INTERVIEW:She might be married to one of the most revered men in rock'n'roll but supermodel Karen Elson is calling in no favours as she releases her own debut album, writes SINEAD GLEESON
IN DUBLIN, it’s unseasonably chilly for May, but Karen Elson is extolling the heat of Nashville, where she lives. “I have to be really careful though, because my skin just can’t handle the sun.” This is no surprise, given that the Amazonian model, with her flame-red hair, is also possessed of the palest complexion, both of which have made her one of the most distinctive models in the world. Best known for striding down catwalks for Dolce Gabbana, Versace and Gaultier, and gracing the covers of countless magazines, Elson has just embarked on another career, as a solo musician.
To some, it was a logical step, perhaps because she’s married to Jack White, of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, but Elson was writing and performing music long before the two met. “I’ve been writing songs for about 10 years, but I never really told anyone about it. It was just something I liked to do, but I never really felt confident enough to just do it.”
It's disarming to hear Elson use the word confident when she has spent more than a decade having to exude it for a career that is predicated on it. It's possibly a throwback to her youth, when she was bullied in school and didn't want to tell her schoolmates that she'd been signed up as a model. "The Ghost Who Walks[the title of her album] is actually a nickname that they'd call me, because I was so tall and pale."
These days, Elson sounds more relaxed, and still speaks with a warm Oldham burr. Her modelling career began when she was 17 and has taken her all over the world. In 2005, while living in New York, she was booked to appear in a White Stripes video, and, after a love-at-first-sight romance, the couple married. Given White’s acclaim as a musician, was she nervous playing her music for him? “Definitely. I squirrelled myself away – literally – to write the songs, and he really wanted to hear them. Eventually when he did, he was so supportive, but then Jack’s a wonderful husband. He was really encouraging.”
White steered her into the studio and produced the album ("it was a really natural thing"), but the project is very much Elson's own. Tinged with folk and country, there are elements of Nick Cave and Cat Power (who Elson once duetted with on Je T'aime). It almost doesn't sound like a debut, but then she has been writing for years, and is a co-founder of the Citizen Band, a cabaret performance troupe.
When models step out of their world there is often criticism, not least in the derogatory shorthand of “model/-” (usually followed by “actor”, “singer” or “author”), and Elson is wary of it. There is an assumption that a model will merely be a mouthpiece for a big producer, and won’t have written their music. “People make a lot of assumptions about you as a model. That you’re stupid, that you don’t read. That model/singer thing is something other people label you with, but there’s nothing that I can do about that.”
Elson wrote the songs, played guitar and has created something affecting and authentic. There is a sense that she simply couldn’t have made this album before now, as if it has taken her until her 30s to take the plunge. “Definitely, I feel as though I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do this now. I loved my 20s, they were so much fun, but I’m glad to be over them and be 31. As a woman, you just feel so different, more comfortable with yourself, more relaxed and confident.”
Motherhood has contributed to this and Elson and White have two children, four-year-old Scarlett and two-year-old Henry Lee. Despite the couple’s hectic schedules, they have a rule that they alternate work schedules, so that one of them can mind the children. When not making music or modelling, the model co-owns a vintage clothes shop in Nashville and says she juggles everything. Today, as she wades through interviews, her children are at nursery. “I love being a mum and it’s definitely my priority right now. You have the busy days like this, but then I know I’ll get to pick them up later.”
Elson laughs when I joke that her children, with artistic parents, will probably rebel and become tax advisers. “Oh god, probably! They can sort out mine and Jack’s finances. They love music, but then don’t all kids like making noise?”
We bid farewell taking about the finiteness of a model’s career, something that at 31, Elson is very aware of; but unlike many of her contemporaries who have attempted a detour into music, she’s got a very bright future.
The Ghost Who Walksis out now on XL Recordings
