Okay, so, Cubby, how are you doing? I mean, really, how are you doing? Really, not just right now, not just today, but REALLY.

i'm doing great, thanks.

With the upcoming release of a new lovers album entitled "I Am the West", I wonder about your choice to live out west. Portland, OR, right? How does that compare to Athens, GA, where your previous albums were recorded?

portland is sort of like a bigger version of athens, minus the frat culture, and far, far more progressive. i grew up just outside of boston, and then moved myself to athens, georgia when i was eighteen. that was quite a shock at first. my freshman year roommate in college was a born-again Pentecostal. but athens is special because there was a great art freak community, and i found a good group of inspiring people to help relinquish me of my suburban high school reality and introduce me to this real thriving and fun bohemian subculture.

The new album is to be a digital-only release. Can you explain why?

oh man, i actually just spent half an hour listening to my brother try to convince me to make some sort of tangible element for this release. so we'll see what i end up doing with the thing. i'm just chomping at the bit to put it out. and i think people only buy cds anymore in japan?

The cover of "Sleep with Heat" features you on a comfy looking cruiser with mustache handlebars, the insert also contains bicycle images, and bicycle imagery comes up in a number of your songs. Tell me about this. Are you into bikes?

that actually isnt me on the cover of "sleep with heat". i took that picture a long time ago when i was still living in athens. i was in the photography program at the university of georgia, so i had access to a large-format camera, and actually all the photos inside of "sleep with heat" were taken at that time. it's of my friend, and i think roommate at the time, lauren schwartz. i guess we were sort of doppelgangers, though. i do use a lot of bicycle imagery in songs. i like bikes a lot, aesthetically and otherwise. i mean, people look goooood on bikes. and they're fun and environmentally friendly and good exercise. when i lived in athens i rode that cruiser. i was like, the kid on the bike. and i dreamt of moving to portland, so i think i used the image of a bicycle to sort of align myself with that city somehow.

I also notice that you make use of garden imagery, including the album title "The Gutter and The Garden". Is that just metaphor or do you actually grow your own food? And, in general, how do you feel about getting your hands dirty?

you know, gardens grow with tenderness and attention, just like relationships. the metaphor is axiomatic, like the innate metaphor of a bridge, for example. i dont really feel settled anywhere ever. i love portland, but sometimes wonder if i'll move to new york. i spend a lot of time there, and my family and friends are sort of there now. since i'm not partnered, i dont have kids or pets, right now, home is just me. i'm a turtle. but someday, maybe home will be a place and a family. even if it's just me and a dog and a garden and that's the family. someday i'll have that. it's a vision of a future. it's a hope for a future. to me, a garden means home. and i dont really have that yet.

Many of your songs also make reference to death, or at least to the idea of ghosts. I often view these as love songs. Are they to you? And, if so, what do you feel the connection is between love and loss (in less poetic terms than your lyrics if possible)?

well, all my songs are love songs, really. i mean, they're not all written to a lover, but they're all love songs. a lot of the ghost imagery, well, my mother died when i was a kid, and so i got pretty obsessed with ghosts and "the great beyond" and different creative ways that, as a kid, you try to understand death and dealing with someone you love who has gone somewhere else. and i'm not at all religious, so it's not like i had anyone telling me what to think. i just came up with different fantastical realities as coping mechanisms i suppose. i'm very, very interested in the relationship between the living and the dead, even if it only exists in my heart or my weird perceptions of things and seeing 11:11 on my clock all the time and thinking that's my mom trying to tell me not to worry so much. you know, you just use the resources you have to deal with loss. you self-soothe, i guess. you become a little bit magical.

You borrow this great line from Rita Mae Brown "an army of lovers cannot fail." What does this line mean to you?

well, rita mae brown was really active in the civil rights, gay rights, and women's rights movements. so that line to me is about an optimism for progress. it's a very hopeful image, and meant as an homage. it's saying that those of us who identify as lovers must not be passive. we must be activists. we must fight the good fight. of course in the context of a love song, it harbors another dimension of emotional complexity. it's specific to a relationship and simultaneously an aspect of a broader philosophy or identity. there's that dynamic, which i think is fascinating. it's like, "put your money where your mouth is and treat the people in your life really fucking well." and in that particular song, at that particular time in my life, i think i was saying that to myself.

What is the story behind naming the band "lovers"? Why the lack of a definite article and the use of lowercase?

like i said, lovers is an identity. and it's asking the listener to define them self in that most basic way. you are a lover at home, and you are a lover in the world. it's that conflation of intimacy and publicity that is totally interesting to me. being mindful in all aspects of life. because the revolution begins at home, and opportunities for activism are everywhere. also, i gave this project that moniker when i was like nineteen or something. i was pretty fascinated by and curious about romantic relationships and emotional intimacy. that's the age when, at least for me, i was wondering if i'd ever have a real relationship. i was very experimental in all aspects of my life, but a real romantic partnership remained elusive and sort of mystical. and, to be honest, it's not always lowercase. i have no idea why it appears lowercase on ipods or wherever. probably just because i'm often a lazy typer, as you can see.

Speaking of the band, who all plays on the new album? Is that to be a regular line up going forward, or can I assume that the band is more-or-less defined as whoever happens to be playing with you at the time?

yeah i pretty much use the moniker "lovers" as a blanket term for whatever creative project i'm working on. that could change. i always enjoy coming up with new project names. like the other day i thought it'd be fun to have a project called "mental griffith." i dont know why but i think that's kind of funny. so anyhow, right now lovers is me and suny lyons. suny lyons used to be called daniel rickard, but now he's going by suny. but i just call him coco. sometimes i go by my normal birth name, which is carolyn hart berk. and then sometimes i go by my fun-times name, which is cubby lovers, or coco, or cubby poodle-pants. and daniel is suny. or coco. or kiss kiss sun sun. i dont think either of us really cares, but we just keep changing our names for fun. suny and i made "i am the west" together, and now he's moving from athens to portland in order to work on lovers projects together with lots of new music and video blogging and finally touring again and whatever else we can mess with. it's 2008 and it's the year of the rat. the art rat. so yeah, we'll see who else gets suckered in. i've got some friends that i'm curious to collaborate with in different ways. i'm constantly noticing cool people and wanting to work with them in some capacity, just to see what we'd make. i'm a real talent-harnesser. and some of those cool people arent even self-defined artists. i'm just like, "what would it be like if me and my friend stefie wrote a play together?"

I can't help but notice that in a lot of the band photos, you kind of just blend in with the guys. How does that make you feel? How would you describe your gender expression?

traditional gender "expressions" dont seem much like expressions, they generally seem like superficial presentations of what are actually much more complex and dynamic personalities. what's been interesting is that now i've got long hair, so i look a little more traditionally femme, and that's been interesting, sociologically. it almost feels subversive in a strange way, to be outwardly adhering to traditional gender role standards, but to be inwardly extrememely conscious of gender presentation, and it's rules and limitations. it almost at this point feels like a study. like, all of a sudden random men are talking to me. but then i can turn this new audience into, like, a performance art piece, or an opportunity to explore what people really think. because i'm not going to play along with traditional gender role rules of conduct at all.

What other projects, music or otherwise, are you working on? Can you tell me a bit about those, including your decision process, if any, in choosing how to spend your energy?

right now i'm working on a million things. i mean, everyone is. like i'm working on being closer with my family, and being good at being single, and having less anxiety. i'm writing about three songs a week these days, too. just feeling super inspired in that arena. writing a ton, readling a ton, talking to people, learning. and i'm working on visual art too, hopefully going to be releasing a book of visual art along with the new album. working on a video project with suny and some friends in portland and new york, which is like, a sketch comedy reality show, if you can believe it. working on a collaboration book of writings by women musicians. working at a pre-school and learning a ton from those kids. um... a lot.

Beyond the questions I've raised, are there any comments that you'd like to make to the readers of this interview?

thanks for reading, thanks for listening. please vote in 2008, and vote for change.

And saving the best for last, what's your opinion on peanut butter? Seriously, the public (well... I can only speak for myself) want to know.

i like peanut butter. you know, in moderation.