Alison: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Tonight, I am heading to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue at 40th Street for our big Get Lit event with author James McBride. We've been reading his novel The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and now it is time to discuss. Grammy-nominated jazz singer Carla Cook will be our special musical guest for the evening. James requested her, and the evening kicks off at 6:00 PM.

Now, tickets are sold out but you can watch the live event stream. Head to wnyc.org/getlit to find out how. That's in five hours. Let's get this hour started with the Devendra Banhart. There's a new album out from singer-songwriter, Devendra Banhart. His first in four years and his 11th studio album. It's called Flying Wig and was made in California in collaboration with Welsh musician and producer, Cate Le Bon. Let's listen to a song from the album. This is Twin.

MUSIC- Devendra Banhart: Twin

Same face to face

Same face to face

Same desolate space

Same desolate space

Same face to face

Same face to face

Same desolate space

Same desolate space

Alison: About this new work, Banhart wrote on Instagram about the album, "Pain is a stepping stone, healing a walk of fire. Just no way around that. Not the full gig, but a pretty big part of it. At least that's my experience. Lots of that, in this album." Banhart also announced a national tour this fall for the new record. He just played LA last night. He'll come to our area at Webster Hall on October 11th and Asbury Lanes on October 13th. He joins us now for a listening party. Hello.

Devendra: Hi. Hello. Good afternoon.

Alison: Good afternoon. Your Instagram is really fun because it's like extended liner notes if you start to read all the things that you write about the album. One thing you said, which just caught my attention was you said your manager would come in during recording and advise you to be a mess in your best dress. What does that mean to you, and how did that advice help you?

Devendra: Well, there was something philosophical about that just embody what that means, which is I think my manager knows me well, we're really close friends. He knows that I'm pretty much a mess at all times. Perpetually, a mess. Born right out of the womb. That doesn't seem to be getting any better. Might as well, glam it up. Might as well, make the most of it really. I haven't really found a way around feeling like a mess or around fear or around mistakes. They seem to be pretty perpetual. It's not like, there's this one moment, "Oh, that's it."

There's no more of that. It's really about how I dance with those challenges of being alive and not feeling totally unstable, unstable, unstable, unstable. That's kind of the dance.

Alison: Where does the creativity come in? Is it in between the thin line between the two? Is that where the creativity finds its place?

Devendra: Yes, I think so. I feel like creativity for some people is just maybe some naturally arising thing. For me, it's more of a discipline where I have to sit and work out a thing until something emerges. My manager is saying, "Be a mess in your best dress." It's also a nice-- Before you start to record, it's almost like you're entering a portal.

Alison: Ooh, my guest is Devendra Banhart. We're talking about his new album Flying Wig. It is out now. He'll be in our area on October 11th and in Asbury Lanes on the 13th. We're having a little bit of a connection difficulty so I want to play a track while we figure out what's going on.

Devendra: Okay.

Alison: Oh, are you back?

Devendra: Yes, I don't know what happened. It doesn't matter. I did hear something.

Alison: I can still play this track and we can still talk about it.

Devendra: Sure.

Alison: Let's play Feeling. I want to point this out before. I'm not sure where we-- Are we taking this from the top, Luke? This track, Feeling. Yes. Oh, you are taking from the top. I'm asking that because it begins with percussion that sounds a little bit like a heartbeat.

Devendra: Yes, that's the idea. It's a heartbeat and then the rest of it is I think Cate's breath actually just going, whoosh.

Alison: Ooh, let's listen. This is Feeling.

MUSIC- Devendra Banhart: Feeling

I'm looking for a feeling

Hard to explain

I'm looking for a feeling

Might not come again

And when the night comes

Oh, how she comes

And when the night comes

Oh, how she comes

I'm looking for a feeling

I want to know

I'm looking for a feeling

That won't let me go

Alison: That is Feeling for Devendra Banhart's new album. The Cate that you mentioned is Cate Le Bon, a Welsh musician and producer. What are a couple of adjectives to describe Cate?

Devendra: Horrible hairdresser, and genius at everything else.

Alison: Okay. The hairdresser is an inside joke that apparently, the first time you met, she ended up cutting your hair with a fork.

Devendra: That's right, that's right. It's just as relaxing as that sounds. She also tattooed me and the needle went through my entire torso. Those are two things don't have Cate do, but everything else, yes. I highly recommend working with someone that you want to impress. I feel like as my friend, the most beautiful thing I could say to Cate is, "I love you." As my producer, the most beautiful thing I could say is, "I trust you." I really feel those things about this person.

Alison: What does she bring out in you as an artist when she's your producer? That's part of a producer's job is to help their person, their talent, find the best themselves, sometimes to help them get out of their own way. How does she bring out the best in you?

Devendra: Well, you just said it really well, to get out of your own way. That seems really, really important. I don't think work is that good when the person doesn't get out of the way. Getting out of the way, that's it. That's one of the biggest challenges and one of the biggest parts of our work is getting out of the way. Like I said, to trust somebody and want to impress somebody is so valuable because also they're not going to let you get away with stuff.

If you're working with somebody that is just doing it for a check or is totally enamored with your work and whatever you do is great, that's feels good to the ego. "Wow, I can't do wrong. Oh, they love what I do." Of course, there's no expansion or growth there, and you're not going to actually trust the person. Cate, really out of love and respect would make it really difficult for me because I'm trying to get away with it. I don't want to really work on it that much. She wouldn't allow that.

She was telling it like it is like, "Hey, you could do better with this line, this chorus, this bridge. It's not really working," but I'd go back to it. I'm so much happier with it after that. That's one of the things that she brought out. It's so powerful to work with somebody that-- If I didn't know Cate, I'd be sitting in a corner just seething with envy. "How is it that you're better at everything? You're so good." She's incredible. She plays every instrument better than I do, sings better than I do, writes better than I do. It's just like, "Wow, okay." It's so nice to work with someone that you just want to impress.

Alison: What's going on with you when you don't want to change a line or you don't want to fix something and she's got to push you? Is it frustration? Are you tired? Are you married to things?

Devendra: No. I know she's right, but I'm just lazy. She's right, but I'm lazy. That's what it is. I want to go back to reading a graphic novel or something.

Alison: She's there to push you. That's a good friend. That's a good producer and a good friend.

Devendra: I think so, I think so. Although often, it doesn't-- It takes me a minute. A little bit later, I go, "Okay, thank you." It's one of those kinds of, you don't immediately go, "Wow, thanks so much. You're right, I'm going to go work for eight hours straight." But it is a beautiful thing and it's a collaborative thing. I initially wanted to co-produce this record and five minutes into it. Five seconds into it, seeing the way Cate was conducting the room, I knew I could just focus on lyrics and how to sing these words. I immediately called my lovely manager Christiana Stavros and said, "Cate's producing this, this is great, I trust her."

Alison: My guest, Devendra Banhart, the new album is called Flying Wig, it's out now. Let's hear the title track. Would you set this up for us a little bit, Flying Wig?

Devendra: Me?

Alison: Yes.

Devendra: The track or the album as a whole.

Alison: The track, what would you like people to listen for in the track? Is there something special about the track?

Devendra: Are we playing the first song?

Alison: Flying Wig, yes.

Devendra: Oh, we're playing Flying Wig?

Alison: Yes.

Devendra: See I'm sorry I forget. I forget that there's a song going Flying Wig. The record is called Flying Wig. This one is the titular track, and the idea was I lived with this wig for some time. I don't look good in wigs and so I don't wear it but it just sat there on a microphone stand, and then eventually, I tied it to the ceiling with some fishing line, and it floated there and became this strange symbol of freedom to me because I would kind of talk to it in the morning. "What'd you do last night?" "Oh, I went out. I went to this place, this bar, went shopping with some friends. I was in traffic. It was a nightmare."

I went a little nuts with it but I really started to enjoy this anthropomorphizing this wig, and it felt like the symbol of freedom and plus maybe some colloquialism for high vibes. "How was the thing?" "Oh, the vibes were so high, I was Flying Wig." This song, I feel like has a little bit of this feeling of moving forward of maybe jumping off a cliff and being caught by these tendrils that are coming out of your head. The first line is I'm alone dancing naked on an eye without a head. That image feels like a dreamy shadow image that I can see in the distance.

Alison: Let's listen. This is Flying Wig.

Devendra: Present with the whole record.

Alison: Here's Flying Wig.

MUSIC - Devendra Banhart: Flying Wig

I'm alone

Dancing naked

On an eye

Without a head

Like a wish

I can finally confess

With no need for words

I no longer possess

Hold me close

Is all I wanted to say

Abandon hope

Of some other way

Alison: That's the title track of Devendra Banhart new album Flying Wig. All right, is it true that you took a bunch of Polaroids of the wig in question?

Devendra: I did.

Alison: They're randomly and pre-ordered albums. You just stuck them in there as surprise gifts for fans?

Devendra: That's right. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I thought this will take about an hour, and it took two months but I really went for it. I'm trying to make sure every Polaroid was totally different. Every photo was in a different place. I actually went to Japan just to take photos of the wig in different, architectural buildings, and sculptures, and things like that. Went all the coast of California, through the city, of course, my neighborhood. I was shocked by how much work it took and how-- I should have donated the wig to science.

It was crawling by the end. It was crawling with insects that I've never seen before, and I love insects. I love insects a lot. Are you kidding me? I'm like after this. I'm going to go to my garden look for spiders and just check them out, and talk to them hang out, with them. I should be an entomologist. I'm telling you, this wig, the millions of bizarre insects were living in this wig by the end. I should have sent that in. One of the records should have come with that.

Alison: This wig is the gift that keeps on giving.

Devendra: Yes.

Alison: For you. It's going to keep going-- Have you heard from anyone who's received a photo?

Devendra: A couple of people, yes. A couple of people got a Polaroid and I'd like them all back. I worked really hard on that, and those are my Polaroids.

Alison: Oh, no, friend. Once it's a gift, it's gone. Once it's a gift-- you got to keep the wig.

Devendra: The records too. I want every record back too.

Alison: My guest is Devendra Banhart, the name of the album is Flying Wig. You're on tour, played LA last night. How's it gone? How did LA go?

Devendra: Really nice. We just played a little in-store to Amoeba, and it was a very gentle loosey-goosey kind of set, and it felt so nice to see friends. The day before that, we played in Mexico and played the new songs for the first time, and that felt so-- it was terrifying and super duper fun. I think that's probably the thing that-- one of the most important things to me in my whole life is to feel like I've got a new song to sing. It's so nice to be able to do that.

Alison: What did you notice about the album playing it for the first time?

Devendra: Well, the real answer is total regret. Oh, no, I should have used that chord. That was the right word, but actually, not so much this time. Maybe in my whole career, something that I've always noticed is, later on when you're playing the songs, you realize what you should have done, what that word was. Maybe this is one of the things about working with Cate that I wasn't really allowed to do that. That's the weird way of putting it, but I really-- there's not even that many words on this record.

I really am happy and satisfied with these words. I think these are the right words, and so singing them feels nice. There wasn't that sense of terror and panic that usually follows me wherever I go.

Alison: I did want to ask you a little bit of a more serious note. People who don't know your story you were born in the US but lived much of your early life as a boy in Caracas, Venezuela, and late last year, you played the Cusica Fest in Venezuela, and it's not the easiest place to play. It was your first time playing there. What did it mean for you to play in front of that crowd?

Devendra: That was a pretty emotional set. I'd been trying to play in Venezuela for 20 years. 20 years, every year, there was word of maybe playing there and then it would fall through because it's a tough situation, and it's been tough for my entire life. I was there during the coup. You wake up and it's just every channel is the same image of Chavez with people with the machine guns taking over the country, and that coup failed actually, and then it was successful. Things have been pretty bad my whole life, and we never were able to play there.

Even this year, when it was going to happen, I was sure it wasn't going to. Flying there, I was sure it wasn't going to happen, and suddenly, we were there, and we were playing and I discovered, it was so hopeful. It was so much hope, and this entire new generation of kids that have grown up in that situation, and aren't really waiting for the infrastructure, the government infrastructure to support what they do as artists. They're not waiting for that at all. They have no, it's not even a question of if that could happen. They've created their own thing.

They have their-- everyone I met had their own band, their own book, their own fashion line, their own publishing house, working on their own self-financed film, or their crowdfunding their own film. It was such an incredibly inspiring thing to see with a totally dark side, which is that they get no support whatsoever. It was meant a lot to me. Also, it meant a lot for me to play in dress because I started singing in a dress and I'm a straight guy who likes to wear dresses. I have since I was nine years old, and that wasn't necessarily supported in the entire country, of course.

I pierced my ear and they shut down the school because someone was going to kill me. It meant a lot to play in that dress imagining maybe the nine-year-old version of me seeing someone like them, so that was a really meaningful show.

Alison: Devendra, what are you going to do the rest of the day? I'm curious.

Devendra: Like I said, there's some insects that I'm going to go stare at for a while and then I'm going to rehearse and I'm going to wrap some gifts. I was just in India and I got a bunch of little Ganesh. I hope no one's listening to this because I got a bunch of Ganesh's for my friends and their kids. I'm going to wrap some gifts, rehearse, look at some insects, regret everything I've said. Thank you so much for talking to me. Yes, that's about it.

Alison: Well, I wish you a lovely and fruitful day.

Devendra: You, too. Thanks so much.

Alison: Let's go out on the song May from Devendra Banhart. This new album's called Flying Wig. He'll be at Webster Hall in New York City on October 11th and Asbury Lanes on October 13th. This is May.

MUSIC - Devendra Banhart: May

Far as the eye can see

Wish I was a little more

So far from me

Must be why I love you so

Lost in no dream

Of waiting, no year

Center of the sun

How come? How come?

How come? How come?

 

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