STEALING BEAUTY Joan As Police Woman
Aug 15, 2008
For Joan Wasser, life’s to be lived embracing both extremes.
BY HAL BIENSTOCK
“Rock has been done,” proclaims Joan Wasser, who leads the band Joan as Police Woman.
And who could argue? Just look at Mick Jagger, prancing around in his ‘60s after once saying he’d rather die than still be singing “Satisfaction” at 45. After watching Jagger and other classic rockers fail to grow old gracefully, it’s no wonder aging punk rockers and Gen-Xers are finding new avenues to mine. David Byrne threw himself into world music, Elvis Costello tried his hand at classical composition, and Tommy Ramone turned to bluegrass. It doesn’t always work, but it sure beats turning into a self-parody.
Wasser, who had some success on the early ‘90s alternative scene as a member of the Dambuilders and then later in the decade with Those Bastard Souls, left rock music behind for an old-fashioned blend of piano-based jazz, R&B and cabaret. She says looking to the past allowed her to find something new under the sun.
“I know there will be amazing rock bands forever, but returning to older forms is a way to innovate,” she explains. “You can make the old form your own and present it in your own time.”
Despite the fact that she’s done with three-chord bashers and “1-2-3-4” count-offs, Wasser, who is also a classically-trained violinist, claims to be just as punk now as she ever was. In fact, her band’s slogan is “Beauty is the New Punk Rock.”
“I love any music that speaks true emotion and punk rock is one of those,” she says. “But I don’t see so much of a rub between classical and punk rock. We’re so used to seeing classical music as this staid art form, but there was rioting after the premiere of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring.’ When you’re not used to hearing certain sounds, it scares people. That’s how potent music is.”
And Wasser’s music is plenty potent. At first listen, her piano ballads seem tailor-made for Starbucks. But when people listen closer, they realize she’s doing much more than simply creating a nice atmosphere so they can sip a latte. Joan’s emotional tales of love and loss made her debut album Real Life a critical favorite. And her follow up, To Survive, shows her becoming even better as a songwriter and more confident frontwoman.
Yet Wasser almost never sang at all, spending most of her career as a backup musician for a wide array of artists that are rarely mentioned in the same sentence, including Sheryl Crow, Nick Cave, Scissor Sisters, Sebadoh, Antony & the Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright. She’s also one of the few people that can say they’ve played with both Lou Reed and Elton John.
“What can I say about them?” she says. “Those two people are motherfuckers. Lou has a terrible reputation, but he’s always been an absolute sweetheart to me. I just watched Elton perform ‘Crocodile Rock’ on The Muppet Show and he was wearing the most beautiful outfit of rainbow feathers. At the end, he falls into the water where crocodiles are singing with him. I call for The Muppet Show to come back. I’d be first in line to perform on it.”
It’s an odd request, since Muppets and rainbows aren’t the first things that come to mind when fans think of Joan as Police Woman. In fact, Joan is more often associated with tragedy. After all, Wasser was Jeff Buckley’s girlfriend when he died, and toured with the late Elliot Smith, to whom she dedicated the final track on Real Life, “We Don’t Own It.”
“I wasn’t writing when I was with Jeff,” she remembers. “But we did a lot of finding music together, sharing a lot of music and turning each other on to stuff the other one hadn’t known about. He’s someone who, like a lot of the great artists, played every note as if it were his last. Watching him be that way had a massive impact on me.”
But being a part of the male-dominated ‘90s rock scene wasn’t easy. Wasser always considered herself a tough girl, and she had to use every ounce of it while she spent her twenties crammed into vans and tour buses with gangs of guys.
“I had such a chip on my shoulder,” she says with a laugh. “Like, ‘I can carry that amp!’ I had a lot of questions about what it meant to be female in a band and I had absolutely no vocabulary with which to express my fears so I pretended I had none.”
Only when she began writing her own songs, says Wasser, did her emotions start to pour out. “When I started singing, I realized I was one of the most terrified people that existed. I allowed myself to be vulnerable for the first time through my voice. I maintain some of the toughness, but I feel like such a softie these days.”
Before getting to the point where she could express her vulnerabilities, Wasser had a few obstacles to overcome. For one thing, her toughness threatened to derail her career when she promised herself that she wouldn’t let anyone tell her how to record.
“When I decided to do my own music, I was only going to work with people I felt really good about and wasn’t going to compromise,” she remembers. “It drove me a little crazy because it meant I might wait forever for that to happen and never release my music. But I decided that if that’s what happens, it would be OK. I’d still feel good about it.”
She added an additional degree of difficulty by constantly asking herself how someone who never sang before could compete with golden voices like those of Antony and Rufus Wainwright.
“Being surrounded by such outrageously gifted singers was a combination of very positive and very terrifying,” she says. “At first, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m never going to sound like them.’ What you learn is you don’t want to sound like them, you want to sound like you.”
In fact, her voice proved to be a perfect complement to her former bosses. One of the highlights of her debut album was a duet with Antony called “I Defy.” And To Survive closes with a duet with Wainwright entitled “To America.”
Perhaps the most important thing Wasser, Wainwright and Antony share is an amazing ability to deliver a sad song without sounding like they’re manipulating your emotions. If the tragedies in Wasser’s life provide added weight to her music, they’ve also given her a perspective that keeps her from giving into bathos.
“I think there’s sadness in my music because life is sad,” Wasser explains. “It’s overwhelmingly joyful, but you can’t have that joy without sorrow. You appreciate joy in a way you couldn’t if you didn’t feel sorrow.”
Much of To Survive was inspired by another more recent tragedy, the death of Wasser’s mother from cancer last year. Yet, she managed to turn even that experience into something positive. “I’d love it if my mom was still here, but you have to accept that kind of thing. And learning to accept is a great gift that you can give to yourself. If you can do it, it affects every other part of your life in such a positive way.”
To Survive’s most emotional moment comes in the title track, as Wasser tells a story of her mother singing her to sleep: “The song is about her coming in and soothing my childhood fears, then she leaves the room after I fall asleep and has the same fears I do. Your fears don’t change throughout your life, you just learn how to deal with them. It’s about being alone and the neutrality of that rather than the negativity of that and ultimately the freedom you can feel when you accept that.”
In the end, that freedom is what Wasser’s life and music have always been about. She embraced punk music as a way to rebel, rebelled again by turning her back on it, wouldn’t work with anyone she wasn’t happy with — even if it meant her music would never see the light of day — and ultimately refused to give in to harrowing life experiences that would have knocked weaker spirits permanently off course.
“I have been someone that strives for the extreme in all situations,” she says. “And that has allowed me to remain optimistic and live inside a lot of joy because I know I have dragged myself through the dirt.”
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POLICE ACADEMY
From playing with Boston bar bands to sharing the stage with Elton John, Joan Wasser has gotten around in her career. Here are some highlights from the days before she joined the force and became Joan as Police Woman.
The Dambuilders, Encendedor, 1994: The major label debut from the Boston indie darlings found Wasser’s violin playing a bigger role than ever. The album featured the minor hit “Shrine.” And long before Sufjan thought of it, the Dambuilders set out to write a song for each state. “Delaware” and “Idaho” are on this one.
Mind Science of the Mind, s/t, 1996: Known as a side project of Shudder to Think’s Nathan Larson, Mind Science’s one and only album also featured Wasser and Helium’s Mary Timony. Jeff Buckley served as the band’s touring bassist.
Those Bastard Souls, Twentieth Century Chemical, 1996; Debt and Departure, 1999: Wasser teamed with members of The Grifters and Red Red Meat to make two albums that combined powerful alt-rock with offbeat pop. Fun fact: Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen drummed for the band during a 1997 tour opening for Sebadoh.
Sheryl Crow, C’mon C’mon, 2002: Although it contains “Soak up the Sun,” one of Crow’s best singles, this summery album, which features Wasser on violin, offers no hint whatsoever of Joan’s future path.
Scissor Sisters, s/t, 2004: Wasser did the string arrangements for the debut album by these ‘70s throwbacks who are best known for their disco cover of “Comfortably Numb” and the Elton John-style single “Take Your Mama”.
Antony & the Johnsons, I Am a Bird Now, 2005: An out-of-left field critical smash, Wasser’s violin added atmosphere to Antony’s dark, bluesy cabaret. In case Wasser isn’t enough for you, the album also features guest appearances by Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, Boy George and Devendra Banhart.
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SURVIVAL TACTICS
With its stories of love, death and hope, Joan as Police Woman’s To Survive is the kind of album that seems tailor made to help people through dark times. We asked the resilient singer what songs she turns to when times get tough.
“Hot Fun in the Summertime” by Sly & the Family Stone
“There is nothing like the feel of this song. If you’re feeling down, this song will change that.”
“On the Beach” by Neil Young
“Hope and despair if you need to cry”
“Idioteche” by Radiohead
“Sonically alone, this song is healing. And you may actually be dancing by the end.”
“How I Got Over” by Mahalia Jackson
“If you want to contact God…”
“There Is a Light that Never Goes Out” by The Smiths
“If you want to be reminded that you are not the only hopeless romantic on earth.”
[Photo Credit: Dennis Kleiman]
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