THE INSIDER: REGINA SPEKTOR
The singer prepares for her Broadway debut.
She’s conquered iPod playlists, movie soundtracks, and TV commercials, but Regina Spektor isn’t done yet. While on the road, promoting her latest album, far, the sweet-voiced singer spoke with NYLON about finding new bands, putting together outfits, and working on her Broadway debut.
It’s always funny calling a musician on tour, because it’s like, Where in the World is Regina Spektor?
I’m in Atlanta right now. I’m playing a show here tonight, and then flying to New York for Saturday Night Live.
It’s your SNL debut this weekend—do you prepare differently than you would for, say, Late Night with Conan O’Brien?
There’s just more stuff to do, because it’s a much more complicated show—it’s all live, and I’ve done that a couple of times abroad, but there’s nothing in America that’s truly live. So I think that’s sort of different. It’s just stuff like clothes, they need a lot more outfit changes. As opposed to when I do Conan or Leno, I just have to figure out one outfit. I have to figure out five outfits for SNL, because they need two for the dress rehearsal day, two for the day of the show, and one just in case.
Now that you’ve achieved this level of success, what’s next? Do you keep going with it, or do you try to challenge yourself in different ways?
I’m not in much of a conquest path, not like, more, more, more! I’m really interested in having new experiences musically and with people. The part of touring that I love is just going to different kinds of places and theaters and clubs and just doing new things all the time. I get to do so much different stuff that it never feels [like I’m] stuck, but it’s more having different things than bigger things. So I’m working on a Broadway musical now, I’ve never done that before. It’s really exciting to learn about theater and just experience new things.
How did you get hooked up with Beauty, the Broadway show you’re working on?
Tina Landau, she’s going to direct it and she’s writing the story and dialogue, she approached me because she’d had some of my records, and she pictured my kind of music writing as the songs in the musical.
What was your initial reaction when you were approached?
I was unsure about it, definitely, because I didn’t want to say “yes” to something that I didn’t feel like I could do. I don’t really like this thing of just getting notches in your belt, [this feeling of] been there, done that. I didn’t want to let anybody down. Somebody works on an idea like this for years, and you don’’ want to go in there and ruin it because you don’t have experience. So for a long time, they gave me the script and we’d get together for meetings, and for over a year we were talking about it, and I was learning about it, and then I wrote all this music and they were happy with it.
You always feature up-and-coming bands to open for you when you’re touring. How do you find new music?
Well, a lot of it is when I go home, I’ll go to friends’ shows or I’ll hear some friend from other friends. So I sort of rely on people that are in New York a lot more than I am. Or I’ll go to a festival. Like Reggie Watts, who opened some of my shows in Europe, I first heard him at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. And then Little Joy [I knew] just having toured with the Strokes years ago, and I stayed friends with those guys. And I love them. Usually it goes hand-in-hand; you think that somebody is a really cool person, and then you like their music. For the most part, I like my friends’ music, so it makes it easier. Now, K [Ishibashi] is the violinist in my band, and he has a band called Jupiter One. In Europe, when Reggie got sick, we were in Berlin two hours before the show was starting and we had no opening act, and he was like, “I can do something.” And he was amazing.
October is our It Girl issue—who are your favorite female icons?
There are a lot of amazing females. I really love Ani DiFranco, she’s awesome. I had the privilege of opening for her a year-and-a-half ago, after years of loving her. She was one of the first musicians I heard that even made me think of writing songs. I got a mixtape of songs and thought, “Wow, I should try to write some songs!” You know when you meet someone and they’re everything that you hoped they would be? [She’s] just a great persona and super kind, fun, sweet, and just talented. Yeah, I would choose her.
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS
Visit myspace.com/reginaspektor for more info.
This story was published on October 7, 2009.
