Colleen Green possesses plenty of self-awareness, but just because she knows what's bad for her doesn't mean it is easy to change.
Such reflections on insecurity, death, love and uncertainty abound on Green's latest album, "I Want to Grow Up," released in February by the label Hardly Art. The record is a more refined take on the Los Angeles singer/songwriter's contagious and distinctive brand of gritty slacker pop-punk. The 30-year-old Green recorded for the first time with a band (Diarrhea Planet's Casey Weissbuch and JEFF the Brotherhood's Jake Orrall) in a proper studio rather than at home with a drum machine.
Although "I Want to Grow Up," Green's third LP, marks a departure from the fuzzy recordings of her past, its honest lyrics about boyfriends and drugs indicate classic Green. Now on an international tour with bands like Upset, Best Coast and Twerps, Green recently took a break to discuss the album over the phone before playing Metro Gallery on Wednesday night.
Your album is called "I Want to Grow Up," and that's one of its biggest themes. What got you to that point or to come to that revelation? You turned 30, is that correct?
Yeah, I turned 30 in October. I've been an adult for 10 years almost -- no, more than that now, technically -- and it's kind of just a desire for my emotions and my intellect to catch up with my physical age.
With milestone birthdays come certain "boxes" some people feel they need to have checked off by that age. Do you feel any of that self-imposed pressure?
No. I think that traditionally there are certain milestones that are commonly accepted as markers of adult life. It's like you go to school, you go to college, you get married, you have kids. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you're mature just because you got married or something. I've never really had any concrete plans in my life, like "I'm gonna do this by this age." [I'm] just kind of trying to live and do whatever.
When you were a kid, did you always want to be older, or stay young?
I think I always wanted to be older. I had an older brother and older cousins that I always hung out with and was really close to. I had a pretty big family and all my cousins were all older, and I always looked up to older kids, I guess, and I always wanted to be cool.
You recorded your past work on your own in Los Angeles, but this album was made in Nashville. What inspired the change, and what impact, if any, did recording in a new place have on the album?
I just wanted to do something different on this album; I've been working with the drum machines for plenty of releases at this point, and I just knew that I wanted to do something more than I could do on my own, something better than I could just do on my own. I knew I wanted to have Casey drum on it. There was always this idea at Hardly Art, which is the record label that I'm on, of "What would happen if Colleen just gave her recordings to someone else and let them mix it, some crazy pop producer or something, and just let someone else who is an actual professional mix it?" That was something that was discussed kind of playfully at the time, but it never left my mind. I always thought about it and wondered what would happen.
My friends White Fang were recording this album in a studio, and they've always been really lo-fi too, but they were recording a really, really amazing-sounding record in a real studio, and I was kind of inspired by that, and I was like, "Maybe I'll try it, too."
You've transitioned from a DIY aesthetic to something more polished. Are you concerned with any kind of "lo-fi vs. hi-fi" divide?
No, I don't worry about that at all, actually. I like lo-fi music and I like hi-fi music and I plan on making music for a really long time. To me, I don't really think about "Is this lo-fi?" or "Is this hi-fi?" I just really like to record and make music, and it was lo-fi in the past because I was alone and that was what I could afford and that was what I was doing, and I wanted to experiment and play around with it. It was a learning thing for me.
Now, I know more people and have better friends in the music industry and it's fun to explore collaboration at this point for me. I will hopefully do more of that in the future and I'll hopefully do more solo stuff in the future. I hope to make all kinds of music.
How would you describe the recording process with Casey and Jake? That was something new for you.
I really trust both those guys, and they've been friends of mine for a while. … It was really fun and we were all on the same page and we all have the same kind of mentality in general.
This album is more personal than a lot of your past work. What was that process like for you? Was the writing process any different, or was it challenging to go in that direction?
The writing process was pretty much the same as always — just having ideas that are in your head that are just kind of nagging at you. I've always kind of started with an idea for a song or one line, and that's basically what I did on this album too. This album I wrote lyrics first for the most part for most of the songs. I feel like all my lyrics have always been pretty honest and open. It was kind of scary thinking about this record coming out and people hearing it, but I thought it would be interesting, and my friends reassured me that it was fine.
INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED AND CONDENSED