The Art World: What If…?!, Season 2, Episode 1: Alice Smith
Welcome back to The Art World: What If…?!, the podcast all about imagining new futures. To kick off the second season in style, host Charlotte Burns is joined by the phenomenally talented, Grammy-nominated, singer and songwriter, Alice Smith who is, she says, currently at work on her masterpiece. This is a frank, free—and very fun—conversation, with lots of surprises. Alice delves into what it really means to be creative, and why it matters. What if she could pick her dream role? You might be surprised. Tune in for more.
From the left: Deana Haggag, Mia Locks, and Jay Sanders
Transcript:
Charlotte Burns:
Hello and welcome back. This is season two of The Art World: What If…?!, a podcast all about imagining new and better futures.
[Audio of various guests]
I’m your host, Charlotte Burns and I’m thrilled to tell you that we have a great season ahead. We’ve got guests from all around the world: museum directors, philanthropists, and of course, artists. And, we’re kicking things off with our first-ever interview with a singer and songwriter.
Alice Smith is a Grammy-nominated artist who started singing seriously in her 20s. She’s currently at work, she tells us, on her masterpiece.
As Allan and I planned this season, we spoke a lot about what it really means to be creative and why creativity matters so much—particularly right now in such a time of tension and turmoil for so many people.
I asked Allan which works of art in recent years stood out for him for their creativity. And he said, Black Mary, a film by Kahlil Joseph that depicts Alice Smith recording vocal snippets that form her brilliant version of Nina Simone’s “I Put A Spell On You.”
It’s a portrait of creativity itself, he said. In the fusion of these two artists, Joseph and Alice, we can see how magic forms.
So, we extended an invitation to Alice and the resulting conversation is one of the most frank, free, and fun I can recall. I left this interview buzzing. I think you’ll understand why, especially when you get to the part about Alice’s dream job.
Alice is a true talent whose voice takes you to other places. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
Charlotte Burns:So here we are. Alice, thank you so much.
Alice Smith:
Thank you.
Charlotte Burns:
I've been listening to a lot of your music the last couple of weeks, which has been a tremendous pleasure.
Alice Smith:
Sorry!
Charlotte Burns:
[Laughs] Nothing to apologize for!
Takes you to another place, you know.
[Excerpt from Alice Smith, “I Put A Spell On You”]
Charlotte Burns:
Alice, we just heard “I Put A Spell On You”, which you said was your “grandmother's spirit”. That was a deep one.
Alice Smith:
Yes.
Charlotte Burns:
Do you wanna talk us through what you meant by that?
Alice Smith:
[Laughs] It is very deep.
When my grandmother passed and I went to Georgia to be with my family, I sang or tried to sing at her funeral. And then after all that, two days later, I was in New York to record [I Put A] Spell on You. This was Jayson Jackson's Nina Simone documentary, [What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)], my friend did. He called me to come and do it. So I went to the studio, did a couple of songs, and then he played me this track and it was kind of just a loop, no form or anything.
I just sang it down, like a freestyle type of thing. And the whole time I was singing, I was like, “What is happening?” I could feel this thing. I don't know what you call it. And then I was like, “Whoa, Grandma?” And then every time that I sing that song, she's literally in the room, and I literally can feel her. And up until that point, I didn't think much about singing, I just always sang. I know people who really think music and singing are all these super spiritual things. I never really had that until that moment was my first introduction into it. And I realized that singing for me now is a place I can go to and when I go to that place, my grandmother is there or any other number of forces are present. Yeah.
Charlotte Burns:
Wow. Is that overwhelming? Is that something you sit with? Do you harness that? Do you just sort of say, “Oh we're all here. Great, let's go.”?
Alice Smith:
Since then, if I am in trouble in the writing process, I do. I do call on the place to show up for me.
Charlotte Burns:
And has it changed the way you write, the kinds of things you write?
Alice Smith:
It's just a realization, really. It's just a different level of understanding of what I'm dealing with and that most of what I'm dealing with, is really not me. You know, I'm trying to still always work on just getting out of the way.
Charlotte Burns:
How do you do that?
Alice Smith:
Hmm…
Charlotte Burns:
[Laughs]
Alice Smith:
I'm not sure yet!
Because you know, the brain is just on fire all the time. But, I used to do other things to get out of my mind, but I do a lot of like meditating and that's the big thing. And being conscious about asking for the help, you know. And please just take it off of me and don't overthink it so much. And that's really, really difficult. For me anyway.
Charlotte Burns:
That's so interesting, you know, that kind of creative process.
You didn't really start singing seriously until around 25.
Alice Smith:
Yeah.
Charlotte Burns:
And you said, I read a quote from you, you said, “I love the way I got into music because it just kind of came to me. It was like an energy came and just got me. I wasn't planning to do it. I always sang and everything, but I never thought anything about it because everyone was singing. We were always singing all the time.”
When did that energy come and get you? Because it sounds like it's an energy that's increasing in the way it's channeled.
Alice Smith:
Yeah. It's definitely increasing. That's true.
I grew up singing, me and my friends after school in the mirror, just regular. When I was in college, it always just kept coming to me. I went out to a bar with a friend and the DJ was great, and so we went to say thank you on our way out. My friend was like, “Oh, she can sing.” And, you know, I was like, “Who? Why? Who says that?” And he was like, “Oh, I know somebody who needs a background singer.” Tamar-kali, her name is. And I started singing for her at like CBGB’s and stuff.
And then her husband, or soon-to-be husband maybe at the time, was Greg Tate, and Greg Tate had a band. He was like, “Oh yeah, be in my band.” And then the bass player from that band was like, “Oh yeah, I have this song. Why don't you sing this song for me?” You know, stuff like that. And I literally would be like, “Okay.” Or I'd be like, “No, I'm not doing that right now.”
It was literally following the joy or whatever felt like it would be fun or cool to do. And the stuff that didn't, I would say no. But it kept coming back to me. I really wasn't pursuing it.
Maybe 25 is when I got a teacher and started to actually learn how to do what I was doing so that I could call on it whenever I really wanted to and it wouldn't like, fail me and embarrass me.
So, in the meantime, I guess I was always also writing. The whole thing, the label situation, all of that just happened and I just kept saying yes and no.
Charlotte Burns:
Is that still what you do?
Alice Smith:
I'm trying to change that. [Laughs]
Charlotte Burns:
Tell me, how?
Alice Smith:
For a long time, everything would just come to me. Long time, to the point where I taught myself that, “Oh, this is how things happen,” you know. But then, I was at a label for a while, and I think that messed with my mojo, honestly, because it introduced doubt into my life.
Charlotte Burns:
When you released your debut album For Lovers, Dreamers & Me (2006), it was with a major record label, but it wasn't a terrific experience. You said the whole system is crazy and for you, it was a lot of heartache and ridiculous conversations and frustrations and nonsense. It was a waste of time.
What did you go through and how did it change the way you think about creativity?
Alice Smith:
I really do think of it as my only real trauma. And I think of trauma as something that should come out of change, not for the better.
I wasn't particularly excited. I wasn't unexcited, but it's not really my way. I say that because I remember everybody's, “Oh my god, are you so excited?” Or I'm like, eh.
Charlotte Burns:
Do you think that was something in you saying no?
Alice Smith:
Maybe. Maybe? Well, my thing was probably like, “We'll see.”
I went into it feeling like I was an adult enough to not fall into the trappings and the dramas and not to be tossed around. I was 28 or so? And I just knew that I knew enough to know how to avoid all those stories.
And I was way more naive in that thinking than I knew. You know, I'm kind of a free type of person, you know? I was always just do whatever I want. And maybe that would've still been working except that the doubt got introduced to me. Because what you're doing when somebody else decides all the things that you're creating, coming up out of your soul, and then they are saying to you, “Nope, that's not it.” Okay, let me try this thing that…“No, that's not gonna do it.”
Their suggestions for what is gonna make it right, they’re fuckin’ made up. You know? There are no real true rules to how to make music or art of any kind, right? You can't be like, “There's a formula.” I mean, maybe there's a formula for a particular thing, but I never was after that particular thing.
When I left there, it took me a long time to try to heal that up. And then retrain my brain again just to kind of trust what came out.
Charlotte Burns:
What does that mean for creativity when it's not valued by the industry that's supposed to shepherd it?
Alice Smith:
It means you don't get it. It means you're not hearing it, first of all. That stuff that I made that we're talking about, that stuff never came out. It never came out.
Now you're not getting you. You're not getting what they came for in the first place. You're not getting that anymore. Now it's like you're not gonna get what you just signed, what you paid for, what you said you wanted. Because now you started messing around in the sauce, now it's gone.
Charlotte Burns:
When did you manage to extricate yourself from that?
Alice Smith:
I was with them for four years. On the same week that they were like, “We're not gonna accept this album without a hit”—even though, of course, all the songs on there, they had chosen or pushed me to make—that same week I found out I was pregnant. And so at that point, I was like, “Deuces!” I had more important things to do and then I finally got let go. And then I had my daughter and I've made everything else by myself since.
[Musical interlude]
Charlotte Burns:
You've spoken about parenthood, about how it changed you. You said you were faster, you were more ambitious, more focused.
Alice Smith:
Mhmm.
Charlotte Burns:
I really loved that because I felt the same thing but I remember when that happened to me, I was like, “I've never heard that this happens.” I've heard all the ways in which…
Alice Smith:
…Yeah, it slows you down…
Charlotte Burns:
…you slow down and become useless and it was so surprising to me that I'd kind of fallen for that myth.
Alice Smith:
That's what they tell you to keep you down.
I mean, if you really have it in you to do whatever it is you do, and you can't stop, then you gotta get faster because you, it is true, you don't have any time. You don't have no time.
Maybe once I had her and I had got outta that fog or whatever it was, and I was like, “Okay, now I gotta get back to work. I'm ready to do my thing.” You know, you get that itch to be you.
And I kind of got scared because everything was moving and then I got with those people and then I let them slow me down, stop me, and now I don't know if there's anything out there for me. Will anybody be there to listen?
So that was really what made me realize that I did have the ambition to do it. And feeling that fear made me realize, “Oh, I do want this. I can't believe I almost let somebody take this shit away from me.” And now I don't have no time, but I gotta figure out how to do it.
Charlotte Burns:
And so where did you go from there? Once you were like, “Okay, I gotta be faster, I gotta be focused.”
Alice Smith:
I was always doing the thing, still singing. I had to, I guess, figure out how to pay for things. I think I did like, not GoFundMe, but whatever the one was before. It wasn’t…
Charlotte Burns:
You did a Kickstarter.
Alice Smith:
Kickstarter! Yeah. I did that for a while. That helped me to record.
The one good thing that came out of my experience was my friend Syience [Reginald “Syience” Perry”], who I made all those albums with. He's really ended up being like my brother. Again, it was always coming for me, you know. And as long as I would say, “This is what I need to do,” I just put one foot in front of the other, I guess.
Charlotte Burns:
That's so nice that you can see that path again, that things come for you if you're open to it. Do you feel you are more stably on that path now?
Alice Smith:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I guess maybe when I moved to LA and I got a little more space in my mind and in my eyeballs, and was introduced to a couple more things in meditation and, I got really interested in neuroscience and stuff like that.
Charlotte Burns:
Take me down your neuroscience rabbit hole.
Alice Smith:
It's just like a little bit of a better understanding about how the brain actually works. The whole idea of whatever fires together, wires together. And the more you do one thing, the more you create that groove in your brain. It is just, either it's conscious or it's not conscious and if you don't have an intention, then you'll probably do what humans normally do, which is look for the bad shit. And if you're looking for the bad shit, you're gonna find the bad shit. And if you find the bad shit, it's always gonna keep showing up for you or you could say coming to you. And I happen to be blessed to be just kind of a positive person, but I'm also, I do think a lot, a little more than I should. But when I'm doing that, I try to just think about what I want instead of what I don't want, and so I get more of what I want.
Charlotte Burns:
Yeah. It's kind of manifesting.
We had a guest in our first season, Kemi Ilesanmi, who said, you know, “We have to name our dreams.” For you, is it naming the dreams or is it visualizing yourself?
Alice Smith:
I think I'm more of a words person, but I think it's like when you're visualizing or saying it, the real part of it is the feeling, right? Because the feeling is what you're attaching to.
Charlotte Burns:
What is the feeling?
Alice Smith:
When I am standing on that stage and I'm in front of those people and they're screaming, and they love the words—these new words that I haven't even come up with—I'm gonna feel so good. It's gonna just make me misty-eyed, and my whole body is gonna feel this.
If I say that, like I'm saying that now I can feel that.
Charlotte Burns:
I can feel that too. I'm imagining watching you, feeling great. Yeah.
Alice Smith:
Right? You're like, “Wait,” you're like, “Ooh. Yes.”
Charlotte Burns:
I’m like, “What are you gonna write? It’s gonna be so good!”
[Laughs]
Alice Smith:
[Screams] I don't know!
I have no idea! It's so good! It's already so good!
So it's, you know, I think that's what I learned too with the people that I listen to. The feeling part is really important because you’re just setting yourself up for the feeling. That's what you really want. You don't know what it's gonna look like. But you want that feeling. And the feeling is really what you want 'cause you could stand on the stage and sing to all those people. They could be screaming and hollering and you could feel like shit because right before you went on the stage, so-and-so said the craziest thing to you. It's happened before.
It's the feeling. It's the place. It's the feeling, you know, in your body. That thing that's gonna propel you, that's gonna say, “And I'm gonna do this shit again.”
Charlotte Burns:
When you go from that to writing, do you hear the finished work? Where do you start when you're coming up with a song?
Alice Smith:
I'm a melody person. Now, sometimes when you hear a melody, I'll also hear some words, and the words will come right out. That's how it used to happen a lot. But now I'm writing and it's been a struggle. And I hear the melody, a word or two will come out but most of it is just mumbo jumbo. But sometimes a couple words will come out and then I'll listen to those words and I'll try to, I basically work backwards from that because yes, the words are coming from somewhere, right? They’re somewhere in my subconscious and then it's like a puzzle and I love puzzles. And you just kind of put the little pieces together and you know, with a puzzle, you look at it and you're like, “There's no way—I like a thousand piece puzzles—There's no way. This just looks like nothing.” And then if you stare at it long enough after a while, it just kind of like opens itself up to you. And that's what the song does.
Charlotte Burns:
I'm glad you brought up that you're a puzzle fan because your jigsaw puzzle song that you posted on Instagram got locked into my brain at some point.
Alice Smith:
Oh!
[Laughs]
Charlotte Burns:
You get pieces of a puzzle and you put them in place and you're very pleased with yourself and you're singing. And at some point…
Alice Smith:
I can't believe you.
[Laughs]
Charlotte Burns:
…I was listening to that and then at some point I was editing something and I found myself like singing [laughs] and your jingle, I was like “Two in a row…”
[Laughter]
Alice Smith:
[Singing] I’m winning this pu-uzzle.
Oh my God. I can't believe you said that. Yeah, I do that all the time, I make songs all day. I'm making songs, but when I have to make 'em, then I'm like, “Wait, what?” Start overthinking.
But puzzles, I might have to break out a new puzzle. I need a new puzzle, probably. I love puzzles.
Charlotte Burns:
Because there's something about being distracted too, right?
Alice Smith:
Yeah. Honestly. For real. It's space, it gives you space. You know? I mean, I can sit at a puzzle for eight hours.
Charlotte Burns:
You don't get a backache?
Alice Smith:
Maybe.
Charlotte Burns:
You've just got the stamina for it?
Alice Smith:
I just got the stamina. Yeah. I got the stamina for that. I mean, I get up and get down. I could have my whole day at a puzzle, the crazier the better. I mean, I've done a puzzle, I did a puzzle of the globe.
Charlotte Burns:
Wow.
Alice Smith:
1,000 pieces of just green and blue, basically.
Charlotte Burns:
But the feeling when you get the right one…
Alice Smith:
I'm a genius. I mean, I literally can tell when it's happening that my genius is just kicking, really kicking into overdrive.
Charlotte Burns:
[Laughs]
[Musical interlude]
Charlotte Burns:
Okay. So I wanna talk to you about your writing a little bit more. You said that you're a good times writer. That you like to write when you feel good. Can you write when you feel bad?
Alice Smith:
It's boring. I don't, it's boring. I mean, I guess I can, I know I don't, but that's actually what, one of the things I'm working on, like what I was saying in terms of trying to change my brain. I do realize that that's not really sustainable if you're like a real songwriter, which I would like to be.
I don't consider myself a songwriter. I mean, I wrote all those songs—mostly all of my songs I write—but it's not necessarily 'cause I wanted to, it just kinda happened that way.
So I'm now wanting to be able to trust and depend on myself to do that. So, I'm trying to just create a practice, just a writing practice, where I just write every day. And it's really hard.
Charlotte Burns:
Do you think in albums? Is that the way you think of your career?
Alice Smith:
I'm trying to make a masterpiece right now. I'm trying to make a masterpiece, trying to make something that I feel is just really representative and thought out. I'm trying to be different so I can change my life and my trajectory. So it just means I gotta be a different person.
Charlotte Burns:
Do you think it's really being a different person, or do you think it's parts of you that are in you that you have to pull out?
Alice Smith:
You have to think differently. Yeah. Different brain. You have to change your mind. You change the way you see things, the way you do things.
Charlotte Burns:
So what do you wanna change? You said you wanna change the trajectory of your life.
Alice Smith:
Collectively, everything is changing and I don't want to be holding myself back while everything is going forward. You know what I'm saying?
I have this feeling that there's a level of potential within myself that I have not reached. And I know that what worked for me before, I have the sense that that will not carry me into the next room, and I would like to see the next room.
When it comes to the album and making music, I really have never done it the way, in my mind, people make albums or should make albums. I've always had to be like, “Oh, okay, let me do a couple shows and I'll make $5,000.” I'll somehow scrounge together a couple grand and go to the studio for four or five days. And then in a couple months, I'll do the same thing, you know. I would love to be able to sit and concentrate and have the time and the support and write it, make it, and give it the best chance to be heard.
Charlotte Burns:
I think that's interesting that the word you use is ‘concentrate’ because it sounds like, you know, the time and the space to be able to sit with the thing.
Alice Smith:
Yeah. You need the time and the space. You do, you need it. I just now started having a little support in the last six months, or maybe a year. I know that that's affected my writing and my ability to create because there's just too many things going on in my mind just to stay afloat. So then you just chase, chase, chase, so I don't wanna do that.
Charlotte Burns:
So tell me about how you create with other artists. I'm thinking specifically of your projects with Kahlil Joseph and Isaac Julien, as well as the Gagosian Sessions. You've been doing quite a bit in the fine art world.
Alice Smith:
Oh, I love it. I know that they have their shit. Fine art is full of shit, too. But it's somebody else's shit and it's not mine.
Kahlil, I met Kahlil, we got together. He just came to the studio one day and I just did what I did.
Charlotte Burns:
For people who haven't heard, to coincide with Tate Modern's exhibition “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power”, Tate commissioned the filmmaker and artist Kahlil Joseph to create a new exclusive film inspired by the haunting photography of Roy DeCarava and you are involved in the project.
It's so beautiful. It's so moving.
Alice Smith:
He came in, he picked his spaces, he set his spaces up and I literally did exactly what I was doing. I didn't do anything differently than normal.
Charlotte Burns:
It is amazing. I'm just listening and I’m like, “Yeah.” God, it was so beautiful.
Alice Smith:
Really? He made it look beautiful.
Charlotte Burns:
So that was 2017 that that came out. In 2022, you sang for Isaac Julien's film Once Again…(Statues Never Die).
[Musical excerpt from Once Again…(Statues Never Die)]
Alice Smith:
No. Okay. Let me tell you about that. Isaac Julien is, I mean, I do not use the word lightly, I am in love with Isaac Julien. I'm in love with him. I love him forever and ever, amen.
I can't even, I, when I think about him, I just, I love him. [Laughs]
It was really the most amazing experience ever. Honest. The best thing I've ever done. I can't think of anything that was creatively that I've done that was anywhere near, was better than that. Nothing.
Charlotte Burns:
What was so great?
Alice Smith:
Well, he's so fucking great and he's such an artist, and the level of understanding, and just the way he took care of me, it was like he was taking care of me the whole time. And he called me, I met him because I did the Gagosian thing with Antwaun [Sargent], who's also, I just love so much.
Charlotte Burns:
Which was amazing as well.
Alice Smith:
He's a real doll baby. He's a doll, really. The cutest, sweetest. So Antwaun, which was a whole other crazy situation because I took my mother…my mother is a big art person.
Charlotte Burns:
Oh, interesting.
Alice Smith:
She's a lawyer, but she's really into art.
For her birthday, I surprised her, and I had told Antwaun, “We are gonna come and see Social Works. And he was like, “Oh my goodness. Call me when you get there. It'll be so great.” And he walked my mother through the whole exhibit. He told her everything about everything. He was so f-ing sweet to her. She had a natural ball.
And then a little while later he called me, he was like, “Oh, I'm doing this thing. I have this, composer. I would love for you to sing.” But then it ended up being that I had to write the song. So that was of course a massive opportunity for me. I wasn't like nervous about it, and I kind of almost didn't grasp really how massive it was at the time.
I wrote it and we made it and we loved it. And we were like, “This shit is amazing. How did this even happen?” You know what I mean? Because it could've gone either way, of course. And then he, and then we played it, you know, 'cause he had sent me a snippet, a little visual, played it to the visual. We were like, “Yo. No, I'm not sure, but like this? This is dope.” And then I got to come, go to wherever we filmed it and then I was in it.
Charlotte Burns:
How did that feel? How does that feel when you think about it?
Alice Smith:
Feels big. It feels big. It feels really big. It feels like something that can't be taken away from me.
And I'm in this industry, you know, in music, and there's no value. They're making money off of something that they just don't value, or respect, or care about. That's not the interest, that's not the goal. You know, art isn't the thing. And I, and before this all happened, and maybe I've been manifesting it because I really have been thinking about the fact that music is a fine art and why is it so completely, you know, it's not the saturation because, I mean, that is what it is, but it's “Where's the space for there to be something else?” Something where somebody is an artist. And I didn't even realize that I was an artist until, you know, maybe not 10 years ago, but a long time ago. It took me a while to really understand and I'm like, “Damn if I had been thinking of myself as an artist all this time, I mean, that's a different brain. That's just a different way of seeing things.”
So dealing with getting into the fine arts thing, lately feels super comfortable to me. I've been treated, so far, the way I think people should be treated when they're making art. I think people should be getting paid. You gotta get paid because you can't do anything else. When you’re making art, you know, you can't do nothing else. If you're gonna really actually be any good at it, you have to be in that. You can't be spread out all over the place, you know, trying to make a dollar. I feel like the music industry is definitely not going for that. I think that all the fine arts stuff that I've done in the last, what, four or five years or whatever it’s been, saved me, you know? Kept me safe, rather.
Charlotte Burns:
It allowed you to sort of see yourself as a peer, as an artist.
Alice Smith:
Yeah. Yeah. And I have that. I have that with other musicians.
Charlotte Burns:
Yeah.
Alice Smith:
You know, with music I have that in the life part, but in that other part where you're trying to actually make a living, put it out—even more than a living, you know, how do you get it heard if you're not naked and saying the same thing this other chick is saying? How can you even eek a little, get in a little crack? Get yourself in there? How do you even do that? I don't know. I never did it.
Charlotte Burns:
I wanna ask you, you said your dream role was to play the role that Carol Burnett plays in Annie [1982 film.]
Alice Smith:
Oh, Miss [Agatha] Hannigan.
Charlotte Burns:
I love that role. Which is the song…
Alice Smith:
…Best role ever.
Charlotte Burns:
…which is the song that you, really made you…
Alice Smith:
[Singing] Little girls. Little girls.
Charlotte Burns:
Go on, do it. Go on. It's so good.
Alice Smith:
[Singing] Every night and day I see them. I would have cracked years ago if it weren't for my sense of humor. Someday I’ll step on their freckles. Someday I’ll straighten their curls. Oh! Send the flood, send the flu. Anything that you can do to little, little, little girls.
Yeah.
Charlotte Burns:
[Claps]
Wow. Wow.
Alice Smith:
You know they ain't…Tell 'em. Tell 'em. Tell 'em. Tell 'em to call me.
Charlotte Burns:
I would, you know, if I can find them, I'll tell them. That was great.
I would love that.
Alice Smith:
When I was a kid, I loved Miss Hannigan. I knew that she loved on a different level.
Charlotte Burns:
A deeper, darker level.
Alice Smith:
Deeper, darker, truer, better, richer.
Charlotte Burns:
Yeah. It's the diamonds thing.
Alice Smith:
Diamonds.
Charlotte Burns:
[Laughs]
Alice Smith:
Oh, her and Mr… yeah…
Charlotte Burns:
With Mr…Daddy [Oliver] Warbucks?
Alice Smith:
Where he comes in. [Laughs]
[Singing] Someday I'll land in the nuthouse with all the nuts and the squirrels. There I’ll stay tucked away till the prohibition of…
That shit is hard.
I love all those songs. What song is the Daddy Warbucks’ song?
Charlotte Burns:
It's the sign… when he is trying to get her to sign.
Alice Smith:
[Singing] Sign. Sign on the dotted line?
Charlotte Burns:
And here you are. Oh, I wish I could remember the tune. “You spend your evenings in the shanties. (You had me followed?) Imbibing quarts of bathtub gin. (Bronchitis!)”
Alice Smith:
Bronchitis!
Charlotte Burns:
[Singing] And here you’re dancing in your scanties (Great gams). With some old geezer called Little Caesar. (He's an uncle!)
Alice Smith:
Called Little Caesar? (He's an uncle!)
Charlotte Burns:
You lock the orphans in the closet? (They love it!)
Alice Smith:
[Singing] They love it! With all the dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun and Sing-Sing. I guess this means no Buenos Aires. That's…
What did she say?
[Singing] Forget me. (Forget you met me). That's fine.
Charlotte Burns:
Oh yeah, that's it.
Alice Smith:
[Singing] The dotted line.
Charlotte Burns:
Yes, that’s it.
Alice Smith:
[Singing] Jail? Sign. (I guess I'll never know the feeling). You'll rot in jail. (Of running fingers through your hair). In Sing-Sing. I guess this means no Buenos Aires.
That's hilarious. Sorry.
Charlotte Burns:
That is so great. That is so good. Okay, that needs to happen. What was the feeling you had when you were singing that?
Alice Smith:
So fun. Free. free. Freedom is always my thing. Freedom and honesty is like my whole game. Oh yeah, completely.
[Musical interlude]
Charlotte Burns:
What is the ‘what if’ that motivates you to get up in the morning and the one that keeps you awake at night?
Alice Smith:
What if? Maybe not, ‘what if’ I just, I'm always like, I kind of stay in the state of wonder. Like, I wonder what? You know, not ‘what if.’ See again, I'm like, that's bad. It's just like, “Oh, what's gonna happen? What's available? What can I do? What could happen?”
And then at night, I mean, it's a billion ‘what ifs.’ It's like, “What if I'm not what I think I am? What if I can't do what I think I can do? What if?” What if I, like, kept saying, “Oh, this is all I need. All I need is this, and I'm gonna do this, da da da da da.” And then I get it. And then I can't do, but I, again, what I thought I could do. I mean, I could keep going on that one, but it mostly has to do with doubt, I guess.
Charlotte Burns:
Does that drive you or hold you back?
Alice Smith:
No, no, no. That holds you back.
Charlotte Burns:
The fear.
Alice Smith:
Yeah. Fear is what holds me back.
Charlotte Burns:
So it's fear in the evening and wonder in the morning.
Alice Smith:
Wonder in the morning. Yeah. Mhmm.
Charlotte Burns:
So what can we look forward to next? I mean, the masterpiece you're gonna, you're working on.
Alice Smith:
I'm working on it now. I'm working on my masterpiece. What if it's gonna be ready in the springtime?
Charlotte Burns:
What if.
Alice Smith:
I sure hope so 'cause it's time now. Now is the time. It's not later, it's now.
So, I do feel that, and I think maybe a little pressure is good for a person like me, for me. I'm gonna call it structure.
Charlotte Burns:
That's nice. Yeah, reframe it. More positive word.
Alice Smith:
Structure. I really need structure. Honestly. I always have.
So I'm thinking, I’m hoping for that. And then, right now the writing of it is so different than ever before, which is kind of what I asked for.
Charlotte Burns:
Does it feel good?
Alice Smith:
It feels hard, but the hard part feels like that's good. You know, like the discomfort feels like the smartest thing I could be doing right now.
Charlotte Burns:
You need to kind of get into that.
Alice Smith:
You need to be, you need to be uncomfortable. You need to be pushing, working through that. That's what I'm doing, so I know that's what it's gonna take. So, yeah, I'm enjoying it.
Charlotte Burns:
How do you shake it off? Like when you go pick up your kid, are you able to get from that uncomfortable place into, you know, the logistics of being a mom easily?
Alice Smith:
Yeah. The only thing I ever actually wanted was to be a mama. When I say that the music just kept coming to me and I wasn't looking for it, I wasn't trying to be a musician. I didn't ever think of it as a thing. The only thing I ever actually was like, “Ooh, you know what I want to do? Is make babies.” And I got the one, and she is fantastic. So I don't have no problems focusing all of my attention on her. And she's 13 now, and it's getting to be a problem for her, but I can't stop. I'm fine with it. It's good for her.
Charlotte Burns:
I've seen the videos of you dancing around her, yeah.
Alice Smith:
Obsessed. She, oh, she, she’s like, “Please, I don't think it's cute. I don't think it's cute.” She doesn't like it, but I do it anyway.
Charlotte Burns:
You got to, it's your job.
Alice Smith:
I have to. It's better for her. I know.
Charlotte Burns:
You know.
Alice Smith:
I know better.
Charlotte Burns:
Of course. I'm with you. [Laughs]
Alice Smith:
Yeah. It's kind of the job.
Charlotte Burns:
I have so enjoyed this conversation.
Alice Smith:
Me too.
Charlotte Burns:
Thank you so, so, so much for making all this time.
Alice Smith:
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
[Musical interlude]
Charlotte Burns:
My huge thanks to Alice Smith. What pure joy. What a voice. I could listen to Alice talk and sing all day.
Join us next time on The Art World: What If…?!, we’ll be talking to Jessica Morgan, the peerless director of the Dia Art Foundation.
Jessica Morgan:What we are missing is an understanding of the structural operations and what exactly it should be that people are focusing on as opposed to looking at the surface. Let’s dig deeper and think about what is really undergirding the problems that are being identified.
Charlotte Burns:
It’s such a great conversation to come and I hope you can join us next time on The Art World: What If…?!
This podcast is brought to you by Art&, the editorial platform created by Schwartzman&. The executive producer is Allan Schwartzman, who co-hosts the show together with me, Charlotte Burns of Studio Burns, which produces the series.
Follow the show on social media at @artand_media.