Feist

Illustration: Rob Kelly

Leslie Feist embodies the diversified talent of the Canadian indie-rock clique. A sometime member of Toronto collective Broken Social Scene (whose leader, Kevin Drew, is her boyfriend), Feist, 31, also toured in the early 2000s with electrorapper Peaches and vaudevillian prankster-pianist Gonzales, a pair of stints that unleashed her inner showwoman. No longer just a side act to international creatives, Feist has been well-known in indie circles by her surname (and stage name) ever since the 2004 critical smash Let It Die and its catchy single “Mushaboom.” She’s currently touring behind The Reminder, a recent set of songs with the hooks to win her bona fide pop stardom. On break in her North American home base of Toronto—she also has a place in Paris—the willowy singer bravely fought the haze of a hangover to share her thoughts.

The indie-rock crowd is known to be kind of, well, pale and pasty. Does it ever bother you to have such a homogeneous fan base?

You know, when I was touring with Broken Social Scene, we would feel like we achieved some new level of cool if there were some black people in the audience. But when you tour internationally, you realize that’s just a North American perspective. I mean, when I play in Japan, it’s all Japanese people.

On The Reminder, you cover “Sea Lion Woman,” which was popularized by Nina Simone. Were you at all hesitant to record a song so strongly associated with a giant like her?

I never thought about that, because it’s not like I’m trying to arm-wrestle with Nina Simone. She’s a genius! I first heard the song on a field recording from the 1930s. It’s a kind of school-yard-game chant sung by two little girls. Nobody knows who wrote it, but a lot of folk musicians in the ’60s claimed songs they didn’t write.

Are you saying Nina Simone stole “Sea Lion Woman”?

She claimed to have written it, yes, and I took some rhythm ideas from her version. But it’s 40 years later, I’m a different person, it’s a different time. Music is more individual now.

How so?

People have access. We have iPods. Songs used to survive through communities, when Grandpa taught them to the kids on Saturday night around the piano. Now musicians record them and release them as their own. Whether that’s honest or not, the melody survives.

Your music is folky, but especially on The Reminder, there’s an unmistakable pop appeal.

I think I’m still on the fence between total self-satisfaction and lo-fi ideals. I came from indie rock. I strummed guitar into a four-track for years. But I like when there are little hooks in songs to catch people’s attention.

At your Town Hall show in June, you put on a sparkly armband and said it was for “razzle-dazzle.” Were you being ironic?

No, it’s just that that percentage of my arm is the only part of me that could go full flash. I’m so far from being able to inhabit that sequined world, but I am able to point at it. And I’m able to appreciate that people’s eyes are at the gig as well as their ears. Maybe you need to give them an exploding cigar every once in a while.

Is that why your video for “1234” is like an elaborate Busby Berkeley number?

In 1988, when the Winter Olympics were in Calgary, where I grew up, I was selected as one of 1,000 children to be in the opening-ceremony number. We spent two years rehearsing a five-minute performance where we made changing shapes of snowflakes and skiers and things. I wanted something like that to go with “1234,” and we did it!

You’re on a bill at McCarren Park Pool with Broken Social Scene, who will be performing your boyfriend’s new record, Spirit If…. Are you excited?

I think Kevin has made an absolutely incredible record, but I’m…what’s the word?

Smitten?

No! I mean, yes, but what’s that called when you don’t have a right to say if it’s good or bad?

Oh, you’re subjective.

I swear I know that word. It’s just that I have a hangover.

Feist plays McCarren Park Pool Wed 29 and appears at the Revenge of the Book Eaters at Beacon Theatre Sun 26.