Craig: I think those shows are instances where people will look back and say, "That show in the junkyard in Las Vegas was pretty cool."

Jarboe: When I met Blixa in 1984, Neubauten had two shows. Sonic Youth had two shows. Swans never did. If we showed up and you had no PA, we could perform. In Neubauten's case, they started a fire and they beat on metal. They didn't need the PA. They had another show where they plugged in and had more of a rock component. Sonic Youth was the same way: they had the loud, thundering guitar stuff or they could completely unplug and do weird things with their strings and guitars. Whereas Swans would show up and if you didn't have the giant massive PA we needed to get that sound, then an altercation would ensue. A terribly violent fight would ensue, and we would leave. [Laughs]

When we finally had the money of Mute Records behind us, we were able to travel with our own PA -- an entire giant truck of guys and you bring your PA in there. That's when you don't have to compromise because you control everything. But, on this tour, I've had to remember that you have your idea of what you want -- you can even ask for it in your contract -- but you have to be flexible. The price that I pay for performing in non-rock venues is that they may not have the right system.

This is why Michael -- when he tours for the Angels of Light -- only travels with guitars. He just gave up. Forget the drums, forget this, forget that. The first thing he said to me was, "I suggest you go out there with just a keyboard. Play and sing at the same time." I said, "I am not Tori Amos. I am not going to do that." I don't want to do that. I'm too expressive with my body when I sing. I can't be confined to that chair.

Craig: On your website you have interviews that you have done with a number of people, friends in the business -- I don't want to call them musicians necessarily.

Jarboe: Yeah, some of them are, some them are not.

Craig: What prompted you to do, and is there anything that you are looking to share or get out that experience?

Jarboe: I need more time. I've got a backlog of those. Of course, once you do them, you've got to type them in, clean them up, lay out the pictures, and then put them up. There's a lot of work once you've completely the actual conversation. As you know. [Laughs] The idea for why I orginally did it is that, over the years, I've met a lot of interesting and freaky people around the world and, gee, it sure would be interesting to have a forum for these people to have a forum to talk about the things they were interested in. If they were in show business, as it were, they would realize it wasn't about talking about their latest CD.

Craig: That's what I liked about it. Here's all the people who are interesting to you and it wasn't like an interview per se. It was more of a casual conversation that was recorded.

Jarboe: There's a slew coming if I could find a chunk of time to get them done. I find it more interesting to talk to non-performing people. I would like to develop it more with, like, a homicide detective -- someone who isn't doing something on stage.

Some people are so articulate that it becomes just one answer, like an essay. Jeff Smith comes to mind. When someone is murdered, he is the medical examiner who shows up and examines the corpse and tells you the cause of death. My question to him was to just talk about death, and I thought his essay was so beautiful that I just left it at that.

Mark: I want to talk about tattoos for a minute. You are on a course for 23, is that the number?

Jarboe: I tell myself that but, knowing me, when I get to that number, I'll want more. [Laughs]

Mark: For a lot of people, the act of body modification through a tattoo is a very outwardly expressive statement. They get them in places where they can be prominently displayed -- at least, this seems to be the mentality of the new youth culture.

Jarboe: Yeah, they do. Like Fabrizio of Larsen has them on his neck.

Mark: Whereas yours seem to be more discrete. Tattoos have always been a fascinating subject because they have a certain permanence and would, hopefully, have some importance for you. Which leads me to a whole discussion of symbols of faith and magic and mystery for yourself. I guess I want to ask why 23?

Jarboe: Well, it's a power number, certainly. But it doesn't really have anything to do with Magick or anything. Fabrizio is interested in that sort of thing, and I know about it. But 23 has always been an important number in my life. It has just been the correlation of things happening on the 23rd all throughout my life. [Laughs] That day keeps cropping up. That's my reason for it: there's been an association with that number.

My tattoos are for me, knowing that they are there on my body. A lot of the reason they are all over my ass, my hips, my lower abdomen, and my thighs -- some of them are there for the man who having sex with me to get power from. I have them there for me to see them and then for a partner that I am intimate with.

The last time I was "extreme" outwardly was the Children of God era when Michael and I had both shaved our heads and then I had multi-colored dreadlocks with extensions and jewelry embedded in it. It was very extreme and I was strip-searched twice during one tour -- once in Germany, once in Kennedy Airport in New York. It was extremely unpleasant for me to be considered a person who would be smuggling drugs -- in their hair -- and I realized it was more subversive, more important, to me to be able to fit in anywhere that I had to fit in. When I became actively conservative in my appearance, I found that it gained me access to more places than I could be before because people pre-judged me. I could never have a prominent tattoo because I don't want you knowing that much about me Mr. So and So at the restaurant or the political hearing or wherever I am at. I don't want you knowing that much about me.

Craig: Do you have the designs already picked out that you want to have done?

Jarboe: Yeah, I keep a record. It went from images and pictures -- that was the first idea. And then it became more just appreciating text than pictures. I saw Peter Greenway's The Pillow Book and I really loved all the writing and tattooing in it. Now most of it is writing in different languages -- Arabic or Tibetian -- the ancient calligraphy of different symbols. The latest one I got is Braille. I had that one done by the drummer in Larsen -- that's his trade, being a tattoo artist.

Craig: Is that part of your own evolution in getting tattoos?

Jarboe: I had the idea that if I was ever killed that people would know something about how I wanted to be treated in death. That when I started getting the Tibetan writing put on me. I thought that someone enlightened would see this on my skin and know that I didn't want a Christian burial. [Laughs]

On the web:
The Living Jarboe
Swans (official site)

Inside Earpollution:
Live review (10 August 2003, Seattle, WA)