Annalee Fery

“Just walking around, being me is uncool. I've never really felt cool, anyways, so I guess you just kind of roll with it.”

Playboy.com: You're into gardening, right?

Annalee Fery: It's super-fun. I'm from Oregon, and there's lots of nature. My aunt's a real eccentric woman, and she has plants all around. Growing up, one of the rooms of her house was just for plants.

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Playboy.com: So she was like a cat lady, but for plants?

Fery: She had parrots, too, like 30 of them. It was pretty crazy.

Playboy.com: Why'd you move from Oregon to L.A.?

Fery: I just wanted to come where the sun was. In Oregon, it rained constantly. I don't think I was a very happy child, so I was like, I have to go somewhere else. My brother went to Pasadena for the art center, and I just thought it was really nice.

Playboy.com: Doesn't the lack of rain in L.A. make it hard to garden?

Fery: No. I water my plants very well. My friend calls me "the hoser," because I'm constantly watering them down.

Playboy.com: One music reviewer said that your vocals sound childlike, but underneath there lies a strictly adult kind of pain. Do you agree?

Fery: I think there's some kind of truth to the pain thing. Don't you feel like for everyone you meet, it's kind of nice to know that everyone's been through this or that, and you can see it in their face at times? I'd rather see that than someone just numb to everything. I like to see people for who they are, rather than the whole façade.

Playboy.com: So when you see someone really miserable, that makes you feel good?

Fery: [Laughs] Yeah, I get happy when people are miserable. What a jerk!

Playboy.com: "Fascination" is a great song on the album, but what the hell is it about?

Fery: I think my favorite thing about hearing songs is getting my own interpretation. I don't like things that are spelled out too much. But there is sort of an underlying thing about the materialistic side of life, and how it seems like maybe we're all just kind of waiting for it. But it's never really there, because it's all just illusion. [Laughs] If that makes sense, I don't know.

I feel like the world has such a -- I hate to use the word again -- illusion to it. Where people, including myself, don't want to live in reality. Maybe coming from Oregon, and sadness or pain.... It's nice to see how things can be, rather than how they really are. Maybe I'm talking in circles....

Playboy.com: At the beginning of "Don't Go," before the song starts there's a guy saying something that sounds like, "Sand in my vagina," and then people laughing. What is that about?

Fery: [Laughs] Those guys in the band are dorks, and they just say stupid things.

Playboy.com: You've said in an interview that people have to stop trying to be so fucking cool. What's the most uncool thing you've done lately?

Fery: Just walking around, being me is uncool. I've never really felt cool, anyways, so I guess you just kind of roll with it. I say stupid things or I make stupid faces. But to me it's fun. And the boys in the band are really silly, too.

photo: Geoff Moore