Nika Roza Danilova, better known under the moniker Zola Jesus, has always been a bit polarizing as an artist, with her operatic vocals over soaring electro-pop instrumentation not everyone’s proverbial cup of tea. But for those who do imbibe, it’s an elixir for all that is wrong in the current state of music — and life for that matter; it’s raw, open, honest and often hard to decipher.
Taiga, the latest Zola Jesus effort which came out in October, has drawn some ire from longtime fans as it’s markedly more listener friendly than her previous efforts. Ahead of shows tonight at Signal Kitchen in Burlington, Vermont, and this weekend at the Firefly Music Festival in Delaware, Vanyaland caught up with Danilova to talk about that change in sound and to find out what’s up with skipping over Boston, where she hasn’t visited since a Converse Rubber Tracks show at The Sinclair in December.
Michael Christopher: You don’t have any tour dates coming up Boston — or Massachusetts for that matter. Did we do something to piss you off?
Zola Jesus: [Laughs] I was just there!
When — December?
Well — I know; I should come back, but… it’s not your fault!
It’s like you’re circling us; you’re doing Vermont, I think you did Portland but you’re avoiding Massachusetts… it’s bumming everybody out.
Well… nobody asked me.
Well on behalf of, like, everyone, I’m asking you.
Alright, I’ll work on it.
When you do perform your music, you do it in a variety of ways. I remember you were at the ICA in
Boston with the Mivos String Quartet and Jim Thirlwell.
That was a good show.
When you’re composing songs, do you have it in mind that what you’re creating will be served in many different respects performance-wise?
That’s the goal always, to create something that can live. And when you’re alive you can take different shapes and put different clothes on and you want a song to be able to live in all these different contexts. That’s why you know you have a good song, and you didn’t have to rely of a production trick or something.
Taiga, which isn’t so new anymore, was called by some critics as “your most accessible yet.” Was that something were you going for, something more mainstream?
No, I was just… personally the first music that I started making was pretty inaccessible. And you do that for long enough and you feel like the only way to challenge yourself anymore is to make something that’s cleaner sounding and to have ideas that are more fully formed. In the past everything I did was done in one take, was very experimental and I just really wanted to think about what I was doing. And that just makes something sound more polished, because there’s more effort putting into it. That was my goal for Taiga, to really focus on the songwriting and the production and make sure everything was as good as it could be.
You’ve said before how you were able to move at your own pace with the recording of the album, how did that affect the overall result?
I think a lot of it because I just had time to think about what I wanted to do, to write and to find the voice of the record whereas in the past, sometimes the voice doesn’t come until the very end and in the meantime you’re kind of panicking. So it was really nice to have that time to figure out what I wanted to say; and that’s the way it should be.
But then don’t you also run into the danger of, “When is it finished?” You have all this time; you don’t have to worry about a deadline, do you find yourself saying, “Should I try that again?” “Should I do one more take to make it sound better sonically?” or “Do I change that lyric?”
Oh yeah – that’s the problem. When you have time, nothing’s every really done. The longer you have, the more time you spend questioning what you’ve got to that point. So there’s a balance [you have to find] from where you feel comfortable with what you’re doing and to remain confident but not too much where you become lethargic about it.
You mentioned how your earlier work was inaccessible — to a degree — it’s not like you were making Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. But you did build up a very devoted fanbase with your material prior to Taiga. Were you at all concerned you might alienate some of that fanbase?
Honestly I thought that when they heard Taiga, they would finally be hearing the Zola Jesus they wanted to hear but hadn’t been able to. I thought that I was finally making the record that was the best thing I’ve ever done. I was finally fulfilling my potential, and you can only hope that your fans feel the same way and they have that hope too. If they like the noise, that’s fine, but this is what I feel I needed to do to fulfill my potential as a singer and as a songwriter.
Have you had any negative reactions from any longtime fans?
Yeah – oh yeah, totally. I think it really threw a lot of people off, and this is a funny thing, this is what I still don’t understand. Making something that is more fully formed, it became inaccessible because my fans are like me, where they’re into being challenged by music. So when you give them something that’s too accessible, it’s not exciting to them, so then to them it becomes inaccessible to some people. And that’s interesting, but what can you do?
There’s also the thing where – and I know I’ve been guilty of this – you want your favorite artist to stay a secret. Then when they go from playing tiny venues to the clubs and then get picked up on festival bill, sure, it’s great for them they are getting rewarded for their material, but it sucks for the fan.
I definitely, definitely was one of those people growing up where if even one other person knew [about a band] I liked… [laughs]. I understand that. I understand that. But at the same time, you can’t decide what someone’s going to do with their creativity. But I really respect my fanbase because they’re just like me and that’s why I understand them. And I feel like when you put something out into the world and people respond to it, it’s because they have something in common with you and that’s why it resonates with them. You don’t want to disappoint them because in a way you’re disappointing yourself.
When you have “Zola Jesus,” is that an idea, is that a band, is that an alter-ego; which is it to you?
Just a name. When I started making music, I was in the garage-punk scene, and all my friends in bands, no one went by their real name because that was considered, “Why would you do that?” So even if it was just me, I wanted to feel like it was a project, so it’s just a band name.
ZOLA JESUS + WREN KITZ + EBN EZRA :: Monday, June 15 @ Signal Kitchen, 71 Main St., Burlington, VT :: 7:30 p.m., all-ages, $15 :: Advance tickets :: Signal Kitchen event page