Meg Remy, as experimental pop outfit U.S. Girls, has been putting out music for nearly two decades. On her tenth album, Scratch It, Remy crafts a collection of careful and catchy pop songs, enlisting heavy hitters like harmonica player Charlie McCoy, whose previous credits include Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited and Paul Simon’s self-titled album. Scratch It blends Remy’s talents for writing memorable, fresh, interesting tunes with some of her more retro sensibilities, often consciously referencing the 20th century pop canon. Ahead of its release, we sat down with Remy to discuss this milestone.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
This new record is great—so exciting and interesting. Did you feel like you were really pushing yourself with it?
It always feels that way for me. Even though it’s my resting state is to make things and it’s very natural, it still takes a lot of courage to do it publicly. I like to really change it up and, with that, sometimes you think “I’m changing it up too much.” You can get in a bad inner monologue sometimes, like a fear-based thing. But I had good support making it all around, so I was mostly just excited.
You had a really wonderful team on this record. How did you get in contact with Charlie McCoy?
So the guitar player, Dylan Watson, who’s one of the main people I wrote with on the record, he was one of the co-producers and played guitar. I had said to him, “I would love to have harmonica on this because I’ve worked the past few albums with [solos]”
I really like making space for solos, you know. I’ve worked with saxophones and lots of guitar solos. I love always having space for a soloist to take and do something with and I thought harmonica would be so great on this. [Dylan]’s like, “I know the person.” He used to work at a movie theater in Nashville called the Belmont, which is a famous nonprofit movie theater. He had been working in the concession stand one night and recognized Charlie McCoy with his wife and had said, “Excuse me, Mr. McCoy, I’m a big fan of yours.” Charlie didn’t understand. He thought he was trying to talk to him about hockey or something. Then his wife was like, “He’s a fan!” and he was like, “Oh,” and then gave Dylan his card, like, “If you ever need me.” Dylan’s like, “I’ve never used this card. I’m going to pull it out and call him.” He called him and he said Charlie picked up and the TV was like on 100, you know, old man style. It’s really loud blaring in the background.
“Mr. McCoy, I met you and I’m wondering if you want to play on this record.” And he said yeah. We did a day with him. It was super special, like really amazing to work with someone who was on so many amazing records, but also was just a regular human being. You expect things from people when they have a discography like that or they’re coming with such gravitas. And then you’re like, oh, you’re just an 83 year old man that loves hockey.
Have you had anyone where you’ve met them and it’s been the opposite, has anyone been totally inaccessible?
Not really. No, no. When I met Iggy Pop, it was like, oh, you’re like, you’re just a little fragile-bodied man. Like your body’s falling apart. You’re so human. It’s kind of crazy you’re in front of me right now. I don’t really try to meet people much, though.
Does Iggy Pop loom large for you? Do you think about him in terms of your performing at all?
I do in terms of lineage. He’s from Michigan and I’m from Illinois. I think there’s something there—I feel like we’re coming from a similar culture and like our voices, our accents are kind of similar, like our A’s. We both seek oblivion when performing. There are definitely some similarities. I really love his catalog. But, I don’t think about him. I don’t think about others much. I’m kind of in a competition with myself.
You’ve worked in so many mediums. Are there any you’d like to break into?
I’d love to make a film. The thing I’d really love to do is work in theater. I’d love to try to write and mount a play. I love the theater. It’s maybe as much as music, what I’m really interested in. That’s something I’d love to do.
Have you been involved in theater a lot?
No. I’ve read a lot of plays and I see them and I read a lot of critical writing around theater and history of theater and things like that. But I’ve never been in a play. I was in a play in like fourth grade or something, one of the historical plays. But I’d like to.
Would you ever write a musical?
Definitely. I would be interested in that. That could be so fun. Yeah, that could be really fun.
Would you ever do a concept album, like a rock opera?
Definitely. If I had a good idea for one, definitely. I wouldn’t put it past me.
I think it’s interesting you bring up theater because I feel like in terms of performance on the spectrum, theater can be as complex as it gets. And punk performance is as uncomplex as it gets. But there is a lot of theater to it.
Do you find those things overlap for you—do they come into conflict?
In terms of theater and music performance, you have to commit. You have to really go for it. If you don’t, your performance is going to be self-conscious and stunted and awkward and clunky. You have to really go for broke and not be embarrassed of falling. You just got to go with it. I think it’s like just not stopping, just keep going, you know, and until you’re off the stage.
I’ve had things happen where, like being heckled on stage where it’s like, okay, I got to work with this. I can’t stop. I have to incorporate it. Major sound issues, you know, which I’ve had multiple times. Like how can I use? this instead of being like, here’s this hardship that’s occurred. I’m going to draw attention to it. Like using it to make it seem almost intentional. So, yeah, I think a commitment and, yeah, I think that would be the connection between theater and musical performance for sure. And bodies, you know, you need bodies for both.
Where do you feel like you get your ideas?
A lot of it’s from books. A lot comes from books and overhearing conversations. That’s a big, big starter for me and always has been is eavesdropping—on the subway, on the street, catching bits of dialogue out of context and then making a context for them to put them in.
Did any of the songs on this album come about this way?
There’s a line I put into “The Walking Song” that says “We saw a man burn his lawn” and that really did happen. Me and the bass player went on a walk and we saw a man torching his lawn with a blowtorch. We were just watching him thinking, Is he trying to kill some sort of pest? It was just the strangest thing to observe because usually if people are working on their lawn, it’s to make it green and this person was doing the opposite—that was a weird image. It was just so shocking. He had that big jetpack on with a blowtorch just burning his lawn.
When you have a reference point like that, how much of the work do you find is centered around it? Does it feel like this is the “_____” song, or is it just lines and fragments?
I’ve done that a lot of times. On this album there’s the long song “Bookends” book, “Eyewitness to History.” I underlined words and passages and then typed them all out and added them to the song. I did a song in the past called “Sororal Feelings” that was all based on this Michael Ondaatje book. This one character in it—her name is Nora Bass—she marries a man and then she finds out that he had slept with all of her sisters. And that made me even look up the word “sororal.” What’s a word that is like sisters? What’s a word for that? Oh, sororal, sorority. Okay, I didn’t know about the word sororal. I’ve never heard that in a song. Can I put that in a song? So I’ve definitely done whole songs based on a character.
I have a song called “Damn That Valley” that was inspired by this Sebastian Junger book that was about soldiers in Afghanistan. and these certain soldiers that were working this particular valley that they kept getting killed because the Taliban would be on the top of the hill shooting down at them. But the army kept sending these guys through this valley to try and clear it; it’s like this place where you just go to die. All these soldiers were tattooing DTV (Damn That Valley) on their arms. That stuck with me. I don’t know what it’s like to be a soldier, and I don’t think I can write from that perspective, but I could write from the perspective of a soldier’s wife who lost their husband in this valley. So, yeah, I’ve done a lot of that. I think part of being an artist is consuming others’ work and then spitting it out into something new.
What would be your dream adaptation of your work?
I don’t know. There’s been some choreographers that have done dance pieces to songs of mine that have been really moving. I love seeing that. But I mean, anything, I would just be flattered.
In terms of performance, what’s been the most shocking or transgressive or moving performance that you’ve seen?
That’s hard, that’s hard. Someone like Aldous Harding, the way she uses her face is so over the top and insane, you know? That was definitely a shocking thing where I’m like I don’t know if I like this, I don’t know if I’m supposed to like this, is this real? Is this a joke? Like really induced critical thinking, that’s something that comes to mind. I used to see a lot of noise bands when I was in high school, so definitely seeing bands like Wolf Eyes and Lightning Bolt, people that really put their bodies on the line for the music. Crazy sweating and bleeding and heart—exposing themselves to such loud volumes, that stuff is pretty shocking.
I also saw a play called “The Container” that took place in a shipping container. It was in this theater’s courtyard and so only 10 people could see the play at a time. You would be put into the shipping container and then they would close it and then the lights would come up and the actors were sitting with you, kind of pretending to be sleeping. It had like road sounds and stuff coming in. It was a play about trying to sneak people over a border in a shipping container.I remember watching the actors and just kind of thinking, imagine doing this play multiple times a day, like in this hot container, putting your body on the line. Being one of those actors, you’d have to normalize yourself to that condition. You’d have to work around people who are scared—you’d be inducing people’s claustrophobia and stuff like that. That was something that was really moving, to see people putting their bodies on the line like that.
Is that something you consider, how you want to make people feel in performance? Or do you just do what you want to do?
It’s hard. Performance for me, it often feels like I’m exorcising darkness. I find that performance is a time where I can safely access and air out any darkness I have stored. I’m super interested in making people feel uncomfortable and confused—getting into people’s physical space and breaking the fourth wall, doing things you’re not supposed to do as the performer. If I’m having a show where I feel like I’m not getting the response I want, if people are bored, it’ll make me get very aggressive going in.
I can remember playing Knockdown Center once, there was an older man and a younger man standing together and—we were having bad sound and it was just a weird show—and I could see them, they were lit up by some light from the stage and I thought they were laughing at me. I made this narrative in my mind by just seeing them talk in each other’s ears and laugh. I went down and confronted them and they weren’t talking about me at all. It made for this really weird moment. It’s like, okay, Now I’m out here and what am I doing now? What do I do with this? Okay, now I have to punish myself for this. It’s interesting. The performance space is so limitless. You’re really in a thing with yourself.
On the concept of punishment—do you feel like you have to do some amount of that kind of feeling to make things?
I think that punishment can be joyful, you know? I think joy is, at its root, is happiness and sadness mixed together. You can’t have one without the other. So then joy is this kind of middle state of accepting all things. I don’t know. There’s a lot of people that think you don’t have to be tortured to make good art or something. I don’t really know what I think about that. It’s always changing. It’s always changing. I think being alive is pretty painful and torturous, even if you’re not an artist.
On your last album cycle you were asked a lot of questions about motherhood and things surrounding it. Do you resent the idea of your art being so strictly defined?
I mean, a lot of that has to do with how the record is presented by the label. These days, everything has to have a story. Part of that’s just how this stuff works. It’s okay. I had twins at that time. Okay, this is the story. It’s not my favorite thing. It’s not my favorite thing when I get asked the same questions over and over again. But then it’s all about how can I answer them differently every time? How can I find different words each time I’m asked the same question? I don’t resent anyone asking me about my work, even if I’m sick of talking about this or something. I’m grateful that someone wants to ask me. So, yeah, I don’t have any issue with being a woman in music. If anything, I think it’s been to my advantage. I’d rather be a woman in music than a man in music. I think women write better songs.
You’ve been putting out music for well over a decade—do you feel like you’ve adapted alongside your audience?
I’ve found that if I’m being true to myself and I like the work that I’m making, if I’m not censoring myself and I’m also not trying to engineer outcomes, if I’m not trying to trick anyone, that people will just find me. It’s natural and it’s not a quantity thing, it’s a quality thing. There’s a lot of pressure to be up in people’s faces these days, especially if your job is making music, you’ve got to be like, here I am and here’s my new album and the social media pressure and all those things. But I’ve really found that I don’t really do much of that stuff and that people are okay with that. Once they find that out, they kind of accept that about me and then they’re not looking for me there. I’ve found that I can kind of teach people who I am and what to expect from how I operate. You train people—not like dogs. I feel like the younger generation is very open and empathetic and is so smart about music. I still have a hard time believing I have an audience. It’s a pretty crazy thing. I’m grateful for it.
How do you grapple with hitting big juncture points in your career, things like when you played Coachella? Are these big moments for you?
Coachella was not a marker for me at all. It wasn’t a thing I even really knew about. The big marker for me has been that I’ve now made 10 records. That and, like, I got to play Dawson City in the Yukon. I never thought I would go to the Yukon. That’s just unimaginable for me. I had never even thought about that area of the world. And then to be able to go there and perform and learn about that area, that’s more of a marker for me. And definitely that I’m making a living from it, that I’ve been able to be home with my children for the first four years of their lives. Both of their parents being home with them, that’s absolutely unheard of. I’ve been able to do that just from making a body of work and living frugally. Those are real markers for me. And things like recording with Charlie McCoy. Things like Coachella are more interesting as corporate markers. It’s like, wow, I can also navigate a corporate landscape. That’s interesting. Why are they letting me in? I’m either doing something right or wrong here—I’m not sure. And you have to think about that and what that space is. For me, doing something like Coachella was like a weird social experiment. I’m going to observe all this because it’s not the real world.
If you could perform anywhere, where would you want to go?
Carnegie Hall. Let’s go there. Yeah. I feel like playing those kind of very storied venues is cool. I got to play Massey Hall in Toronto this past year, which is a legendary venue. I like playing those kinds of spaces. I played in the Yukon that’s been happening since the 70s that’s all volunteer run. I really like playing volunteer-led spaces. It has a certain feel to it. And any space where I’m getting connected with being part of a lineage, I like that for sure. I’d love to play in schools too, like to children. Any sort of setting that’s not a normal concert setting.
If you could do something in performance with total disregard to your own well-being and the well-being of the audience, what would you do?
That’s hard. Probably sit up and monologue about my life in gruesome detail for a long period of time. Something like that. Or have some sort of projections and sounds that are so horrific. Not showing violence, but something that people didn’t want to see and then locking the doors or something. I just played South By. I had a funny thing that I did where I would ask people if they had cash. South By was pretty cashless, like everything now is cashless. I was on stage thinking about that, and then I was asked, who has cash? And people started pulling it out. Then I said, give it to me. And then people gave me their money. I put it in my dress and then I performed for a bit.Then I took it out and I threw it back at random. That was a very mixed thing in terms of the audience. Some people loved it. They were like, “That was like wealth redistribution!” Other people were pissed; they’d given me money and then I gave it to someone else. I know, I know. That was a really simple act. Audiences are volatile. They’re mercurial and you just don’t know what you’re going to do. You could do nothing and cause a riot. When you look at the history of Stravinsky playing Rite of Spring. You listen to that now, you’re like, how the fuck did this happen? That’s why I think performance is so powerful. Now everyone’s performing, projecting themselves online. I think everyone is performing when they have earbuds in. You’re not present. You’re in a different reality that’s being projected on the rest of the people around you almost as an audience.
I think especially now, it feels like everyone feels very entitled when they walk into a concert. They pay their money and they say, I should get the performance I want.
I think it’s really interesting to subvert that. Like Bob Dylan only plays music that nobody’s kind of ever heard. To play with that expectation.
But Bob Dylan, he’s built that; he’s trained his audience. If you give an audience what they want, they’re going to expect that. He’s never done that. A certain type of person likes that and will keep coming because they don’t know what to expect or they respect that or they want that spontaneity. It’s a slippery slope, trying to engineer things or please an audience. I think you can really only please yourself. And in turn, you’ll have a more actually devoted audience in the long run. You’ll have a healthier relationship because you’re not trying to swindle them.