Bat For Lashes (2007)
Interview Background
Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan was incredibly modest and sweet during this conversation to promote the release of her 2006 debut, Fur And Gold. The former nursery school teacher seemed warm and relaxed as she discussed her craft. It’s interesting to find her chatting about werewolves and Native American legends a number of years before she supplied Let’s Get Lost (a gorgeous duet with Beck) to the Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack. Even at this point in her career she candidly admits to feeling emotionally picked apart by some journalists. It seems in recent years she’s somewhat pulled back from widespread promotion of her subsequent albums, so I feel this remains a special conversation. An unpublished section of our dialogue has been included below the interview.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, July 2007.
Bat For Lashes - Spirit In The Material World
by Scott McLennan
Not only has Natasha Khan this week been nominated for the illustrious Mercury Music Prize in her British homeland, she’s also a forerunner in 2007’s most intriguing artist stakes. Under her musical guise Bat For Lashes, Khan has produced Fur And Gold, an album twisted by spiritual and animalistic fantasies and delivered with wide-eyed and breathy pastoral zeal.
The fact that she’s from a lineage of squash world champions, counts Devendra Banhart and TV On The Radio among her friendship group and writes her best songs in her sleep merely adds to Khan’s gloriously atypical story.
“I guess I don’t really see it as something that’s romantic or interesting or different,” Khan suggests of her intriguing background while sipping on her coffee in London. “It’s just with me every day of my life. When I did start to talk about it I realised that it probably is quite unusual to travel the world as a child and live in Pakistan and have unusual parents. I’ve done a lot of travelling and met quite a lot of weird and wonderful people and so it does sound other-worldly.”
While her personal anecdotes make for excellent reading, initial Bat For Lashes interviews after the release of Fur And Gold left Khan feeling emotionally exposed.
“It’s weird to talk about yourself over and over again,” Khan confers. “When I first started I would come home crying ‘cause I just felt like you’ve been dissected and put under a microscope and people are poking around in your main organs, like trying to find out how you work. When you’re right in the process of creating, it’s very hard to have the objectivity and understanding to be able to talk about it, and so to begin with I found it really difficult. I am actually pleased now that a year later that it’s going international because I feel much more able to cope with talking about it and my confidence has grown. I think it’s a good time to talk about it now.”
The popularity of Fur And Gold – particularly with celebrity fans such as Jarvis Cocker, Bjork and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke – has taken the charming and down-to-earth Khan by surprise.
“I get quite shocked that Thom Yorke said he loved Horse And I,” Khan assures. “When I was a teenager I grew up listening to Radiohead’s The Bends every day in my Walkman, crying and being really Gothed out and stuff, so it’s so weird for me years later to hear that.”
Describing herself as a nocturnal being who has conceived many of her gorgeous tunes while dreaming, Khan’s current promotional regime is leaving little time for her creative bouts of REM.
“I like to sleep a lot but I don’t get to anymore,” the singer admits. “This is what I have been struggling with lately. I always have my Dictaphone on my pillow or my note book next to me, then usually in that state between dreaming and waking I have some really great ideas and I try and get them down on the piano. A couple of days last week I had just an amazing moment where I managed to do that for the first time in months. I’m trying to be grown up about promotional time, but obviously my creative spirit is kind of getting really upset with me.”
The nocturnal elements of Natasha’s existence have also been twisted by her work schedule, although it hasn’t diminished her interest in folk tales and myths about creatures that haunt the night.
“In my heart I am more a nocturnal person and I love the night time,” Khan explains. “Like in the name Bat For Lashes, the bat represents the night time and things that come out at night and things in the unseen and the beauty in the things that you can’t see in the dark.
“I love folklore stuff,” Natasha continues. “My birthday is around Halloween, so when I was small I had Halloween parties every year. The highlight of my childhood would be the Halloween party, so we’d all get to dress up and watch The Goonies or ET. It’s just a very intrinsic part of me and so obviously I am attracted to werewolves, folklore and animal symbolism. I just think it’s fascinating for me and it just feels natural to be immersing myself in those ideas.”
As a teenager, Natasha left England for a life-affirming journey across the United States, but suggested it involved more poetry than peyote.
“Well I wouldn’t say peyote,” Khan laughs, “but I definitely indulged in sleazy beat culture. It was whisky, jazz and poetry and I went to the city bookshops and really got into that side of things.
“I did have a really spiritual escapade down in Yosemite National Park,” Khan adds with descriptive flourish. “It is just phenomenal and there’s huge sequoia trees and redwood forests and giant cosmic skies. I saw wild bears and heard wolves howling and sat under the stars and felt the ancient ancestry that you can only feel around those kinds of ancient landscapes. The vast landscapes are just kind of groaning out all these old stories and whispering all these ghosts all around you. You can’t avoid it, it’s just amazing.”
Although slated to journey to Australia in December, Natasha is also looking ahead to her second album. The hope is to include US friends such as odd folk musician Devendra Banhart on the recording.
“Yeah, I am going to get Devendra’s skinny arse over here sometime to sing with me,” Natasha admitted. “We keep on saying that we will sing on each other’s records.
“The universe for the next album is sort of coming together,” Khan concludes. “I can of see all the characters and stuff already, so it is still a bit exciting.”
Fur And Gold (EMI)
Unpublished Interview Material
Does your experience in Yosemite suggest you are attuned to ghosts? Have you seen any spirits and sensed them?
“Um, I wouldn’t be so naïve to say I have seen ghosts and stuff - I understand that the floating kind of person in a white gown thing is as likely as God being someone who has a beard and sits on a throne in the sky. People kind of laugh at that kind of thing nowadays and I think it’s a shame that [spirituality] is not so much about that kind of funny, obvious way of seeing those things, but there is definitely something to be said for intuition and for energies that kind of inhabit our planet. I think on quite a physical, scientific level and not just like a witchy, spiritual thing. I think if everything is made up of energy then when your physical body dies or whatever happens to you, your energy can’t be dispersed, it just changes into another form. I think that in terms of ancestors and just the feelings of places, if something terrible has happened in a certain place I think you can feel it. I just think it’s about opening up your senses and being sensitive to things that aren’t plainly put before you very eyes - you know, things that are kind of unsaid or unspoken.”
I read you’re a David Lynch fan and I can see a similarity: you both want people to enjoy your art without giving away the whole story. People can enjoy it on their own level without having to know exactly what is happening.
“I think that’s a good thing. I have always thought that the type of art that people love is the type of art that they can relate to and take on themselves, and it becomes something in you that you can relate to in your own life. I think the most beautiful forms of art are things that have space in them for interpretation and aren’t excluding in a purist way. Obviously sometimes its really nice to be immersed and that’s why I love going to the cinema because you get the visual and the sonic kind of 3D experience that takes you on a journey and if you surrender to it it’s lovely, but sometimes I like to have a little bit of mystery in there and I think it helps longevity and it helps you as an artist and a performer. If you are performing the same song and it does have some space in there you can hopefully still apply it to your life, but songs change and adapt and mean different things to the artist and the person performing them as well as the audience, so yeah, I think it’s good to have a bit of freedom in there.”
Bat’s Mouth features a squealing sound. What is it?
“We captured lots of children and put them in cupboards and poked them with sticks (laughs). No, I’m only joking. What happened was, because I am interested in unusual recording techniques, I like to push the boundaries a bit and on the day we had already recorded the vocals for Horse And I, I’d taken my microphone on a long lead into the middle of a forest and recorded in the dark in the middle of a rainstorm. It was great, so then I was sort of on a roll. We were doing Bat’s Mouth and the song’s sort of about that kind of elated, jubilant feeling of being sure about something or being in tune with someone or something. There’s obviously that kind of ecstatic crescendo at the end, and what you can hear is actually me and my girlfriend, this girl who plays with me Caroline [Weeks], running up and down a gigantic field and shouting out the backing vocals and laughing and shaking bells and screaming and dancing in the rain. We put four microphones around to pick up a stereo recording space, we sort of laid that as a track underneath all the strings and things going crazy, so you can hear us weeping in jubilation and just being really high - probably on whisky - and feeling really loved up and happy.”
Since you come from a family of sporting champions, were there always expectations on you to make something of yourself?
“I think that we have a very strong work ethic in my family. Seeing my dad train my cousin Jahangir Khan as world champion for 11 years, he lived with us and would train, so he would get up and drink raw eggs for breakfast and he would do the skipping in his ‘80s short shorts and he would be sweating and working so hard. I think my dad is a very good motivator, pushing his students, and I definitely kind of saw that ambition and drive and desire which I think is good and is an important part of being able to cope. Unfortunately you can’t be a fragile creature in this kind of place and I think you need to be strong, so that was interesting to see. Then going to huge matches in the squash centres all over the world with my parents when I was small; squash is kind of like boxing, because you get these amphitheatre-style places where you watch and its kind of theatrical and very intense. After I was small I didn’t see my dad for years and years, but all of my mum’s family is kind of working class receptionists and cleaners - you know, the typical elbow grease kind of people - so I think that they really value hard work too. I think that’s basically what I have grown up with. They don’t really understand artistic things, but I think they are very proud of the fact that I work so hard.”
Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan was incredibly modest and sweet during this conversation to promote the release of her 2006 debut, Fur And Gold. The former nursery school teacher seemed warm and relaxed as she discussed her craft. It’s interesting to find her chatting about werewolves and Native American legends a number of years before she supplied Let’s Get Lost (a gorgeous duet with Beck) to the Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack. Even at this point in her career she candidly admits to feeling emotionally picked apart by some journalists. It seems in recent years she’s somewhat pulled back from widespread promotion of her subsequent albums, so I feel this remains a special conversation. An unpublished section of our dialogue has been included below the interview.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, July 2007.
Bat For Lashes - Spirit In The Material World
by Scott McLennan
Not only has Natasha Khan this week been nominated for the illustrious Mercury Music Prize in her British homeland, she’s also a forerunner in 2007’s most intriguing artist stakes. Under her musical guise Bat For Lashes, Khan has produced Fur And Gold, an album twisted by spiritual and animalistic fantasies and delivered with wide-eyed and breathy pastoral zeal.
The fact that she’s from a lineage of squash world champions, counts Devendra Banhart and TV On The Radio among her friendship group and writes her best songs in her sleep merely adds to Khan’s gloriously atypical story.
“I guess I don’t really see it as something that’s romantic or interesting or different,” Khan suggests of her intriguing background while sipping on her coffee in London. “It’s just with me every day of my life. When I did start to talk about it I realised that it probably is quite unusual to travel the world as a child and live in Pakistan and have unusual parents. I’ve done a lot of travelling and met quite a lot of weird and wonderful people and so it does sound other-worldly.”
While her personal anecdotes make for excellent reading, initial Bat For Lashes interviews after the release of Fur And Gold left Khan feeling emotionally exposed.
“It’s weird to talk about yourself over and over again,” Khan confers. “When I first started I would come home crying ‘cause I just felt like you’ve been dissected and put under a microscope and people are poking around in your main organs, like trying to find out how you work. When you’re right in the process of creating, it’s very hard to have the objectivity and understanding to be able to talk about it, and so to begin with I found it really difficult. I am actually pleased now that a year later that it’s going international because I feel much more able to cope with talking about it and my confidence has grown. I think it’s a good time to talk about it now.”
The popularity of Fur And Gold – particularly with celebrity fans such as Jarvis Cocker, Bjork and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke – has taken the charming and down-to-earth Khan by surprise.
“I get quite shocked that Thom Yorke said he loved Horse And I,” Khan assures. “When I was a teenager I grew up listening to Radiohead’s The Bends every day in my Walkman, crying and being really Gothed out and stuff, so it’s so weird for me years later to hear that.”
Describing herself as a nocturnal being who has conceived many of her gorgeous tunes while dreaming, Khan’s current promotional regime is leaving little time for her creative bouts of REM.
“I like to sleep a lot but I don’t get to anymore,” the singer admits. “This is what I have been struggling with lately. I always have my Dictaphone on my pillow or my note book next to me, then usually in that state between dreaming and waking I have some really great ideas and I try and get them down on the piano. A couple of days last week I had just an amazing moment where I managed to do that for the first time in months. I’m trying to be grown up about promotional time, but obviously my creative spirit is kind of getting really upset with me.”
The nocturnal elements of Natasha’s existence have also been twisted by her work schedule, although it hasn’t diminished her interest in folk tales and myths about creatures that haunt the night.
“In my heart I am more a nocturnal person and I love the night time,” Khan explains. “Like in the name Bat For Lashes, the bat represents the night time and things that come out at night and things in the unseen and the beauty in the things that you can’t see in the dark.
“I love folklore stuff,” Natasha continues. “My birthday is around Halloween, so when I was small I had Halloween parties every year. The highlight of my childhood would be the Halloween party, so we’d all get to dress up and watch The Goonies or ET. It’s just a very intrinsic part of me and so obviously I am attracted to werewolves, folklore and animal symbolism. I just think it’s fascinating for me and it just feels natural to be immersing myself in those ideas.”
As a teenager, Natasha left England for a life-affirming journey across the United States, but suggested it involved more poetry than peyote.
“Well I wouldn’t say peyote,” Khan laughs, “but I definitely indulged in sleazy beat culture. It was whisky, jazz and poetry and I went to the city bookshops and really got into that side of things.
“I did have a really spiritual escapade down in Yosemite National Park,” Khan adds with descriptive flourish. “It is just phenomenal and there’s huge sequoia trees and redwood forests and giant cosmic skies. I saw wild bears and heard wolves howling and sat under the stars and felt the ancient ancestry that you can only feel around those kinds of ancient landscapes. The vast landscapes are just kind of groaning out all these old stories and whispering all these ghosts all around you. You can’t avoid it, it’s just amazing.”
Although slated to journey to Australia in December, Natasha is also looking ahead to her second album. The hope is to include US friends such as odd folk musician Devendra Banhart on the recording.
“Yeah, I am going to get Devendra’s skinny arse over here sometime to sing with me,” Natasha admitted. “We keep on saying that we will sing on each other’s records.
“The universe for the next album is sort of coming together,” Khan concludes. “I can of see all the characters and stuff already, so it is still a bit exciting.”
Fur And Gold (EMI)
Unpublished Interview Material
Does your experience in Yosemite suggest you are attuned to ghosts? Have you seen any spirits and sensed them?
“Um, I wouldn’t be so naïve to say I have seen ghosts and stuff - I understand that the floating kind of person in a white gown thing is as likely as God being someone who has a beard and sits on a throne in the sky. People kind of laugh at that kind of thing nowadays and I think it’s a shame that [spirituality] is not so much about that kind of funny, obvious way of seeing those things, but there is definitely something to be said for intuition and for energies that kind of inhabit our planet. I think on quite a physical, scientific level and not just like a witchy, spiritual thing. I think if everything is made up of energy then when your physical body dies or whatever happens to you, your energy can’t be dispersed, it just changes into another form. I think that in terms of ancestors and just the feelings of places, if something terrible has happened in a certain place I think you can feel it. I just think it’s about opening up your senses and being sensitive to things that aren’t plainly put before you very eyes - you know, things that are kind of unsaid or unspoken.”
I read you’re a David Lynch fan and I can see a similarity: you both want people to enjoy your art without giving away the whole story. People can enjoy it on their own level without having to know exactly what is happening.
“I think that’s a good thing. I have always thought that the type of art that people love is the type of art that they can relate to and take on themselves, and it becomes something in you that you can relate to in your own life. I think the most beautiful forms of art are things that have space in them for interpretation and aren’t excluding in a purist way. Obviously sometimes its really nice to be immersed and that’s why I love going to the cinema because you get the visual and the sonic kind of 3D experience that takes you on a journey and if you surrender to it it’s lovely, but sometimes I like to have a little bit of mystery in there and I think it helps longevity and it helps you as an artist and a performer. If you are performing the same song and it does have some space in there you can hopefully still apply it to your life, but songs change and adapt and mean different things to the artist and the person performing them as well as the audience, so yeah, I think it’s good to have a bit of freedom in there.”
Bat’s Mouth features a squealing sound. What is it?
“We captured lots of children and put them in cupboards and poked them with sticks (laughs). No, I’m only joking. What happened was, because I am interested in unusual recording techniques, I like to push the boundaries a bit and on the day we had already recorded the vocals for Horse And I, I’d taken my microphone on a long lead into the middle of a forest and recorded in the dark in the middle of a rainstorm. It was great, so then I was sort of on a roll. We were doing Bat’s Mouth and the song’s sort of about that kind of elated, jubilant feeling of being sure about something or being in tune with someone or something. There’s obviously that kind of ecstatic crescendo at the end, and what you can hear is actually me and my girlfriend, this girl who plays with me Caroline [Weeks], running up and down a gigantic field and shouting out the backing vocals and laughing and shaking bells and screaming and dancing in the rain. We put four microphones around to pick up a stereo recording space, we sort of laid that as a track underneath all the strings and things going crazy, so you can hear us weeping in jubilation and just being really high - probably on whisky - and feeling really loved up and happy.”
Since you come from a family of sporting champions, were there always expectations on you to make something of yourself?
“I think that we have a very strong work ethic in my family. Seeing my dad train my cousin Jahangir Khan as world champion for 11 years, he lived with us and would train, so he would get up and drink raw eggs for breakfast and he would do the skipping in his ‘80s short shorts and he would be sweating and working so hard. I think my dad is a very good motivator, pushing his students, and I definitely kind of saw that ambition and drive and desire which I think is good and is an important part of being able to cope. Unfortunately you can’t be a fragile creature in this kind of place and I think you need to be strong, so that was interesting to see. Then going to huge matches in the squash centres all over the world with my parents when I was small; squash is kind of like boxing, because you get these amphitheatre-style places where you watch and its kind of theatrical and very intense. After I was small I didn’t see my dad for years and years, but all of my mum’s family is kind of working class receptionists and cleaners - you know, the typical elbow grease kind of people - so I think that they really value hard work too. I think that’s basically what I have grown up with. They don’t really understand artistic things, but I think they are very proud of the fact that I work so hard.”
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