We Interviewed Neneh Cherry

Here’s a fun party trick: Go to a room full of music nerds, take one of them aside, and ask them what they think of Neneh Cherry’s stepdad. Fifteen minutes later, after they’ve spat a Wikipedia page to you, talking about John Coltrane and the genius of Relativity Suite and doussn’gounis and a bunch of other stuff, ask them about Neneh Cherry. They’ll do it again, except this time they’ll talk about how she was hanging out with the dudes from The Slits and The Pop Group when she was fourteen and how she made a billion different types of music and then helped kick-start Massive Attack. This is because Neneh Cherry is awesome (so is her stepdad, but this article isn’t about him). We at VICE aren’t the only ones who think that either, as the virtuosic Swedes of The Thing recently tapped Ms. Cherry to record a (very good) album. Neneh spoke with me about The Thing, her stepfather’s legacy, and being a teenage punk.

VICE: Tell me about the new album.

Neneh Cherry: We got together about a year and a half ago and recorded three tracks. We really hadn’t spent any time together before that. We barely knew each other. They (The Thing) are always doing lots of other stuff. They don’t stop, basically. We managed to get a day in a studio here in London, where we kind of hooked up after emailing each other with some song ideas. We knew we were going to cover some songs to start out with, and when we got in the studio we basically did one take of each song. It was quite mad. First we did the Martina Topley-Bird track, “Too Tough to Die,” and then we did a Nico song which didn’t make it on the album, and then we did the MF Doom track, “Accordion.” When “Accordion” finished, I broke out in a migraine. It was so intense.

What is it like being with a musician in the studio for the first time and being asked to come up with something? Do you enjoy that pressure?

It’s kind of scary before you start. It always feels like a big responsibility. There’s always that element of, “This feels like it could be really great, but it could also end up being totally shit.” There’s always that thing that’s just out there in the hemisphere that you really don’t have any control over. It’s what makes you connect with people. I felt really good about it, but I was kind of scared shit, and to me they’re master musicians. They push you up against the wall with their sheer force. I wanted to live up to it. Once we were inside the first song, we were really happy. Even now when I listen to the record, I can hear mistakes. But that’s okay.

They named their band after one of my dad’s songs, and I carry that heritage in my backbone. I got to touch base with that and unload. My dad died in 1995, and for a few years I really couldn’t even listen to his music without breaking up. My mother died about two and a half years ago, and that was really unexpected and blew another vessel. I was numb for about a year. I think I needed to get with those people to get a lot of shit off my chest.

Coming from such a musical family, and then doing this album where you’re tapping into that legacy, what is that like?

I’ve had a couple times where I came offstage and was crying. It was like I’d been exorcised. We all have things that we do where we get rid of things that you can’t really talk about. Some people run. Some people garden. Some people climb a mountain. But for me, I do music. It’s a bit like if we were living in tribes, you’d go out and have a pow-wow—take something and trip out with your people, and touch the spirits. Beyond all of that, it’s also just really great and amazing to work with musicians where you can touch on a spot at an immediate time, in time with each other and have a really pure exchange. That’s so valuable. I really feel that I have that with those guys.

What was it like being in the punk scene back when you were younger?

I was fourteen. There was a woman in the building I grew up in called Lee Blake who went on to do Red Hot and Blue. She moved back to London, and she took me down to King’s Road, where Public Image Ltd. were going to play on a rooftop. It was instant. I dyed my hair within about five hours, and it was just a complete liberation. Growing up, I felt very self-conscious and not really fitting in. Then I went to London and got to be really good friends with Harry from The Slits, the guys from The Pop Group, and lots of other people—Vivian Goldman, who’s a writer who now lives in New York, had a place where all used to hang out. There were really no boundaries. As the punk thing evolved, the music that came after it was really able to draw from anything and everything. Reggae music became really influential, as did Captain Beefheart and my dad’s music. That was really interesting to me: Here were all these people who were my age, but were really into the music that I’d grown up with. All of a sudden there were these people who I looked up to, checking out what I came up from. I hadn’t looked at it from the outside before.

One more question: You lost a Grammy to Milli Vanilli?

They won the Grammy, but they had to give it back. I don’t know who’s got it. But they hadn’t sung anything on their records. So I was like, “That’s Karma.” I feel bad for them. I think one of them tried to kill himself. I think he managed. It’s a sad, sad story. Who fucking needs a Grammy anyway? It’s like waking up naked in the worst possible place, like an awful dream. But it was for real.

@drewmillard