Life in Pictures: St. Vincent

I’m away all the time. I try to make sure my house isn’t so comfortable that I miss being at home. It’s really just a place where I keep art and guitars.

My brother-in-law gave everybody postcards for Christmas from a gallery in Waxahachie, Texas. It’s kind of rococo, but everybody has a penis for a head. He wanted me to write something on it from one of my travels and send it back. It’s still in my house.

I try to get a massage before a tour because usually I’m very sore from sitting on an airplane and hurling myself around the stage every night. The show is very physical. There’s a song where I fall repeatedly, so I always end up with bruises and bloody knees.

I’ve known Alan [del Rio Ortiz] for 16 years. He came on the European leg of the David Byrne tour. We went swimming in the south of France. The water was so violent that we all cut up our feet and legs on this cave. It was supposed to be this really scenic thing, and we all got sort of injured.

We were joking that we could start a gang if we all had leather jackets. I had seen one that I thought he might like at Tokio 7, so we went to go see it. He didn’t buy it.

My fashion icon is Albert Einstein. When he was working on any project, he would have a uniform so he could conserve his brain energy. I do the same thing on tour. I typically have a uniform that I don’t really stray from.

Alan and I were having a really fun lunch and then we found out that Philip Seymour Hoffman died. When Alan and I were first getting to know each other as teenagers in Texas, the first thing we ever did was see the Todd Solondz movie Happiness. We showed up late, and we were walking into the theater just as Philip Seymour Hoffman was ejaculating onscreen. We always joked that that was the glue that bonded us. So it was a really strange thing to hear that he passed.

I had a full day of press to promote the album. I started in the morning with some interviews, then did a thing for Pitchfork, and a shoot for Rolling Stone, then I talked to Q. It was like 14 hours of talking about myself.

Obviously my favorite thing is playing music, writing music, working on putting a show together, being on tour—anything that’s actually the art. The other stuff I just approach like a professional. Everyone has parts of their job that are not their favorite thing in the world, but you know, whatever, suck it up and do it.