[P3]

Mark: In the liner notes to the song "Pure War" on Disburden Disciple, you say, "I want to teach you love. I want to touch the pure war inside you." Do you think that intensity is more than what most people are ready for?

Jarboe: Definitely. Yeah.

Mark: It's very up front. This is what you're going to get.

Jarboe: I saw a direct parallel with that emotion in the heart to what I saw when I went over to Israel to record. There's a clean version of that song which was put on tape that will come out later which has all these Palestinian and Israeli musicians and sounds very Middle Eastern. But for that one [on Disburden Disciple], I went out and recorded the tanks and all the sounds of the war going on. It felt like it fit: the literal war with the symbolic war. The war that is going on over there is of the heart, it is of the spirit, and it has manifested itself with bullets and tanks. That was my little commentary about that experience. I nearly didn't get out of there with my life. I wanted to end that album with something violent.

Mark: It's a different sort of violence than the sort of "Dear 666."

Jarboe: Well, that's a song to women about staying in relationships -- like I have done -- where you've fallen under the charm of their spell. You think they're charming and sexy and your lust just will not die. Why is this lust fueled for these men who are abusing you? They're taking away your power. They're chopping you in two. And yet you continue to lust after them. There's something weird going on in your head. That's what that's about.

Mark: You talk about the creative process often. It seems the act of the process is something that fascinates you quite a bit. You've mentioned that as long as something is unfinished, it holds some interest for you. When something becomes finished...

Jarboe: Yeah, I get bored.

Mark: But, as long as something is incomplete, it holds your attention.

Jarboe: There's a challenge there. Yeah.

Mark: There are a number of CD-Rs available on your site that are unfinished things, material that is "in progress." You seem to have no difficulty in sharing the things which are unfinished.

Jarboe: Oh, not at all. I have a CD-R that is nothing more than me and a microphone, sitting in my closet, telling stories. They aren't even scripted. That goes back to the very early tape projects that I did before I joined Swans. I've always done that.

Mark: Is it just part of the process?

Jarboe: Yeah, and people are interested in it. They write. They want to hear it. That's the reason for it. They have some interest in it. I think it makes the finished product more satisifying when you know how it developed.

Mark: Is there a dialogue that goes on? Do people write in and say, "I liked A. I didn't like B." I wonder about the process. It strikes me that the fabrication of your songs is a personal act. You are building a narrative, you are building a song, and yet you have this interaction. Like Neubauten with their monitors in the studio. How much does that change the process?

Jarboe: I asked Blixa that and he said that the audience who were their subscribers -- he kept saying this over and over again -- he kept saying how intelligent they were, and how much he respected them. Apparently there are some highly respective music journalists who are affiliated with the top music magazines in the world. He didn't even see that component. He just saw it as a respect thing. Neubauten said they would develop something based on the interest they had gotten, almost like the old patron system. It's like the old fashioned system where the symphony was commissioned by the king.

I don't get that kind of feedback. I don't get the "oh, I don't like this" and "we like this." The people that write to me are totally positive and supportive. It seems like, well, maybe I haven't invited it enough.

The DVD of the show in Poland is a big deal for Larsen and myself because those things are expensive to do. They are elaborate to do. This is my first one. We got the discs from the manufacturing plant, put them in the van, and drove out for this tour. I've been telling the people who have bought a copy to critique it, to email me and tell me what they thought of it. I want to know what people expect from these sorts of things. People have been critical; some have said, "We wanted to see you getting ready in the dressing room. We wanted to see you, like, washing your hands after the show. We wanted to see you walking around during the sound check." I'm learning; I'm getting feedback for when I do another one of these. I'll need to have someone filming this sort of footage so that people feel they are getting an extra value.

This tour is called "Screaming Fire" and is a translation of the Polish term which has a female "a" at the end. It has to do with my approach to some of the material, and the fact that they had us all in red lights at the cathedral. It took place in Gdansk and another name for that city is Danzig which had been bombed to hell and back during the war. It seemed very poignant to call it that when we were in this 14th century cathedral. I'm trying to get more people to do shows there because it was such a valuable experience and an honor. It's been kept up beautifully, and the promoter is a man who does this out of love. He has another life and a family and children and a wonderful wife who made us great food. His dream is to bring people there that he really cares about. As a little boy, he saw us on the Children of God tour, and I've now fulfilled one of his dreams. It's like his dream, but he shares it with the people of Poland. [Laughs]
You don't do a show like that to make a lot of dough; you do it because you want to go there and perform. That was satisifying enough. I wanted to give back everything I could to that country. I remember how warm they were when we were there as the Swans. I plan on performing there again with the group Backworld.

Mark: A cathedral seems like an obvious place to do a performance; the structure seems suited for a live show with its space and acoustics. Yet, it seems like a long way to travel for a single show.

Jarboe: The realistic aspects of getting there and back is that we took a lot of merchandise with us and recouped a lot of our expenses that way. People can't get any material over there. We had an Italian film crew with us and a there were a number of art students who wanted to participate in the process and that's how we had the whole thing filmed. We had a man from Romania come and record it. I had all this stuff, and it was my job to bring it all back and take it into the studio and edit it down. It was a lot of work, but really worth it and I would recommend the experience to any artist.

Craig: It seems that people who know your material are familiar with the audio aspect of your work, and they are interested in what it is like when the curtain is drawn.

Jarboe: Exactly. I've always done this -- I don't know if I can do it tonight with the size of the stage in there -- I do this thing where I kneel. It's a way of composing myself, of reminding myself that I'm the sacrificial lamb for people -- that how I like to put myself in that position -- and I get water and I gargle. I don't hide the fact that I gargle, and sometimes I spit up the stuff in my throat so I can sing better. So that kind of stuff might be neat to have: an up close thing of me gargling. [Laughs] I'm not hiding it. I'm not trying to be anything other than a working machine, a human body doing something.

Craig: When you are on stage and performing, when you are in the zone and are reciting your performance, do you see anything? Does it freak you out to look out into the audience and see all of these eyes staring back at you?

Jarboe: No. It's funny because in Swans I think it was four times that we played these massive rock festivals like Roskilde, like Reading, when you're looking at 80,000 people out there. You get on these platforms like Kraftwerk or something and the platform rolls you out there in front of the crowd. [Laughs] Everything is timed like everything is a revolving lounge act. You go by and there is the lounge act. It is like that.

What I love the most though is the intimate setting. When we set up the tour, I wanted intimiate. I wanted intimate cabaret. I wanted a good sound system -- a powerful sound system -- but I wanted people right there. That's when I feel that I am at my best when people are right there with me.

In Las Vegas they had us outside in a junkyard basically. There, the PA was such that I gave up and just went out and sang from the audience. I had to face the band to give them cues and then I had to remember that the audience was behind me. I think I do okay in those sorts of settings.