We live in a world of fashion where one must be seen and give a few lines of social media copy, whatever is “overshared“ is curated. Thank goodness we have [Caroline Vreeland](https://www.instagram.com/carolinevreeland/?hl=en), the musician, model, and muse, a firecracker voice amongst the fashion set. I have had the pleasure of over indulging with her time and time again and the conversations and vibrations always leaves a lasting aftershock.
By blood she has maintained the Vreeland name of mythical fashion royalty, and her Grandma the iconic and late Diana Vreeland would be proud. Catching up with the sentuous blonde at the Flaunt Offices we got to speak with her on her latest release. _Notes on Sex + Wine_. An album filled with knife sharp lyrics, a result of a breakup which Vreeland well dwelled upon creating a distinctive lyrical description. The backbone of the release is Vreelands voice which gathers the sonic stew of 60’s classic sounds to 90s R&B.
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Caroline Vreeland photographed by Jason Renaud
I’ve been hiding out at my mom’s because I’ve been a little under the weather.
**Does your mom live out here?**
She lives in Santa Monica.
**Oh, I didn’t know that you were a west side girl, I thought you were a Northern Cali girl?**
I am a norcal girl but then I was living here for the last 10 years. And then I did Miami for 2 and fell in love with a Cuban papi.
**This new album, it’s really crazy because I feel like you’re going through all the type of emotions and also through all the type of ranges your that voice is adapatable towards. I feel like there’s kind of throwback moment, very cinematic and very noir. There’s also this old school throwback R&B sound that’s going on, late 80’s, early 90’s.**
Yeah, the single that we just released which is “Drinking for Two,” that one’s a little bit more on the Urban and R&B side. The rest of it I would say - we were really kind of doing a Nancy Sinatra/Patsy Cline/Amy Winehouse kind of feel. Something that can have more movement, be more upbeat but still be obviously the darker topics that I like to talk about. Where as my previous work I feel like I always thought these subdued topics have to be like wristcutters and all this shit, it’s like so heavy, but I finally feel like now I found the way to have there be movement in it even though it’s about those things.
Then we have of course the last song which is a jazz song. The next album I’m going to do is completely jazz based so it’s kind of a nice little too - as soon as I put this out I’m getting in the studio and starting the new one after I come back from the tour. I just want to start writing again. I mean I started this album a year and half ago, two years ago. I’m excited, I have so much new shit to talk about so I’m ready to get back.
Larsen Thompson photographed by Jason Renaud
**I think that’s the really amazing thing - you were able to actually isolate the aesthetics with the layering and really create that kind of vintage like you said, “Sinatra sound in that Amy Winehouse type of context.” Then you moved right into that Urban and R&B type of throwback. So what was the process of wanting to kind of like. I feel like you started very classic, went into the R&B, and then after that found a fusion and then went into the jazz which I thought was beautiful to end on, that note**.
Thanks. Um, what was the process? You know like I said I really wrote it in the thick of.. Let’s just say that I wasn’t able to achieve a level of intimacy with him across the board in terms of all the things that intimacy brings. And that was really painful, plus I had changed my life to resituate in a new city and so I started kind of just… you know when you’re in the thick of it, you’re like in the eye of the storm or whatever and you don’t see everything going on around you?
I didn’t realize how unhappy I was, I didn’t realize what was going on but I started recording and writing down everything and that’s when I was actually recording this album. It just so happened that my producers live part time in LA and part time in Tampa. So when I was Miami it was super easy for me to go over to Tampa for a few days. It was kind of an escape from what I was realizing more and more was an unhappy situation. I just kept writing about all the frustrations of like, needing someone to fucking grab me and push me against the wall and want me and like…
Luke Cook photographed by Jason Renaud
**That Fiery way**
Yeah. That happens you know in relationships no matter how sensual you are or how sexy you show yourself to the world because that’s a big part of me being open about my sexuality, it’s a big part of who I am. But it doesn’t really matter, there’s still times when you’re going to be in a relationship where that’s lacking. So it’s me talking about dealing with that. When it comes to the genre stuff, I don’t know, I guess my producers were really able to open up all those different sides of me. Even though yet like you said there’s some outliers, there’s the jazz song, there’s the R&B song - it still to me felt like a cohesive unit because it was all about the same point of time. And so I felt like, why not? Why can’t we have a jazz song on there; why can’t we have an R&B song on there? I kind of like the way it all fits together.
**I love the lyrical content especially because knowing you outside it’s like no one else could have written it for you. It was definitely coming from a real internal space and your passion, and your brand of wine, food and drama...**
Thank you for the drama, I love the drama. Lyrically it gets interesting sometimes because the last show I had in LA a few months ago my grandfather who’s 95, he came out to see the show. I guess the setlist slipped my mind because I had it down there on the floor and I found that moment to be like ‘Guys I just want to say I’m so happy that my grandfather’s here tonight, this next song is ‘Drinking for Two.’ And then the lyrics are like ‘every morning you wake up and give me head and then you make out with me right after’ and I’m thinking to myself ‘fuck, I just said this to my grandfather.’
But that is still kind of like you said, indicative of me because I’m just like for better or for worse and open book. I think sex is such a natural, beautiful thing we shouldn’t be scared to talk about it. That’s why I relish doing that column for CR because I was able to start conversations about sex where people would write stuff in. I would be able to, you know, I’m not a sexpert, but I just have a big mouth. So I would be open to discussing certain things that I think maybe other people thought found taboo. So that does find its way into the album and it wouldn’t be me if I censored any of that shit, you know me.
**You mentioned Sinatra. What else were you listening to as a point of reference for music and lyrics as well? Was there kind of an inspiration drawn?**
The lyrics were just me, literally stream of consciousness being a fucking loose cannon. But sonically, I was really focused on and into Patsy Cline, of course I still am. Walkin’ After Midnight, I love that song - so that was a part of my set when I was starting off with these producers. You know, you play your producers all the different things you like: Nina Simone, Sinnerman. You play the Fiona Apple obscure songs like, “A Mistake”, from When the Pawn. I was playing all these different things, the interlude from Starboy, “Stargirl” with Lana Del Rey. There was that country, not country, that old western-y kind of feeling that Patsy has. Nina has it too but, Patti Smith has it too. When they get to that certain point where it’s just so loud it’s almost cacophonous there’s a tingyness to it. So we were just trying to kind of capture all of it. It’s like your researching you know, you put it all in a pile and you pick out, ok why does it all work for me and what about those different things irks me in a good way.
**Well it’s like a Hollywood distillation of the ideal Western.**
Right!?
Photographed by Jason Renaud
**It’s like cinematically Western if anything. I think that’s very specific because at the end of the day it’s like the conversation and also the type of visual creation that you are painting through your music, it is kind of an extension of this classic cinematic experience of old Hollywood.**
And it’s true. Now that I’ve been working with this stubborn French stylist who’s amazing, [Henry de Castillon](https://www.instagram.com/hdecastillon/?hl=en). I swear to god sometimes I forget who works for who. I think I literally work for him because he’s so scary and he’s in charge of me. But he knows best. He really showed me he’s like “It’s all good and well Caroline that you’re in your 20’s..” This was before I met him, I’m in my 30’s now. But he’s like “that you’re in your 20’s and you want to wear like fucking crop tops and cowboy boots with a fucking gym short, love it. But what kind of women do you see yourself being in your 30’s? Let’s see the women with the sensuality instead of the over sexual aspect.” He really help me grow up in that regard. So as we were seeing it visually change. Like yes, things can be skin tight and to the floor but they don’t have to show all the cleavage or it doesn’t have to show all the leg.
I think musically I was thinking that way too because I wanted to be able to honor that old world glamour thing that I love and visually what we’re building and now what I’ve grown into. But I also still want to say my shit about eating my pussy and fucking, calling when I cum. You know what I mean? That’s the way I speak, that’s my rhetoric for better or for worse. So like how to meld those two worlds. So, I don’t see why they can’t live together. I don’t see why that can’t be because that is both pieces of who I am. And it also speaks to the crazy dichotomy of my life because I’ll be sitting front row at a couture show in Paris or I’ll be in Brooklyn wheeling my panties in a granny cart to do my laundry on a street corner at a laundry mat. I like that my life has both of those things and I think hopefully that’s coming across in the music that both of those sides of me can be on display. Especially for the jazz thing - it’s going to be all the same way I talk, the same concept, same shit about sex but done in a jazz standard kind of sound.
**That’s what I love, the contrast of production how it starts off so incredibly polished and it ends up almost very raw and simple and kind of pulled back.**
Very different from my EP which I put out a year ago. And even though that’s not the kind of music I even listen to, I have to be honest. I like the idea that that was a time in my life, it’s discography, I’m building on it. When you find an artist that you like, and hopefully more people will discover me or whatever and look back and say ok, she’s built on something - she’s evolved.’ So I want to feed that footstep. So a lot of people are like ‘that’s so different than the other shit.’ That’s where I was at and this is where I’m at now.
**Let’s chat about the video for “Stay Drunk With Me.” I just saw the bts stills it looks like such a fun video to shoot.**
Oh, it’s really good! I am particular proud of it because with my female director, Emmanuelle Pickett, we came up with a concept and it’s all self funded. I didn’t have anybody helping me with that. The majority of the people working on it were women. My producer is Becky Bunz, she’s one of my best friends. We had a choregrapher who was female. It was just a really cool experience and was the first time I ever brought something to life. That’s where I’m at now that was on this level. We got the location for free and I don’t know how we did it. I pulled out all my favors to make this one happen. I had Larson dancing. I had my sweet friend, Luke Cook who plays Satan in Sabrina. He’s so fucking funny.
**Oh cool. Oh my god, he’s so fucking hot.**
Yeah, he’s so hot and so sweet. He plays my guy in it. I push him down in the beginning under the table and then at the end he crawls out and wipes his mouth like he’s been down there eating that puss. You should watch it, it’s a lot of fun. I really wanted “Stay Drunk WIth Me” to be the first song which is the song for the video. I really think it sets the tone because it’s such a bachnical…
**Is that Larson? I love that look, I’ve worn this look out before.**
She literally goes backwards and eats her hand. She’s like a demon beast in it, it’s so fucking sick. I had the grapes like they’re were my little baby, cradling them. And of course Henry did all the styling which was amazing. It was just like the fucking best day ever. I was in tears and I couldn’t believe all those people came. We had an Anita Ekberg fountain moment, thank you very much. The idea of “Stay Drunk With Me” is just like giving into the intoxication. Because I was dealing with the breakup and stuff I realized obviously I was drinking to cope. I drink anyway when I’m not coping, I asked you to bring wine to this meeting. Haha!
**Here we are drinking water and green juice.**
This is so not me but I think it’s actually helping.
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