Lana Del Rey Talks Janis Joplin Influence With Courtney Love, Grimes
Lana Del Rey discussed her musical influences with a variety of other artists – including Courtney Love, Stevie Nicks and Grimes – in a new cover story for L’Officiel.
Del Rey returns to one artist repeatedly: Janis Joplin. When Kim Kardashian asks about formative stylistic influences, Del Rey replies, “I saw a rerun of The Dick Clark Show with Janice Joplin on it, and she had feathers in her hair, and I thought she was so cool.” When Rick Nowell asks what historical figure she would like to meet, Del Rey selects “Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.” And when Love asks for a playlist of Del Rey’s favorite songs at the moment, one of her picks is Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz.”
Other singers, rappers and poets mingle with Joplin in Del Rey’s past. The singer tells Grimes that she listened to country legends like Tammy Wynette and Hank Williams while she was growing up. She also remembers a 10th grade teacher introducing her to Vladimir Nabokov, Walt Whitman, the Roots and Tupac, which she says were formative influences on her music and writing.
During Del Rey’s conversation with Nicks, she hints at a possible reunion for the two – who collaborated on Del Rey’s Lust for Life – this summer. “I was thinking we could spend half of our time on that boat we were talking [about],” Del Rey says, “[and] maybe shoot a video for ‘Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems.'”
Lust for Life came out in 2017 and debuted at Number One on the Billboard albums chart. In addition to Nicks, the LP included contributions from A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, the Weeknd and Sean Lennon, who also interviews Del Rey briefly in L’Officiel.