JEHNNY BETH
continued from page 26
for two years to do that.” At first, she
thought she’d despise all the nifty new
artists. Instead, she says, “It made me really
happy, really hopeful and connected to
my time, and it made me feel like, ‘Yeah!
We can do this! This is an awesome generation,
real things are being expressed, and
I love it!’” Ditto for her TV talk show,
which reminded her of her childhood
spent sitting rapt at the dinner table, while
her theatrical parents entertained various
members of a visiting troupe. “There were
always creative people in the house as a
kid, and I was sitting at that table listening
to all this exciting conversation, and I think
it’s now just part of my DNA, in a sense,”
she says.
Also embedded in her genes: That sleek
aesthetic appreciation for all things artistic
that can only be described as Gallic. The
French have the young, intellectual
Macron as their leader. They can claim
some of the world’s most brilliant writers,
painters, composers, and cinematographers,
from Baudelaire to Jacques Brel, and
all points in between. Beth loves discussing
her homeland visionaries, like Jean
Cocteau and his definitive masterpiece
“Beauty and the Beast.” “That’s one of my
favorite films, and I actually thought about
it recently, how much it was scary and
beautiful at the same time,” she says. “But
I kept watching it as a kid, and it was so
good for the imagination. I remember the
arms holding the torches, and back then,
something like that would obsess me for
weeks, months. And nowadays, there are
so many CGI images going on, which is
great. But back then, it was all handmade,
and sometimes limited strictures like that
can create the best thoughts, the best imagination.”
And where else but France could something
such as this happen, she asked
rhetorically, describing an incident on her
first day on the set filming her comeback
epic, An Impossible Love. “I was totally
taken by surprise by the (role) offer, but I
accepted it — I thought it was a good time
to try something I hadn’t done in ten
years,” Beth recalls. “So it was my first
scene, and we were shooting at the Museo
de Rodin in Paris, and I was a bit nervous.
And then suddenly, just before they said
‘Action!,’ the actress I was working with
said, “Oh, my God! I just received a text —
Jeanne Moreau died!” And everything
stopped. And it was so strange, because
Jeanne Moreau was an idol of mine in
childhood, a role model, and someone I
really wanted to be — I wanted to be her
when I got old. So it wasn’t a sign, exactly.
But it was a very strange sort of coincidence.”
Jehnny Beth stands a good chance of
achieving that classy goal, if not a PEGOT.
If we ever wrestle free from this deadly
pandemic. “And it’s an imposed isolation,
so it’s a bit weird to do the good thing, the
natural thing that everybody else is
doing,” is how she rationalizes it. “Because
as an artist, we like to do the opposite. I
like to stay in bed while everyone else is
going to work. I like to have sex for hours
while everybody else is demonstrating in
the streets. I like to do things that are the
opposite of what the crowd is doing. I
think it gives a unique perspective on my
work.”
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Continued from page 20
IE: But we do miss those rock idols. A
definitive one was in House of Lords initially
— Gregg Giuffria from Angel. Still,
the greatest show I ever saw had Piper, with
a young Billy Squier, opening, Starz in the
middle, and — performing magic onstage
with a hologram angel head, Angel! You
can see where “Spinal Tap” nicked its
ideas.
JC: Of course! We used to talk about that on
the road all the time. In fact, Gregg was supposed
to be IN that movie. But it was a different
time back then. There were actually
funds to be able to put on shows with
pyrotechnics, and bands had a lot of tricks in
their tool box back then. We all wanted to
have flashpots. And we used to have guys
who were not even technically inclined to
build those fuckers put ‘em in little cans with
some gunpowder and shoot them off. We
were nuts!
IE: Did you ever toy with jumping off the
ride?
JC: I did. I jumped off the radar screen for
quite a few years, first when Olivia was born,
because the music business had changed so
much and gone to grunge. I tried singing one
of those songs, and I suck at it. So I dropped
out and opened up a health care recruiting
business. I had enough capital to fund it, and
it turned out to last me maybe nine or ten
years until Obamacare hit. Which was a great
thing for people who could afford it but bad
for people like myself who were recruiters
30 illinoisentertainer.com july 2020
because they stopped using recruiters and
started doing everything in-house. But just
as that business failed, I was getting calls to
do records again. The times had changed,
and listeners wanted to hear what artists
from the ‘80s and ‘90s were doing again. So
Frontiers offered me a record deal, then
tours, then Japan wanted me to go there. So
all of a sudden I was back in demand again.
IE: But now you have the skills to work that
old recruiting gig from home.
JC: Absolutely. I could definitely go back into
recruiting. But right now, at 66, everything in
my life has slowed down to a point where I
don’t care to do things like I used to because
you’ve got to have the energy to do anything.
And I don’t need energy to make
music — it creates its own energy when I’m
doing it, and when I’m at home, I don’t do a
vocal unless I’m in my sweats. I’m not
dressed up or anything — everything is lowkey,
and that’s the way I like it.
IE: On “Seinfeld,” Jerry once berated
George for casual attire. He said, “Those
sweatpants say you’ve just stopped trying.”
JC: You know what? That’s exactly true!
Those sweatpants just made me stop trying!
But at 66, you get really slow, and you don’t
want to be upset, you don’t want to get
stressed out. I’ve got high blood pressure
now, and I’ve never had that before in my
life! It really freaks me out!
House of Lords' "New World, New Eyes" is out
now on Frontiers Records
Tom Lanham