LINKS:
roxyroxy.com

(click on photos for larger downloadable versions)

The general run of interviews usually goes like this. You as the interviewer ask questions. Many questions. The interviewee politely answers the questions or takes time out to make grand bold statements about what they are doing, where they are doing it, and who they are doing it to. Roxy Saint is one of the few exceptions to this rule. Roxy is a musician/video performance artist out in LA and, as it turns out, is one of the few actual people left in the music business, friendly and eager to answer any question thrown at her, or go off on any topic that was put forth. We talked about music, art, video, and how they all came together on her premier release on Star Blue TV, The Underground Personality Tapes. Oh and Roxy? The "Art Whore" says "Hi."

STEVE WALKER: Hey Roxy.

ROXY SAINT: Hi, how are you?

SW: Pretty good, thanks. What have you been up to?

RS: I just got out of the studio. I’ve been there for hours.

SW: Oh yeah? What are you working on now?

RS: I’m writing a new album.

SW: Wow. And so quickly after your first release.

RS: Yeah, yesterday I got two new videos done for me, and they are amazing. Probably the best videos I’ve ever done.

SW: Very cool.

RS: Yeah. I’ve just been so damn busy. I just did Redding and Leeds, and then I worked with this female director and the videos are so amazing. I think they’ve actually taken me up to the next level.

SW: Awesome. I liked the DVD. Actually my editor was the one who turned me on to you. She had told me to go to Detonator.tv and check out your videos. So I did, and I was very impressed by what I saw.

RS: That’s so cool.

SW: After that, I got the DVD and got to watch all the videos as a whole. I love the layout of the album and the gritty feel of the videos, the sense of Lo-Fi it all had, and the songs kicked ass as well.

RS: I like them a lot. They’re really great to perform.

SW: So how long have you been creating music and whatnot?

RS: God, since I was a little kid. I was in my first punk band when I was probably about seventeen.

SW: Cool.

RS: Yeah, and I’ve been exposed to a lot of really talented people. When I was twenty I worked with Social D and did a little tour with them, but without the singer. So I was influenced by a lot of the great musicians around me, and I went to London for three years, just to write my own songs and videos, and I’m just getting better.

SW: What came first for you the film side or the music side?

RS: Definitely the music side. I did photography for a while, but I’ve always filmed. I was really into Warhol and Cyndi Sherman. I’ve been seeing a lot of really underground movies. I don’t know if you have seen this film called Breaking Glass? Mostly British films--and I’m really into improving and finding people and girls that have no confidence and want to be actors, working with them and getting stuff that is more real life. If I see someone interesting that is out or walking down the street, I’ll just invite them to my place and hang out with them and ask if I can film them.

RS: Yeah--create monsters. (laughter) It makes them feel good about themselves, to see themselves on something if they’ve never been on anything. And it makes me feel good that I can get that out of someone who is not a real actor or actress.

SW: Right, right.

SW: It’s cool. Creating something new is always a new experience. I’m a comic artist by trade, so it’s always fun to come up with something new or interesting to write and draw.

RS: Oh wow, that’s interesting. Is it dark stuff, like dark comics?

SW: I pretty much run the gamut. I consider myself an art whore. You pay me enough to do something and I can do it.

RS: That’s cool. I’m so into animation and comics. That’s awesome.

SW: To me it’s such a freeing media to work in; because it has branches into so many different other avenues like animation or concept art, more underground stuff like fetish artwork. I’ve even done autobiographical stuff and superhero work.

RS: That’s really cool; I’m obsessed with Wonder Woman. I’m very picky and a perfectionist and I’ve seen a lot of people’s work, but not many who do what you described.

RS: I don’t work like that at all. When I write a song for instance, most of the time I will write the lyrics, melody, rhythm, all of it. And sometimes I will collaborate with someone. When I do that, I tell them that I don’t want to hear the track, and the first time I hear it is when we all get together and play it. I just channel it all out then have to go back and remember what I’ve done later. It’s taken me years to learn to work like that.

SW: Mmm-Hmm.

RS: I do that with filming sometimes as well. The video for “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” the Iggy Pop cover on the DVD, I filmed that without any storyboarding or editing and filmed it probably a hundred times and finally got it on the last try. But if I do re-writes or anything I’m totally an extremist and will do thirty re-writes. But I think you have to feel what you are doing, you know? Otherwise it’s not worth my time.

SW: I know exactly what you mean. I’ve thrown whole pages of art away because I did not capture nearly enough of what I saw in my head.

RS: Right, but isn’t the ultimate goal for you as an artist as well, like the ultimate goal for me was to be able to channel and do that. I don’t know if we should use the word channel. I don’t know what word would be appropriate. That was my ultimate goal as a musician, how would I know when the music was going to go from the verse to the chorus, or where it’s going to change. That is the thing that challenges me now in music.

SW: For me it’s more the journey of getting to the finish point. The process of creating is always more interesting to me than the actual finished product. Having a finished product in front of me is a lot of fun and it’s a great feeling, and I will never get rid of that high. Because it is a high, you know? The process makes you almost an explorer.

RS: Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s a really good point. I understand; I do that as well.
What I’ve been doing lately is taking digital self portraits and then painting on top of those in Photoshop. I just love to play all day long.

SW: Getting back to the DVD, it has the feel of a performance art piece, where the music adds to the videos and vice versa. Was that a conscious choice and which one, if either, is more of the focus?

RS: As far as the DVD, the music is something totally different from the video. “Firecracker” took forever. There was a lot of pain that went into that, and I was in a totally different space, and every video is like a different painting. As far as the music goes, I was really kind of angry at the music industry. I was like a different girl in each song. I had to fight really hard on “Firecracker.” From getting Derek Zimmerman to direct it, to making all the clothes for it myself because I had no one to help me. Still it was really special to me because it was the first one I did.

SW: “Firecracker” especially, I mean they all have snippets into more of a nightlife, club kid, darker side of what people tend not to look at. Is that something you’ve dealt with in your own life?

RS: Well, with “Firecracker” I just wanted to do what I was feeling. I never thought, “I’ll do a video and have blood in it”, I would never even go there. I was in this place where I felt I would have to get up and keep fighting, or take a record deal with the wrong people. It’s hard to say "no" when there is a record deal right in front of you and you have no money, but if it’s not the right thing for me then I won’t do it. So basically I just got really mad and decided to do it myself, and now there is just this feeling of “I DID IT!”

SW: Now how do you portray what is on the DVD at live shows?

RS: Y’know, a lot of people love my DVD and then they see us live and are completely blown away, because I’m best when I play live. I love performers and the way they capture a crowd, like Tina Turner or Mick Jagger can. I love people who can kind of take over the audience, even though their music might not be my favorite. It’s interesting to watch. I prepared myself to play these big festivals, I did Anarchy in The U.K., and people said I couldn’t do it because I was an American in Britain. So I said not only was I going to do it, but I was going to do it better than anyone has ever done it. And when I pulled it off was one of the best moments in my entire life.

(Interesting footnote: the audio mastering on The Underground Personality Tapes was done by Gilby Clarke.)

To see Roxy Saint videos, visit detonator.tv, or stream them on demand at this location.

(photo by Robin Perine)