Aimee Mann doesn’t register on everyone’s radar, but those who know her and
are attunded to her wavelength value her as one of America’s most rewarding
singer-songwriters. Half a lifetime ago, she was briefly as ubiquitous on a
fledgling MTV as were her then peers Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, fronting the
band ’Til Tuesday. Since that line-up’s implosion, she has released a
succession of acclaimed solo albums, including the soundtrack to the 1999
film Magnolia, for which she was nominated for both an Oscar and a Grammy.
Their mood has been sometimes angry, occasionally bleak. She herself has
seemed to be pale-and-interesting personified.
It is unexpected then to meet her for the first time and, within minutes, find
youself laughing. Mann, 47, has just finished recounting a story that
reveals the towering self-regard of another US artist, one recently welcomed
back in from the commercial cold. But, “I am such a gossip,” she immediately
recants. “It’s my favourite thing to do and my least appealing trait.”
Better a gossip with a healthy sense of the absurd than the gloomy, doomy
princess I was fearing I might encounter. “Yes? Well, it’s bad enough
getting older. To be doing so while also becoming more mentally unstable
would really be depressing. In your twenties and even thirties, it’s just
possible there’s a certain romance to being all over the place. To be so
after 40, though, would be just pathetically same old, same old.”
That said, Mann has yet to metamorphose musically into the life and soul of
any party. In fact, in naming an almost uniformly excellent new CD @#%&*!
Smilers (or plain-simple Smilers, for greater convenience), she is
delivering a deliberate “Up yours!” to those who regularly greet pensive or
impassive others with exhortations such as, “Cheer up! It might never
happen!” Not one of its 13 tracks is likely to be playlisted by your upbeat
local drivetime radio host. But all show her to have further developed and
refined the ability to wrap up quirky, downbeat or difficult perspectives,
moods and sentiments within the conventions of a gloriously straight-forward
pop song. “If people like it, that would make me happy,” she says. “If they
go out and buy it, that would be amazing.”
Her apparently modest expectations are informed not by any lack of confidence
in her own abilities but by a recognition of the parlous state in which the
wider record industry finds itself. For the past eight years, and following
a falling-out with her major label bosses (and a subsequent, protracted
legal battle to free herself from contract), Mann has been releasing her
work independently. Doing so successfully long before most other artists had
considered this now widespread method of operation made her something of a
role model/test case. “But it was more a leap into the abyss than any
super-sensible plan,” she says now. “I just had this crazy idea that there
must be an alternative to the corporate way. Via the internet. Or selling my
records off the back of a truck if needs be.”
We are having lunch during what is for Mann a brief promotional trip to
London. She spent a year here in the early Nineties and says it suited her
well. Yet she and husband Michael Penn (also a singer-songwriter and the
older brother of actor/director Sean) live in Los Angeles, which suits her
less. “People are scattered. Even a catch-up over coffee takes forward
planning and can involve driving miles. If you’re not careful, days pass and
you don’t speak to or see a soul outside of your own household. But my
husband has a child whose mother is based there, so it’s not like we’ve any
choice.” These days, of course, she has skills and strategies for avoiding
any potential sense of dislocation and alienation. It wasn’t always so.
Asked about her upbringing in smalltown Virginia, Mann refers to a popular US
sitcom of the late Sixties and early Seventies, based on the comic fallout
of a second marriage into which both partners entered with children from
past relationships. “It was just a very straight, suburban life with dad
going off to the city each day leaving me and my brother with his new wife
and her two boys. The Brady Bunch, kind of, but a very imperfect version of
it.” What she does not say now is that, prior to this and as a small child,
she had been seized by her mother as part of a custody dispute and brought
to the UK. Courts and child psychologists are said to have become involved.
Elsewhere she has described herself as having been withdrawn and often
silent as a result. Neither a happy nor an easy start in life then.
Today she chooses to begin her story at the age of 11, when a change in zoning
policy required that she and her siblings attend not their local high school
but an inner-city equivalent. “We experienced a lot of animosity there. We
all of us got beaten up at various points, four or five times each. And as
this skinny girl, I would get molested all the time by older guys. Fighting
that off was physically and mentally exhausting and made it all but
impossible for me to study. Effectively I lost two years of my education.
Then finally and thank goodness, my parents moved to a different area so
that we could attend a more normal, middle-class academy where there was no
fighting and it was possible I might actually be liked.”
Mann’s tone has become suddenly fierce. “When I hear kids say they don’t like
school… Well, let them go to one where they get picked on and attacked on a
daily basis and then we’ll see how they feel about it. To sit in class and
actually be able to learn is a f****** privilege. I still love to learn
stuff [she took up boxing a while ago and is currently studying cartoon
drawing] and I don’t really care what it is.”
Towards the end of her secondary education, the singer’s school required her
to take aptitude tests, the better to determine which job path she should
follow. “And on establishing what my skill set was, they recommended
clerical work. I can’t blame them, because I am – was – so not the person to
have this present career. If you’d known me as a kid, you could only agree.
All you’d have thought me suited for was something involving zero stress and
no interaction with others, stress and people being the things I found it
hardest to deal with. I was low-functioning and had almost no life skills,
going out into the world. Those I have now, I’ve assembled for myself.” Was
she angry about this? “Just frightened, shell-shocked and shut down. It’s
only now when I think of it all that I get mad.”
During a pre-teen bout of mononucleosis, she had, however, borrowed her
brother’s acoustic guitar and had taught herself some chords (“Boredom is a
real facilitator,” she notes wryly). By 18, she had developed this into a
basic songwriting ability. Her graphic artist father, by now divorced for a
second time, foresaw if not clerical work then marriage or possibly art
school for her. But Mann instead gained acceptance on a course at Boston’s
Berklee College of Music (no matter that she later dropped out to join her
first, pre-’Til Tuesday band) and in doing so set out on an ongoing path
towards self-expression and self-realisation – “ongoing” because she says
she prefers not to measure achievement solely by industry markers.
“Of course, getting nominated for an Oscar is very nice. But I think
it’s a real mistake and a fast track towards narcissism to get all your
confidence through external validation. It’s why I go to 12-step meetings
like Al-Anon, where they say self-esteem comes from doing estimable acts.”
Examples of which would be? “Taking care of yourself in a mature way.
Behaving well towards others. Admitting when you’ve done something wrong or
have made a mistake, instead of denying it, running away from it or trying
to blame it on someone else. Staying in reality and accepting that what is,
is. Solving your own problems. And part of being a grown-up in this world is
also realising that existence is a blessing and that a certain amount of
gratitude is due simply for the privilege of being alive.”
Mann laughs at herself here and, as we get up to leave, tells me that boxing
has also been of benefit in the journey towards a happier, more balanced
existence. “Firstly and very simply, because it can be satisfying to hit
stuff. But beyond that because it’s useful for life to learn to keep calm
while someone else is trying to punch you in the face. And calmness is
everything. If you get mad and blindly retaliate, you’ve blown it. You’ve
got to stay on your game plan, look for openings…” As she speaks we find
ourselves passing a table at which sits possibly the most miserable couple
ever to have dined together in public. “Wow!” says Mann stepping cheerfully
out into the afternoon sunshine. “Did you see them? Never mind Smilers. Have
those two ever smiled at each other in their entire lives?”
@#%&*! Smilers is available now on the SuperEgo label
