Though we fell deeply in love with Kate Pierson in 1976 as a co-founder of the B-52s and their uneasily categorizable brand of eclectic, eccentric dance pop, the powerfully emotive vocalist, keyboardist and composer only got around to releasing her first solo album in 2015 with Guitars And Microphones. Waiting another nine years for her next solo LP is still a long time between cocktails. But, the new Radios And Rainbows, with its feminist-empowered anthems, nasty diatribes and surprisingly hurt and personal lyrics, is a delicious addition to Pierson’s usually upbeat songs. And while the B-52s continue along with Vegas residences and completing their long-awaited documentary, Pierson is planning stripped-down solo shows (such as October 12’s O+ Festival in Kingston, N.Y.) and her next surprising solo outing.
Within nine years, you and fellow B, Cindy Wilson, have each recorded two great and different-sounding solo albums, including your new Radios And Rainbows. The B-52s haven’t recorded an album since 2008’s Funplex, with the last album before that being 1992’s Good Stuff. I know the Bs like and love each other. So how about Keith Strickland and Fred Schneider getting into a studio with Cindy and you?
Well, we have been discussing it. [Laughs] I think it’s a matter of logistics. Keith has been writing a lot of material and has a ton of instrumentals. I went to his house and heard, maybe, 16 tracks. We both zeroed in on several tracks that we thought would be good to jam on, because we write, collectively, by jamming. So, now it’s just a matter of getting everyone together; probably somewhere woodsy in Athens, or upstate here in Woodstock. We have still been doing our B-52s, like the Vegas residency, then a Halloween show and a Day Of The Dead show and another Las Vegas residency … With us (to record), the planets all have to align to show that we’re ready to do something. But I’m ready to get together with them anytime they wish—even if we do one song at a time. I don’t foresee another album, but we could do some songs. The spark is there.
Besides, you’re focused on your new solo album and playing pared-down shows. So much of Radio And Rainbows is persuasively positive, but there’s a real sense of obsessive possessiveness on “Evil Love” that seems so weirdly against the grain of what we guess you are.
Some of the songs of this album were written a while ago. One was written when I was trying to do a solo album back in the day; I had a collection of songs ready to go when [the B-52s] manager put a damper on anything solo from Cindy and I—any of us really. “Always Till Now” is from that collection, only re-recorded. “Evil Love” was written during the last album and was, initially, all about forgiveness. But (collaborator/composer) Bleu McCauley pushed me. He asked me to name all sorts of “loves” until I hit on “evil love.” That’s it! So we did this “la la la” Rosemary’s Baby vocalese at the beginning of the track, and the story unfolded. I never thought that I had one iota of revenge or obsessiveness feeling in me, but it’s down there in the subconscious. I don’t have any fantasies about hunting anyone down with a gun, but I loved writing a story with a character who does. It must be there. We all have a dark and a light side. And the video is fun with its Hitchcock film-noir feel.
There is one other song, “Higher Place,” that has something of a surprisingly wounded feel to it.
Yes, that is quite a hurtful song based on a serious subject where I had come out of an emotionally abusive relationship. When I met my wife Monica, I feel as if her and that relationship just lifted me up. That song is also something of a feminist—I don’t want to use the word “anthem”—it has a feminist theme to it. I think, too, that “Give Your Heart To Science” is based on a friend of ours who died in his garden. I had no intention of writing about death or our friend, but it just popped out. And it’s funny that this song about death, certainly melancholy, can still be uplifting. Actually, many of the songs of this album are personal. There’s more storytelling on this album.
Can we discuss the mechanics of co-writing, be it with Sia, and coming up with new songs such as “Every Day Is Halloween” and other collaborators beyond the Bs?
I really had been working on co-writing and collaborating, and I did this project in Japan in the late 1990s: NiNa. I was really trying to write again. What’s funny is that I had written songs all during my youth and in high school and college, but when I got to the B-52s, I had a problem with being able to write outside of the band. It was a real block. Once I worked with my Japanese collaborators, we didn’t speak the same language, and it worked so beautifully. Those sessions unlocked the creativity in me, and I realized that I could collaborate again. With anyone. The block, the fear, had gone. My wife and I were introduced to Sia, and she actually asked Sia if she could help me get this solo album off the ground. We did a bunch of writing sessions and came up with this in 2014 in Los Angeles. I had been driving around town with a lot of its lyrics, and she just helped me help that song come out. I think I had “Halloween” in me forever because that’s how the B-52s lived, where every day was us running around, dressing up, wearing wigs and costumes all the time.
Now that you have created two different, entire bodies of work—to say nothing of your material with R.E.M., NiNa, Iggy Pop and such—is the block finally down and disappeared? Is a third and fourth album an easier process to imagine? And do you feel as if there is a quintessential Kate Pierson song—something that has to hit a certain requirement to be uniquely yours?
I’ve already written songs for a next album. All just popped into my head and written on my own, which is unusual for me. So much so that I am now committed to writing and recording an alt-country album. Or at least sort-of country, songs like “One Whole Day” and “Silver Dollar.” I have stretched my voice into a very strong high range on some of my songs such as “Evil Love.” That is challenging to me to be so full-throated. There are so many young singers, and it’s very trendyto have these wispy little voices. My signature, however, has always been this full-throated thing. I like having more dynamics where I hit the top of my voice. But I also think that on my new songs, I have a lot of range. Those dynamics were hard to accomplish with the B-52s because most of our material is just so full on, fast and loud. The Bs don’t have a lot of songs where we take it down. [Laughs] It feels freer now to have bridges that are airy. Either way, I think that my voice is very recognizable. I’m never trying to adapt it into something more pop or something. Oh, no. Oh, No.
—A.D. Amorosi
