From the moment she introduced herself to a packed crowd at New York City’s Mercury Lounge over 20 years ago, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ singer and songwriter Karen O, born Karen Lee Orzolek, has been regarded as one of the most captivating performers in music.

In those early years spent as the only frontwoman in an explosive male-dominated music scene that gave birth to bands like the Strokes, Interpol, LCD Soundsystem, and TV on the Radio, Karen wielded the microphone like a bullhorn, simultaneously commanding and submitting to a crackling energy of bodily chaos and emotional catharsis. Many of these sweaty, beer-spitting exorcisms are on full display in the newly released film Meet Me in the Bathroom, a documentary adaptation of music journalist Lizzy Goodman’s acclaimed 2017 book of the same name. 

Directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January, but its nationwide distribution seems serendipitously timed, released just a month and half after the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ latest effort, Cool It Down, the band’s first record nine years. With the 20th anniversary of the trio’s debut album, Fever to Tell, also set to occur next year, Karen has found herself in a unique period where her past is in steady conversation with her present. After recently performing two of the biggest headlining shows of her band’s career at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York, and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, she spoke with Vanity Fair about the evolution of her performance, seeing a version of herself through archival footage, and being part of an artistic movement that could never be duplicated today.

Last month, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs headlined two big shows in New York and LA, where the Linda Lindas and Japanese Breakfast were opening acts. That must have been incredibly satisfying for you as an Asian American, being able to elevate other Asian American musical artists, giving them the kind of opportunity that maybe you weren’t afforded when you were starting out.

It’s funny, because I really feel that it was such a mutually beneficial situation. I feel in a lot of ways the Linda Lindas and Japanese Breakfast gave me an opportunity, elevating me and selling out the biggest shows we’ve ever played in the States. Michelle [Zauner], especially with her book, [Crying in H Mart], she just cracked open this view on Asian American artists and Asian American women, putting them so much more on the radar. She’s generated so much interest from her story. I feel she opened a lot of doors for people to notice that I’m half-Asian again. Because I’ve gone through the majority of my career where most conversation topics were “what’s it like to be a woman in rock?” and so rarely was asked about being biracial or having Asian heritage. And then with the Linda Lindas, speaking to just sharing the shows with them, normally playing any sort of hometown show in New York, I don’t know what happens to me, but I generally go really dark. It’s just so much, and pressure, and there are a lot of ghosts. There’s an intensity to playing New York. And if it wasn’t for the Linda Lindas literally dancing in unison during our soundcheck like they were in a musical—and just seeing them in this empty tennis stadium—it filled me with just so much joy seeing that freshness of their perspective and worldview where everything is just amazing. They did me a real solid just taking the edge off the anticipatory anxiety I had about that show. It was meaningful to all of us and our fans. I was getting texts from people who were saying “I’ve never felt this represented before.” It was just such a joyful, cathartic show. 

I have my copy of Meet Me in the Bathroom on my shelf and have watched the documentary. When you look back to that past self, to that freshness as you were describing with the Linda Lindas, what tends to stick out in your mind in terms of your growth, not just as an artist but as a person?

Being Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was born out of such a precious, naive innocence that’s almost impossible to achieve these days. Everybody who lands in New York in their late teens and early 20s, they generally have a vision and mission—even if it’s an unconscious one. You want to go there because it’s one of the greatest cities in the world and you want to be somebody. But back then, we just didn’t have the self-consciousness of actually having some kind of influence. We were bored and just kind of found each other and in the most typical New York way of just going to shows, hanging out at bars, meeting people in person. 

And even though it was New York City and [it] is this incredible springboard for anything, I think that there was this real beautiful naivety of not having any kind of agenda. If there was any agenda at that point, it was just let’s shake things up, have a bunch of fun, and hang out with our friends. There was a real purity about it that I think is really hard to achieve now. We were following the footsteps of Patti Smith and Lou Reed and the Ramones, the New Yorkers that were looking toward poets and literature, other music, and art as their influences rather than influencers. It was an amazing thing to be there in that moment right before the internet just changed everything. 

As far as my growth, I was reeling quite a bit in the beginning because shortly after we started the band, the world turned upside down. A close friend died the same year 9/11 happened, and then, just getting so much attention as a band so soon, it sent me in a kind of self-destructive spiral. It really took me falling off the stage in Australia to kind of put me on a different path. When you’re young you’re in the flow, but you’re also getting sucked into a tornado if you’re not super grounded. My artistic journey has been kind of a balance of just finding my footing while trying to stay in the flow and do everything on my own terms as much as possible.

You were obviously a huge part of this time in New York City music history, and while the book Meet Me in the Bathroom beautifully captures that time in its oral history format, there is something different in seeing those testimonials juxtaposed against all these images and footage and stolen moments, many of which haven’t been seen before. How did you feel watching your segments of the documentary?

I don’t know how involved other bands were with trying to guide them a little bit with the story, but in an early meeting with the directors I was like, “You guys realize that it was a very different experience for me being one of the only women in this scene that you’re going to be covering.” And they were like, “Yeah, we want to know. What was it like?” I just knew that I would have to be a little bit more involved to feel like they were representing an experience that they couldn’t quite relate to. I think they did a really good job of really capturing the way it felt. It does feel time capsule-y. 

Seeing myself there, it’s kind of a mixed bag because what I see is the agony and ecstasy of my experience of it. It was saving my life, but I was also very unmoored at that moment. I’ve mentioned this to others but there wasn’t really a road map for how a leading lady would do it. I just wasn’t expecting that amount of success and interest. When I look at it, I experience a kind of psychic fugue, which is an incredible thing because that’s what made the shows so out of this world, kinetic, and visceral. It was also interesting seeing the guys’ side of things. I didn’t know very much about the Strokes’ or Interpol’s or LCD’s experience. It was interesting to see how everybody, these sensitive and slightly self-destructive souls, were struggling with this reckoning of very uncommercial bands becoming commercial.

One thing that has always been evidently clear throughout your career is how special being onstage has been for you. How has your approach and perspective changed over the years in regard to the experience of performing?

I think more than anything, being up there onstage was an opportunity for me to live as dangerously as I could ever live, because I don’t live dangerously in life. I wanted to be unpredictable. I wanted to be in touch with a more carnal, sexual representation. I wanted to be unhinged and deeply vulnerable as well as wildly powerful and funny. Because those are all aspects of something that’s inside of me. There’s definitely a real dork up there as well. All those things just came out naturally. I can’t really explain why, but I wanted our shows to feel like a happening. I wanted the audience to feel not just like they were watching us but that they could become us. That was a really important part of the early shows. And we would pull it off often. We would just get the crowd in this state where they were losing themselves making out and dancing and moshing, just totally losing themselves. 

I would have to lose myself to kind of instigate that and as the years went on, that would just take so much out of me physically. All the boundaries were kind of blurred when I was younger performing, and it was a beautiful thing but a beautiful mess in so many ways. And I started thinking, whatever is taking over onstage, is it taking over me or am I wielding it? In any given show it would be a toss-up of those two things. I think over the years, especially lately, I feel I’ve been able to harness what moves through in an intentional way. I’m understanding that one of the gifts that I’ve been given is really being able to connect in the heart space with an audience. That for me is the holy grail of what you can do up there. So I’ve been focusing more on that connection and feeling less inclined to be thrashing myself around or engaging in the self-destructive aspects that were really fun when I was younger. I still have echoes of that energy, that confrontational and playful side of things, but I like honing [in] on what a pure connection is supposed to be. People always comment on how much I smile when I perform and I’m like, “Oh yeah, I guess I do do that.” 

It would be almost irresponsible of me not to bring up the importance of “Maps.” It’s arguably one of the greatest songs to be made in the last two decades. What does it mean for you that it has such longevity and impact?

I’m so glad it’s “Maps,” to be honest. It’s such a hard thing to pull off, a love song, especially one that stands the test of time. When you’re writing music, you just don’t know what’s going to strike a chord, if anything strikes a chord at all. But it’s such a simple song. The lyrics are so freakin’ simple and the way we wrote was incredibly simple and came together within minutes. But I don’t know, when you write a song that resonates it becomes its own thing. But again, I’m so grateful that it was a love song. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.