Mark: What drew you to working as a lyricist against someone else's music?

Jarboe: This was a collaborative project. I have done it before in a project called Blackmouth several years ago. I enjoy collaborating. I did it for fourteen years with Michael Gira. In this latest case, I had existing writing in a large journal and certain pieces were perfect for the music of Neurosis.

Mark: You and Neurosis worked separately from one another. Did they send you completed instrumental tracks and did you add lyrical content to the music or did you discuss the intent and directions of the songs before you started? How did things evolve as you worked on a track?

Jarboe: We know and understand each other. We did not have to discuss intent. They sent me rough drafts to which I sang over. They then added more music around my voice.

Mark: Is there any one track which stands out for you? Something where you tried something new or it presented a particular challenge?

Jarboe: It [the process] was harmony in tension. But there is a song about my mother...

Mark: What is next after the Neurosis collaboration?

Jarboe: The next thing is Live in Portugal which is me at the Center for Conteporary Art last September with Bill. Bill played grand piano and guitar. He is so great. When I heard the audio, my mind was just blown. It taught me that when people raise the bar -- when I work with really excellent people -- I morph to them. I am very proud of the show and I'm going to release it. The recording is state of the art -- that museum obviously has some excellent recording facilities.

And then the albatross which is the MEN album. Which is going on four years. When it comes out, it will have been four years of production. It is songs with everybody all over the world -- them flying, me flying, files uploaded on servers, the whole nightmare. The idea is that I know all these people from these different musical backgrounds and they have nothing to do with each other. They wouldn't be on an album together if it weren't for me -- not only knowing them, but liking different styles of music. I've got Alan Sparhawk from Low singing a love ballad with me, and then I have Blixa Bargeld screaming with me. [Laughs] I have Paz Lenchantain [ex-A Perfect Circle and Zwan] singing and playing bass with me. I have David Torn playing guitar, and he's dueting with me with his guitar. It's all over the map with all these eccentric personalities.

Mark: Has that been a very collaborative process or has it been just a matter of you handing off material and asking them to record it?

Jarboe: Some of them have very strong personalities, and I can handle that. In terms of collaborations, I am very ego-less. I consider myself like the creature in the second Terminator movie. He's silver and he can go through walls and what not. Sort of like that. When I worked with David Torn, he had a very strong idea of what he wanted to do. He was more dominating in what he wanted to do -- he's on top in that song -- and I gave him that. Whereas some of the others felt very democratic like Alan from Low. He added little things; he came up with ideas. That feels like a marriage; that feels like a union. Other people I had to give direction to. I didn't have to give any direction to Blixa other than the idea that he was in an insane asylum. And he did it. [Laughs]

I have an ability to see beyond what people can do. I met Paz through my friend Maynard [Keynes of Tool and A Perfect Circle] and I saw something in her. She kind of looked at me as a mentor. We [the Swans] were the loudest rock band in the world at one time and that world was a very macho world, and she bonded with me and tried to learn from my experience. So we became good friends. It was sort of a natural step that I would encourage her [in the work for MEN] to play bass and play violin and do some sexy Spanish vocals.

And then David J. You wouldn't think that I would be collaborating with him. He did an incredible sexy song with me. Jim Thirwell [Foetus, Steroid Maximus] -- I've known him for years -- he took me in a direction I wouldn't normally go. It's very Jim Thirwell. [Laughs]

Mark: One of the other collaborations you've done was with John Bergin and Brett Smith.

Jarboe: Yeah, the Blackmouth project.

Mark: You've classified that as an "inorganic" project. What's the distinction?

Jarboe: The music was inorganic. With the human voice, I tried to be the organic element. I tried to sound as Appalachian, as raw and as country as I could in some of the voices and as sultry as I could on the others. That was great because, when they sent me the files, it was such an artifical landscape to my ears compared to what I had worked with before. That was the very first project where I sang into a computer. That was the first sterile computer project that I've done.

Mark: Recently you posted a quote from Tenzin Palmo's Cave in the Snow. "It [the love of the hermit] is not based on sentiment. It's not based on feedback and how good it makes you feel. That is not real love at all."

And there is another comment which you made during an interview with Mark Spybey: "In studying Buddhism, I have realized that my problem results when I place any expectation upon the person I love. To even be loved back is an expectation. And I cannot expect anything at all from another person."

And finally, I want to take the wayback machine to an entry you posted in the Arteries from 2000 where you say: "M.G. always reminded me that you have to work hard and expect nothing in return. I say you have to create your own return."

Love seems to be a constant theme in your work.

Jarboe: Yes. Yes, it is. [Laughs] It's funny. The older I get, the more I seem to think that it is a kind of destiny. Maybe I'm creating it or maybe it is all the things that fall into a person's life from their childhood. Blixa and I talked about this the other night: that I'm alone. I think I've been alone most of my life, and I have this idea in my head -- maybe from being a little girl, maybe from my dad, I don't know, maybe from the marriage my parents had -- this idea that the guy [Laughs] is going to appear on the horizon. He hasn't yet. So, you know, you wish you had a man in your life that really loved you and accepted you for what you are. I haven't been able to find this man. Blixa was trying to tell me: come to peace. Come to peace with being alone. That's hard for me. Even though I think that would really set you free. I don't know if I am smart enough, wise enough, evolved enough, sane enough, strong enough to really accept that. I know I spend a hell of time trying to accept it.

The men I have fallen in love with -- obviously Michael [Gira] is one of them -- I really go head over heels for. I am extremely devoted, monogamous, loyal, and I give everything I have. I think I am always attracted to those who see me as independent and strong. God, I'm so sick of hearing that. And they probably want their space. It's sort of hard to find the right one who is an alpha dog, a strong personality, a leader, a creative force. You are with him, and then have needs and desires and they are unable to give you that. I'm not quite sure. Maybe I'm just one of those people who are unsuitable for anyone else. I should just hang it up. [Laughs]

But I do think about it a lot; I do write about it a lot. One of the reasons we're doing "Reason to Live," the Kiss song, for MEN is that it seems, to me, to be about co-dependence. "Everyone has a reason to live / Everybody has a dream and a hunger inside / Everyone has a reason to live." But it can't be another person's love. That can't your REASON to live because they could take it back like that. [Snaps fingers]

I think it may be a flaw in me that I've always wanted that kind of love: non-demanding, completely accepting, unconditional love. I've never been able to find from anyone that is strong or powerful. They are unable to give you that. Inevitablly they are attracted to you because you are tough, but they immediately try to control and dominate you. They tell you what to do, what clothes to wear; they put you down. What clothes you should wear. How your hair should look. How you should stand, how you should talk, how you should eat: they immediately start controlling me. Immediately. And that's my problem. [Laughs] Are all men like this or is it just the ones I meet?

Mark: It's seems contradictory. They try to suppress what attracted them to you in the first place.

Craig: Do you think it may be fear on their part?

Jarboe: I don't know. I've had men who have come to me through my work -- they see me on stage, they meet me through the music. And then when you go out with them, when you try to be peers, and you go out to eat or something... I am a very passionate person and they always say, "Could you wave your hands around a little less? Could you make your voice a little more flat?"

Craig: A little less you?

Jarboe: Yeah. I'm like, "Do you know who I am?" I think I am intimidating to people or something. I don't know what it is. I don't know how other people do it. I look at Lydia [Lunch], I look at Diamanda, I look at Kimbra and I see the same sort of thing. They go through it too. I think they're more extreme in what they do than I am. [Laughs] I really do.

My work is one thing, but in my daily life I'm very much like the girl next door. I'm domestic. I like to cook. I have a garden. I run about six miles a night when I'm at home. You have to accept that normalcy as well as the fact that I might have an Andre Serono poster above my desk of a man urinating into a woman's mouth. [Laughs] That's me too.

To find a man that understands all of that. That's what I'd like I'd like a CEO or a top-notch lawyer. Some guy in a Ferrarri or Mercedes. An investment specialist. [Laughs] Not a musician. Not an artist. No more bohemian guys. No more starving poets. That's what I'm looking for now. [Laughs] If you're out there...