Have you had any remarkable recent adventures separate from music?

Well [collaborator and live guitarist] Matt Tomasi and I started dating on the Grimes tour. That's been kind of a fun, chaotic time. We're such good friends as well. It's been wild and fun. He was living in this disturbing white 1970s bungalow out in the middle of nowhere. He had four roommates and they were all wild truckers and bikers; they would ride dirt bikes through the house. We were living in the basement, kind of scared all the time but also kind of enjoying it. No TV, no internet. You're like miles from anything. It was very cut off and isolated, which created this weird atmosphere. We started working on the new demos there. The stuff we created in that house is weird and cool and it has, I think, a very particular vibe. "Beautiful and Bad" and "Have You Seen Me?" both went down there.

Those songs are pretty intense. Is the new stuff decidedly heavier?

No. It's funny, we finished those and I was like, "I'm just going to release them." I regretted doing that because I feel like those are going to be two of the heaviest tracks on the record. They're not a good example of what the record is. They're both going to be on it, though. "I Slept With My Uncle On My Wedding Night" and "Lemonade" are also on it, but totally re-done versions. The record’s called Hillbilly Noir.

Can you share any of the bleak or twisted stuff that has been inspiring your newer work?

I was reading this book and it said something really interesting, especially because I've grown up in this very religious town. The religion that's in that town is metaphorical; angels and devils are more metaphors. In places in the South, the devil is physical — he's real and he's walking around. I like the idea of Satan not being a metaphor for something evil, but actually Satan himself, or like an angel as a literal being walking around.

I've also been into the idea of the femme fatale, minus the sexuality. It’s the Annie Wilkes in Misery — the femme fatale who does not attract lovers by beauty, but more so by pure psychotic obsession. Annie is the coolest villain ever. You root for her in some fucked up way. You don't want her to die. There's something about her that's relatable. Those moments when she's enjoying Paul’s company and then you see her eyes do a weird thing, and she realizes that he's held captive, that he’s not there on his own free will. She's humbled in those moments, and I relate to the feeling of inadequacy. He says "Oh, maybe you'll think of a name for the book," and she's like, Like I could do that." She has no self-esteem. There’s something about here that is likable. She's just also psychotic.

Are you psyched about the reissues? A lot more people will be hearing these songs.

[Labelhead Jeff Casazza and I] have been talking for a long time, bouncing ideas back and forth. Us finally working together was a dream come true. It's kind of weird to listen back to old work. It's not a good representation of what I'm about now. But at the same time, I can respect [the records] for what they are. They're time stamped. I'm not ashamed of them. But it’s weird — especially because now I know more about music in general. Now I finally know what people are talking about when they tell me my guitar is not tuned. I hear it now!

Did you ever see that batshit conspiracy theory that theorized that you weren’t a real person, and actually just an invented alter ego of Grimes’s?

I did see that. It's flattering, I suppose, for people to draw comparisons. I admire her work so much, so if someone wants to make that leap that's so cool. But at the same time that's kind of offensive. I think people are so quick to lump female artists together. People are like, "Oh you sound like Evanescence." I'm like, I really, really don't sound like Amy Lee. I guess people maybe find Claire so mysterious that I guess they say, "It's not a stretch to say she could do this wild thing."

I was like reading the [conspiracy theory] thread on Reddit and it got really intense. One dude was like, "She's playing a show in Toronto, I'm going to go and see if it's actually Claire or not." Later he responded: "Checked it out, it wasn't Claire."