photography by Magnus Unnar
Devendra Banhart and Isabelle Albuquerque have been friends since they were just kids. Together, they dreamed of becoming artists Banhart became a critically acclaimed musician with over a dozen albums under his belt; listening to each one chronicles the evolution of one of our era’s greatest singer-songwriters. His lyrics are surreal, humorous, dark, and dangerous, but also tender—all sung with his instantly recognizable vibrato. Albuquerque is now an accomplished sculptor with inclusions in numerous group exhibitions and a solo at Jeffrey Deitch gallery in New York. Her series, Orgy For Ten People In One Body, is an erotic elegy to selfhood through a plethora of materials like wax, wood, rubber, and bronze. Each one headless to remain ambiguously depersonalized, they tell the story of the artist’s selfless multiplicity. On the occasion of Banhart’s newest album, Flying Wig (Mexican Summer), they discuss their definitions of instinct and how it plays into their practice and life.
ISABELLE ALBUQUERQUE When we first met, I lived on a really isolated mountain. No TV, no neighbors. It took twenty minutes to drive anywhere. My sister Jasmine [Albuquerque] and I found out that you had moved next door. This was the talk of the town. We were so excited. We went to your house and took you on a night hike to the lake.
DEVENDRA BANHART We call it “the lake.” It’s a special little secret kind of space. It doesn’t have a name. You’d never find it if you didn’t know about it. During the pandemic, I went there to get away. I once saw Billy Zane just sitting in his car there. Billy Zane knows about it.
ALBUQUERQUE When we went, there was a full moon. You were so strange. We were twelve or thirteen.
BANHART I lived in a house with maybe thirty copies of Architectural Digest on the table that I was not allowed to open. If I tried to open them, my mom would go “No, don’t open that, it’s for show.” My parents were both yogis, but they weren’t exposing me to stuff. Suddenly, I go into your house and it’s like, what is going on? Your mom, Lita [Albuquerque] immediately tells me something about Joseph Beuys, Eva Hesse, and Louise Bourgeois. I'm sucked into a conversation about art and artists that totally changed my life. And the books—it was the wall of books falling out and raining down. And then, of course, Lita's work, which was my introduction to seeing the madness of the artist.
ALBUQUERQUE I remember, you were always drawing. I would come over and talk and talk and talk and talk and you were never not drawing.
BANHART My first performance was with your mom. Something about the planet of the blue bees. You were in a leotard, I was in Speedos. She prompted us to pour honey all over our bodies. Then Lita poured this ultramarine blue powder on us while we held a vase. And Lita poured honey into the vase and we sang in unison: “Ooooooooh!” It was an Egyptian ritual. And we're beckoning the planet of the blue bees. We're like, “Wow, cool. We did a performance!”
ALBUQUERQUE I want to talk about the record, obviously. I have heard the track “Twin.” The one thing that I've been thinking about is that it came out at the same time as the ANOHNI record. When we lived in New York together, all the shows we did were with ANOHNI. I really feel, at least what I've heard of the record, it's taking me back to that time, which were some of my favorite shows you ever did. Do you feel that connection?
BANHART Those early days when I was playing in a dress. This record has a lot of that feeling. I recorded most of it wearing this Issey Miyake thing that I look horrible in, but it just feels so good.
ALBUQUERQUE Is that the blue dress?
BANHART Yeah, that's where this blue thing kept coming up.
ALBUQUERQUE The new album has a real Blue Velvet (1986) vibe, which I saw with you for the very first time.
BANHART It just felt like a blue record.
ALBUQUERQUE You used to wear dresses to high school—at a time that was so different from now. You were beat up so much for that. And then, you did your shows in drag for quite a few years. When I see you wear the dress, I always think it’s about your mom. I’m curious about your connection to this blue dress.
BANHART I was wearing a dress when I first started singing because my mom wasn't around. I put on her dresses and started singing. I was like, well, I can sing thanks to wearing my mom's dresses—from this feminine place. It's a really holistic thing. It's a safe space within myself. I’m a straight guy who loves wearing dresses, but I think there's other kids that are like that. It's not a sexual thing for me. I'm not doing it to be reactionary in any way. But in high school, I was definitely trying to get a little bit of a reaction out of people. It was terrifying and I had to leave because it got so sketchy.
ALBUQUERQUE The first time you put on the dress was when you first started singing.
BANHART In Caracas.
ALBUQUERQUE Oh, so how old were you?
BANHART Nine. I became a woman to be my own mother.
ALBUQUERQUE Oh, to care for yourself.
BANHART It was like, how do I unlock the feminine part of myself to the point that it will provide what my mom isn't giving? If I even bring it up to her, it's just too intense, which I understand, I don’t want to judge.
ALBUQUERQUE When we first met, you were a punk. And it’s actually kind of surprising to me how you’ve become more connected to nature and spirit.
BANHART You know, it’s natural to rebel against the environment you grew up in. For me, that was the jungles of Caracas, Venezuela. You would think I would be very nature-y, but that takes effort for me. Maybe not so much now, but at the time I just wanted city city city city. The minute I heard the Velvet Underground’s first record, that is all I wanted in my life. Television’s Marquee Moon (1977). I just wanted to be in that city world more than anything on the planet.
ALBUQUERQUE You moved to San Francisco when you were seventeen, and then to New York. But even before that, you would send your music and poems out. You were so courageous. You would make these incredible handwritten and hand-drawn packages, and get nothing but rejections.
BANHART I wrote to SubPop, Matador, everybody. But nobody ever replied, ever. Except for Michael [Gira] of Young God Records.
BANHART I would also send poems to The New Yorker every month, and they never wrote back, of course. I was like, I'm gonna be a fucking poet. But I was playing music then with your guitar. The first guitar I ever had was a nylon string that my dad bought me but it kind of sucked. It was nylon, which was not cool. I wanted a steel string. So, I stole your guitar. My first record was made with your guitar and I never gave it back (laughs).
ALBUQUERQUE We were quite isolated up in the hills growing up. The coolest thing about walking through the mountains is that I could hear you singing. You had such an incredible voice.
BANHART Those hills make me think of instinct, especially the cave. I think instinct is synonymous with vision in the way that irrationality is another way of saying magic. Irrational things are a kind of scientific, Western way of saying the word magic. The transcendent is magical and mysterious and irrational. And making art is irrational, but we must do it, right? And instinct might be that version of vision. And instinct might be a vision. So if you have a vision, it's the gift of instinct. I have a vision of grabbing a salmon and squeezing till those eggs all fall in my mouth.
ALBUQUERQUE Really? How many years have you had this vision?
BANHART The point is that it’s a gift. Because where does that vision come from? So, instinct is maybe a form of vision. And it may be in the same way that following your bliss isn't about, “Oh, go do ayahuasca,” it's really about, “Take responsibility for the gift of that vision.” And so you could call it instinct, because it was such an instinctive drive to do this irrational thing that the entire spiritual sanity of the planet relies on and needs. It's really important to have this kind of spiritual hygiene. Art is a form of spiritual hygiene. And we don’t really live in a world that supports that in any way.
ALBUQUERQUE What do you mean by spiritual hygiene?
BANHART Okay, you can call it spiritual hygiene, but that kind of takes away some of the magic of it. But that's probably helpful for a lot of people, to even consider taking a little five minute stop to check on their breath. Those things are totally intertwined with the practice of making art. Both disciplines require discipline in order to bear any fruit.
ALBUQUERQUE With regard to instinct connected to making art, it’s also about trust and responsibility. This thing is inside you already and you have to trust it. And then, you have to trust that this thing might be subversive or wrong. And then, you have to take responsibility for doing it, as opposed to what everyone else is doing. There is a kind of responsibility with following your instinct or even hearing it at all. It’s a practice just to hear it. Because we're hearing so many other voices all the time.
BANHART Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. Basically, take responsibility for it. And, know how difficult it is to listen to a voice whose source is so mysterious. It's really like silence. When you get messianic and insane, there's this bizarro world where you think that you’re god. But, the opposite of that is just when you listen to it and step out of the way.
ALBUQUERQUE And there is an instinct to be empathetic and that is something we all share as humans. So, there is that thing that connects us as an organism, which is kind of like a shared vision.
BANHART I think that's what I mean. When you get out of the way, you tap into this shared thing. As opposed to, “Oh, it's all coming from me and I invented it.” That's when it's a really heavy trip, when it doesn't really last, and it doesn't, and that's a turn off. Eventually, we all kind of want to run away when we’re around somebody that is telling you how to be.
ALBUQUERQUE There is something about instinct that's collective.
BANHART That makes sense. But, as collective as it is, it's very rare to find some other people that understand you. That's what I was talking about earlier. I was talking to my therapist, and they're like, “Do you have anyone who understands you?” And I was like, “Well, Isabelle understands me. AHNONI understands me,” and the list stopped there. And that's so very, very precious, regardless of instinct, this collective thing that we all subconsciously possess. But that's the Buddha nature: we're all Buddha, but it's covered in the mud of delusion.
ALBUQUERQUE When I finished Orgy For Ten People In One Body, I was trying to figure out: am I like a conceptual artist? I realized that, for me, it's not connected to vision. It's really connected to touch. If you asked me to draw a foot, I couldn’t do it. But if you give me some clay to make a foot—I've massaged John's foot so many times—I can do it in two seconds. So, that's when I started sculpting. And, maybe what I’m saying is that we can all have different ways that we connect to our instinct.
BANHART I think that's so fascinating. And I am thinking, oh, do I know what a foot sounds like? I don't know, but I want to figure out what it sounds like. Maybe the way I can see a foot is by hearing it.
ALBUQUERQUE Are you doing image conjuring in the sound and music of the new album? I feel like that's something you always do.
BANHART I am trying to conjure a mood and set the scene. Everything is blue. And we made it at the house where Neil Young recorded the demos for After The Gold Rush, in Topanga. We made it in this hippie world, honestly, listening to the Grateful Dead constantly. Somehow, that was synthesized into a city pop nighttime record, even though we recorded it in the day—in this beautiful, natural environment.
ALBUQUERQUE Where did the album start? Was it a poem?
BANHART Right. Yes. There's a haiku by Kobayashi Issa: “This dewdrop world—Is a dewdrop world, And yet, and yet . . .” I was maybe trying to sing about the world we’re living in now without singing about it. It felt like the most important time to make a record because the world isn't going to be around in a month. But also, this is the most pointless time to make any art. It’s just this perfect paradox. You know, what is the point—everything is so unlasting.
ALBUQUERQUE Is that “...And yet, and yet” part of it?
BANHART Well “...And yet, and yet” is the hope part of it. Because everything is so impermanent. This is just a dewdrop world. It can go in a flash—the duration of a rainbow. And yet, we continue to live and make plans. There's that instinct to live set in stone and there's also a totally nihilistic way of looking at existence where there's just no point in doing anything. The point is that it's a mystery. In Buddhism, one of the main Zen prayers is, “Beings are innumerable and I vow to liberate them all.” Sounds like a high trip, but you're trying to say, “this is an impossible task and I'm going to try to go for it.” And you know, art is impossible. It doesn’t end. It's just really mysterious on its own.
ALBUQUERQUE Where did the title of the album, Flying Wig, come from?
BANHART Well, you gave me that black wig for my birthday during the pandemic and I looked so terrible in it.
ALBUQUERQUE You looked gorgeous in it.
BANHART I wore it to some restaurant and they practically booed me out of the place. I just couldn’t pull it off. But there it stood on a mic stand in the living room—this gorgeous object. It reminded me of you. I couldn’t see any of my friends and I started to picture this wig just flying off into the middle of the night. So, I kind of anthropomorphised it. And also, it kinda seemed like a good euphemism for getting high: tonight “I’m flying wig.” I’m so high that my hair is flying. And, of course, we can get high in the garden just smelling some Mexican marigold. But yeah, that’s where the title Flying Wig comes from. And I think it’s an okay record (laughs). We could talk for hundreds of years. I don't know why I'm talking so much. I never talk. I don’t like talking. I just wanna hear about you.