Talking with Clare Muldaur Manchon of Clare & The Reasons

This past Tuesday, 27 October, Clare & The Reasons played the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a week after releasing their second album, Arrow. The gig was sandwiched between two acts from Athens, Georgia: first Liz Durrett, then Vic Chesnutt, with a band featuring members of Fugazi, godspeed you! black emperor, and Silver Mount Zion. It was pouring rain but a respectable audience turned up, and Clare Muldaur Manchon kindly paused her costume and make-up assembly before going onstage to talk to us about high school, Genesis, and gimlets.

MCMB: Hi Clare, and thanks to you and The Reasons for your album Arrow, which I've been listening to compulsively.

CMM: Thank you for being compulsive!

MCMB: Listening to it, I was sort of imagining you as that girl in high school who always wore vintage dresses and had that old-fashioned glamor at a very precocious age.

CMM: I was the girl with the riding boots on. I was a competitive equitation rider, and I had a sponsor for show-jumping. It was a weird, left-field thing, but you have to be very driven, like with music. So it's actually quite similar in the lifestyle, a lot of uncertainty.

MCMB: So when did that aesthetic-- the style of The Movie and the noirish atmosphere-- become important to you?

CMM: I grew up in a really musical family, and I just tried different things for long enough. I had those ideas in my head... We lived in LA for a few years and were recording out there, and it was fine but it didn't come together. And as soon as we moved to New York it all somehow sank in, and that's when the ideas behind The Movie started. I think I owe New York a lot. It's very cliche, but the energy is just right.

MCMB: And Arrow was recorded in a tent, written in a kitchen, arranged in a living room, and I was fascinated by this process and the sound that came out of it. One of the albums I really liked from the past few years was the CocoRosie one recorded in their bathroom in Paris...

CMM: Ours was recorded on the really amazing gear of my engineer and long-time friend Alex Venguer. He lives across the street from us. We decided on this album to build a recording booth inside his second bedroom, so we went to Home Depot and hammered and...

MCMB: What does the tent actually do?

CMM: It's dead now, it got taken down! It was basically just to make the sound better than it would be in a normal room. I think it worked out pretty well-- we took a million blankets from our house and all our friends and created this place with padded walls... I guess it could have been like in an insane asylum. Aaaaah!

MCMB: That would be nice, if you got frustrated.

CMM: It would be like a scream room! For me recording is always a little bit uncomfortable, and I feel like it's supposed to be, if that makes any sense.

MCMB: It's so permanent.

CMM: And it's all day, every day, making a million decisions. That's all fine, but it sends me into a little bit of a spin of discomfort. But at this point, when I feel that way, it's for a reason, and it's all part of the creative process. I guess there's some people who go to the studio and they're like, "Yeah man, we're gonna lay this down!" But I'm not really like that. I sort of tear everything apart.

MCMB: Is songwriting more laid-back? Or playing live?

CMM: Playing live is heaven. I really, really love playing live. To me that's the ultimate reward of all of it, what it's all for. You absolutely feel like you're doing your job, what you're supposed to be doing, when you're touring and onstage, which is to hopefully entertain people and play music at their level. The recording thing can get not very human, more like a crazy, very tunnel-vision process. The songwriting process can be both ways. I really enjoy writing songs.

MCMB: They're so varied on Arrow. I was listening to the song "That's All" all day.

CMM: Well that's a Genesis song! A perfect old pop song. It was the Number 1 hit in 1984 and I remember, when I was very little, dancing around the living room to that song. When I knew we were going to have tuba during recording, this popped into my head and I knew we had to do it. Check out the original-- it's amazing. Totally dated and amazing! I love it!

MCMB: It has to be done. The next song I wanted to ask about is "Perdue a Paris." Very moody and kind of hypnotizing. I was trying to visualize a music video for it, and was wondering if there were any plans to make one?

CMM: I know a really great filmmaker in Paris, and we've been talking about it. Next time we're in Europe touring, which is going to be March, we might stay a little bit at the end to do something. I feel the same way, and when we wrote it I thought we captured something there. I think it walks the line between being an alien there and also really being in tune with all the "isms" of Paris, all the random little details that are falling all around you.

MCMB: The song has so many different tones. It's really unpredictable.

CMM: Yeah-- I have been lost, perdue a Paris, so many times, I can't even tell you. And "Perdue a Paris" is also "lost" in both senses of the word. I enjoy that song, even though we're not actually doing it tonight!

MCMB: Are you playing "All the Wine"? Because that's my current "getting ready to go out" song...

CMM: We are! That's your jam? We're going to play your jam.

MCMB: It's a great song about wine. And speaking of that, what's your signature drink? What does everyone in the band drink?

CMM: I've been into gin gimlets lately, with some Hendricks gin, but in terms of wine, we're absolutely Bordeaux. Not California wine people. Not Australia. No New World, only Old World wine. I can't drink crappy wine, and when I'm in the States I really don't even drink wine, but when I'm in France I drink quite a bit, and then we bring back as much as we can. It's so cheap there!

MCMB: Delicious! But here you are, playing Brooklyn right after playing Manhattan. What venues do you like here? Have you been to any other CMJ shows?

CMM: We went on tour right after our other CMJ thing on the 20th, we went up to Canada. We're sort of in tour mode, so I missed the whole CMJ thing. I have to be honest, CMJ for me is a little too factory-like. I much prefer normal shows. It was our CD release, and we didn't get to play 4 songs from the CD -- they turned on the lights! It was not exactly in the spirit of good performance or celebration, they were so strict about keeping their schedule. We played at Bowery Ballroom last night though, which was really fun, with a lovely audience. Where else do I like? The Bell House. Have you been there? It's beautiful. I think that's the nicest venue in town.

MCMB: Being on tour, you wouldn't have had a chance to go see other bands all that much.

CMM: I definitely try to go out and see music while in New York. I love going to shows. I went to see Loney, Dear at the Bowery Ballroom. He's my favorite. I love his record-- Loney, Noir is my favorite record in recent years. Literally. It will probably become your "getting ready to go out" album! Every song, you're like, "This is my favorite! Oh, no, THAT'S my favorite!"

MCMB: Cool. And for you guys, what's next? All touring?

CMM: Yeah, we're touring for the next few weeks, and then more US touring in January-February, and then Europe for six weeks. Then Japan in the spring. I'm very excited about that. We've been twice before, and it's my favorite country to play in, I have to say. Go. It's heavy-duty wonderful, and the people are wonderful. Audiences never yell out a good heckle or a bad heckle! It takes a few shows to get used to it, but then you realize, they DID like it, they're just really polite!

MCMB: Thanks so much for this. If you're around after the show, I'll buy you a drink.

CMM: I'll buy YOU a drink.
claremuldaur.com
Clare & The Reasons on MySpace
Liz Durrett
Vic Chesnutt