You came up with Metals after a long hiatus. Why the long break?
After seven years of touring I was totally depleted. Things weren’t slowing down so I drew a big thick line eight months in advance in the calendar, and after that I would stop completely. When I hit that wall it was a dead stop, and I collapsed with my suitcase next to me.

How did you begin writing again?
The most important thing was waiting for there to be a silence around me after the last album (The Reminder). Eventually I started writing again, very quietly with nobody waiting, watching or listening. That was how I used to record, so it felt right. I made myself a space in a shed behind my house and wrote a bunch of songs, and then in the summer of 2010 went back to the studio in Paris to finish it off.

Why “Metals”?
A metal can mean either the raw material, or what something can become after a long process. It can always be melted down and turned into something else. The main point is that there’s a raw version buried deep in the earth, and it’s a heavy and industrial process to extract out of rock. Then you melt it and everything reacts to different temperatures and has different properties, and something new is formed.So there were a lot of thoughts that related to the mood of the record. Metals was one word that could give each song its own tool or weapon to expand its own identity; to make it mellifluous, mercurial, more responsive or more malleable. It could give one song a sword in its hand and give another this dazzling precious cover.

Feist will be performing at Laneway Festival Singapore, February 12, 10.20pm at Fort Canning Park. See other interviews with Chairlift and Cults.