An Interview with Colleen Green

Back in August, my favorite singer, Colleen Green, played the Middle East Upstairs. After the show we talked in a doorway across the street. It was a great experience and I feel like I could have asked her 5 million more questions. Here is the interview that I published on the Boston Hassle:

Massachusetts native and L.A. resident Colleen Green is an inspiration to many. Known for her punk-DIY drum machine and stoner-pop, Colleen has been releasing the most relatable albums since 2010, because her planet is your planet and we all feel the same things and wanna be left alone to watch TV sometimes. Colleen returned to Cambridge this past Monday, and I was lucky enough to talk to her for a few minutes after her energy-packed and people-packed show. She talked L.A., self-recording, and her parents’ influence.

Boston Hassle: Were you involved in any music scenes when you lived in Massachusetts?

Colleen Green: Yeah, I interned for Fork In Hand Records when I was in high school. They were an old label, with like Big D and the Kids Table, it was their label. So I kinda knew those guys. I guess, I don’t know. I guess we were friends with a lot of New Hampshire bands. There were a few bands from New Hampshire that my old band would play with.

BH: Was the Colleen Green music your first time using a drum machine and recording yourself?

CG: Yes it was. I had recorded myself in the past, but friends had helped me with it, so it wasn’t just totally on my own.

BH: How did you teach yourself?

CG: Just by trying it out and experimenting and seeing what sounded good and what didn’t. And just having a lot of spare time to do that shit.

BH: When you first started releasing and performing where did you get the courage to share all of your thoughts and feelings?

CG: Well, it was actually incredibly scary, but I kind of just forced myself to do it anyway because I figured if it was something I thought was really scary but I could do it anyway then that would take away the scariness about it.

BH: How different do you think your life would be if you hadn’t moved to L.A.?

CG: Hmmm, I think it would be completely different. I don’t know. I just feel like L.A. is just such a magical place, because when I moved there good stuff started happening to me. Yeah, I think it would be completely different.

BH: Did you start working with Hardly Art as soon as you moved to L.A.?

CG: Well, I moved to L.A. in, it was like in a little less than a year. Yeah, I moved to L.A. in December of 2008. And then then I was signed to Hardly Art in.. oh no, 2009. And I was signed to Hardly Art in September of 2010. So it took like ten months. But I had also started going on tour already at that time, so I was giving a lot of people my music.

BH: Are any overlying themes of your albums conscious or do they emerge naturally? 

CG: Definitely conscious.

BH: Do you try to make concept albums? 

CG: I don’t know. I love the idea of concept albums, and there are a lot of concept albums that I really like, but I don’t know if I could do it. It seems really hard.

BH: Like a Colleen Green rock opera.

CG: Yeah! I just don’t know what to talk about. Yeah, I guess you just have to have that inspiration to do something like that, but I don’t think I have it at this point.

BH: Why, now, did you decide to stop self-recording and move into a studio with other musicians? 

CG: I just wanted to try it out. See what would happen. Do something different, you know. I don’t know, I think it’s always good to try new things, and it was something I’d never really done before. Yeah, I just wanted to try it out.

BH: Do you think you’ll ever go back to self-recording? 

CG: Yeah! Definitely, I want to do that for my next album actually, but I’m not sure.

BH: Is there anyone who has really inspired or influenced you throughout your life? 

CG: Probably my parents. Right? Because just generally speaking they kinda like influence your personality and what your life path is gonna be.

After the interview I asked her to take a picture with me and sign my poster. 

G-Eazy

The Rise & Marketing 

G Eazy is DIY. Even if he now has gone more corporate, his still in control of his career and everyone on his team. He is on a major label, but I cannot help but thing that he is still in charge and just got the major label to play into his plan. He knows exactly how his fans view him. He has a degree in music business and utilizes it well. His latest album, When It’s Dark Out, is the album that shows that he is where he wants to be. There are no more songs about the journey to the top or what it will be like when he makes it, that is what Must Be Nice was for. On this album he is showing how he got to where he is. Like on the track “Random”, he clearly states “I got it all, yeah I'm young, rich, and handsome. This shit is not random.” He formally introduced himself on his debut The Endless Summer, basically being like ‘Hey this is me. This is what I am going to be, a dapper young rapper who is going to sample the beach boys’. Then on Must Be Nice he laid down his goals and personal agenda. These Things Happen was his stretch into the mainstream. I feel like that album was more about try to garner the masses. Which worked, considering he also only been playing bigger venues and selling more albums since. I first saw him play the Middle East Upstairs, and now he just sold out that arena in Lowell. So many rappers say they are going to make it to the top, but when G Eazy said it in 2011, he was stating a fact. Because he knew it was all business and he had everything planned out. He didn’t rush anything. He focused on the fans in the beginning, by doing free meet and greets at all of his shows and executing every release with the professionalism of someone with a much bigger stature. Most importantly, his first four mixtapes were free downloads, which is definitely the best thing he could of done for himself, because it just makes it that much easier for people to get his music.

I think When It’s Dark out is much better than These Things Happen. When It’s Dark Out is more of a throwback to his earlier music. He even uses some of the same beats he used years earlier. He can do this because his longtime fans will love it, and his newer fans won’t know the difference. Like I said, this album shows that he is where he wants to be, but also tackles the feeling that maybe getting everything you want won’t make you as happy as you thought it would. The song “Sad Boy” is about just that: “Man stop acting like a bitch. Forgot you're all famous now and rich? Gerald what you so sad for?” He address himself using his really name (Gerald Earl Gillum).

In the video for “Me, Myself, and I”, there is a scene where G Eazy is talking with two other versions of himself, fighting and getting yelled at saying that he signed up for fame and should not complain at all. There are three G Eazys in this scene, a sad one, one that yells at him for being sad, and one that just wants to party. It makes me sad to think that G Eazy is unhappy considering his success and mad at himself for being unhappy, especially after watching him make the climb up the music latter for so many years. He knows that he thought he has already worked so hard, that he is really only at the very beginning of his career, and probably feels more pressure than ever. I always wondering if his newer fans will understand these songs as much, since they have not been along for the whole G Eazy journey. They can backtrack his releases and grasp some understanding, but how could they view the transformation. The new fans may get it, but will they really get it?

Thurston Moore: An Essay

I have very mixed feelings about Thurston Moore. On one hand, I have a deep admiration for him. He is the coolest. He’s published poetry. In interviews he is completely charming and cool and collected, kind of in a manner where he knows he’s being so. On the other hand he cheated on Kim Gordon (his ex-wife, and Sonic Youth member). I know I should not base my feeling on him around something that happened in his personal life, because it is none of my business, but it is so hard not to. Especially after reading her book, Girl in a Band, in which she gives very riveting details about the end of their marriage and the end of Sonic Youth. Basically, he cheated for a good period of time with a woman that Kim definitely never ever liked that he was working on some book project with. I feel guilty reading her book, because I loved reading all the dirt on him, in the same way people enjoy any type of gossip. Mostly on the nosey-ness hidden deep within us that we try to repress. In the end of the book Kim said that she feel sorry for him, but does not forgive him. I called Thurston an asshole in my last zine, which I kind of feel bad about, but also don't because that article was about Kim Gordon, and looking from her perspective he probably is.

Kim exposes so much of Thurston in the book it is almost hard to look at him after. She uses the word narcissistic and rock star showboating. And describes him as stubborn and non-confrontational.  And says he views his post-divorce life as being free. He is kind of the reason Sonic Youth broke up. There is never going to be a reunion tour. She talks about him hiding himself, and why she thought she knew his so well and could trust him. Maybe marriage introduces a sense of domesticity that can cause a loss of creativity. I can only imagine how devastating the news of Kim and Thurston's divorce must have been for those die hard Sonic Youth fans. They were so re-closed in Western Mass and were a solid institution for so long that the thought of them splitting probably never crossed the minds of most people.

He seems like a happy person. Why wouldn't he be? He's known worldwide as a guitar legend. He's make a living off art. He has good taste and he knows it. He has put a lot of thought in his rock and roll strategy. He knows his art and facts. I feel like he would know more about any topic than I would. Not in a condescending way, just in a way where he really enjoys art and wants to know everything about it and be able to let you all about it. Intense, wild loves music, not in just a playing sense, put a deep appreciation. Some musicians say they don't listen to music that much, but Thurston probably does. He's an avid record collector.

His solo music, especially his most recent album, The Best Day, is pretty good. It is defiantly is not as experimental, but it has the aura of a guitar great. At what point does someone who has spent so long trying to be experimental and different just kind of throw in the towel and make music that doesn't require as much of an active listener? When that band you were in for over 20 years is over? When you are recently divorced and have that post-divorce middle age reborn glow? When you have garnered enough respect amongst the whole musical world to last the rest of your life? Probably all the above. He has worked hard and feels he deserves to keep doing music and enjoy his life as a rock legend and have people pay attention to whatever he does. I feel like any form of art requires some sort of ego. Just the sheer fact that you would feel the need to share what you have to say or made with others must mean you think it is pretty good. I feel like Thurston Moore is an artist because he feels like others should hear what he has to say.



"Benediction" is my favorite song of Thurson's. It burns so bad that they lived so close to me for so long and I never cared, I only started caring about Sonic Youth in 2015. The video above is from a festival in New Hampshire, not far from where I'm from.