December 13th, 2007
Polly Jean Harvey's methodology is to not have a method. Since her debut, 1992's Dry, the singer-guitarist (and now pianist) confounds expectations with each new release. But that appears more like evolution than calculation. According to Harvey, she has no idea where any of it comes from, which is terrifying, yet preferable.
With this year's White Chalk, Harvey puts down the guitar in favor of an upright piano, and sings in an entirely new voice—straining for higher and higher notes while her fingers move around the keys of an instrument she isn't entirely proficient with. It all serves the subject matter perfectly, which is to say it's discomforting, ethereal, and fascinating. Watching her recent solo shows in New York and Los Angeles felt like peering into an old, haunted house, with Harvey in a long white gown, moving around the stage from instrument to instrument like a character in a one-act play. The A.V. Club recently sat down with PJ Harvey to discuss fear, history, darkness, magic, playgrounds, and gowns.
The A.V. Club: People have been calling White Chalk "dark." Would you say that's accurate?
PJ: Well, I don't really concern myself too much with what other people make of my work. I think were I to do that, I'd very quickly not be able to write anything at all, and I long ago learned that you can't expect people to interpret the songs in the way they had meant for you, as the writer. So I really don't know what people think of it, and I really don't mind, because I feel like the actual, the most beautiful thing about a song is that it is something that goes out there in the universe and people use it in the way that they need it in their lives. In the same respect, I feel that people hear the record in different ways according to where they're at in their own life at the time. If you come at the record feeling really happy and optimistic, it can be incredibly beautiful and uplifting, and if you come at it in a bleak moment, it can feel like a very dark place to share. It's all down to the listener, I think is what I'm saying.
AVC: You've moved around a lot over the years—New York, Los Angeles, back to Dorset, England. Is that for your writing, or for yourself? Does your location find its way into your music?
PJ: Both reasons. I find that I'm in a lucky enough position where I can afford to move around, and I do that not only for my writing—because it forces a new approach—but also as a person, because it forces you to look with new eyes. I think that's always very valuable: to keep the mind open to receiving all sorts of information, which can then be used in my work, but also just as a human being.
AVC: Is Dorset a different place for you now than it once was? Does it feel like home?
PJ: I just really feel it when I'm there, in the moment that I'm in it. I can't say that it feels the same or it feels different. I just try to inhabit the place that I'm in at that time, try and be available to that place and that moment as much as I can.
AVC: In your Los Angeles show, you were alone with your instruments, and it seemed like the crowd felt more involved, and they were compelled to shout things like, "We love you!" How do you feel about the intimacy of these shows?
PJ: It felt so right for this record and this time in my life. I've been doing this for 15 years, and I was looking for a new way of challenging myself, and this is probably the most frightening thing I've done: to stand on a stage on your own.
AVC: It makes you nervous?
PJ: Yes, actually, it's terrifying. But then I think—going back to what you were talking about, with the audience being so warm—I think it's a lovely thing that's happened during these solo shows. I think it's because people know that you're in a very vulnerable position, and they're rooting for you, and it provides this lovely giving and taking between myself and the audience of mutual support. All of these shows have been just wonderful. Very, very different. No two shows have ever been the same. No two songs are the same. It all depends on the energy in that room.
AVC: There were a few odd items atop your piano. Are they there to make you more comfortable?
PJ: It's just all sorts of things I find beautiful and have in my house back at home. Everything from a lifetime's worth of collecting things. You know as we go through life, and something stays and ends up on your shelf and lives there until you die? Just those little things.
AVC: The stage seemed like a room in your house, like a playground for you.
PJ: It's very much like that. It pretty much is a replication of my house, and I do feel like I'm in a kiddies' playpen when I'm up there.
AVC: People have expectations of what they want from you, and you always seem to do something unexpected. Is that a conscious effort to keep people guessing?
PJ: It has much more to do with challenging myself as an artist. I come from an art-school background, and I still feel that in my music, it's about exploration and challenging myself, about putting myself in a place that's frightening because I haven't been there before. That's really what the driving force is. I've been lucky enough that an audience has stayed there with me, and are willing to hear what comes next, but I just feel I'm on this life's work of exploring what it is to be human through music.
AVC: Do you ever doubt whether the new stuff you're trying is good?
PJ: Oh, it's actually a terrifying position to be in. I'm sure you can imagine. I've been so used to being supported by musicians, and I don't class myself as a particularly adept musician on instruments. I think I'm a songwriter. I grab an instrument to make my body a song, but I'm not a player as such, maybe a little more on guitar, but certainly not piano. So it's very easy for all the natural human fears to step in, little voices in your head saying, "You're rubbish. You can't do it." You know, all of those demons you have to fight in order to go about doing the work I feel I have to do. It's very frightening, but the reward is a hundredfold. I feel like it's very important that I'm doing what I'm doing, and I want to keep honoring that and try and do it as honestly as I can.
AVC: Why do you feel like you have to do it?
PJ: I just don't feel like I'd be doing what I was supposed to be doing here on earth if I didn't. I never had any doubt in my mind. I've so much left to explore, it's enormously exciting to me. It's a passion. I just try and get better at what I do, and I study it very hard, like it is my life degree.
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