there any authors that you kind of looked to for inspiration while putting together all of these essays?
L: Yeah, definitely.I love David Sedaris, and Eve Babitz were kind of the big two for me.
A: Yeah, yeah, I was definitely thinking about her when I read the description, because Black Swans is one of my favorites.
L: Oh my god, yeah.
A: And that totally made me think of it, It’s just, like, the West Village version.
L: Yes, yes.
A: Obviously, we can’t mention your acting, without talking about Sinners – the most nominated film in Oscars history.
L: Yeah.
A: And I’m sure you knew going into it that the film would be big, but did you expect the music would have as much of an impact as it did?
L: I really did not expect the music would have as much of an impact, though that was kind of silly, because we, every moment that we weren’t shooting, me and Peter [Dreimanis] and Jack [O’Connell] who played the other two vampires, every moment that we weren’t shooting we were in the studio with Ludwig Göransson and Serena Göransson, who’s his partner and co-producer, and working really really hard at perfecting the music. And so, I’m so grateful that I got to be in a movie where I get to sing, and sing such, I mean, “Wild Mountain Thyme (Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go)” is such a –I feel like that song for the people that know it, everyone has some deep connection to it, and to get to voice something like that is really special.
A: Yeah, did you find a lot of creativity and inspiration on that set just outside of music as well?
L: Oh, yeah, I mean, it was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I mean, for one, I’d never been on a film set that was as diverse as that one. I feel like Ryan really has a vision for kind of creating, like, a more empowered and diverse world, and I think that that’s something that he does just, kind of naturally. But also like that many – I think what’s interesting about film is that everybody has to have so much expertise in what they do, you can’t be there and just, like, kind of phone it in, especially on the, on the crew side. So he had just an incredible crew around him.
A: Would you be interested in doing more music for films, or being in that collaborative process again?
L: I don’t really like musicals, but I would definitely be in more films where I play music.
This transcription has been edited for clarity and concision.