Music

Although Thao’s voice has commanded the most attention so far, she’s determined to be a great guitarist…
‘I’ve always been very attracted to bluegrass and country and that percussive style of guitar playing. When I started there were a lot of female singer-songwriters whose guitar playing was just ornamentation. The last thing I wanted to do was contribute to a negative stereotype for female musicians. So my main preoccupation, still, is to explore the guitar in ways that don't feed into that.’
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Like Johnny Cash, she’s not averse to using unexpected props to expand her string-slinging repertoire…
‘On the first record I played my guitar with a pen and on the new one I sometimes use a toothbrush. You can hold onto the head of it and play with the handle, and the rubber grip of the toothbrush meets the strings really nicely. I have this dream, now, of people throwing their toothbrushes on stage at my gigs. When I do solo shows the toothbrush thing has to happen first. Otherwise I’m just a woman with a guitar – it’s so much better to be a woman with a guitar and a toothbrush.’

Her new album was inspired by her dad walking out when she was 12…
‘I think every song, directly or indirectly, is about that in some way. I can trace so much of what has happened to me and the way I am back to my dad leaving. But it’s not all bad. You should never wholly wish that something didn’t happen. Just seeing how my mum dealt with it and took care of the family has helped me to struggle through a lot of bullshit.’

… except ‘Swimming Pools’, which is about the horrors of witnessing a wet T-shirt competition…
‘It was spring break and my friends persuaded me to go to this beach town. I don’t even like wearing a bathing suit. This was so depressing, total objectification. These incredibly drunk women walked down a runway and got sprayed, and the guys stood on a balcony and cheered or booed them off stage depending on how big their breasts are. The power dynamic was so unsettling. That was, like, the last time I interacted with men outside my band!’

Her best friend was a chicken…
‘My parents were immigrants from Vietnam and, living in a white neighbourhood in Virginia, there was always that cultural barrier. I think
I was a very lonely kid. One day my dad brought home a chicken, even though we were living in suburbia, and said, ‘This is our pet’. Her name was Jennifer and she was the smartest chicken you’ve ever met. She taught herself to fly – we just came home and found her up in the tree. Then she was eaten by a raccoon. Yeah, I didn’t know raccoons ate chickens either. Her heart was, like, severed from her body. Man, maybe that’s the last time I ever truly loved.’