Alanis Morissette: the musician who once played god talks about earthly pleasures

Ever since Jagged Little Pill--1995's all-out jailbreak of an album that sold 28 million--people have tried to compartmentalize Alanis Morissette. But in what box do you place an artist who continues to question and challenge herself--and her audience's perceptions? The only guarantee with each album--including the latest, Under Rug Swept (Maverick)--is the way Alanis imbues her songs with her own DNA, peeling back her skin for us to see. In November, she adds a revealing DVD--with a bonus CD including unreleased tracks--to her expanding resume. Including comedy skits from the road, the singer says she found the filming "unbelievably cathartic." Not unlike an early morning surf in Los Angeles.

KEVIN SMITH: Good morning. Where are you?

ALANIS MORISSETTE: [pauses] In Germany.

KS: What was that about? You're a true rock star. You're like, "I have no clue. I woke up in a puddle of semen surrounded by people, bodies strewn about. Don't know what country or city I'm in."

AM: Almost all of that is the case. The people all over me wasn't the case.

KS: OK. But if you were at home in L.A., what would be your typical day?

AM: These days it's pretty much surfing.

KS: Get out of here. What, every day you get up, grab a board and catch a tasty wave?

AM: Almost every morning.

KS: You got mugged in L.A. once. Why didn't you hightail it back to Ottawa?

AM: That's what the policewoman asked me. I refused to be deterred.

KS: And you dig L.A.?

AM: I've been living there since '94 and I love it because I get to leave it and come back to it. There's this amazing reconnection time when I return--and then I grow weary and have to leave and go back to Canada or go on tour. I'm now segueing into the crazy phase of my life where I want to create my own family over the next five years, so I'm trying to figure out where I want to raise kids. I'm just not sure that the Canadian in me can do it in Los Angeles.

KS: Good schools in L.A., though.

AM: I want to start my own school.

KS: Oh, Jesus. You're a sickening overachiever. So you're on a husband hunt?

AM: Sort of. Hunt is too fierce a word for me. I'm more open to the concept of having a partner than I ever was.

KS: But you've written down your criteria in that song "21 Things I Want in a Lover."

AM: No, no, no. I've now wheedled it down to six things--it's a far more inferior song but it resonates a bit more.

KS: Now, what happened with the United Nations? Didn't they give you something?

AM: Oh, you're so cute. They [Friends of the United Nations] gave me the Global Tolerance Award for expressing the concept of tolerance through art, which was such a sweet form of encouragement, because I feel like so much of what I do, I do in a little vacuum. It felt like they were saying to me, "Keep going."

KS: Do you remember when I went to your show at the Hammerstein Ballroom [in New York] and when I saw you in the morning we had the closest thing we've had to an argument? I was like, "The show was great, but you should talk more between songs."

AM: I wanted to strangle you, because I was already reprimanding myself for not speaking between songs, and then when you said it, I was like, "Roar!" I'm an interacter. I love dialogue, I love repartee, I love ping-pong--but the concept of standing up and talking at people, whether it's at a political rally or whether it's onstage, I hate it. I'm just not into the whole concept of being put on a pedestal by people. Because, ultimately, I think when people come to my shows, if they see something in me, they're ultimately seeing part of themselves.

KS: Well, after we saw your show in Los Angeles, we went and got a Daisy Rock Girl guitar for my daughter, Harley. Have you seen it? It's this little guitar that they make for girls.

AM: That's very hot. I'm so excited for her.

KS: She needs the hair, though, so she can totally rock out onstage. How does your hair not get tangled up in the guitar?

AM: Sometimes it does.

KS: Does it totally throw off your fingering?

AM: I'm a hack guitarist anyway, so it doesn't really shift that much. I play well enough to be able to write all my own songs, but the finesse, nuance, gorgeosity really comes from the people that I play with. I've never been a total virtuoso on the guitar, and that's OK with me.

KS: Last question: When I get back to L.A., will you come over and baby-sit my kid?

AM: I'm so there.

KS: Do you charge?

AM: No, I just have to be promised that as soon as your daughter starts playing guitar, I get to check that out.

KS: Teach her, man. Teach her that hacking guitar style you're so proud of.

AM: [laughs] It's called guesswork. That's all my art ever is.

Kevin Smith is currently shooting his next film, Jersey Girl.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning