Grimes on Touring With Skrillex, Moving From Montreal + Hanging With Kreayshawn

Grimes, aka Claire Boucher, is synonymous with her adopted home of Montreal, but after a particularly nasty bout of frostbite the 24-year-old came to the realization the frigid winters of her native land were not for her.

So for the foreseeable future she'll be a touring nomad, but all of her mail will be forwarded to her new digs in Los Angeles. Starting this week though, Grimes will be taking up residence with Skrillex, Diplo, Pretty Lights and more on the Full Flex Tour, a cross-Canada train jaunt fashioned as an ode to the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin's all-star Festival Express tour, albeit substituting drugs and jamming with Red Bull and Twittering.

The move to L.A. is about more than just sunshine though: Boucher's already hard at work on new music, posted a joke video on YouTube with Kreayshawn that predictably blew up the interwebs, and by the time you read this has already filmed a video for "Genesis."

Boucher spoke to Spinner from L.A. about Visions' pinkness, S&M backup dancers and touring with Skrillex.

So why leave Montreal for Los Angeles?

It mostly has to do with my physical health. I'm a very unhealthy person, and Montreal is very cold, and I'm usually sick when I'm there. I actually got frostbite from inside my apartment last year, and now whenever it's cold my feet immediately start going numb, so I feel as though I've caused permanent damage to my feet. Also, I lived in Montreal for six years, and I wanted to try something else. I had a visa so I figured I may as well try using it -- it's difficult to get one so who knows when I might get the opportunity again.

Care to divulge any details on the video for "Genesis" you're filming down there?

I'm directing it. I want it to be like a Tarantino-like animé representation, or my representation, of the brutal nature of medieval Catholicism. So it's the way that Catholicism appeared to me when I was a kid, it was crazy, and I had this very romantic and sensationalized idea of it because of, well, you know what Catholic medieval painting and art is like. Everything in the Old Testament is fucked and crazy, so I wanted to take that nostalgia from my childhood ability to believe in God and take all that iconography that was really crazy to me in my head and reinterpret it in a modern way that's more relatable to my life now.

So who will be performing with you on the Full Flex Tour?

I'm going to be having my friend [Mike Tucker] from the band Blood Diamonds. I've also got three dancers. My friends and I invented this dance style in Montreal one crazy night. They're two huge guys and they work out all the time, one has crazy long blonde hair that goes down to his waist and the other, when I go to shows with him everyone thinks he's a narc. I want to utilize the idea of these bodyguard-style guys and having this really intense male thing on stage.

I want them to be topless, oiled up and covered in glitter and have these S&M masks on. I already have the masks -- I bought them in Germany at this sex shop, they're so horrific, beautiful and cool and give such a strong image. I just want them topless, glittery and shiny with big S&M masks obscuring their faces. I also have another friend who's in the video "Vanessa" and also "Nightmusic" and she'll be doing some more feminine stuff.

Touring by train for the Full Flex Tour is a neat, old-fashioned way to travel.

I'm excited about it -- I've never really travelled in a meaningful way by train before. I feel like it's going to be very modern, especially given the style of the bands that are going to be on it.

How did the idea come about?

I guess it was Skrillex's idea. My manager came to me with the tour offer but I had already been touring so much and I'm going out on tour later in the summer. I literally told him 'I can't do any more touring this summer unless it's with Skrillex,' so when he told me it actually was Skrillex, I had to agree to do it. I had this joke thing in my brain where I really wanted to tour with Skrillex, I don't know why.

The original Festival Express was noted for its jam sessions, any plans to jam with Skrillex and Diplo?

I don't know if we'll jam -- we'll probably just sit side by side on our computers, making music electronically. I'll probably be pretty drunk most of the time.

How did the collaboration with Kreayshawn ["Don't Smoke My Blunt Bitch" as L$D] come about?

Just to make it clear that's not a serious Grimes thing. We were actually just hanging out, we wrote the song in a couple of minutes, next we made the video as a joke and my friend posted it on his blog. I thought it was going to get a thousand views but it blew up by accident. So there's nothing really going into that -- we thought it seemed funny at the time. I won't distant myself from it, but it's not a serious piece of art. The girl who shot the video is a friend of mine -- I invited her over and she brought Kreayshawn with her. She's chill though, I like her.

Are you working on new music too?

Yeah, I'm working on my next album but there are a few different directions I can go in, so I'm solidifying which direction I'm going in right now. I'm starting to get somewhere though. I have a lot of time before I'm supposed to put out a record though -- maybe I'll put out an EP. I want to put out some music soon, just to have something out there that's not so bubblegum.

Bubblegum?

I thought Visions was very pink. I want something dark blue.

Thoughts on Visions making the Polaris Music Prize long list?

It's cool -- I don't think I'll win. Every year Arcade Fire wins, or someone like that. It would be cool though, I hope I get to go.

Watch Grimes' "Nightmusic" Video

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