Lydia Lunch has fought, forged, punched, and sculpted her own artistic vision in a uniquely original way. Defying categorization, she's conquered new territories, and gained international recognition for the innovative quality of her work.

Through music, books, spoken word performances, film, video, photography, poetry and a multitude of creative endeavors, Lydia Lunch has proven to be one of the most interesting and daring artists of the current era. While many others of her generation have dissolved into the trappings of commercialism, her artistic vision has, through the years, been strengthened, redefined, and focused into an expression uniquely her own.

Her rendition of "Gloomy Sunday" is featured on the CD soundtrack from the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project. Additionally, her composition "The Closet" is featured in the film 'New York Beat,' released in the fall of 2000. Recently, she recorded the Tom Waits classic "Heart Attack & Vine" for Manifesto Records, on a compilation tribute to that artist.

Lydia - When I was about fourteen, I ran away to New York, but I had to retreat back. I left home again when I was about sixteen and moved to New York like one of those 'bad' kids. Get out as soon as possible, before you kill somebody, like your mother or father.


What were you looking for at that time?

Lydia - Freedom, attention, and like-minded others. That's what we all want. And where better to find them than a large city like New York, in '76, '77. It was immediate liberation, with things going on everywhere, every day, every night.


Wasn't it hard just to survive?

Lydia - No, not at that point in time. It was actually pretty easy to get by, but I wouldn't want to be in that position today.


In your writing, you describe a lot of very harrowing experiences. I wonder how comfortable you feel in the presence of possible danger.

Lydia - People that have been traumatized, and most of us have been traumatized by our family in one way or another, become, especially at a young age, almost immune to danger. If you have an intrinsic fearlessness, you can be above danger because it's frightened people that have that 'victim scent'.

I was exposed to a lot of dangerous and illicit situations at a very early age, but that's because I didn't give a flying shit. I came out pretty much unscathed. Something that I didn't understand at the time is that some people are just addicted to adrenaline, to that rush. The rush is not knowing what's going to happen or who it's going to happen with or where you're going to be tomorrow. It's something I'm glad I worked out for the most part during the first 30 years of my life, so I can now have a bit more relative peace and not need the danger.

Now I understand better how to stimulate my own adrenal needs without having to be in a life-threatening situation every other day. But it's something that in one's teens and early twenties can be almost intrinsic. They're just doing what comes naturally. The comfort of stranglers [sic].


Where do you feel the most comfortable and most at home now?

Lydia - I feel pretty much at home in my body, which is a new one. I was always looking for that out-of-body experience. I feel comfortable no matter where I go; and part of that too, is not being involved in recklessness.

I do everything to the fullest, and with that comes a sense of, if not accomplishment, then worth and value no matter how long or short your life is. And it's not as if I've done it all, but I've done everything I've wanted to do fully and completely with whomever I wanted, for many, many years and plan to continue to do it. So I feel pretty comfortable no matter where I am.


It's interesting that you say that, because I was trying to think of a way to ask if you feel comfortable in your body, with your physicality.

Lydia - Very, yeah. A lot of people don't feel comfortable in their own bodies for various reasons, whether or not it's that they just don't like their body. We're really pretty fragile. Many things make one feel uncomfortable within one's flesh. Fortunately, I've never felt the pressure that a lot of women especially feel: a need to be perfect, to relate to false icons that the media perpetrates as if we're supposed to live up to some ideal. I've never felt that pressure. And I wish more women could be happy not only with the way they are but with the vehicle they inhabit at least for the short time they have it. You have to be friends with your body. You have to know it, fine-tune it.


You mentioned not giving a 'flying shit' about some of the situations you were in. Do you feel that you approach your work or observe the experiences you've had with a sort of detachment?

Lydia - In a sense, I do. You have to realize that I've been in precarious situations, but I was probably far more dangerous than most of the people I encountered. That's also been a saving grace because, first of all, little scares me. Secondly, I could be likely to explode at any time, although at the same time I'm in incredible control.

It brings me to a theme in a lot of my work, especially my earlier work, that the victim, the so-called 'victim,' is often the one in control of the situation because, if they were to remove themselves from that situation, there'd be no 'scene of the crime,' no battery, no abuse. There'd be no danger. So in a sense, in a lot of cases, the victim is the one in control of the situation, you know? Certain kinds of victims, certain kinds of situations.

With my work, detachment? Well, in the sense that I've already gone through the experience, realized that a lot of these experiences are personal but universal; but once I've gathered my wits to learn from a specific incident, it's very easy to express it, since it's a universal situation.


In your writing, you talk about inevitability or predestination quite a lot.

Lydia - That's a beautiful observation. You're one of the first to ever address that. It's written on every page.


At the risk of sounding too cosmic, do you have a feeling for the nature of destiny?

Lydia - Well, I do have a feeling for that, but I also think that one's state of mind and attitude has a lot do with whether or not destiny is going to play itself out. If you're susceptible to certain forms of invasion, which sensitive people are, you have to be careful because you can be bombarded into dangerous territory.

You have to try to center and cleanse yourself. There are so many things to pollute us, in all realms. As the world disintegrates and decays and becomes polluted in more ways than I can elaborate upon now, it's very important to know where you stand and how strong you really are.


That brings up another question that I have trouble putting into words: the process of purifying and healing oneself.

Lydia - Well, I've had a lot of public therapy, as I like to call it, because I haven't let things fester inside. I immediately bombard either the public or any readily available ear with my slant on any given situation. That's very therapeutic because, instead of festering with so much anger and bitterness, I've had public forums to get a lot of this bullshit out.

A lot of my speeches sound hostile and a lot of my music is very angry and bitter, but I can assure you that as a person, I am not that way. That's a very healing thing. And I hope that through my words, other people that are not as articulate will also feel somewhat relieved, somewhat cleansed, somewhat healed. And it's hard to feel clean when you love everything that's dirty. (laughs). When your obsession is for all things filth, it's a fine line to toe to try to be clean on the inside, not to mention the outside.


So you would say that catharsis is really the best way to cleansing yourself?

Lydia - Well, that's important, but it's also important to be strong and not to listen to too much of the criticism or opinions or morality of other people, because they don't know how you are as an individual. A really important thing, especially for younger people, is to avoid so many of the distractions based in consumerism: TV, movies, records, bands, music, clubs, bars, drinking, drugs, sex; all of them, most of them, are set up to steal your fucking time so that you don't even know where you're coming from or what you feel about anything. We're told what to feel, listening to everyone else's opinion on everything.

The immediacy of the media has its strong points but it steals your time for thought. In this day and age of secondhand information that's so readily available on every fucking computer, which I call a global gossip line, it's really difficult to stop, to think, to read a book. It's a very dangerous thing, and it's something that's very hard to avoid.


Do you think popular culture is in a period of decline or revival?

Lydia - Oh, it's awful! To me it's frightening that we're having a punk revival after all this time. I mean, is this as far as we've come? I'm all for the aggression, for the energy, but is this as far as we've progressed? We need to go forward. There are no good art magazines in this country. Most of the media, even alternative media, sucks.

We have no idea what is going on in the rest of the world. As far as other forms of art, not everything is music. In this country everyone is so obsessed with their cult of adolescence and the latest music video - it's a very narrow view of things. In Europe or Australia, people are interested in all forms of art. They're interested in photography, in painting, in filmmaking. They're interested in art and music is just one part of that. Here music is the predominant obsession, yet most music does not tell us a thing.


Will you return to performing in a band?

Lydia - It's really just a matter of what I can do, where I can do it, with whom I can do it, and when. That's why I need and want to use so many mediums to express myself. And I think the spoken word is the most important because it's the most direct. It's the most passionate. In a sense, I think that more can be relayed in the spoken word.

With music there's too much puppetry. I can't stand the thought of doing exactly the same songs over and over and over again. At least the spoken word is open for spontaneity. You can change it as you go along, it's more fluid. It's far more liberating.

I can think of nothing worse than being in the same band for 10 years, playing the same songs to the same people. If that's what it takes to get over, I'm glad I'm under. I can't do it. It doesn't interest me.


Do you consider the spoken word to be musical in the sense that you're aware of the rhythm and the expression of the voice?

Lydia - Right. That's a good point. I think that a lot of my spoken word is very musical, very poetic, even though I'm not using poetry. I mean, that's an important part of it, sure. That's part of the lure. You have to lull people into it; or batter them, depending on your mood.


That's true, because your spoken word pieces are very seductive.

Lydia - Why, thank you. Your interview is very seductive.


I'd like to go back a bit to destiny and predestination. There's a line in one of your pieces where you say 'Let the lost be lost.'

Lydia - Right. Which is actually a quote from Antonin Artaud, from one of his speeches,The Liquidation of Opium. A lot of the philosophy in that speech, 'The Beast,' is based upon that piece by Artaud: the lost are lost by nature. It really means that you have to let people sort themselves out. You have to make your own mistakes.

You can't tell anyone anything he doesn't want to hear. You can't tell an alcoholic to stop drinking. You can't tell an addict to stop doing drugs. They have to find their own way. Some will recover from it, some will not. You can't reason with someone bent on destruction. You can't reason with an addict, and that's a painful thing. Believe me. I've been trying for almost 20 years.


How do you feel about the people you call 'the lost'?

Lydia - Well, I'm very sympathetic; in some ways, I am a huge defender and spokeswoman for them. I think that's why so many of my pieces - my stories, we'll say - are about losers and about chronic losers. They're all true stories about people I've known. It's all based on real experience. I'm very empathetic to those that are lost, to those that are desperate. I try to make sense out of their wretchedness. I feel that I have an insight into their destruction, but I've somehow managed to rise above self-destruction, you know?

I don't have a death wish at this point. I've never had a serious problem with drugs or with alcohol, not that I haven't dabbled in all these things. I have. But somehow, and I don't know how, maybe it's just my stubborn urge to live or to express myself that has saved me from my own cesspool of destruction, or perhaps it's that I've found so many formats in which to express these things, but I'm not destructive or self-destructive at all. I mean, I am a complete survivor, very strong, very hard-core, and very generous, at least with my words. It's the most I have to offer.


Those people that are lost in a sense, does society have responsibility, either before the fact or after, for them?

Lydia - No. Society is responsible for creating a lot of these cases, but I don't know if they have the tools to deal with them. That's unfortunate, because there are a lot of desperate, sick and needy people in this country. And then it certainly leaves it to the friends of these victims of themselves; and we all know how fed up we can get with that; hence, 'Let the lost get lost.'

We have to take a certain amount of responsibility, but there comes a point when, A - you have to come first, and B - people are only going to hear what they want to hear. It's a very tricky situation, and I don't claim to have a solution.


Do you think you have a Libertarian attitude?

Lydia - Rather a libertine attitude, I guess you'd say. I don't know. I'm as compassionate as I can be, and I'm passionate about what I do. Libertarian, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I completely understand the implications of that term.

I don't know why people who were so experimental, so ahead of their time in the '60s have basically sold out, bought the corporate lie, and haven't really applied their talents to true issues. Some have, but there's just not enough in the public eye; and if they are doing anything public, they're probably not getting the attention or the respect they deserve.


Who else do you have respect for?

Lydia - I respect anyone that has the strength to continue in the face of chronic adversity and still clings to some form of inner peace or happiness. Basically, someone who can survive this mire, in desperate times and in desperate situations, that hasn't completely been swallowed up by it. And there's not title or tag or position or even name that we need to ascribe to that.


I admire that you've turned your experience and inspiration into so many positive things and concrete accomplishments.

Lydia - Thank you very much. I hope I can encourage other people to realize you don't have to be pigeonholed into one format, that there are many vehicles with which to express yourself, that can be utilized with a very small budget; and it won't detract from or deter the passion of what you're trying to do. You can do what you want, and you can get it done independently and stubbornly. So go to it!