Which is to say: She’s kinda regular, not the hardened artist we’ve heard in her songs, but someone, it would seem, who likes to hang out and chat about life and music. Talking about good times brings up memories of rough ones, and when the conversation veers towards rocky terrain, she reveals an artist—and a person—at a pivotal moment.
If you’re happier these days, what do you think when you hear an old lyric from an old record, like, “He hit me and it felt like a kiss,” from “Ultraviolence”?
I don’t like it. I don’t. I don’t sing it. I sing “Ultraviolence” but I don’t sing that line anymore. Having someone be aggressive in a relationship was the only relationship I knew. I’m not going to say that that [lyric] was 100 percent true, but I do feel comfortable saying what I was used to was a difficult, tumultuous relationship, and it wasn’t because of me. It didn’t come from my end.
Now you want to present a different face to the world on Lust for Life?
No. I don’t care. I would just say I am different. And even being a little bit different makes me not want to sing that line. To me, it just was what it was. I deal with what’s in my lyric—you’re not dealing with it. I was annoyed when people would ask me about that lyric. Like, who are you?
Do you think you romanticize danger in your music?
No. I don’t like it. It’s just the only thing [I’ve known]. So I’m trying to do a new thing. I never wrote better when I had a lot of turmoil going on. Born to Die was already done before any of the sh*t hit the fan. When things are good, the music is better. I’m trying to change from the way I thought things were gonna be to what I feel like they could be, which is maybe just brighter.
But, even with some new perspectives, Lust for Life is still very melancholy at moments. If you make sad music, which you’ve done for so long, does it necessarily mean you’re sad?
Yeah. I think for most people, regardless of what they say, it’s probably a direct reflection of their inner world. With my first record, I didn’t feel upset. I felt very excited, and then I felt a little more confused.
After the release of Born to Die, you faced a lot of criticism, partly around the issue of whether you were or were not authentic. Do you think of yourself as authentic?
Of course. I’m always being myself. They don’t know what authentic is. If you think of all the music that came out until 2013, it was super straight and shiny. If that’s authentic to you, this is going to look like the opposite. I think that sh*t is stylized. Just because I do my hair big does not mean I’m a product. If anything, I’m doing my own hair, stuffing my own f*cking stuffing in there if I have a beehive. Music was in a super weird place when I became known, and I didn’t really like any of it.
Did you ever feel like the criticism had a misogynistic bent?
No. Women hated me. I know why. It’s because there were things I was saying that either they just couldn’t connect to or were maybe worried that, if they were in the same situation, it would put them in a vulnerable place.
You weren’t singing empowering things.
No, I wasn’t. That wasn’t my angle. I didn’t really have an angle—that’s the thing.
Have you noticed that all songs on the radio are bummers now? That Lil Uzi Vert lyric—“All my friends are dead”—sounds almost like a Lana lyric.
There’s been a major sonic shift culturally. I think I had a lot to do with that. I do. I hear a lot of music that sounds like those early records. It would be weird to say that it didn’t. I remember seven years ago I was trying to get a record deal, and people were like, “Are you kidding? These tunes? There’s zero market for this.” There was just such a long time where people had to fit into that pop box.
With all the flak you’ve received over the years, particularly after Born to Die, some people would have thrown in the towel. But you doubled down and made an even more f*cked up, almost hyper-Lana record with Ultraviolence.
I so double downed. [The early criticism] made me question myself—I didn’t know if it was always going to be that way. You can’t put out records if 90 percent of the reviews in places like the Times are going to be negative. That would be crazy. It would have made sense to step all the way back, but I was like, Let me put out three more records and see if I can just stand in the eye of the storm. Not shift too much. Let me just take some of the [production] off so you can hear things a little bit better; I thought people were maybe getting distracted. I did the same thing with Honeymoon. Everyone around here heard it and was like, “It’s a cool record, but you know it’s not going to be on the radio, right?” And I was like, “Yeah. I told [record executive] Jimmy [Iovine] when I signed, ‘If you want to sign me, this is all it’s ever going to be.’” I was just so committed to making music because I believe in what I do. All I had to do was not quit.
So that Ultraviolence woman who is so swept up in turmoil—is she still there on Lust for Life?
We’ll see. That’s been my experience up until now, but, like, I’m trying.
Some of the sparer, really heartfelt songs on Lust for Life reminded me of the Ultraviolence song “Black Beauty.”
That’s a sad song. In that song—[sings] I keep my lips red like cherries in the spring/Darling, you can’t let everything seem so dark blue—that’s a girl who is still seeing the blue sky and a putting on a pop of color just for herself. But this [other] person—it was all black for them. And my world became inky with those overtones. [At this, Lana begins to cry, and we pause for a moment.]
What made you cry just now?
In that moment, when I said “pop of color,” I was connected to that feeling of only being able to see a portion of the world in color. And when you feel that way, you can feel trapped.
Are you seeing the world in color now?
[sighs] I don’t really know how to describe my perspective at the moment.
But you’re trying, and that’s what Lust for Life is about?
It’s not. I don’t know what it’s about. I don’t know what it is.
Is the album a way of saying that you at least want to be happy?
No. It’s just that something is happening.
What makes you happy?
I’m really simple. I love nature. I like hikes. Being by the water—I don’t always get in. I love the elements. Playing an outdoor festival. Love that feeling.
What bums you out?
Feeling like going backwards.
Is there a storyline to the album?
Yeah.
What’s the story?
You have to figure it out.
