Cat Power Issue #30

Chan Marshall sank to the bottom and has risen up. Way up. Meet the new queen of indie rock.

By Stephanie Trong
Published: December 1st, 2006 | 12:00am

Chan Marshall opens the door of room 401 in late September at the Mercer hotel, and she looks different. Actually, for a split second, you think it’s not her, but maybe a relative visiting NYC from back down South. She pulls you into a big ol’ bear hug and you notice that her hair is twisted up into a ponytail and her bangs are swept away from her face — a very rare occurrence.

There is nothing particularly downtown or edgy about the way she’s dressed — in a basic black cotton dress with tiny white buttons down the front and white ankle socks. She’s also tan — possibly from living in Miami for the last few years — and although she looks slightly tired, there’s an engaging warmth behind it. Chan has always been the type to tell you anything and everything if you ask her, but this time she’s initiating the conversation. Even excitedly. And with silliness. Within seconds of being in the room, she starts padding around, opening the drapes to let in more sun, offering you tea, praising the wonders of Pilates and how it gets rid of “celluleet,” and regaling you with stories of meeting Tony Bennett the night before at his concert (while peeing with the door open, no less).

For sure, this is not the same Chan Marshall who cancelled her tour for her latest album, The Greatest, in early 2006. This is not the same Chan Marshall who drank herself into a suicidal depression that culminated into a stay at Miami’s Mount Sinai Medical Center psychiatric ward in February 2006. It’s a woman who has gone to the bottom and come back up. It’s a Chan Marshall who’s managed to play an unprecedented string of amazing, joyous shows over the past few months with her Memphis Rhythm Band (Matador just re-released The Greatest now that she’s feeling better). And the future keeps on coming — she’s planning to put out another Covers record in early 2007 and an album of original material the following year. There are even thoughts of auditioning for Saturday Night Live (fueled by a “what if?” conversation she had with friend-of-a-friend Molly Shannon), rumors circulating that she’ll be the new face of Chanel jewelry (Karl Lagerfeld took a liking to her when he saw her smoking outside a hotel), and possibilities of getting into acting (starting with Wong Kar-Wai’s upcoming film with Jude Law). The whole situation seems so surreal that it begs for a long explanation of how it all happened. So Marshall pours two cups of tea with the speedy acumen she gained during her early years as a waitress and goes in deep.

Let’s lead up to you locking yourself in your apartment. How did you get to that place?
For a year before that I didn’t talk to my friends — I alienated everyone around me. I was becoming an alcoholic in Miami and literally laying in bed for a year. Getting out of bed was for getting the Mexican food delivery, or receiving a shipment of boxes of alcohol — beer, wines, scotch, tequila ... whatever.

Why didn’t anyone see any warning signs?
Because Chan Marshall, me, has always taken care of herself. Chan has never been an addict. Chan’s had friends who are dead because of their promiscuity with drug use. Chan would never be a junkie. Chan’s mom was an alcoholic, she would never do that. Chan was always in control. It took a period of two and a half years of touring around the world, over and over and over ...

And then you crashed.
I was really stressed out from all the press that I told Matador that I didn’t want to do for the album. I wanted to take three months off to recuperate from destroying myself for the last three and a half years and just let the album ride on reviews and kick-ass, outstanding performances. And they said no. So I just got out of my mind, saying yes to every fuckin’ interview they gave me from every fuckin’ country. I also started doing cocaine.

So when did you actually shut down?
Three days before I shut myself inside my apartment, I had a journalist, two photographers, and people from my record label in England there for press things. I had been serving them wine all morning and day, so I could be drunk, too. Then I lost it. I locked myself in the bathroom. They were like, “Chan, are you going to come out?” for like an hour, but I wouldn’t answer. They could hear me crying, but I wasn’t moving. Then they finally just left.

Did you stay there?
When it got dark, I went to the corner and got some food. I saw the New York Times and Hamas had just won [the election in Palestine]. I got really afraid for the United States’ position on that. I decided I was going to fast and pray to God about Hamas winning. I closed my windows and shut my blinds.

And then what happened?
The coke I had was gone by day two. Then I started drinking all the alcohol I could find. But by the last three days, it was just water and no sleep at all.

What were you doing in there?
I put on a dress. It was a Marc Jacobs dress from like 1999. It was dark blue, and it was from the chest to just above the ankle — so that I would look respectable. And I was praying to God to send somebody to come and help me. I made piles of stuff for all my friends and family members — little pieces of me, little things I owned — because I was going to kill myself. I was ready to take all my anti-depressants and OD. I sent my mom an e-mail that morning. I said, “I forgive you for everything. Everything was so hard on you.” That kind of spawned the ready-to-go feeling.

But something stopped you.
Well, I have this friend Susanna [Vapnek], and we call each other “psychic sis” because she’ll have a dream that I was farting in a garbage can, and then I’ll be standing by a garbage can. And I’ll say, “Sue, god, I really have to fart so bad.” [Laughs] So Psychic Sis had a bad feeling the day I wanted to kill myself. She flew down from New York and knocked on my door and said, “Chan, open the door, sweetie, it’s Susanna.” It didn’t sound like her voice. I didn’t trust it. Then I heard crying. And then I realized it was her. So she came in and calmed me down and gave me a shower. I was just out of my fucking mind.

How did she get you to go to Mount Sinai Medical Center?
Susanna was talking on the phone to her parents about hospitals. I thought she was talking about herself and that something was wrong with her.

If you knew she had been talking about you, would you have objected?
God yes. She was bawling in the car, and I didn’t understand. We got to the psychiatric ward at the hospital, and the doors opened, and the bouncers in the white, they came. It’s been a fear of mine since I was a little girl — that they were going to take me away — because my mom was unstable growing up. Then the nurse gave me a shot.

How was your first night there?
It was the hardest night of my life. I heard a lion growling in the corner of my room.

Did you tell your doctors you were having hallucinations?
No. I sat with that lion motherfucker in the corner. And this vampire guy came over to my bed — squeaking like he was really sick. He was this close to me [holds up hand to her face], and I could feel the warmth and the shit of his breath. I asked God to please stay with me and help me.

At the time, did you think these things were real?
Mmm-hmm. That’s why I kept my eyes closed the whole next day. I stayed in my room, refusing to eat — bleck! — and I wouldn’t take the medication. The second night was like The Exorcist, because I realized, “OK, I’ve got to get my spirit out of here because I’m in hell.” So I jumped off the bed and hit the wall, trying to let my spirit out.

Why didn’t anyone come to check on you?
Because the lights and cameras were off at night.

But they couldn’t hear anything?
People were throwing their furniture and screaming all night long. In the morning, I went into the hallway and was like, “This is it. I’m goin’ down. God take me.” I went like this [spreads her arms and falls forward], and other patients and people caught me before I fell. It was all these different hands on me — I thought I was being exorcised from my body. I thought they were about to throw me in the fire of hell. And they threw me and I landed on a bed, my mattress.

You’ve mentioned God and Satan a lot during this episode. Were you accepting religion at face value during this time?
No, not at all. It was part of a really repressed form of me as a child. It’s something I couldn’t extract, like the Spotless Mind movie. There were stages growing up when I lived with my grandmother and was raised in a gospel church. But if you’re lucky in this life, you have friends who help you understand that [religion is] the way people controlled people in the past — that there were politics. You have to understand that you were a child, and all that stuff was just hibujibu.

But then during this, somehow you were just —
— scared shitless, because I wanted to kill myself. And you’re not allowed to do that in religion. If you kill yourself, you’re going to hell. I would have killed myself when I was 19 years old — or 16, 13, 10 — if [there wasn’t] that hell thing. So in that way, I am a believer of God. You can’t not believe in one or the other.

So then what happened?
On the fourth day, I forced myself to look in the mirror. It was a piece of brushed aluminum that was drilled into the wall but you could see your reflection. I was telling myself that it was going to be OK — that, either way, I could accept whatever I was going to see. And I opened my eyes and I saw myself, who I was.

And who was that?
I saw my freckles, brown eyes, messed-up teeth ... but I was so happy to see those fucked-up teeth and those freckles. I was like, “It’s me!” I was so fucking happy. It was like, damn, I was back. I realized that I am sane, smart, funny, friendly, nice, and that I’ve got a lot of things I want to share with my friends. I realized that being in there wasn’t me.

So what steps did you take to get released?
There’s someone sitting there checking how you are — they have little X marks and stuff. Like, “Who’s showing hostility?” “Who’s trying, who’s crazy, who’s getting better?” So I started socializing and tried to get past other patients’ scary tendencies. Like this guy was like [adopts a creepy voice], “You want to suck my dick?” and then I’d be like, “Actually, I can’t sit here. May I move?” Then they’d move me next to the mute woman who was like 55.

How long after that before you were discharged?
On the sixth day, my shrink came to my room — he’s from Columbia — and he goes [does a spot-on accent]: “Charlene, I have noticed a very big difference in you in the past couple of days. I think your medicine is working for you. I see that you are joining us for breakfast, lunch, and dinner now. I think, Charlene, we are going to let you go tomorrow, OK?” My friend who was with me started laughing and crying.

What was it like going back to your apartment?
It was amazing because it was as if I had gotten a second chance. I opened the door, and it was clean as a whistle. Susanna had gotten rid of all that trash. She had all of my clothes dry-cleaned or washed. There were new sheets on the bed. Everything was clean — the floors, the bathroom …. One of the first things I remember is immediately wanting to make fruit salad. I learned that once you quit drinking, you crave sweet things. Susanna had stocked the refrigerator with fruit and vegetables. And I couldn’t find my kitchen knives. She had hidden them the night I was cuckoo and had forgotten about them. We started laughing hysterically. She was like, “Let me cut that for you.” I was like, “I’m not going back there; don’t worry about it.” Since then, she’s kept visiting me about once a month.

How often do you see your doctor now?
That’s the hard part. Whenever I have time off. He’s amazing. But I have my best friends.

Are you completely sober now?
I’ve had nine drinks in nine months. It wasn’t that I was an alcoholic; it was my lifestyle, being on tour all the time — the depression of drinking every day and not having a home. If you’re an alcoholic, it’s because you’re depressed. That’s it. There’s something you’re trying to avoid. And once you quit — all that shit — you’re looking at it and you’re forced to remember things clearly. How you reacted, what you did … you’re forced to be strong in a way.

It shows as an artist. I saw you play at the last Bonnaroo festival in Nashville, and it was an amazing performance. You were dancing! I’ve never seen you so happy onstage.
I am happy. I’m singing like when I was 6 years old and used to sing country songs with my grandma. I’m singing now as joyously as I would sing when I was a kid.

A lot of people are glad and thankful that you made it through.
I think about people who have killed themselves now and I understand the depth of really fucking wanting to do it. But I don’t want anybody to do it. That’s why I changed the lyrics to the song, “Hate.” Now it’s, “I do not hate myself / I do not want to die / I do not hate myself / Me, myself and I.”