Interview: Patti Smith
Punk’s Poet Laureate Brings Her Band to the Granada
Creator. Visionary. Heroine. These are just some of the words used to describe Patti Smith’s boundary-pushing career. Growing up outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Smith spent her childhood in awe of art and the people who made it. She read, wrote, and listened to music voraciously. As a struggling artist in New York City, she clung to a dream of writing poetry, surrounding herself with now-iconic names like Allen Ginsberg, Lou Reed, and then-boyfriend Robert Mapplethorpe, all of who make an appearance in Smith’s outstanding 2010 memoir, Just Kids. Onstage with her band, Smith is a strong, explosive presence, the kind of frontwoman who wouldn’t think twice before spitting lyrics like, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine,” while playing in a church — which she did (at least once) in 1975. She’s a fearless and passionate revolutionary, and she takes shit from no one.
Today Smith’s spitfire persona has softened a bit from those early days in New York, but her insoluble creative spirit is still going strong. Earlier this month, she turned in the manuscript for a new book. She also just wrapped up a European tour with her longtime band, often with her son, Jackson, and daughter Jesse rounding out the lineup.
This week, Smith will head to the West Coast for a series of shows to celebrate the 40th anniversary of her 1975 debut Horses. Widely held as a formative piece of New York’s then-burgeoning punk scene, Horses has been named one of the 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone. It’s also been recognized as shaping the styles, songs, and musical careers of everyone from The Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and R.E.M. to, well, almost every female rock musician of the past four decades. This Tuesday, January 27, Patti Smith and Her Band play the Granada Theatre. In anticipation, I caught up with the punk rock poet laureate from her home in New York City to discuss creativity, coffee, and what comes next.
