Alanis Morissette Swears Like a Sailor

Had a great chat with Alanis Morissette last night. In all my years interviewing musicians, NO ONE -- not Mellencamp, not Brian Johnson, not Slash -- has been able to string together profanity like the 33-year-old pop star. At one point, we were basically just trading the f-bomb back and forth. I was smitten.

Alanis, who plays the St. Pete Times Forum this Saturday, also looooves tequila, and says introducing alcohol into her life has made her a better, more balanced person. All of this leads me to wonder what in the hell Ryan Reynolds was thinking...

Anyway, here's a rough draft of my Alanis profile, the final version of which runs in the paper Saturday. I had about an hour to be brilliant (or not), so be gentle...

Alanis Morissette is looking forward to her next panic attack. This nasty shard of self-doubt will arrive this spring, on the eve of the release of her new album, Flavors of Entanglement, yet another brutally revealing look into the heart, soul and messed-up lovelife of the pop poet.

"The night before my albums are released, I always wake up in the middle of the night seized with horror," says the 33-year-old calling from Los Angeles. She’ll worry that she's said too much. She’ll freak out that a former paramour is going to go ballistic.

"But then I eventually go back to sleep, and I’m fine in the morning. Every time I've [panicked], nothing’s happened. The sky didn’t fall. It’s been fine."

And no, she says, none of those former paramours have ever called to complain.

Morissette, who plays the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa this Saturday, is "really excited to share" her new batch of tunes. At the same time, she’s aware that an increasingly gossip-gorged media will dissect every aspect of her disc looking for juicy clues. After all, they’ve been doing so since her debut, 1995’s Jagged Little Pill, which has now sold 30 million albums worldwide.

Was smash single You Oughta Know really about that goofy dude from Full House? The guessing games turned the song into a modern-day version of Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain — and turned the Canadian-born Morissette into a phenom.

On 1998 album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie ("that title is too f------ long!" she now laughs), Morissette went even further. The song Unsent was a series of letters to even more past loves. "Dear Matthew I like you a lot / I realize you’re in a relationship with someone right now..."

But this time, TMZ-cluttered heads might actually explode. Last year, Morissette split with actor Ryan Reynolds, who is now rumored to be engaged to Scarlett Johansson. So naturally, the Reynolds Watch will be in major effect on the 11-track Flavors of Entanglement, which was produced by electronica guru Guy Sigsworth and helped Alanis get through "fragile moments."

Per usual, Morissette will let the music do the talking. Oh, she’ll be coy. And charming. She might even mess with a few heads. But as for name-dropping? "I see a huge difference between secrecy and privacy," she says. "I’ve always been authentic in my songwriting. But I don’t talk about who I write about."

So aware is Morissette of her diary-entry reputation that she spoofed herself on a classic episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which she finally "told" Larry David the inspiration for You Oughta Know. So, did she really spill the goods to the cranky comic? She laughs: "Every take, I whispered a different person. [Co-star] Jeff Garlin gave me people to say that would make Larry laugh."

At the risk of betraying Morissette’s heavy-thinking aura, she’d actually make the ideal party partner. She swears more than any rock star I’ve ever interviewed, an f-dripped torrent of profanity threading her considerable smarts. She likes to brag about her two motorcycles, a Ducati and a Triumph.

And she’s thoroughly convinced that tequila — tequila! — has made her a better person. "Some people see alcohol as being destructive," she says. "I see alcohol as my turning point."

After years of intense professional drive and ferocious work habits, Morissette, for the first time in her life, is actually starting to have fun. "I’m just now balancing things out," she says. "And cocktails help." She’s even written a new song, On the Tequila, to celebrate her loosening up.

"I take great pride in being vulnerable and human," she says.

Even with all the inevitable Reynolds talk, this will be a sweet year for Alanis. After this current tour, in which she’s opening for Matchbox 20, she’ll release Flavors of Entanglement. She’ll then play a series of European dates before returning to the states for a headlining run.

No song is off-limits on her tour, no matter the subject matter. This includes Everything, a bared-soul heart-smasher off of 2004’s So-Called Chaos. "I’m still all the things I wrote about on that album," she says.

During her show, there will even be a "tip of the hat" to her YouTube-hot cover of the Black Eyed Peas’ My Humps, which Morissette remade as a dirgelike pro-feminist rallying cry — which it may or may not be. Like most of her music, she is leaving the ultimate interpretation up to us.

So while we obsess over her motives and her life, the well-balanced Alanis Morissette will be singing and smiling and swearing up a storm. Get the tequila ready.

Comments

[Jeff in Cuba]

Sean,

Nice work. It's about time someone got behind the life-changing powers of tequila. Manys the time I've waded into a mosh pit and thought, "You know what would help these angry, young men? More tequila."

And it's Jeff Garlin, not Garland.

[Sean Daly]

And here I call myself a "Curb" fan. Nice catch. Thanks to you, I can still look perfect in the paper.

BTW, great work on all the Night Ranger stuff. Kind of felt like a small world, didn't it?

[Mark]

Cool article!

[craig]

Too fanboyish - some questions about her role in the upcoming film Radio Free Albemuth would have been nice.

[Tonianne]

You knocked this out "in about an hour?" Me, my No-doze and espresso would have so hated you in college. Great piece.

Technically though, can she be considered an "overnight phenom" considering she released her first albums as a teen?

[Jeff in Cuba]

It has been a little like a Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp weekend. Pretending to be Steve up on stage introducing the band, and then pretending to be you as I come up with 7th-grader-defying words to describe it all.

Sadly, reality has once again washed upon my rocky shore, and it's back to the grind.

Hey, did you see the emails on my "Big Idea"? Pretty cool, isn't it?

[sparky]

Jeff, how was it meeting Jack Blades and the boys. Two people I would want to meet in music are Jack and Sammy Hagar.

I was organizing my CD's the other night and were putting them in piles as to letters. Well I ended up having two pile of N's. One for the N's and then the Night Ranger pile. This brought the comment from my wife that I am probably the only person in the US to have all the Night Ranger Ranger discs.

[Jeff in Cuba]

Sparky,

Check over at "Stuck In The 80's" for all the Night Ranger scoop (and some awesome photos my wife took!)

http://blogs.tampabay.com/80s/2008/01/night-ranger-ro.html#more

[Neil]

Good article. I like Alanis, my only problem with her is that she started as a Canadian pop star and then became this huge alternative phenomenon. I know she was only a teenager when she did the pop stuff, but if her albums would have became popular in the United States she never would have been able to make that leap into alternative rock. And the only reason she went into alternative rock was because that was what was popular at the time. I couldn't see her releasing that same album 3 years prior or 3 years later.

[Marissa]

Her song, "Unsent," truly resonates with me. In fact, I wrote a little story about it not long ago. I'll have to dig that out of the archives and freshen it up for re-posting on the new blog.
I'd probably get along with Alanis. I have to control my F-bomb urges. It's difficult being girly girlish and throwing out F's everywhere.

[jane]

Tequila is indeed one of life's great pleasures -- especially a high quality shot of the stuff. Muy bien.

And I too, despite my best efforts, swear like a sailor. It's not ladylike in the least, but I just can't help myself.

[Mike]

I find it pathetic that you seem to be enamored by f-bombs and alcohol. There is nothing cool about either.

[Lillii]

She is cool! ;)

[Laney]

That is such a cool article!! I can't wait for "Flavors of Entanglement"... I guess this makes a release date around April?

[Giselle]

Great article! I have enjoyed her since "You ought to know" was shown at the Grammys in the mid 90s. I also realized I am all out of tequila!

[gp martin]

You were smitten with her filthy mouth and her love of booze? Great man. You should pay for all the pain and heartache caused by alcoholism. Promoting this kind of thing to young folks is evil buddy. Period.

[melissa]

GP Martin---

Get a grip! Alanis ROCKS!! Love her music!

[dennis]

What a sad comemntary...profanity and "discovering" alcohol abuse. I've followed from afar Morrisette's career, her spiritual and emotional intropsection etc...and to think the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is a life filled with profanity and guzzling tequila is tragic stuff. Hope Alanis doesn't end up in the tabloids in some Malibu re-hab spectacle.

ahhh...news flash....she is not a pop star....SHE IS AN ALTERNATIVE ROCK STAR....please get this right