"YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND THE LIGHT UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND THE DARK"With bored fashionistas lately seen flocking to London fetish clubs, bondage is now, um...painfully hip. New York-based singer-model Jillian Ann, however, has had a foot in each camp all along, splitting time between mainstream modeling and her primary career as a sort of fetish supermodel. But when she's not in front of the camera, she's in a recording studio, and the result is her startling debut album, Neverland. The music is dark and jittery, and as curiously beautiful as it is unsettling (think This Mortal Coil); and her lyrics evince an austere emotional candor not unlike that of Tori Amos. Most astonishingly, she plays all the instruments herself.
You did the mainstream modeling thing in Milan, but you've said you felt a bit trapped by it.
I did. And frankly, it's a very defined system. The fashion industry is a system; it's very commercial. And you have to do 10 castings a day, which means you spend most of your day going on castings for the first year or two until you really start making money. I had no time for music. And all of these photographers were trying to get me to take my clothes off.
Yeah, those Italian photographers.
I had a good time, but I realized I didn't want to play the game. Now, I'm working with a lot of photographers and designers directly. And in the alternative-fetish modeling industry there's nothing to hide; people are pretty open about things. They're all hyper-intelligent, really creative people.
There's a lyric on your record, "Don't judge my life until you've looked me in the eye." At whom is that directed?
That's directed at people who would say to me, "How can you do that?" Which is very condescending? They're not there, they don't understand it. Some of that attitude even came from the fashion industry. I would think, Let me get this straight. You're going to kick me out because I did some erotic photos, but you have models that are visibly heroin addicts, who have been arrested, and that's acceptable?
Well, drugs and fashion...you know.
But then they wouldn't kick me out. They would slowly let me die. They're still very uptight about it, and it's easier for them to point fingers than to deal with their own issues. And you can't please everybody.
Well, you seem to really openly do battle with emotional demons on the record. Was it easy for you to do that?
It's easy for me to be that frank and open, yes. You can't understand the light until you understand the dark
The record is also really complex sonically. I did it in my bedroom. I've been studying music since I was eleven; I've studied harmonic physics, I've studied the sound of healing, I've studied tonal qualities...
Would you ditch your modeling career for the music?
This is not a side project, the music career. I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too.
Is there a cult of Jillian Ann?
There is a cult. I had a street team of a hundred people before I even had an album.
You mean fans you've contacted through the internet? They went out and promoted your record for you?
Yes, my mailing list is close to ten thousand people.
You've led a fairly bizarre life so far. Has it worked out the way you wanted it to?
It's taken some interesting twists and turns, but it's exactly where I saw it being.