Lana Del Rey tells all about Chemtrails Over The Country Club, her eagerly anticipated new album, in a world exclusive interview with MOJO this month. It’s in the shops now, but you can order a copy direct from us.
“I knew they were going to like Norman [Fucking Rockwell] because there’s kind of nothing not to like about it,” Del Rey tells MOJO’s Victoria Segal. “Norman…’s just cool, it’s easy to cheer for that.”
For Chemtrails Over The Country Club, though, she “had to turn back inward”, she explains, for an album that reveals, says Segal, “a more vulnerable Del Rey: lighter on the LA menace, more innocently emotional.”
The album closes with a cover of Joni Mitchell’s 1970 gem, For Free, a song that Del Rey confesses means “everything” to her.
“The way things started off for me in the way I was portrayed was that I was feigning emotional sensitivity. I really didn’t like that,” she says. “Because I didn’t even get famous ‘til I was, like, 27 and until then, I sang for less than free. And I loved it. I really was that girl who was pure of soul. I didn’t give a fuck.”
Del Rey says she finds listening to Chemtrails… “a fight. It wasn’t so much that I thought the songs fantastically fit together with like seamless, sunkissed production – but you know, there’s a life lived in there.”
In the extensive MOJO interview, Del Rey also talks at length about her past, her haters, and her love of country. She says she has worked with country singer Nikki Lane on “a cover album of country songs” and one of “other folk songs”. She describes her tastes as “stark and blue, somewhat outlaw”: Hank Williams, Bobbie Gentry, Patsy Cline, Wynette. “With a little Marty Robbins and Johnny Paycheck.
“I went back and listened to Ride [from 2012 EP Paradise] and Video Games and thought, you know, they’re kind of country. I mean, they’re definitely not pop. Maybe the way Video Games got remastered, they’re pop - but there’s something Americana about it for sure. So let’s see how these things come out – I’m not going to have steel pedal guitar on every single thing, but it is easy for me to write.”
She also discusses forthcoming single White Dress, which recalls being “only 19”, working as a waitress, listening to the White Stripes and Kings Of Leon.
“I’m sure the grass is always greener,” Del Rey says, looking back on her waitressing days, “but I had a lot of fun dreaming about what was going to come next. Also, I really liked being of service and I still do – I do lots of little things in my spare time that put me back sort of in that service space.
“How I kind of grew up was to be a man amongst men and a grain of sand on the beach and I preferred to stay in the middle of the boat in that way. Sometimes I feel, with fame, it can put you on the peripheries, where the vultures can pick at you. It’s dangerous on the edges.”
Picture: Charlie Grant
