Hot Press Meets Amanda Palmer

Does Amanda Palmer care that she’s been vilified, demonised and called out as a fake self-aggrandiser? “Well it depends on how you define ‘care’,” says the gothic chanteuse turned crowdfunding evangelist and TED talk celebrity.

“Historically people fear change. If you do something new, often you risk being dismissed. I feel I’m in pretty excellent company in terms of artists who’ve been treated that way.”
For most of her decade-plus career, Palmer was a medium-sized cult artist, initially as the singing half of Brechtian-punk duo Dresden Dolls, then as a baroque solo performer. But last year she came to wider attention as the first musician to raise $1 million on crowd funding site Kickstarter.
In the process Palmer found herself anointed poster-child for a new kind of fan/artist dynamic. However even as she drew praise for her vision and moral courage, she was attracting a deluge of online hate. What exactly did she need a million bucks for? Was she really asking support acts to play for free? Who did this upstart think she was?
“People who dismiss me or crowd funding or my music – the fact is, I don’t make art for them. I find myself walking this very strange tightrope where my fanbase is growing exponentially while simultaneously everyone is yelling at me. I didn’t ask for it. I’m not the sort of person who thrives on controversy. I don’t enjoy it.”
Such an assertion may surprise long-time devotees. Palmer has always come across as rather a bulldog. A few years ago, she christened herself Amanda ‘Fucking’ Palmer. Her public persona is combative, take-no-prisoners. She comes out swinging, every chance.
“I don’t go looking for conflict,” she insists. “I don’t try to draw attention to myself. It does seem to happen quite a lot though. I get used to it. This is part and parcel of all the wonderful things that come my way, the shit that always floats down the river. I don’t think there’s an artist out there who doesn’t hurt when people say something negative wabout them. The next question becomes, ‘If you feel hurt, do you run to your bedroom, slam the door and pull the blinds down?’ Or do you continue working and creating, which may ultimately be the only answer to criticism?”
Surely it bothers Palmer that she ‘s nowadays better known for her evangelising than her music? It’s easily overlooked but between Kickstarter and TED she released an album, the keening, quite excellent Theatre Is Evil. Isn’t there a danger of her dayjob being overlooked?
“That’s fine. If people don’t know me for my music, it’s better than not being heard at all. Audiences discover me all sorts of ways – my TED talks, my Twitter feed, my blog. Or maybe it’s some internet rag publishing The Ten Worst Things Amanda Palmer Has Ever Done. If someone reads that, checks out my music, becomes a fan... well, cool.”
Palmer is about to go on tour and is enjoying a final day in the company of her husband, fantasy author Neil Gaiman (mooching in the background as we speak). The very definition of an odd couple, they met when one of Gaiman’s book tours intersected with a music in-store Palmer was doing. However unlikely, the relationship obviously works as Gaiman has credited Palmer, an out of the closet bisexual, as the inspiration for his new novel, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, his first in over a decade.
“I never ever thought I would get married,” Palmer told Hot Press last year. “I’m still shocked. Sometimes I forget. I’ll be eating a salad and I’ll look-up and think ‘what the fuck happened? I got married? We absolutely adore one another, we’re a couple of weirdoes chasing each other around, we figure it out along the way. The biggest mistake we could make would be to apply the rules of a conventional marriage. We’d be fucked within five minutes. It’s great we can wave that flag to the world. To say, ‘This is us, we’re a really serious couple’.”
Palmer could be forgiven for suffering the occasional attack of vertigo. At the same time as her profile was heading for the stratosphere she was dealing with personal tragedy. In October her friend, music blogger Becca Rosenthal died suddenly at the age of 25. Then, in January, Palmer rescheduled her entire Theatre Is Evil tour to care for another close acquaintance, Anthony Martignett who is still fighting the disease. Initially hesitant about going public over his illness she figured fans were owed an explanation. For a sometimes searingly confessional artist, lifting the veil on her private life seems to cause a deep anguish.
“Talking about it was one of the strangest things I’ve done. I had to share slices of my personal life, stuff I had previously kept... well not behind closed doors, but which I hadn’t felt the need to share. In order to explain the gravity of the situation, I had to roll up my sleeves and make my fans understand. It can be a weird gift. By setting your thoughts down on paper you’re forced to define something in your own head. It can crystalise your emotions in a very powerful way.”

Amanda Palmer plays the Dublin Academy on July 18. The album Theatre is Evil is out now.