Cat Power on Saying Goodbye to Karl Lagerfeld, Staying Sober—And Her Brilliant New Live Album of Dylan Covers

Were you able to see him before he passed away?

I saw him at the Met, at his last Chanel show in New York [in December 2018]. He was frail, but he was walking. And I never go to the afterparties, but I went this time. It was dark and you couldn’t see so well, but suddenly Karl sees me and starts flipping out, and so I climb over my friend to see him and he’s like, “Oh my God,” and he’s scrambling for his phone, trying to show me pictures of his cat, and then he says, “Your son, your son,” and he’s grabbing my phone: “Show me your son.” And so I show him my son, and he’s just squeezing me. That was the last time I saw him. I’m just so glad I got to tell him that I love him.

It sounds like he opened up this whole new world to you.

He actually is the reason why I have a very safe place to live in Miami, because he wrote me a check a long time ago, and I was able to use that as a down payment on the place where I live now. And because of Karl, I have so many amazing memories and fashion friendships, and real family like Jean Touitou from APC, Camille Bidault-Waddington, Catherine Baba, the Sorrentis, Olivier Zahm, Mark Borthwick. Back in the ’90s, we were all, for better or less, just artists in different ways. I was singing songs and they were taking pictures, styling pictures, creating content; they were journalists. And then we all grew up. I saw Pharrell recently at Chanel’s Métier d’arts show, where I also saw [Chanel creative director] Virginie [Viard] with all of the amazing handworked pieces. In the olden times in Miami I’d have brunches in my old apartment, and Pharrell’s wife would come over; then Pharrell got huge with the Neptunes and I’d never see him anymore, but now he’s doing something so cool for Louis Vuitton, after Virgil. I’m so happy for him, because he’s Southern, too.

I keep forgetting that—he seems like he comes from another planet, but yeah, he’s from Virginia Beach. How did you meet him?

One day about 20 years ago I got a phone call from my friend who was launching that shoe that Pharrell had made—Ice Creams. He said, “Hey, Lauryn Hill just canceled her performance at Pharrell’s shoe launch. Can you be here in 45 minutes and sing some songs? Everybody’s waiting.” And I was like: “You bet your fucking ass I can.” I wore my high-top, creamy-colored Adidas and my Marc Jacobs Louis Vuitton dress, but the only working guitar I had at the time was this 1950s Silvertone acoustic—cream-colored with this beautiful blue, like a light petrol blue—with F-hole cutaways. Anyway, I ran, and I sat down on this big white throne, but the action on my guitar was so high that it was hard to even play, much less do anything abstract or experimental. I had no effects, no reverb—so all I did was play Hank Williams covers, which is the weirdest fucking shit in the world to be playing at an all-hip-hop situation, right?! I mean, I tried to soul them up, but I played seven songs and got off. I was so embarrassed—I just wanted to get out of there, but then my friend brought me over to see Pharrell. He’s an Aries, so he was being kind of cool, and everyone’s taking pictures of him, but he’s like, “You’ve got a great voice,” and I was like, “Thanks,” but he’s like, “No—I mean, you have a great voice.” And then we became friendly through that.