By Samantha Bornemann

Playboy.com: You've gotten a lot of attention in the press lately and were photographed for features in GQ and Esquire. Does your punk background make you wary of becoming too mainstream?

Neko Case: I don't really think that I'm in danger of being too well-known, because I'm not gonna be on TV, really. I don't look like the formula, I don't sound like the formula. I don't appeal to that audience, so I enjoy doing photo shoots for magazines like that just from an anthropological standpoint [laughs], like it's kinda great to be able to tell your friends what it's like to go and be in a photo shoot for Esquire.

PB: So is there any truth to the rumors about you getting naked onstage in Chicago?

NC: No. One time in Chicago I pulled the top half of my dress off because I was too hot, but I was wearing this giant bra that was like a shirt. It was so not getting naked.

But when I did a photo shoot at [Chicago music club] the Hideout, basically they were making me wear these really stupid outfits, and I was like, "God, I'd rather be naked." And he was like, "Would you? Would you be naked?!" So I took my clothes off and they took these pictures while I was wearing heels, which was the funniest part, because the most hilarious thing about pornography to me is always that they have to be wearing shoes, and they have to be pumps!

PB: I understand you're a big fan of Playboy.

next

01 · 02 · 03 · 04 · 05 · 06

WHO IS SHE?:

With a heart true to country, roots in punk and membership in alt-rock darlings the New Pornographers, 30-year-old Neko Case is a diva too large for labels of any kind (including the majors). After beating the drums in all-girl punk band Maow, the Tacoma, Washington native stormed the independent country scene with 1997's The Virginian. Furnace Room Lullaby, her second album with Neko Case & Her Boyfriends, caught the attention of anyone who'd given up hope for authentic, articulate country songs of love and loss.

WHAT HAS SHE DONE?:

While in Vancouver drumming and singing in Maow and earning her BFA, Neko found time to record The Virginian for Mint Records. On the road in 1998, Neko played South by Southwest with the Sadies and Lilith Fair with the Local Rabbits. The release of Furnace Room Lullaby in 2000 added mainstream critics to the long list of her not-so-secret admirers. This year, her soaring and diving vocals on the New Pornographers' power-pop attack Mass Romantic leave us feeling all the more inadequate.

WHY DO WE CARE?: