ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How has it changed your life to have millions of people hearing your work in multiplexes every weekend?
KIMYA DAWSON: I'm not really a part of any world where it would totally affect me yet. It's surreal. I know that all these people are into it, but I'm still just doing things the way I've always done them so far. Like, I haven't made any transition in the kind of shows I play or anything like that. And I'm a little hesitant to do that. I'm not a rock-club kinda gal, you know? I played a couple nights ago in New Orleans at a benefit for the Iron Rail Book Collective, and it's just a bunch of punk kids sitting on the floor, and I was sitting on, like, some piled-up wood, playing without amplification. That's my element, and these are my people, and I'm a little scared to lose that sense of community. I'm sure that I'm going to have to do some things differently. I'm afraid if we did the sort of group hugs that I've been doing in the past, then I might get crushed to death if too many people start coming around. [Laughs]
I imagine you've been doing a lot of interviews with the press, and it seems like in the past, you haven't always been in the spotlight as much.
We've done quite a bit of press as the Moldy Peaches, back when we were doing that stuff. And I've done more in the past for my albums than I've done for Juno so far. We're in New Orleans now — I'm participating in a conference for musicians who are also activists — and we're doing a benefit tonight for Sweet Home New Orleans, which is helping displaced musicians down here get back into homes. And so it's like, we're doing this, which is really grassroots, groundbreaking work, but then flying to New York to start with the Juno promo tour. [Laughs] So it's just weird. I know what's important to me. There's this movie that I love and I'm glad it's getting so much attention — but at the same time, it's like, yesterday I was standing in a patch of grass in a field with this old musician called Al ''Carnival Time'' Johnson who lost his house to Katrina. We stood in the field where his house used to be, and it was totally bulldozed before he could even try to salvage any of his belongings. He stood there and sang a song about how his home is gone and how he has nothing. This contrast is like, these real-world things that are so concerning to me, and then there's this weird Hollywood Top 50 universe that is just surreal. I just can't be affected too much by all the press stuff.
Have you been getting a lot of calls from Hollywood producers who are like, ''We need a new Kimya Dawson song for the next James Bond theme''?
No. [Laughs] [The Juno soundtrack's publicist] just called me before you and was like, ''We just got an offer for The View.'' Which is so exciting for me, because I'm a massive, since-childhood Whoopi Goldberg fan. I might seriously s--- my pants or have a heart attack. I love, love, love her. So that's cool for me. But other than that, we got offered Conan but I turned it down because of the strike. [An NBC representative responds: ''The Moldy Peaches were, in fact booked. Not entirely sure why they bailed.''] Like I was saying before, I'm really particular about what I will do. And I'm not going to start doing commercials at all. If I'm going to do any more movies or anything like that, it's going to have to be a story that I really feel good about. We'll see. I'm pretty verbal about where I stand on those issues too, so maybe people read one entry to my blog and are like, [creaky Mr. Burns-esque voice] ''All right, I guess we don't deal with her!'' [Laughs]
The New York Post recently claimed that Jamie Lynn Spears—
Yes, I saw that! [The paper's gossip column Page Six] reported that the pregnant Spears is a big fan of the Juno soundtrack. Spears' rep denies this."] Honestly, I feel like I'm one of the only people in this country who's rooting for Jamie Lynn. Because it's like, teenagers do it. Some of them protect themselves, some don't. Some get pregnant and have babies, and some get pregnant and have abortions and don't ever tell anybody. Some of them are really s---ty parents, and some of them are really good parents. But there's plenty of really s---ty parents who are not kids and not teenagers. And from what I've read, she seems like she's going to try to be a really good mom. Part of my thing is, I'm there for the teens. If Jamie Lynn is having a crisis and my songs are helping her, that's awesome. I'm on her side. She's her own person and maybe she's going to totally kick butt and rise to this challenge in her life, and do awesome.
