Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan might be the most forthright person I’ve ever (sorta) met. When I reach the 23-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist by phone ahead of her April 13 show at Area15, she’s pulled over at a rest stop, amid her weekly commute from New York to Maryland, where she grew up. With barely any prompting, Jordan dives into the story of how her landlord informed her that her New York apartment building was being turned into a hotel. She put her belongings in storage and she became an indie rock nomad—and an occasional Maryland townie, which, she laughs, is “kind of awesome.”
Jordan is waggish and light over the phone. Since Jordan launched Snail Mail at age 15, she has proven to be advanced beyond her years. Her 2018 debut, Lush, received widespread praise for its breezy, lo-fi sensibility and acutely honest lyricism around love and the pining aches of rejection. Its 2021 follow-up, Valentine, served as a much darker letter to those themes, with Jordan’s pen lancing through her own precariously formed ideas.
Our conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
It feels like there’s a lifetime of growth between your first album [2018’s Lush] and the follow-up [2021’s Valentine]. Looking back, who were you during those eras compared to who you are now? The self that made Lush was pretty innocent, and the version of me that made Valentine was definitely struggling. But I feel like there’s a lot more intention in Valentine. I worked harder on it. I tried to grow as a songwriter, and I tried to hone my influences and top myself. [For my] next record ... I definitely feel like I’m a completely different person again. It’s crazy making public stuff during these super formative years of my life.
In retrospect, would you do anything differently with Valentine? We switched producers halfway through, and I feel like a lot of my ideas got buried in the process, because there were so many moving parts. … It was so much trial and error with that record that by the time I was finished, I was in a hurry. I didn’t even know that independent labels had timelines. Matador gives me so much freedom, but at that point, I felt like I was holding everyone up.
How do you know when a song is done? My perfectionism is debilitating. It’s probably my worst quality—and best. Some of my best work comes out of me torturing myself. But also, sometimes no work comes out of it, because it’s such a negative space that I inhabit in my head. I’m hard on myself.
In the final stages of a song, when I’m finishing something in the studio proper, it’s this feeling where I’m like, what is powerful about this song? Is it the lyrics? Is it the placement of the lyrics in specific places? Or is it when that riff hits in this one place that’s really dramatic? Let’s accentuate that, and get rid of anything that’s taking away from the driving forces that are making the song special.
“Ben Franklin” from that record marks a big sonic departure—it was so different that you considered creating a side project to release it. If you did have a side project, what would you work on and call it? I actually do have some plans to do a side project, and I do have an absolutely ingenious name for it. I just don’t want anybody to steal it! But once you see the name … you’ll be like, ‘Oh, that was good.’ I kind of want to make more grunge-adjacent stuff if I do a solo project. I’m going through a really big Juliana Hatfield phase. That’s probably the direction I would want to head into.
You’re a very open lyricist, but has anything felt too off-limits to share? It’s hard to be a tell-all, expressive singer songwriter and have a life, too. I care more about my art than my life, honestly. I want to just make good songs. But at the same time, I’ve got to protect myself. I’m not making music to punish my exes, and I’m not trying to be juicy for the sake of being juicy. I’m just trying to get my feelings out. I try to be as honest as I can without f*cking with other people’s lives.
What’s an average day like for you when you aren’t touring? I go back and forth to New York a lot. A lot of my friends are there, and there’s always something to do. But I’m trying to practice being disciplined with songwriting in a way that is really uncomfortable for me, where I’m trying to work on it for a couple hours every day. It still takes me forever to finalize stuff, but I always want it to be at the forefront, even if I don’t feel like it. I’ve been doing that, and I’ve been playing a lot of PS5. I like to watch movies.
I recently joined the PS5 club, too. What are you playing? I’m obsessed with all the Far Cry games, just because they don’t take any mental energy. But also I’m at like 90% on Hogwarts Legacy. I’m about to start Elden Ring, and I’m a big Skyrim person. What about you?
I’ve been on God of War: Ragnarok. I’m afraid of Elden Ring. I bought it on my console when it came out, and I haven’t played it, because I know it’s gonna kick my ass.
I don’t know if I’m in the headspace to have my ass kicked that bad. That’s so funny that you say that. I basically made that exact comment about Elden Ring yesterday with a bunch of my girlfriend’s roommates, hanging out. I feel like it would weigh on my confidence as a gamer. An hour or two later, I brought up that I’ve never read any [Thomas] Pynchon books either, because I hate feeling stupid while I’m reading. Then we watched Inland Empire and I was like, ‘Cool, now a movie that makes me feel stupid while I watch it!’ The topic of last night was just feeling like sh*t because of things we’re choosing to consume (laughs).
Speaking of books, would you say reading inspires your music at all? I’m always reading a couple books at a time, [and] I try to choose authors that inspire me lyrically during writing periods like this. I’ve been reading a lot of David Berman’s poetry and Dennis Cooper and Scott Heim. I’m trying to remember the name of this book that I’m reading right now. It was by this woman, and it takes place in Taipei. It’s called Crocodile or something. But it’s lesbians in Taipei. It’s f*cking awesome so far.
Expanding mediums to try to get inspiration is everything for me. I get weirdly claustrophobic with music in a way now where I never used to. I listen to audiobooks more than I listen to music. I just feel like I get too neurotic sometimes. Like, I can’t enjoy this right now. So I just have to get inspiration in other ways. Same with movies. I don’t get claustrophobic from movies, but I get a lot of inspiration from them.
That’s an underrated perspective. Anything can be an inspiration. Totally. I mean, real life is such an inspiration. I’ve met so many artists where we related on the topic of when you go on tour for a long time, you can’t really write about that. You have to take a break from writing and then go experience something. Live life enough to have something to say or to even have grown. I kind of hate when people write about being on the road. Like, this is only relatable for some. It’s completely inaccessible in a way where I don’t even relate to people writing about being on the road. It’s a no-no for me. I try to find inspiration outside of my reality.
You had vocal cord surgery in late 2021. Has that given you more confidence? There’s definitely something more to your voice now. The singing has gotten 300% better. I’ve had polyps since before Snail Mail started. … I just thought I had a crunchy, gravelly voice, and it made it really hard to sing in a high register. My falsetto was pretty much always gone—it’s almost impossible to control when you have polyps. It was really bad towards the end, and I was getting so sad, like, crying at sessions.
When I got surgery, learning to speak and learning to sing again, it was like starting from nothing. It was really scary at first, but I genuinely feel like I’m singing for the first time. I had an opera teacher teach me how to breathe, how to take good care of my voice. Now, I’m not pushing and just seeing what comes out. I know what’s gonna come out when I open my mouth. That’s huge.
Confidence feels crucial when starting a career as young as you did. What makes you feel confident these days? When I went to rehab [in 2020] … there was this whole focus on confidence being inward versus outward. Outward confidence can come from being pretty, wearing fancy clothes and being adored. But real confidence comes from knowing that you like the person that you are inside and how you treat people.
During that time, I became almost painfully aware of myself. In doing that, I realized I only like myself as much as how I make the people around me feel. I feel confident in myself when I feel like the people around me feel like they’re being taken care of, when I can just be around people I love and be loving.
That’s really beautiful. It takes pressure off of clinging to youth, too (laughs). I have a weird OCD thing— a super fear of death. It’s all I think about sometimes, and it helps me to be like, ‘Well, all the important stuff hopefully isn’t going to change when I get older.’ I think I’ll just get better and I’ll like myself even more.
We’re excited to see you back in Vegas so soon after opening for Turnstile last fall. What are your thoughts on the city? I like Vegas. I’ve spent a good amount of time there. I’ve been to events and shows and festivals that we’ve done. I like gambling a lot, and I like those big frozen drinks you can get on the Strip (laughs). The show we did with Turnstile in Vegas was crazy. We were gambling before the set and after the set. I f*ck with Vegas.
SNAIL MAIL With Water From Your Eyes, Dazy. April 13, 7:30 p.m., $25. The Portal at Area15, area15.com.
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