Pitchfork

In 1974, poet, activist, and rocker Patti Smith, then dizzy with youth and desire, performed a poem, "Piss Factory", about inspecting pipe in Jersey. "You know the fiery potion is just about to come," she wrote. "I'm gonna be a big star and I will never return."

Last month, after nine albums, 33 years, and two children, Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside the Ronettes, Van Halen, Grandmaster Flash, and Smith super-fans R.E.M. After dedicating the honor to Fred "Sonic" Smith, her late husband, she launched into her 1978 song "Rock n Roll Nigger"-- apparently her mother's favorite song, and also an indirect challenge to prim media outlets covering the concert. (The New York Times called it only "a punk anthem about being 'outside of society,'" which, uh, totally narrows things down.)

Today, April 24, Columbia will release Smith's tenth album, Twelve, which consists entirely of covers of the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and Nirvana. It features contributions from Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Television guitarist Tom Verlaine, Smith's daughter Jesse and son Jackson, and playwright Sam Shepard, among others. On the morning of her induction, Smith spoke with Pitchfork about Twelve, politics, inspiration, that fiery potion and those big stars.

Pitchfork: I'm 23, and the way you wrote in your early twenties really resonates with me: the rhythms, the intensities. People say that you calm down eventually, but that makes me sad. Did you? Or do you still feel the craziness sometimes?

Patti Smith: When I was in my twenties, I had huge amounts of energy. In fact, I had too much energy sometimes, and a lot of times I needed to focus, because my mind was all over the place. Art was a good way to focus that energy. Rock n roll was a great energy, a great way to focus my energy on all the things I had to say, whether they were poetry or political ideas or just-get-it-all-out energy. I just turned 60, and I still feel connected to a certain amount of rage, or excitement, or a sense of fun. I was just downstairs, and my son [Jackson, 24] was playing on guitar. He was playing "Jump" by Van Halen, and we were just dancing around. So in certain ways, I don't feel any different at all.

Pitchfork: But you have to learn how to take care of yourself too, right? Sometimes I feel like I'm making myself crazy.

Patti Smith: It's the simple things, even when you're younger and it's harder to be disciplined. Things like fast food: really bad for you. It's filled with salt. It's full of sugar and fat. It's bad for your body. It's bad for your mind. Smoking obviously isn't good for you, so if you're smoking and you can't quit, cut down. You don't have to be devoid of fun; you don't have to be a square. There's a way to find balance, to sometimes go overboard or sometimes experiment without ruining your life. That's important in everything we do, whether it's using a cell phone, smoking pot, staying out all night. You have to find balance. You have to not be a slave to this stuff. You have to be the master of everything.

Never forget that peer pressure never ends. When George Bush wanted to go into Iraq, he wanted everybody to vote so that he would have the power to do it. There were a lot of people who knew it was wrong, a lot of Democrats who knew it was wrong. There was a lot of peer pressure. And instead of standing up for themselves, these people buckled under peer pressure. Now, people have finally understood the war was wrong, and now those people that buckled are looking bad. And if they would have stood up, then they would have had a hard time then, but right now they would have looked really good. It's not like that ends in high school.

Pitchfork: Yeah-- and sometimes you have to figure out how to take care of other people, too.

Patti Smith: I did. In 1979, I was like playing stadiums in Italy, and then I stopped doing that. I got married; I stopped everything because I loved my husband, and he wanted a family. We changed our life, lived a really simple life, and that was my priority. I was still an artist. I still studied and drew and wrote; it's just that the public didn't know about it. And I think that's another thing that people have to be aware of: this whole culture of celebrity. It's an unhealthy thing in a way, because it makes people think "if the public doesn't see you in a magazine, you don't exist." That's total bullshit. That's total consumerism. You have to feel good about yourself. You have to know who you are. The magazines can't tell you who you are.

Pitchfork: How do you feel about your induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Patti Smith: First of all, I never felt that rock n roll should have a Hall of Fame. I always felt that rock n roll shouldn't have awards ceremonies. Rock n roll is people. It's a grassroots art. It's people performing. But we have had, in the history of rock n roll, extremely gifted people who have really given something extraordinary to our history. People like Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Bo Diddley. So if one is going to have a Hall of Fame, as we do, then these people truly deserve to be recognized and remembered.

I never expected to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I don't even have a gold record. I've been recording since 1975, and I never had any gold records in America. I never sold that many records. So when I was nominated, it was really important to my family, the neighbors, the people on the street. Certain people were really glad. So I decided to accept it, because of my sense of history and the honor of being placed. I decided to accept it, happily, and just to keep doing good work and accepting it with the idea that I've been chosen to represent the more marginalized artists.

I've always been controversial politically, and been deeply criticized for voicing against the strike on Iraq. And I feel like despite all of that, I had recognition. I would be lying if I told you I wasn't proud of it. In a way, I wish I wasn't proud of it, but I'm a human being and I find that I'm proud of being placed among such people that were such a big influence on me. I never expected that. So it's got its mixed thing, but everything does, you know?

Pitchfork: One of the things I really appreciate about your art is the way you use personal situations to make sense of abstract fact. Like when you realized that Jackson and Murat Kurnaz [a Turkish man held at Guantanamo] were the same age.

Patti Smith: And on [2004 album] Trampin', there's this song called "Radio Baghdad". It's from the point of view of a mother. A mother in Baghdad, trying to sing her children to sleep the night of Shock and Awe. I wanted to speak out against the strike, but in a way that no one could really criticize. Because no one can criticize the point of view of a mother going through that kind of horror. All the rage and love-- all the things a mother would feel. And you know, if more of us looked at these things, took everything personally, we wouldn't allow the things that happen to happen. You know, in Africa thousands or millions of people have AIDS, or are suffering, and children are starving, and all these things you see in UNESCO commercials-- that stuff is real. It's happening all around us. You can go traveling and see it for yourself. And you know, if it was your neighbors or your brothers and sisters, it would be completely unacceptable.

But I think that the mood of the country is changing, and I think that people are really waking up to the fact that they've been lied to, that they've been manipulated by the press, the Bush administration; and I think that there's going to be a very strong reaction in the next election.

Pitchfork: Really? Because, uh, things still seem pretty bad to me.

Patti Smith: Oh, don't ever not be hopeful. I mean, no one should tell you that things aren't bad. Things are really bad. They're bad in our country. Our morale is down, our economic situation is bad, our health care situation is bad, what happened in New Orleans is terrible. There's what's going on in Iraq, what's going on with our soldiers, what's going on with our soldiers that returned. There are a lot of bad things everywhere, but also, simultaneously, there are always great things. There are beautiful things. There's new children being born, you know? The sky is beautiful. You could have a great idea and write this book that will say everything you've ever wanted to say. You have an imagination. That makes things hopeful. People sometimes criticize me for being an incurable optimist, but you know? I've seen a lot of bad stuff in my life. A lot of it. And I still feel really happy and alive and excited about stuff, and interested in new things.

Because you have to think of, like, if you were a captive on a little boat on the ocean, it's not always gonna be smooth. There's gonna be storms, there's gonna be horrible seas, there might be sharks in the water. You're gonna go through all kinds of shit. But you have to sail. And life is like that. It's like a ride on a roller coaster that's sometimes fun and sometimes really scary. It's like navigating a sea. And you can't expect it to be all happy and fun and great, because it's not gonna be.

Pitchfork: Did you always have a sense of optimism? Did you have to find it?

Patti Smith: I think I've always had a sense of optimism because ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist. There's stuff that interests me, or excites me, every day. Every day, I want to take a photograph of that, or write a poem about that, or maybe write a song about that. And if I don't want to do something like that, I discover somebody else's work. "Wow, that's such a great song," or "that's a beautiful opera," or a beautiful poem, or an exciting guitar line.

Pitchfork: And then you can re-read, too. Do you still love Rimbaud as much as you used to?

Patti Smith: Are you kidding? I still read Pinocchio. I read Pinocchio, or Uncle Wiggly, or Lewis Carroll. I re-read Herman Hesse. I love my books. I re-read books the way I play albums over and over. I've listened to the same Maria Callas record a thousand times, just like Blonde on Blonde. I'm always moved by people's work, and it's part of the beautiful things in life, you know? Looking at the work, and seeing inside the mind of other people. Then, you know, contributing your own thing.

Pitchfork: Yeah, and sometimes you can climb into their minds, like on your new album. Was it hard to choose the songs to cover, or did these twelve make immediate sense to you?

Patti Smith: It changed. First, I had one list, but then I'd get ones that I didn't think I did that good, so I looked for others. I go to this café every morning, and have my coffee and I think. And they always play music I don't really know, like today they were playing Arcade Fire, or the Decemberists. It's all pop music that I don't necessarily listen to at home, so I get acquainted with it. That day I was sitting there and I was thinking about everything in our world, like we were talking about, and I just got so depressed about it. I thought "what is wrong with everybody? What is wrong with our world? Why can't we just get it together?" And just as I was thinking that, this Tears for Fears song came on.

It was like, "Hey Patti! You asked the question, here's the answer." And "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" came on, and I was like, "Whoa. This is a genius of a good pop song." It's a great pop song because in one sentence, they say it all. That's what's the matter: everybody wants to rule the world. We're in a time of imperialism, corporate rule, greed. You have all these corporations, all these people, billionaires buying each other out, and meanwhile you have millions of people dying of AIDS in Africa. You have pharmaceutical companies who have billions of dollars. They could take a hundred million dollars and change the whole perspective of a continent. And they won't do it.

And this little song says all that in once sentence. I never would have thought of doing that. I don't even know anything about Tears for Fears. And the other thing was it was really fun. I had fun singing it. The record is a mix of really deliberate songs, like "Are You Experienced?" and then other songs that sort of came out of left field because I heard them in a café or I dreamed about them.

Pitchfork: Which one did you dream about?

Patti Smith: [The Doors'] "Soul Kitchen". I had this dream, this dream that I was walking through this arcade, some strange place like in Twin Peaks or something. I heard this voice, going "you have to do 'Soul Kitchen'." Then I saw this weird angel guy behind the curtain, and he's going "you have to do 'Soul Kitchen'." And I woke up and I was like, "Weird. Well, I'm not doing 'Soul Kitchen'. I don't really relate to the song that much." And then I got dressed to go to my café. I go out on the street and then this big truck comes-- it was either a sanitation truck or a snowblower truck, I can't remember. It was really early in the morning, and it had its radio blaring. "Soul Kitchen" was on. How random is that? I was like, "OK." I said it out loud. "OK. I'll do the damn song. I'll do it." I'm a little superstitious, so I did it, and it was cool to do it. Jim Morrison was great. I just might have picked a different song.

Pitchfork: You have to trust those signs sometimes.

Patti Smith: You have to learn that. In life, some signs are just things messing with you. And some are letting you know things that you should contemplate. And you have to learn which signs are real, or which signs are prudent to follow. Now, this wasn't a serious one, but I still decided "I'm doing it."

Pitchfork: All twelve songs were originally sung by men, except for Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit". Did you do that in purpose?

Patti Smith: I grew up in an era where most of the rock singers, most of the strong singer-songwriters, were men. It's a tradition of rock n roll that has since been broken. So it really wasn't intentional. But I will tell you that even though there's only one song on the record written and recorded by a woman, it was the most intimidating song of the twelve. I think that's cool. I wasn't intimidated by any of the other songs, even Jimi Hendrix. I was only intimidated by Grace Slick. It was the heavy song to do, it was most difficult to hit the notes, it was most difficult to try and keep step with her. I tried to make it more of an atmosphere piece, because I couldn't possibly match the height of Grace Slick. So it's really like a salute to her. Even though there's only one woman on the record, she rules.

Pitchfork: It seems too like you were pretty loyal to everyone's original lyrics, too.

Patti Smith: Well, I chose almost all the songs because of their lyrics. I don't really change people's lyrics. I usually just expand on them. I'll riff on them, or put a poem in the middle, or I'm inspired by them. But on this particular album, my mission is that people hear the lyrics. The lyrics of [Bob Dylan's] "Changing of the Guard". The lyrics of [the Beatles'] "Within You Without You". I mean, it's on Sgt. Pepper's, and a lot of people are like, "what song is that? I've never heard it." And it's on one of the most famous records in the world, and people didn't recognize it. I don't think it's because there's no sitar on it, I think it's because when people hear lyrics strongly, it's almost like they're hearing [a song] for the first time. And I'm not a guitar player. I'm not a musician. When I listen to music, I'm not listening to guitar riffs, or that great bassline-- I look to the lyrics.

Pitchfork: So when you perform them, what are you thinking? Do you look in the audience? At the mic? The air in front of you?

Patti Smith: Well, the way that my band is, and we've always been, is we're a really organic band. We don't have tape samples or light cues, sound cues, nothing like that. We never did. I'll never have that stuff. And we never do the same show, ever. We've done four nights in a row, in the same venue, and every night: different. We like to play the same songs, but we change them up. I tell different stories. I talk about stuff. I joke around with the people, or sometimes not. It depends on the atmosphere of the night, what people are into. I'm always conscious of people. I think that one's first duty is communication. You have to get a sense of that, whether there's a hundred people out there or fifty thousand people. Are they there to have fun, or to blow off steam, or to go through something transcendental, or communicate or dance? Whatever people are there for, they're there to experience something.

It's important that we all try to make each concert special for that moment. I don't think like, "Oh, did that. Leave. Oh, did that. Leave." I get there, I think about it, I think about the people, I try to weave around them. And if it's a big place I'll just check out and see what the people are like, how old they are, what their vibe is, talk to some of them and get a sense of how we're going to build this night.

And I think that, for me, is the most important thing about doing a concert. Because I don't have a lot of hit songs. And so it's not like when you go see R.E.M. and it's so fantastic because every song is like "Oh, I know that one! And I know that one!" We're not on that level. We're just a different kind of band. So since there isn't that immediate recognition, I'll spend half the concert just answering questions, if that's what people want, you know?

Pitchfork: That seems like taking care of yourself, too. That's having respect for your own art, not commodifying it too intensely.

Patti Smith: You know, we all have to make a living. But write your book. Don't let go of your dream. I wanted to write a book, a certain kind of book, since I was, like seven years old. I still haven't written it. I've done all this other stuff. I certainly never wanted to have a rock n roll band; I wanted to write a book. I wanted to write a book that people would love.

Pitchfork: Did you know what it was going to be about? Or did you just know you wanted to write it?

Patti Smith: I just wanted to write. I wanted to write a book that people loved as much as I loved Alice in Wonderland, or Little Women. You know, people are really nice, and they'll say, "you know, Horses changed my life." Little Women changed my life. I always wanted to write a great book. But I'm still going to write one, and I'm sixty years old. Look: Herman Hesse wrote his masterpiece when he was sixty, you know? Don't let go of your dream. Write, write. We all have to make a living, and you just have to find a way to balance all the energy you want to extend mentally and physically to make a living, but still save some for yourself and do the thing that is most meaningful to you creatively. You know, in the end it's about the work. You can sell millions of records and make millions of dollars on some fleeting thing or some fad thing, and then be totally forgotten. But if you do something enduring that strikes a chord with people, you'll be able to influence or inspire generations of people. That's what all artists should truly aspire to-- to make some sort of contribution, you know, in the continuing flux of art.

Twelve tracklist:

01 Are You Experienced? (Jimi Hendrix)
02 Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears)
03 Helpless (Neil Young)
04 Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
05 Within You Without You (The Beatles)
06 White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)
07 Changing of the Guard (Bob Dylan)
08 The Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)
09 Soul Kitchen (The Doors)
10 Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
11 Midnight Rider (The Allman Brothers)
12 Pastime Paradise (Stevie Wonder)

Patti Smith dates:

04-24 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom (three shows)
05-02 Los Angeles, CA - Roxy Theatre
05-03 Los Angeles, CA - Amoeba Records (in-store)
05-10 Kendal, England - Brewery Arts Centre
05-11 Ulverston, England - Coronation Hall
05-13 Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street
05-17 London, England - Roundhouse
05-18 London, England - St. Giles-in-the-Field Church
05-19 Somerset, England - Butlins Minehead (ATP Vs. the Fans)
05-20 Liverpool, England - Academy
05-22 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC
05-23 Newcastle, England - Sage
05-24 Sheffield, England - The Plug
05-27 St. Brieuc, France - Art Rock Festival
05-28 Paris, France - Olympia
05-29 Paris, France - Olympia
05-31 Nantes, France - La Carriere
06-01 San Sebastian, Spain - Victoria Eugenia
06-02 Barcelona, Spain - Parc del Forum (Primavera Sound Festival)
06-04 Toulouse, France - Salle des Fetes de Ramonville
06-05 Clermont, France - Cooperative de Mai
06-07 Reims, France - La Cartonnerie
06-10 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
06-11 Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique
06-14 Oslo, Norway - Sentrum
06-16 Seinejoki, Finland - Provinssirock
06-18 Stockholm, Sweden - Cirkus
06-19 Copenhagen, Denmark - Den Gra Hal
06-20 Copenhagen, Denmark - Den Gra Hal
06-22 Poznan, Poland - Poznan Castle Yard
06-23 Berlin, Germany - Zitadelle Berlin-Spandau
06-28 Zurich, Switzerland - Xtra
06-29 Lyon, France - Les Nuits de Fourviere
08-04 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza