The Poe Interview

By Sophie Knight of Seventeen magazine, January 97' issue

Poe's birth certificate says she's Annie Danielewski, but the 25 year old singer/songwriter has been called Poe for so long it might as well be her real name. (That's what happens when you grow up obsessing over Edgar Allen Poe's poetry.) Even Poe's mom, who says her daughter was a "little poet" from the first time she opened her mouth, calls her Poeski.

Today the "little poet" is a tall, awesome looking rock star. It all started last spring, when Poe's debut disk, Hello was released and her first single, "Trigger Happy Jack" ("You can't talk to a pshyco like a normal human being...") rocked alternative radio. Now, of course, you can't surf the airwaves without hearing "Angry Johnny", ("Johnny, angry Johnny, this is Jezzebell in Hell, I wanna kill you, I wanna blow you away...") Poe's haunting hit ballad. And if you check out concert listings, Poe and her tireless band are probably playing at an all-ages club near you.

"I'm really comfortable walking up in a different city everyday." says Poe, who lived all over the world with her parents and her brother until her parents split up [when she was 16]. After that, she ended up settling down in her native New York City. That's where "I really started to get into my music," she says. Then Poe landed a full scholarship to Princeton Univeristy, where she began recording and writingalot of the music on Hello. "When I first started out, I couldn't afford a band, so I recorded different instruments by myself with sampling machines.

Now she's got the band, and the killer show. Poe shouts to everyone through an electronic megaphone, and stage dives into her fans' arms. Afterward, she usually hangsout with her fans and makes friends with the audience. She even wears jewelry made and given to her by her fans. (The jewelry she wears in the picture are ball-chains with nuts and bolts on them.)

Getting famouse isn't exactly a drag, and Poe admits it. But there's one occupational hazard she says she can't deal with: the "angry young woman" stigma she shares with fellow female rockers like Alanis Morissette and Tracy Bonham. "I have happy, angry and sad songs on my album," Poe explains. "Women don't have just one emotion-we're much more complex than that." I couldn't agree more.