Vanity Fair

**Vanity Fair** is a magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States. Banks has done two interviews with them on 2014 and 2019.

## Interview #1

There is a certain level of disbelief that first-time Coachella performer Banks (Jillian Banks) is feeling about her Saturday show. “I can’t really even believe I’m playing,” she tells VF Daily this week, by phone. “I’ve never played at Coachella; I’ve only ever been to it once, and South by Southwest is the only other festival I’ve ever played”—surprising, considering that the 25-year-old “Warm Water” and “Fall Over” singer grew up right outside Los Angeles. “I imagine that it’s going to be more unified than South by”; she says. “In Austin, you’re in the middle of the city at all these different bars, but in Indio, it’s going to be this big sunny field. I can’t wait to be free.”

Freedom is something that the masses have learned comes easily to Banks, who shrouds herself in mystery and avoids most social-media platforms—she recently joined Instagram, but prefers to communicate with her audience through good old-fashion texts and calls (her actual phone number is posted on her Facebook profile). “People can expect just me,” she says candidly about Coachella. “Just my heart and my brain—not anything more or less.”

As for her foray into Instagram, Twitter may not necessarily follow. “I don't think of it in steps, if I feel like Instagraming, then I will. When I heard my song “Waiting Game” in Divergent, I got so emotional I stole my manager’s phone and tweeted from their account as me. I want it to be natural.” Thus, she hasn’t quite slipped down the Instagram rabbit hole, but follows Lykke Li (“I love her her new song “No Rest For The Wicked,” it’s just so special”) and the Weeknd.

Banks, who usually wears only black, takes a similar approach to her style, as well. “I wear all black because I feel comfortable in it. I feel feminine, strong, and a bit sexy, like a goddess witch,” she says. “I typically wear thin sheer fabrics because I want to move my arms and walk and not be constrained.”

When talking about stylistic references and her upcoming debut album, she’s been compared to everyone from Erykah Badu to Lana Del Rey, but Banks instead prefers Fiona Apple. Why? She explains simply, “Because she’s a loon and I’m a loon.”

## Interview #2

At the beginning of her career, the musician Banks made the decision to tour nonstop. After a song she uploaded to her SoundCloud made it all the way to the BBC, she found herself opening for The Weeknd. She didn’t have time to think; she had to adjust quickly. “Especially as someone who is quite introverted in a lot of ways, it was definitely a big adjustment,” she said in a recent interview, reflecting on the road that led her album III, which is out today. “I never really took a break.”

Eventually it caught up to her. “I think I was past my limit of exhaustion, and I wasn’t physically feeling well at all,” the 31-year-old said. “I needed a break.” After dropping her sophomore album The Altar in 2016, she wanted to take some time for herself and remember her own identity as Jillian Banks, beyond her stage name.

So she decided to settle in one place. “I have been pretty much nesting in Los Angeles and really working through stuff and healing and writing,” the singer said. “When you’re touring and performing in front of all those people and you’re giving so much energy to so many people, it’s not quite normal…I needed some time to replenish my soul in really human ways.”

Recorded at Henson Studios in L.A., the new album represents a moment of growth for Banks, partially because she turned 30 while she was recording it. “[Thirty] comes with being more at peace with yourself and giving less fucks,” she said.

The album’s first single, “Gimme,” is meant to celebrate that maturity. “It felt like an unapologetic reintroduction,” she said. “It’s about knowing what you want, demanding it and saying it out loud,” she said. “In order to say, ‘Gimme what I deserve,’ you have to have a lot of confidence, and I think that’s what I love about it; it’s just about getting what you want, knowing what you deserve.”

Despite her internal changes, her trademark gospel-soul-tinged vocals remain. She also sought the help of a small group of collaborators: Frank Ocean’s music director Buddy Ross, Bon Iver producer BJ Burton, and DJ/producer Hudson Mohawke.

One collaborator in particular came as a surprise. While recording her debut album, 2016’s The Altar, Banks had an intense relationship with someone she coyly declined to name that fueled some of the songwriting. “It was very obvious, and I hadn’t spoken to him so I was scared to see him,” she said. But a few years later, they became friends. He wound up playing her a song that he couldn’t finish, called “Godless,” and said it was about her. While Banks typically writes her songs solo, she couldn’t help but want to finish it. “I pretty much finished this song that was originally about me,” she laughed. “But it turned into something about that relationship.… It’s beautiful, but it’s a little bit twisted if you look at it on the surface.”

Relationships are a throughline on III, but they don’t all come to such a pleasant end. On “Stroke,” she sings about the allure and simultaneous misery of dating a narcissist. “It’s really impossible to be with a narcissist,” she said. “If you’re an empath, it’s a dangerous combination.”

The record closes out, however, on a hopeful note with “What About Love.” She is more optimistic than jaded there, and the song ends with a snippet of her four-year-old niece saying “I love you.” “Something about [that song] feels really naïve, and I think that’s why I wanted to end on it,” she said. “Because despite whatever you go through, I always want to feel hopeful.”

## References

<references>

1. ↑ https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/music/2014/04/banks-fashion
2. ↑ https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/07/banks-iii-interview