Ani DiFranco
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Ani DiFranco

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Many years ago DiFranco, copped her first round of flack when the self-identifying bisexual married a man. But nothing could prepare her for last year’s Nottoway Plantation debacle. A songwriting workshop that was not arranged in anyway by DiFranco directly, and one that had been held at the site in question with a number of other artists before DiFranco had been commissioned, led many to argue the former slave plantation was a bad choice. Perhaps. But then the online bullying began, followed by the smear campaign of DiFranco, followed by the general psychosis that Facebook comments can produce.

“People will take you to heart and very seriously and then you have to be held accountable to all of their expectations – which you’ll never fulfil,” DiFranco says. “An interviewer was just reminding me of how much criticism I came under from dyke communities when I got married to a man the first time. They were like, ‘No, that’s not who you’re supposed to be, fuck you.’ The plantation was the most probably the most intense pressure I’ve come under and it’s made me a lot more wary and made me realise what the public are capable of. Once I started breathing again and started sleeping again, I came back around to the perspective that it wasn’t wrong to go there. To someone else it was wrong so I tried to accommodate their feelings and still got so much hate. I paid the piper pretty heavily for my sins – I paid $30k to cancel – and I got on my knees and begged for forgiveness and yet I really wish we had of gone there and done the work and tried to see what we could’ve learned there. It’s so amazing to get to live your life making music but then being a public person can suck hard. The most fervent fan is the most dangerous in the end.”

DiFranco was shaken from the incident, going so far as to say: “I understand why teenagers kill themselves from online bullying,” but of course, writing and recording music couldn’t be stopped. She might be more wary about what she says and to whom she says it, but she’s still saying it in song. Her latest album, Allergic To Water, is the first to be self-produced since Educated Guess but this time she’s not going solo. After all she’s in New Orleans, how could she not take advantage of the wealth of talent she has around her?

So is it harder producing other’s than when she’s sculpting a solo album? “I’m able to be more objective [with other people],” she says. “When it’s oneself it’s hard to not be mired in all sorts of things. Your job in music is to give of yourself fully and to be of no mind. Then to finish a song when you have to step back and analyse it – producing yourself is kind of schizophrenic.”

Is producing then creatively stifling after the freedom of the song writing process? “No, it’s all very creative; even after you’ve done tracking and it’s like, ‘What do you do with it?’ ” she says. “There’s always creative, challenging question marks. My first love is always writing and playing but to mix and produce a record is still a challenge.

“I think I used to be even more into it but now I think my creative spirit centres around delivering those songs and the more I get from that the more it challenges me.”

A quote on her press release for Allergic To Water jumps off the page, “Got a new wreckord [sic] and I don’t hate it.” Flippant remark or genuine comment? “Well there’s a lot of truth behind it; I hate most of my records that’s part of my deal,” she says with a laugh. “Usually by the time it’s released. Generally by the time it’s made it to the public I’ve already began to discern everything about it that I should have done better and then it just goes from there…I don’t know if I’m hypercritical but I am critical of myself and I am realistic and I don’t like to hear the sound of my voice any more than anyone else in general. You get used to it after a certain amount of decades but it’s hard to enjoy one’s own music.”

The reality is though that by the time the album has been released, and DiFranco has thoroughly began to hate it, her audience is smitten and the love is just beginning to grow. By the time she tours its full blown adoration and that changes everything.

“People’s reactions in person – on the street, in the mail – this is what gives my life meaning,” she says. “I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me with tears in their eyes and told me I’ve saved their life. That’s the music doing its job so I don’t need to like it.”

BY KRISSI WEISS