Maria McKee - Lone Justice - Portrait of a Little Diva

9 pm in Italy, noon in Los Angeles: the phone rings. On the other end answers the poster my teenage bedroom in the '80s never quite got (in Italy it was impossible to find...). The blonde girl on the skateboard in the "Ways To Be Wicked" video, the turquoise-eyed fairy who graced the cover of Lone Justice's debut Lp. It was love at first sight, for her and for her fiery cow-punk sermons. Better not to dwell on how many years have gone by. More useful to remember that in the meantime Maria McKee has built a solid solo career, spanning folk-country, art rock and soundtracks (remember "Never Be You" from "Streets Of Fire" or "If Love Is A Red Dress" from "Pulp Fiction"?), culminating in two memorable albums: "You Gotta Sin To Get Saved" (1993), on the more roots-oriented side, and "Life Is Sweet" (1996), on the more alternative-rock side. A journey to which - after a break of a full 13 years - a new, compelling chapter has now been added, titled "La vita nuova". And it's from here that we pick up for a candid, lively chat, in which the American singer-songwriter, sipping a cup of tea, dispenses honey and venom in turn, with no reverential fear of rock's sacred monsters or the cumbersome shadows of the past.

Hi Maria, I was so happy to hear a new album from you after 13 years. This is a record that, it seems, came after a very difficult period for you. So I simply wanted to ask you: what is your Vita Nuova?

My Vita Nuova was interrupted by the pandemic, but it's going well. I have a large "extended" family, with my husband (Jim Akin, ed.), my girlfriends and my friends. My husband and I also keep working together: he played bass on my new record, and he co-produced it with me. And I also have a big family in London, my second home, where I spend part of the year.

Your love of Europe isn't news - I remember you even moved to Ireland for a while...

Yes, I moved to Ireland in 1988 for a while. I really love living in Europe.

Let's talk about your latest record: the title obviously refers to Dante's work. What struck you most about "La vita nuova"?

When I started writing, I had set myself the goal of composing a letter about unrequited love, focused on a sort of beautiful romantic past. Like looking back, moving forward, growing up, and wearing a glass mask.

La vita nuova is a dive into my youth, a romantic elegy. It tells the story of unrequited love, a specialty of which Dante was the king.

Unrequited love is definitely one of the record's main themes...

Yes, and Dante is its undisputed king! He extolled the virtue of his muse and of ideal love. I read "La vita nuova" while I was working on the record, and it became a kind of blueprint for me. Unrequited love is unreachable desire, beauty, passion. In my case, it was a dive into my youth, an elegy for the past. After finishing the record, I realized I wasn't willing to mythologize all of that anymore, but that I actually wanted to pursue things like romance and desire, things I felt were missing from my life. I still want to experience romantic love.

Besides Dante, the lyrics also reference Romantic poets like William Blake and Algernon Swinburne. How much did they influence your writing?

I'd set myself the goal of writing something fairly academic, and once I started composing the songs, I realized that was exactly what I wanted to do. So I started reading a lot, poetry too of course. And William Blake has always been my spiritual guide - his influence on me isn't limited to poetry and art, he's a real and extremely powerful spiritual guide, not just in my songs, but in my life in general.

Musically, "La vita nuova" seems to me a synthesis of your two main sides: the folk-country roots one and the alternative rock one. Would you agree?

With all due respect... no! I don't think there are any country influences on this record. Maybe there's a bit of English folk, but above all it's chamber pop and orchestral art rock.

Yes, I actually meant folk more than country. Maybe some glam rock too...

Yes, certainly. David Bowie is my favorite rock artist of all time.

Well, then we have at least one thing in common…

He was the greatest!

I've always been bisexual and I've always had queer friends. But now I've realized that conventional marriage isn't for me anymore. I have a lovely extended family, and my husband Jim Akin still works with me.

You recently made an important coming out, identifying as pansexual, and you've started a very determined fight in support of the LGBTQ movement. How has all this changed your life?

I've always been surrounded by queer people and I've always had a lot of queer friends. I've always been bisexual, but at the same time I was conditioned by the idea that I needed to be paired up with a man, so that I'd have support and someone to take care of me. But then I realized that conventional marriage isn't what I want in my life. I've had different experiences, and now I feel freer. For me, being queer isn't just about who you sleep with or who you're romantically attracted to: that's only a small percentage of what it means to me. To me, being queer means community, family, and activism in support of LGBTQ rights.

Speaking of which: how are those rights faring in the United States today?

It's a huge problem. Trump has spread a lot of hatred, he's three steps forward and five back. We have to keep fighting. In my circle of friends, for instance, there are a lot of progressive, open-minded people, but when I came out, I lost a lot of friends, and that came as a surprise to me. It's terrible and dangerous. People don't even realize how much queerphobia still exists. There's still so much to be done to defeat it.

Maybe, though, we can at least expect a change at the White House after the presidential elections coming up in November.

I don't think so. The die is cast, unfortunately.

I'm afraid Trump will be re-elected. And I don't have much faith in Biden. I was for Bernie Sanders, I identify with his political positions.

Are you really sure Trump will be re-elected?

I really think so. And anyway, Biden isn't much better, unfortunately. I was for Bernie (Sanders, ed.), he's right about a lot of things as far as I'm concerned, as much as any politician can be…

Getting back to music, another important influence on you was your brother Bryan MacLean, former guitarist and founder of Love, who passed away in 1998. How did he help you find your path?

Bryan was always very important in my life. He moved back home when I was very young, and he was a steady presence in my family and in my whole existence. He taught me so many things, about music, about film, about literature, about the arts in general. He always listened to me. I was a model student and I wanted to go to Juilliard to study acting. Once he heard me singing songs from a Linda Ronstadt record and he told me: "You're a great singer!"

So he was a spiritual guide for you too, in a way.

Yes, but the relationship with him was also very troubled. He had unresolved mental health issues and a serious drug addiction. From a very young age I took on the role of the one who looked after him. And all of that had a huge impact on me.

Life Is Sweet wasn't understood at the time. It was the record where I broke away from the Americana brand, to return to a wild art-punk-rock, inspired by the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Mick Ronson. But today it's my fans' favorite album…

Speaking of very intense and dramatic stories, I particularly love the ones on your "Life Is Sweet" from 1996. A wonderful album, which I think was really underrated by critics at the time, and by the public too. How did that record come about, and what inspired such harsh songs?

Thanks for the appreciation, it's maybe even my second favorite record ever, after this one ("La vita nuova", ed. note). I think in some way they're twin albums, connected to each other, like two chapters of the same book. "Life Is Sweet", for me, marked the break from my Americana brand and a return to my roots: theater, punk-rock. It was a raw art-rock record and it disappointed a lot of fans at the time. Back then I was closely tied to the roots-rock genre, I was on tour promoting "You Gotta Sin To Get Saved", which is my most roots, most Americana record, and I remember getting more and more bored singing those songs every night, thinking that genre wasn't roots rock, it was bore rock! (ed. note: a pun on "roots rock"). I felt like I was in a straitjacket. So I decided to break free of it. And then when I started writing "Life Is Sweet", two things happened that had a big influence on me…

What happened?

Mick Ronson and Kurt Cobain died within a short time of each other. For all of us, Cobain was like a punk-rock brother, he was our guy, and his death was a shock. When Mick Ronson died, on the other hand, I was on tour with a guitarist who loved him deeply, Mick was his idol. So we started listening non-stop to Bowie and Ronson records (ex-Spiders from Mars, ed. note), including bootlegs and outtakes. And "Life Is Sweet" grew quickly out of that. Those lyrics, so harsh and dramatic, were the result of a period of personal reflection: maybe some found them hard to digest, but they allowed me to gain a lot of new fans. There's a lot of passion in that record, and for many of my current fans it's their favorite.

Do you have any regrets about your career? Anything you wouldn't do again, or that you'd do differently?

I try never to have regrets, it's a waste of time. Probably everything happened the way it was supposed to happen.

So this 13-year break was useful too, then?

Yes, of course! After "High Dive" I got a lot of calls from people proposing records or new covers for me to write with my husband, new covers of his songs, etc. But I mostly ended up working on soundtracks for my husband's independent films: I was focused on that, and so I lacked the inspiration to write my own songs. And that made me feel very frustrated, as if my life had become barren. I felt numb. So my husband carved out a role for me in one of his films that turned out to be really stimulating ("After the Triumph of Your Birth", 2012, ed. note): a very dark story, in the vein of Von Trier, where the character goes on a kind of journey to hell and back. And all of that opened up new perspectives for me, I felt like an open shell: I realized I needed to change my life somehow, and that's what gave birth to the songs on "La vita nuova". A record that caught me by surprise, really.

The Joshua Tree Tour with U2 was an amazing experience. In Italy, I always went out at night to parties, with Mick Jones of B.A.D. and his crew. Too bad the U2 fans didn't even know who Lone Justice were: they threw everything at us on stage, even a slice of salami!

I was a huge Lone Justice fan. I saw you in Rome, in 1987, when you opened for U2 on the Joshua Tree Tour, alongside Pretenders and Big Audio Dynamite (B.A.D.). What do you remember of that afternoon at the Stadio Flaminio (Lone Justice played first) and of that tour in general?

It's the fondest memory I have of the whole Lone Justice experience: the Italian tour! It was truly extraordinary. There was a lot of free time, so I went around seeing the beauty of Italy. Chrissie Hynde was there, and she was a friend of mine. But above all I was very close friends with Mick Jones (ex-Clash and leader of B.A.D., ed. note) and his crew. Mick always knew the right parties to go to, so we'd go around until 5 in the morning and then play for another half hour, and maybe stay out all night. Then there was the road manager, who was one of my best friends, so we'd travel around Italy together having wonderful dinners. It was like a vacation. But it was tough for us to play in front of that huge crowd, because they were all U2 fans and had no idea who Lone Justice were: I remember they threw food at us on stage, a piece of salami even landed on me! That wasn't great… (laughs) But apart from that, the Italian tour was fantastic, I have so many wonderful memories from that experience.

What are your favorite Lone Justice songs? Mine are "Ways To Be Wicked" from the first record and "Dreams Come True" from the second…

Actually I prefer the second album, "Shelter". In fact it was basically my first solo record, since there was no one left in the band by that point. As for songs? I'm not really a big Lone Justice fan myself, so it's hard for me to pick… I'd say "Wheel", yes, that's probably my favorite.

Little Steven says I should have stuck around in Lone Justice a bit longer? I couldn't care less! Breaking up the band was the best decision of my life.

Speaking of Lone Justice, I recently had the chance to ask Little Steven about you, since you two worked together back in the band's day. And he told me you're an extraordinary singer, but that maybe you should have stayed in the group a bit longer… What would you say to that?

I honestly couldn't care less what Little Steven says. Breaking up that band was the best thing I ever did in my life. Basically, anyone who thinks that way about my decision to leave Lone Justice can go to hell!

I take it you're not exactly a fan of Little Steven…

Well, we were friends too, and together we wrote some good songs. But I haven't spoken to him in 35 years, and I don't think he has any right to come and tell me that. He's probably never even listened to one of my solo albums.

You also worked with Tom Petty, who wrote “Ways To Be Wicked”. What do you remember about him?

I don't have much to say about Tom Petty, except that Benmont Tench (the keyboardist of his Heartbreakers, ed.) has been one of my oldest and dearest friends, I still love him dearly, and he'll always be family to me.

Nothing on Petty, then?

No comment (laughs).

What am I listening to these days? The country sound of Roselit Bone, the songwriting of Lauren Auder, and the punk of Forrest Flowers. The latter were supposed to open my London show, which was cancelled though.

So what kind of music are you listening to these days, and who are your favorite artists?

I keep listening to the artists I've always loved: David Bowie, Kate Bush, Scott Walker, John Cale… And I listen to a lot of classical music, which was a huge inspiration for composing the orchestrations on the new album. I also have some playlists on Spotify, you can follow me if you want. My favorite American band has a somewhat gothic sound, it's a country outfit called Roselit Bone, while my favorite songwriter is Lauren Auder, an amazing artist based in London. And still in the English capital there's a punk band I really love: Forrest Flowers. They were supposed to open my London show, which unfortunately got cancelled.

A real shame. Once the Covid emergency is over, do you think you'll be able to take “La vita nuova” on tour?

I don't really do proper tours anymore, I don't enjoy them as much. But a few scattered shows, sure, I'd like to play some in Europe once the lockdown is over.

In Italy too?

Who knows… But I'm afraid there won't be many live shows, at least for a couple of years. So you'll have to wait!

I fled London right in the middle of lockdown, I felt lonely and scared. In Los Angeles my life is much quieter…

How are you experiencing this difficult period of the pandemic?

My life in Los Angeles isn't actually that different. But I was in London when everything collapsed, and I felt very lonely and scared, because the family I was living with left the country. They invited me to go with them, but I wanted to stay in London, where my godchild also is. I read the news every day and talked on the phone with my friends, but I still felt very alone. I wanted to go back to Los Angeles, so I took a bit of a risk and got on a flight to LA. One of my best friends was in New York at the time, so she flew out to California to stay with me too, at my house. My husband was downstairs, where he also has a roommate, and there's a queer girl there as well. We're all a bit suspended in limbo, but we're together, and it's nice. We take long walks every day… I miss my friends, but my life in Los Angeles is very quiet, unlike in London, where I have a queer family and go to a ton of parties, events, dinners, lunches, etc. Leaving London right in the middle of lockdown was hard, but here I tend to spend a lot of time alone.

Thank you for everything, Maria. We'll be waiting for you in Italy, then. Sooner or later.

I miss Italy a lot. What's the situation like there after the outbreak?

A real mess. The outbreak was really tough here, especially in the North. The lockdown is over now, and some businesses are reopening, like shops and restaurants, and soon cinemas and theatres too. But sadly there won't be any big concerts again until 2021.

I actually dreamed about being in Italy just last night!

Really? What happened?

I was living at my grandmother's, who was Sicilian, in her big house with four apartments. She'd bought it in 1940, her father was an Italian immigrant. She'd planted the hollow tree in the garden. And in the dream I was there and she was telling me about the Bible under this big hollow tree, so I was drawing on her teachings for my spiritual exercises… But beyond that, yes, I miss Italy a lot, I hope to get back soon.

Good luck, then, with your Vita Nuova. By the way, which songs on the record best tell that story for you?

I really love "Courage", it captures my whole courtship process really well, being shy while also being prone to falling in love. And then I'd also say "Right Down To The Heart Of London", because I love London, I love walking around its streets, and the people I have there mean a lot to me.

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