Mascott is usually known by her first name, Kendall. Kendall Jane Meade used to be in a band called Juicy. A wacky bunch of women who wrote no love songs ("only sassy songs" as Kendall says) and set the Boston-area clubs on fire with their potent brand of spunky pop. After Juicy dissolved Kendall ended up on the street of Detroit begging for change, but when that didn't work out she just began working for her dad's car dealership. This job must have given her lots of time to think about all of the great songs she was going to write. It was a total surprise to me when a package arrived from Le Grand Magistery and in it was a CD by Mascott entitled, ELECTRIC POEMS. There are only 5 songs on here, but they are 5 amazing songs. My fave is the uplifting "Waiting Awhile" and she said "Eyes" is the first song her dad really liked by her. I spoke to Kendall by phone in early July when she was back in Detroit visiting and here's what she had to say :

D: Just for the record, Kendall, I've never heard Juicy. I've read reviews, seen the CDs in stores, and heard about Juicy, but never heard them, so I feel a little dorky for that.

K: That's ok, but Juicy sounds nothing like Mascott. Juicy was the first songs I'd ever written and the first band I was ever in. The attitude was all about fun and expressing our thoughts in a really fun way. So I wrote a lot of the songs about my ex-boyfriend. The whole thing with Juicy was no love songs, it was all sassy songs. They were all really poppy, I mean, I hated minor chords even from the beginning.

D: Was Juicy ever based in Detroit?

K: No, it was based in Boston where it was me and a friend from Boston University started the band. There was another girl from Providence who was in the band as well. There were four of us and three of us went to B.U. Then, we moved to NYC and one of the girls stayed, so we were pretty much a NYC band.

D:Did you graduate from B.U.?

K: Yeah, I graduated with a degree in history. That's how I met Mary Timony (Helium), she went there as well.

D: Were you born and raised in Detroit?

K: Yeah, well actually Grosse Point. G.P. is actually a pretty wealthy suburb right next to Detroit so there was this big dichotomy in my life because, literally, within miles, there's like mansions and slums. Detroit is actually a really nice city but the downtown area was pretty much ravaged in the 70s and then all of the car companies left the central area and moved outside of the city so no one was really living there anymore so it became a ghost town. Now there's this resurgence happening and my mom just bought a place on the river in Detroit and it's really cool that she's doing this because more people from the suburbs are moving back to the city and therefore it will thrive. It's a really cool place, I like it a lot.

D: What actually happened in the 70s?

K: All of the car companies were literally right downtown and they all moved out of town, some even moved out of state and it caused a lot of unemployment. The only car companies left are Ford and GM. My dad used to own a Chrysler dealership and now he sells Lexus. So my family still lives there. So when I broke Juicy up I moved back here cause NYC was just freaking me out and I just didn't know what to do with myself so I moved here and lived with my mom. I worked at my dad's car dealership and had no friends (laughs) and I just concentrated on what I was gonna do with my life and that's when I recorded most of those demos [that up ELECTRIC POEMS].

D: Did you dig growing up in Grosse Point?

K: It's a really nice place but I never really felt like I fit in. There are a lot of rules and traditions that I didn't fit into. I tried my best but never did. It wasn't until that I got into B.U. that I started to express myself and that I began to have a life. That's why, I think, that I waited so long to learn how to play music. I didn't learn how until I was 22. That's why I feel like I'm having my second childhood or second adolescence (laughs). Whereas a lot of my friends are getting married or making $70 grand a year I'm still like, living in Brooklyn and living the life of an artist and not making much money but I'm actually having a really good time.

D: Yeah, I grew up in a really white/upper middle class town and it was just a really normal suburban upbringing. I appreciate it now, but it took me a little for that.

K: Yeah, and if you notice in those suburbs like that your future is pretty much mapped out for you, like where you'll go to school and I just never saw myself fitting into that at all. I mean, there's still a lot of people who don't understand what I'm doing. They think if you're in a band, especially a girl band then you're either a drug addict or a lesbian, which aren't terrible things, the latter more so than the former. It's tough for them to realize that you can make it as an artist. That's why places like NYC and San Francisco exist: for people who don't fit in in the suburbs and wanna do more creatively.

D: Have your parents been pretty accepting of what you've chosen to do?

K: Umm, there have been adjustments. My mother definitely supports me. My mother has always supported the arts but my dad it's taken a little while longer to figure out this is what I will be doing for a long time. In fact, just this morning I visited with him and he was like, "When are you going to get engaged Kendall?" (Laughs all around) It's like I keep buying time for not being a normal daughter. Actually, this EP is the first piece of music that he's liked that I've done. He loves the song "Eyes" and for me, for him to accept that was a really amazing thing. That was the first time he ever accepted or thought what I was doing was cool so he played it for one of the guys in the Bob Seger band, he's friends with the sax player so he's trying to get me to record with that guy, which could be kinda cool. So my mom is really supportive and my dad is coming around.

D: When you were growing up did you go to punk shows and stuff?

K: Yeah, well not so much punk but just any band that would play. I was never a big drinker or the girl who had a boyfriend so I never knew how to have fun on the weekend so luckily my sister, Shelby, was going to college in Boston and really into music so she'd be sending me home, like Lemonheads 45s and other music she was into, and she also sent me her fake ID and we'd go down to this place, St. Andrews Hall and every Friday night we'd just go down there and see whatever band was playing. It was just fascinating to me to be able to see bands and see live music so when I went to B.U. it was a natural progression to go see bands at the Middle East Café. Then I started a zine, it was called BUZZ MAGAZINE/BOSTON. I did it for a few years and the reason I started doing Juicy is because I was getting sick of doing the zine and wanted to start a band.

D: Yeah, you know, I've been a music fan for forever and I've been doing the zine for forever and I've sat down a million times and learned some chords but I just never felt like I could play the guitar.

K: Yeah, well, it's a learning process. I mean, when I first started playing music people in Boston knew me as the "fanzine girl" so, even today, I think it's hard for people to take me seriously playing music in Boston. It was really terrifying the first time I played Boston with Helium. I mean, they saw me in Juicy, and Juicy wasn't a joke band but it was just fun and sloppy so when I went there and played the first gig w/Helium I was literally terrified cos there were all these intricate parts and I didn't want to screw up. I felt like I had something to prove and it turned out to be great. It was just all in my head, but there's absolutely no reason why anyone can't play music. A lot of it really is practice makes perfect. You just need to go out and actually do it.

D: How did you end up hooking up w/Matt Jacobson from Le Grand Magistery?

K: He used to live in NYC and we met there and he's a really nice guy. He's got so much energy and passion I just knew that the label was going to do well. I mean, Juicy was on Slow River [which] got bought out by Rykodisc so they basically became a major label and I don't know how lucrative it would have been for themSI just wanted to grow at my own pace and not feel any pressure. So I made this tape of demos and Matt said he wanted to put it out.

D: So you'll be doing another record for [Le Grand Magistery]?

K: Yeah, I'll be doing a full-length. I stopped touring after the last Spinanes tour and want to concentrate on recording. I think I told you, I'm working at this antique store in my neighborhood. It's like a retro store, it's 50s and 60s furniture, they call it antiques but I'm not sure if they are. Anyway, you know that old saying, "plant yourself and see if you grow"? Well, I've been walking to work a lot and taking lots of walks and just writing lots of music and I just wanna see where it takes me. I'll be recording at Marlborough Farms (studio owned by Ladybug Transistor people) with Jeff and Gary.

D: How did you end up in Brooklyn?

K: When I moved to the city I always wanted to live in Brooklyn. It's that whole concept of being from the Midwest and seeing lots of Woody Allen movies and thinking it's all cobblestone streets abut finding out you can actually afford Brooklyn. Brooklyn is like that, I mean the neighborhoods are really ethnically diverse and there's trees and it's really pretty. I love it.

D: Yeah, I read somewhere that when [you] recorded the EP you were listening to a lot of Palace and Leonard Cohen and stuff.

K:Syeah and that Edith Frost record, CALLING OVER TIMES

D: I love that record!

K: Yeah, me too! I love it and yeah, I was listening to a lot of that record, Palace, Bob Dylan. I wanted to write really personal songs and I couldn't do that in Juicy so when I recorded the EP I didn't even know the songs were gonna be heard so it was even more secretive and more of my own. They like literally told secrets but I didn't think it was gonna be heard.

D: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the song "Waiting Awhile", is that song true? And about you?

K: That song is actually about 2 people very close to me who were very different who lost people they love. Well, actually the 2nd part was about me if I'd been in that situation, but the rest of it was about my aunt.

D: That's my favorite song on the record.

K: Oh, thank you so much! I really appreciate that. Yeah I've also been listening to a lot of Nick Drake lately. In fact, I'm playing a Nick Drake tribute show at the Fez. I'm doing that song "Saturday Sun" which I don't know if I can do it cause I'm not really a great piano player, but stupid me I've also been listening to a lot of Joan Biaz record where she does all Dylan covers. She has a great voice, and I think back in the 60s Dylan's career took off and he sorta left her in the dust so she's this tragic figure in my head and I've been obsessing on her lately.

(We talk about our favorite Dylan record. Her's right now, is BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME while mine is BLOOD ON THE TRACKS.)

D: I also heard you're a big fan of that 2nd Palace record [, also called DAYS IN THE WAKE].

K: Yeah that record was probably my biggest influence for ELECTRIC POEMS. When I was on the road I find it so hard to fall asleep and that record would always put me to sleep. He also had sounds of rain outside and that was so nice. The lyrics on that record are great too.

D: Yeah I remember when that came out, Drag City sent me a copy on vinyl and my buddy Brian and I played it my living room and just sat there with mouths agape just like, "this is so fucking great!" It's just so great.

K: I've got a funny story, there's this friend of mine, Keith, and he's a DJ in the city and we went out to this karaoke night at this place The Elbow Room on a Wednesday night so we got up and sang to this Elton John song "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and, that's a tough song to sing and it's all like all falsetto and we just murdered the song. Like, we couldn't harmonize together at all and we were just kidding around and laughing. So as I am leaving I'm walking through the bar and Will Oldham was sitting at the bar. I just wanted to crawl under the bar. (laughs)He probably didn't even watch us but I just felt like an idiot.

D: Yeah, my buddy in Brooklyn said like a year ago or so ago he would see Will everywhere he went. He must've been living there. I interviewed him once for Dagger a few years ago and he was a weird cat! He's one strange dude. I mean, I love his music but he's just weird.

K: Yeah and that's the thing, it's just that one record. The other records I don't relate to as much. I just love that one record.

(More chat about her tours w/the Spinanes.)

D:Do you think you'll get a band and go on the road when the next record is done?

K: I'd really like to. I don't wanna do it alone, that terrifies me! Plus, I just think it's more interesting to have other people to look to and listen to. I did some gigs by myself when the EP came out and I got total stage fright. I did a show with the Pacific Ocean at this place Tonic in NYC and then Matt booked me a few gigs in Detroit cos I was coming home to visit for a bit and I just lost it, I lost all of my self-confidence. I ended up playing TLC and Marianne Faithfull covers (laughs). I just couldn't play my own songs, I just wasn't confident enough. I'm better now, I mean I'm doing that Nick Drake thing and I might do more. My sister lives out in LA and I was gonna visit her and maybe do a gig there and was thinking about driving up the coast and doing a gig in San Francisco.

- Tim Hinely

Transcribed by Lady of the Fire