Lindsey Jordan: 20 Year Issue
Photos by Naz Kawakami.
This interview appears in the 20th-anniversary Issue (buy a copy here) and is apart of the Analog To Digital: 20 Years of Culture and Change Podcast Series (listen to it here).
Lindsey Jordan is Snail Mail, and Snail Mail fucking rips.
I don't know at what point in time you are reading this, but last week, Rolling Stone put Lindsey on their list of the greatest guitar players of all time. Of all fucking time. She’s on there. One of the greatest guitarists of all time is talking to us from her country home in North Carolina after spending the day priming and painting the porch and we are stoked.
Under the Snail Mail banner, Lindsey makes music that is both tender and rugged. It is fun yet emotional, and very, very close. When you listen to and spend time with her music, it sounds very close to you, and very close to her. Particularly on her last album, Valentine, the words and rhythms are both incredibly personal and very easily jumped around the room to. If you happen to listen to the full version of this interview wherever podcasts exist in cyberspace, you’ll likely think, ‘wow, Naz is a giggling buffoon,’ and you’re right to think so, but that’s more a testament to how fun Lindsey is to speak to. She’s fun. She’s funny. She’s a homie, down for a chat.
Special thanks to Matador and Aaron Leitko and Aaron’s fashionable dinners.
Where are you?
I’m in my house that I just bought in North Carolina.
Why’d you buy a house in North Carolina?
I’ve been saving money to make a financial investment worthy of a future, and I lived in New York for four years but I hated it there, honestly. I hated the loud noises and the fact that there’s a line everywhere, there are no clean smells - I only moved there because a good amount of my friends from Baltimore went to college there. I was almost never home because I was touring, but I wanted to live somewhere kind of nature-y.
What’s the house like?
It’s fucking sick, dude, look at it.
Oh, okay, yeah it’s very Midcentury.
What’s up with you?
What’s up with me?
Yeah, what’s going on?
This has been the most stressful month and a half of my life slaving away on this issue. You ever write lyrics and you put your head into it, and when you’re like, ‘I have to write something meaningful,’ suddenly you have no ideas and everything sounds shitty?
Yeah, that’s how I feel 79% of the time. Damn, I’m sorry it sounds very stressful.
The last time we spoke, you were just like putting in time on that Harry Potter game and kind of fucking around. What have you been up to?
Oh, yeah, I was only home from tour for like a week so I was home just relaxing really hard. I’m kind of always working on music but not trying to pump it out because I don’t work that well that way.
Like forcing it?
Yeah I can’t just sit down and be like, ‘I’m finishing one today.’ I have a really unpredictable process, I never sit down and know exactly what’s going to happen, so I can’t really schedule it out. I’m very perfectionist about it.
That’s what I mean. I have to write this many pages and they have to be good, but when I schedule it out, I got nothing.
That makes sense to me, yes exactly.
We started this magazine in 2003. What were you up to in 2003?
I guess I was three and also four, and I was in preschool. So I was probably like, cutting and gluing, or coloring.
On October 18th at 8:12 in the evening, you were asleep? Having dinner? Coloring?
I maybe was having Cheerios? Probably dinner, right? Wait, this seems like, really late.
Since you were three to now, you’ve spent all this time in the music industry, what do you think has been the biggest cultural change?
It’s hard to say, I think a lot is the same in a lot of ways. One thing I’ve noticed is that the quantity of music that can be accessed at any point in time has increased. Everything is speeded up. Records come out faster, bands get big and then drop in no time, and I think that that makes sense because we have access to any kind of music, from anywhere, from anyone, at our fingertips. I don’t like to make music this way, but I feel like I’m watching people fight for their lives out there, you know what I mean? I’m watching people make records every week. If I could, I’d do that. Well, maybe not that, but a little more than I do now.
How are you able to keep up?
I don’t know, I feel like there’s a little tiny thing in my head that’s going, ‘by this month you should have this many hooks, and by this time, I hope there’s lyrics on a few.’ I have a general working process at this point. I work on a lot of the same songs for over a year. I start a little early writing stuff on tour, and I mull it over as much as I want to, which is excessively, and with lots of breaks to breathe.
Do you think that your writing process has changed? When you first started, were you just churning shit out? You sound very selective.
Compared to now, I absolutely was. When music was the thing I had to do in my free time, I was rushing through my homework so that I could do that. It was what I wanted to be doing when I wasn’t supposed to be doing it, so it had a lot of my intentional energy. Now that it’s kind of a work thing with a productivity clock that ticks down - there’s a limit for how long you can take, but the limit can be stretched, I don’t know. I definitely have to be more intentional about it. There are things that I do to take the edge off of it so I feel like I’m still being intuitive and creative without feeling like I’m talking to myself. Right now, my biggest and most helpful technique is watching movies and TV while I work on music, because I have the craziest ADHD and I love to be doing two things at once. Like, a video of subway surfers…
Oh my god-
You know a video of someone playing subway surfers and then something else. I love that. It helps me to not overthink it and I feel like I intuit better melodies and stuff when I pay some attention to what I’m watching. One focus enhances the other focus, and it makes instinct the driver.
Also, thank you for doing this because I know you’ve been painting all day-
Dude, I have been priming. There has been a different maintenance man here like every hour, and you would not believe some of the conversations that I’ve had.
Are any of them, ‘hey, are you Snail Mail?’
No, no, but they’re really intense. Like, it is definitely a weird part of the country.
Are they being like, ‘hey nice to meet you I’m going through a divorce right now…’
It’s… I think it’s just a really friendly talkative part of the South here, which is a thing I’m not used to. People are really eager to have a conversation, but I am in my own house. I’m such a hermit, too, like I moved somewhere where I don’t know anyone and I struggle to even talk to the check out people at the grocery store. The post-Covid thing is my actual life, so it’s been really stressful. It’ll be like, ‘I haven’t thought about Christianity and God and gay people, I don’t understand why people can’t be accepted- the only thing is if you’re gay then you need to apologize to God before you die,’ and I was like, ‘is this guy onto me? Or is he just reflecting?
Is he onto you?!
Yeah he had like a whole monologue, he went on for like an hour and a half just reflecting on life, death, and Jesus. I was like, ‘uh huh, yeah.’
This is what I did for Spike. We did hardball question then softball question. You wanna do that?
Alright, let’s do it.
Just now I gave you a hardball about your writing process. Softball question: you’re having a date over to your house, you’re cooking dinner. What are you cooking?
I’m off of pig and cow so I don’t think I’d want to eat this, but I had this really good gnocchi, white sauce, sausage, broccoli raab thing. It was really good and pretty spicy…
You’re making that?
Yeah, it’s really good.
Do you cook?
Yeah, I love to cook. Do you cook?
I mean, I like it but I have a horrible diet.
Me too, me too, but I like to make the occasional delicious meal. I feel like that was the most delicious thing I ever made, so I’d make that.
What do you think has been the thing that has kept you inspired in the music industry?
Um, dude, nothing, myself. The music industry is the most uninspiring, stupid, ugly, annoying, obnoxious-
Just fucking quit, man.
Dude I mean, I was raised Catholic and feel like I have to announce it at every moment that I am grateful for my life, but I think that the music industry is just the absolute dumbest thing in the world. Snail Mail has been around for kind of a stupid amount of time, like ten years. I feel like a jaded old man. I wake up like, ‘ah, what another stupid day.’ I can’t even like, have the outlets on social media because everytime I read the headline I’m like ooookay.
What the hell, man?!
What?
We are an outlet!
Oh, sorry, that’s true. I do follow y'all. But I have to mute like, well I don’t- I like Pitchfork and Stereogum, but I don’t want to see all the updates all the time. They just make me mad.
I agree, I’m that way. I want to participate in the culture and know about this stuff, but I want to be the one that goes and gets it when I want it.
Totally, totally. I do think that we are getting back to that. There’s so much choice. There’s like, a choice element with TikTok and things getting popular. People are actually getting to choose - I feel like that’s something actually steamed by people’s opinions and not someone pushing it. Like, it’s crazy that ‘Running Up That Hill’ had the most streams it’s ever had last year. When that song was blowing up [again] I was mostly shocked that so many people hadn’t heard it before, but now that old ass song has become a hit once again because people who had never heard it were like, ‘I love this song.’ It’s the people’s choice. You know?
Yeah it’s democratization rather than some label guys being like, ‘you love this.’ You can find things easier, more organically.
There are a lot of bands I’m seeing coming up. This band called Julie, we were on the same festival as them like every day in Europe, and they’re so sick and have so many fans and is genuinely pretty out there in a way that I wouldn’t expect. It feels like some cool uprising is happening just because people have so much choice.
What’s a song that you listen to and you’re like, ‘fuck I should have written that!’
I mean… there’s millions. That is actually one of the hardest questions I’ve ever been asked. That’s a softball question?
I feel like that’s pretty soft, I don’t know.
Well hold on, I’m getting overwhelmed. I just want to think about it for a second.
Alright take a moment.
Ask me another softball question while I think about it.
What’s your favorite place to eat in North Carolina?
Hmmm. Alright, I have been ordering a lot of Jimmy John’s.
Oh my god, man.
It’s my food, therefore I will consume it. I eat horrible, but I’m still alive against all odds.
Alright, now you’ve gotta answer that other question.
Aw shit, yeah.
It comes back around.
It does, it does.
You want one more stall question?
Yeah, gimme just one more.
Alright, what’s been the biggest mistake in your career and what’s been your biggest success?
I think the biggest mistake I made, realistically, was the amount of money that we spent on the last campaign for Valentine, because it was too much money and I was left with not enough money from it. Everything we did with the record was just overly expensive. We switched around producers - too many financial mistakes were made and I’m paying for it now.
A few of the people have said something like that, actually. Alright, biggest success.
There was this one tour we did in Asia that was almost completely sold out. We never did anything anywhere near as cool. We were in Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong - those were the craziest shows we ever played. People were so into Snail Mail. I just feel like our fans out there are the absolute sickest Snail Mail fans. It was also cool to do that tour and see that much of the world. When we do Europe, it’s a lot of the same places over and over again, but that Asia tour, I was like, ‘oh damn, a lot of people have heard us, really far away.’ I haven’t gotten that feeling since.
Alright, it’s coming back around.
Alright I’m gonna say ‘Save It For Later’ by The English Beat.
That does not sound like a Snail Mail song.
No, but that’d be so cool. I just love that song. I think it’s so pretty. Second place: ‘Paper Trail’. Third place: I don’t know, I had one in mind but I lost it.
Is it ‘Running Up That Hill’?
No it’s a great song but I never had a moment with Kate Bush. Maybe in the future.
Where would you like to see yourself in twenty years?
Oh, damn. Probably just stable on all fronts.
You mean like, mentally? Financially?
Just like, in life, I hope that I feel stable and fulfilled. I hope I’m still career fulfilled in some way whether it’s Snail Mail or something else. Hopefully just like, healthy and chilling.