I've always been open to all kinds of improvisation, which always a part of who I am as a person day-to-day. Really, I think it would be interesting if everyone was working in groups, like in science class in school. We'd be like, "OK, we're gonna work in groups today." Because there's a sort of free flow when people are overlapping.
When I'm on tour, I'm always meeting different people in different situations. I love meeting new people. I'm friendly, so that's normal to me. You don't really know what's what unless you meet somebody. That's why it's been important for me to introduce myself to everyone. People are sometimes shy and they don't introduce themselves and interact.
This is a big part of being an artist. Artists do a lot of collaboration, but they also spend a lot of time on their own. Personally, I think whether or not you're an artist, a nurse, a teacher, or a garbageman, chef, housekeeper, I'm always open to everybody. I like to have communication with all kinds of people because it doesn't matter what they do or where they're from. I am convinced that all people have the same interests and are equally friendly. You can meet people anywhere and you can share and interact. You can become friends.
Riding this train, it's hard to think of it rolling into town and meeting every local person. It's cool that all the locals are coming out. This is an "anything can happen" environment -- you make plans to do something in ten minutes and then another person will inject their ideas. Everything is constantly shifting. But I always think, collaboration and improvisation are so important.
Cat Power's (AKA, Chan Marshall's) latest album is called Sun.
This blogpost is transcribed from an interview with stationtostation.com
This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and Station to Station. Station to Station is a public-art project conceived by Doug Aitken. This series will feature artists from the project sharing their thoughts and ideas related to Station to Station. For more information about Station to Station, click here. And to follow the conversation on Twitter, see #TrackSTS.