“That Song Genuinely Gets Me Off”: Clairo, in Conversation With Remi Wolf

For some artists, reaching for the past can be counter-productive. For others, who forgo fussing over details and let nostalgia lead them somewhere new, it can be their greatest asset. Big Ideas, the amorphous, genre-hopping third studio album from Remi Wolf, is an exemplary case study. The record is a piñata of 90’s soft-rock references, cut with more contemporary pop-like hooks that thrash against a flurry of funk and soul drops. While the sound is almost impossible to pin down, the lyrics are unabashedly and unapologetically horny. “I’ve never heard somebody explain a horny one-night stand situation like you did on ‘Toro,’” said longtime friend Clairo when the two met up at Electric Lady Studios last week. “That song genuinely gets me off.” On the very same day that Wolf released her album, the lo-fi indie darling dropped the critically-acclaimed Charm, in which lust manifests in quieter but equally potent ways. “That’s my version of horny,” Clairo said of the album’s standout track, “Sexy to Someone.” When the two got together last week, they performed a mutual audit of each other’s albums, delving into everything from their approaches to vocal processing and sensuality to their wide range of influences. Of course, there was time at the end for a quick game of fuck, marry, kill—with instruments.–EMILY SANDSTROM

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REMI WOLF: I am here with Claire Cottrill, and we just released albums on the same day.

CLAIRO: July 12th, magical day.

WOLF: The magical twin day of the universe. And we’re here to interview each other about each other’s albums. Who wants to start?

CLAIRO: I’ll start.

WOLF: Okay.

CLAIRO: I wrote down a bunch of things that I was feeling when I was listening to the album. I feel like this is a record that I can completely lose myself in, and I don’t know if you meant to make it that way, but especially the song, “Cherries & Cream,” that song to me feels like the moment where you’re on the dance floor peaking and letting go of everything and feeling so much. And that’s how I feel when I’m listening to your record. I’m feeling it first, then the words come second. And I was wondering, when you were making this record, was it something that you wanted people to get lost in?

WOLF: Yeah, I think “Cherries & Cream” specifically was a song that I was like, “I need this to be a movie in itself.” And that was also the song that we worked on the longest. It’s so detailed, with all these crazy sounds that I had never used before. I’ve never really thought of it as a song to peak to, but it is.

CLAIRO: It feels like blasting it in some random hotel room where you guys have all congregated at the end of the night, but the night’s not over. There’s so much left to happen. There’s a euphoric sense to that song, in my opinion, that really comes through. 

WOLF: Thank you. The whole album, and honestly all my music, it’s all created in the studio. I don’t write anything beforehand.

CLAIRO: Really? Wow.

WOLF: It’s all made on the day. And in that sense, it’s all immersive for me because when we’re working, I’m so focused. It’s cool that you feel like you’re being transported because making the record was transportive for me too. I would go on tour, come home, and then immediately get in the studio and work for a week, then I would leave again. And because of that, there’s this wild energy to all the songs and they’re all exploring different parts of myself. It wasn’t necessarily an intention, it just ended up that way because of the process.

CLAIRO: Well, the process is everything.

WOLF: Absolutely. I want to talk about your process, too. I am so curious. What’s the most miserable part of the process for you?

CLAIRO: Miserable? Oh. Probably revisiting something that was euphoric and in the moment. It’s not authentic to the feeling. I also hate everything that comes with trying to explain your record or trying to make it—

WOLF: A story.

CLAIRO: Yeah. I mean, finding a narrative in your album can be kind of therapeutic after it’s made. Right after I made this record I was like, “I have no idea what this thing is.” And then the more time I spent away from it, the more I understood exactly what it was about, and then I could talk about it.

WOLF: Yeah. Having to explain the overarching meaning of your record is so difficult, because at least for me, there’s parts of myself that I literally cannot communicate unless it is through this medium.

WOLF: Yeah. Oh also, I was curious about “Terrapin.” That’s a turtle.

CLAIRO: It is a turtle. It’s the name of this bar upstate. It’s the first song I made where I felt really free in the process. That song is about getting drunk with a friend and just looking at them and being like, “I love you.” Maybe you never say it to each other, but you say it then, and it’s this magical moment where you’re covered in love, you’re drenched in it, and nothing matters. Like, why do we shy away from this feeling? Why don’t we say this more? I think the song also made me realize that some people put a lot of weight on the word “love” and never say it, and then some people use it so freely where it loses its meaning. 

WOLF: Which perspective do you think you have?

CLAIRO: I think I’m transitioning into somebody who uses it way more freely, because why not?

WOLF: It’s true. The experience of just gushing to your friends while drunk is probably the best feeling in the world. At my album release party a week ago, everybody was in the pool, we were all wasted, and I was just sobbing. You’ve seen me sob. I’m a big crier.

CLAIRO: I love it. You feel in full, and I think that’s why you make music. You have things bubbling—

WOLF: They’re bubbling. 

CLAIRO: And there’s major power in being that way because you’re able to make music that captures a feeling in full. I’ve never heard somebody explain a horny one-night stand situation like you did on “Toro.” That song genuinely gets me off.

WOLF: That’s fire.

CLAIRO: You captured it. Sonically, lyrically, melodically…

WOLF: Thanks. I wrote that song during probably the horniest time of my life. And I was really going around doing that, by which I mean, I was truly in the hotels fucking. It was awesome.

CLAIRO: But that’s sick. Hearing that song makes me feel free. It must feel so amazing to be able to just fucking say it. I’m so cryptic, but I really adore how you’re just like, “No, we’re going to talk about it.”

WOLF: I think on this album, I really tried to let go of being cryptic because I was going through all these jarring experiences that I couldn’t describe without saying exactly what they were. But me saying “horny” in a song took a lot for me. 

CLAIRO: “I’m going to say the big word.”

WOLF: I’m going to say the H-word, guys. I mulled that lyric over in my head for six months. There were six months where I was like, “I have to change it.” But at a certain point I was like, “Well, it is the truth, so I might as well just fucking say it.”

CLAIRO: Yeah. There is a word for it.

WOLF: There’s a word for it. And it is horny, bitch.

CLAIRO: Yeah. [Laughs]

WOLF: We are horny. We’re young and horny.

CLAIRO: We are.

WOLF: Wait, I feel like “Sexy to Someone”—

CLAIRO: That’s my version of horny.

WOLF: I was going to say, I feel like that one’s pretty on the nose. And the verse and the chorus being the same lyric, there’s not a lot of songs that do that.

CLAIRO: I think it was like, how many times can I say sexy in the song before it gets kind of weird? I think I was also trying to emphasize that the word “sexy” is also as large-scale and open as “love,” maybe. Everybody finds different things sexy, and I can find sexy in anything. Sexy can be very subtle and understated, but sexy can be very loud and open as well. That song was really interesting to write. I was alone in the woods for a long time at the house and I was very deprived of human contact. It needed to be written because I hadn’t seen another human being in a really long time.

WOLF: Listening to the album, it feels like half the songs were written in this kind of reclusive zone where you’re yearning for human contact but not allowing it, for some reason. Do you feel that?

CLAIRO: Totally. I think I’m a person who is recently discovering sensuality and femininity in myself. It’s something I never fully tapped into. I didn’t understand my own strain of sexy. I didn’t know how to lean into it, and I didn’t know what it meant to me. Also, it’s hard for me to pin down what turns me on or what I want to emulate. I’m not comfortable showing myself in a way that feels, on paper, “sexy,” but I lean into influences on my record. Margo Guryan is a really good example of someone who’s sexy without you knowing anything. Her vocals are very close to the microphone and she’s talking about love, but it’s never explicit. There’s something that’s left to be desired, which really resonates with me. I want the audience to understand that, with me, it’s never going to fully be given.

WOLF: Yeah. And it’s a discovery process for yourself.

CLAIRO: Totally. Well, I know we have talked about Blossom Dearie in the past. I have this record of hers and on the back it says, “Blossom Dearie sings like she’s sitting in your lap.” And that changed the trajectory of my record completely, because that’s so hot and so sensual and charming and mysterious, but it’s still so sweet and simple. There’s something really alluring about describing a vocal like that. I was like, “I want to do something like that. I want them to feel like I’m in their lap telling them things in their ear.”

WOLF: That’s so sick. I feel like vocally, I’m not doing that at all. I’m screaming and belting and I’m like—

CLAIRO: But it’s almost orgasmic at the other end of it.

WOLF: It’s the other end. I’m a big screamer. For me, that’s my sexiness.

CLAIRO: That is so sexy. I think it’s two sides of the same coin, because it’s just as alluring and sexy and enticing to me for someone to be belting and free. Your vocal processing on “Kangaroo” was one of the coolest parts of the record to me.

WOLF: Oh, hell yeah.

CLAIRO: It was so sick and so different. You’re a master of enunciation. You always find the right word that makes you want to eat the song. Do you know what I’m saying?

WOLF: Yeah, the eating word. It’s the eating vowels—

CLAIRO: It’s the word choices, the phrasing. It’s all so deliberate and it has such a strong sense of self, but also you manage to have a silliness and a nonchalant attitude. I think that’s why your songs are so addictive. The genius of your writing is that you want to put the song in your mouth, especially on “Pitiful.” I want to eat that song.

WOLF: Thank you. A lot of the time I will whip out my voice notes and just be mumbling for two minutes, and I take those two minutes so fucking seriously. 

CLAIRO: People do say the first thing is always the best thing.

WOLF: Yeah. I will form my words sometimes around the mumble because it just felt so good in my mouth.

CLAIRO: Right. I know exactly what you mean.

WOLF: And it’s because we both love nicotine. We have an oral fixation.

CLAIRO: Right, right. But you actually do end up saying what you want to say while also paying homage to the mumbling. I think that helps create perfect pop songs. That’s why people listen to “Toro” on repeat. They’re hyper-fixated on it because it just feels so good. It’s like ASMR.

WOLF: Oh, and the motorcycle?

CLAIRO: Yeah. That was so cool.

WOLF: That was really us trying to create a Dua Lipa moment.

CLAIRO: Hell yeah.

WOLF: And for some reason we were all like, “Motorcycle noises.” Dude, I don’t even know how it came together. There was at least a 20-minute search for the perfect motorcycle sound. I think we ended up downloading a sound off YouTube. 

CLAIRO: That song feels like something you want to live inside of and play nonstop.

WOLF: I feel that way about “Sexy to Someone.” When that song came out, I was just like, holy shit. I want to be sexy to someone. I think a lot of people don’t explore “sexy” in a way where it can be like—what do you say in the second verse?

CLAIRO: “Honey sticking to your hands.”

WOLF: Yes. “Sugar on the rim”

CLAIRO: Yeah. Shit like that is sexy.

WOLF: It’s all sexy.

CLAIRO: Like, you go on a first date and you have a drink with someone and they’re taking the sugar off the rim and you’re like, “Oh my god, what’s happening to me?” It’s so—

WOLF: Tactile.

CLAIRO: Yeah. It’s all in the feeling and touching.

WOLF: It’s all in the feeling, but I feel like you don’t think of that with the word “sexy.” You normally think of the titties pushed up, the ass out.

CLAIRO: Well, it’s the same as “horny,” where there’s an immediate connotation with it that is hard to break away from, but using it in the right context, you’re like, “It is so much larger, and it’s fine.”

WOLF: To be horny.

CLAIRO: To be horny.

WOLF: Or to be sexy. Or to want to be sexy.

CLAIRO: Right. Like, it’s not a bad word. 

WOLF: Yeah. They feel like bad words, and I don’t know why that is. I know that’s some societal female-ass bullshit.

CLAIRO: Yeah. You told me that this record doesn’t feel very referential at all. And then I wrote some things down about “Alone in Miami,” and I was like, “Do you have ‘90s rock in you?” Are you a Smashing Pumpkins fan?

WOLF: I’m more of a Flaming Lips girly.

CLAIRO: Okay, like, The Soft Bulletin.

WOLF: Yes. And “She Don’t Use Jelly” is a huge song for me. I’m obsessed with that song, but also Soundgarden. And I mean, Nirvana.

CLAIRO: I feel that. It’s so cool to hear you in that space. Your range is very cool. I was trying to think of who your influences could be and I really couldn’t pin it down.

WOLF: Well, there’s a lot, and I think they’re all jumbled together. They’re all living in a very subconscious way that I can’t even really access half the time. But I love putting on accents or characters in a slight way, it kind of helps me access these different personalities within me. It’s almost like a self-referential thing. There’s got to be shit that’s under the surface there.

CLAIRO: But it’s not a conscious thing.

WOLF: No, it’s not conscious. I have a question.

CLAIRO: Yeah?

WOLF: Fuck, marry, kill.

CLAIRO: Oh my god. Really?

WOLF: No, it’s good. Fuck, marry, kill: clarinet, flute, saxophone.

CLAIRO: You are so funny. This is actually really hard.

WOLF: I know.

CLAIRO: I am a clarinet girly, but I think I’m going to kill her. Because I would fuck the saxophone and I would marry flute. Saxophone, it’s self-explanatory.

WOLF: Yeah. It’s honking. It’s smooth. It’s sexy.

CLAIRO: It’s all the sexiest songs you can think of. Flute, to me, lives in everything. You can put flute on anything. Clarinet’s an acquired taste. When clarinet goes on something, it’s now a clarinet song.

WOLF: She’s a little squeaky at times. She’s fidgety.

CLAIRO: She’s shifty. Okay… slap bass, vocal double, percussion.

WOLF: Kill the slap bass immediately. So rarely is it appropriate.

CLAIRO: There’s a time and a place for her.

WOLF: But it’s not frequent. I think I’m going to fuck percussion.

CLAIRO: Self-explanatory.

WOLF: I mean, the banging of it all. 

CLAIRO: She’s a good time.

WOLF: I’m going to have to marry the vocal double, even though it’s myself. But it’s consistent. It’s multidimensional.

CLAIRO: And it’s dense. You really have to get to know her to like her.

WOLF: To love her.

CLAIRO: She’s not someone you can just meet and get on with. You need to really sit down with her at a party and go deep.

WOLF: Yes. This is a final question from me. What did you listen to on the way here?

CLAIRO: Your album.

WOLF: Oh, yeah. Well, I guess I listened to your album on the way here too. What did you listen to yesterday?

CLAIRO: Let’s see. I like this song called “The Duke is Gone” by Chuck Senrick. It’s really sweet. How about you? 

WOLF: I am singing the song “Stick Season” with Noah Kahan tonight at Madison Square Garden, so that. 

CLAIRO: Really? Oh my god. That’s amazing.

WOLF: That’s a wild card that got thrown in yesterday. I really love his album. And then I’ve been listening to Dan Reeder. Do you know him?

CLAIRO: Yeah. My friend Abby put me onto him. He’s insane.

WOLF: He has a crazy, crazy career. He builds every single instrument he uses.

CLAIRO: Wow, really?

WOLF: The mics, the consoles, the guitars.

CLAIRO: That’s incredible.

WOLF: He’s put out five albums since 2003.

CLAIRO: So wild. Can you imagine taking that long of a break?

WOLF: I think I’d go crazy. I’d have to get another job, probably.

CLAIRO: Yeah, me too. Maybe we could just hide away.

WOLF: We could hide.

CLAIRO: We could go to Nova Scotia.

WOLF: Mve to Nova Scotia. Where the fuck is Nova Scotia?

CLAIRO: Canada.

WOLF: Oh, okay.