Remember that I love you
Ex-Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson talks to Andrew P Street about family and fans before and after Juno
"I just got a really intense phone call," says Kimya Dawson by way of greeting. "It was a friend of mine whose mom was just killed in a car crash."
Now, this is what's called an interview cul-de-sac. It seems a little trivial to quiz Dawson about her strange musical career and her recent unexpected renaissance when she's reeling from tragedy. "I've been missing interviews because of weird circumstances," she assures us.
No surprise people reach out to her though: Dawson's defiantly autobiographical songs make her a perfect imaginary big sister. ‘Loose Lips', for example, entreats her suicidal listener to "call me up before you're dead / we can make some plans instead / send me an IM, I'll be your friend".
It's that unguarded empathy that made her music such a close fit with the hit film Juno, the soundtrack she monopolised. Dawson has made a point of being accessible to those who have connected with her music, which would have been tiring enough before Juno suddenly exposed her to a far broader audience.
"It depends," she sighs. "When I'm home and in contact with people online it's easier than face-to-face at shows where there's a tonne of people who want a certain amount of attention, and I have limited time. At least on the Net I can respond when I have a second rather than right-here-right-now - that's more stressful. It's nice when I have time, but I also have a baby who wants me."
Dawson's more recent lyrics have been deeply personal - her friends, her mother's illness, her fury at the Bush White House - which stands in contrast with the solo career of her ex-collaborator Adam Green, who has ploughed a more flippant musical furrow since their band The Moldy Peaches fizzled in 2004.
"I don't necessarily think that the stuff was more jokey," she says when Time Out suggests she seems to go for directness over humour on her solo records. "I feel the emotions are similar. But maybe you're right: maybe the jokes are more veiled in my songs and the heart is more veiled in those songs, but I think they both have equal amounts of heart and joke. The Moldy Peaches' stuff was sad in its own way. The stuff that comes across as jokey is pretty insecure and sad. I mean, [evergreen MP favourite] ‘Who's Got The Crack?', is funny in one way, but it's also about pretty pathetic crackheads that used to be in the train station by Adam's house, y'know? We weren't trying to put them down so much as see things from their perspective. But I think my stuff is more direct because I'm older and less awkward than we were when we were writing the Moldy Peaches stuff."
Would she at least concede that her material is less sweary and gynecological than Mr Green's?
"No, I think I've got my fair share of cocks and balls as well," she replies with a chuckle. "I think we just use our dicks differently."
Kimya Dawson plays on Thu 19 June at the Factory Theatre, and Fri 20 June at Manning Bar.