Feist Interview

CGG: So what brings you out to the event tonight?

Feist: Well, I’m going on the trip. So I happened to be in Toronto three days ago when David had launched the youth expedition. So it sort of brought it all into focus for me. I mean, you’re invited to go on this amazing golden ticket trip.

CGG: How did you hear about it?

F: They contacted me and that’s the first I had heard of it. And so knowing only the literature you read on the website but not really having the scope of it; and that launch in Toronto was kind of the first time I understood. And since I’m actually going, it’s not just on paper or in emails; it’s that I’m actually going to go. So I just wanted to come and I just happened to be in New York again. I just wanted to come and actually see if I was going to meet anybody who was going to be on the boat.

CGG: So do you have any apprehension about going? What are you looking to take from the trip itself?

F: I don’t know, all I am is open. I don’t often do things in my life where I don’t have to achieve a particular end. All I really need to do is soak it in, so it’s a completely unique experience in that way. So I have no expectations; and David’s whole Motus Operanda is you don’t have to respond in any way, you don’t have to do anything concrete after the fact. But he just assumes that once he shows us his world up there that he knows about, and teaches us what we need to know with all the scientists on board, that probably we’re not going to have a choice but to take something from it.

CGG: In your daily lifestyle, do you practice any eco-conscious habits that made you support this even more?

F: I mean I guess yah, I’m constantly making choices. But they’re also small. I suppose they accumulate to be something. I’ve done lots of research to try to figure out how to tour more ecologically and for a while we did the carbon-credit thing, which then I just thought this isn’t my answer. So I mean we’re powering my next tour with this bullfrog. It’s this wind power in Canada that sort of off-sets the power that you’re soaking up by putting on a huge rock show! So it’s all like small things; but at least my mind is already wired that way.

CGG: Do you have any advice you can give to young people to pursue their dreams in music but to also remember to stay eco-friendly as well?

F: Well pursue what they want to do and be eco-friendly! I mean, it’s exactly what you said! And you just do it; I mean, you do it and I don’t know. I don’t really have words of wisdom; I’m just a normal schleppy person taking one step at a time. And learning along the way, and then messing up along the way, and then learning from that. I think real life is a sequence of tiny moments that add up to something, hopefully.