JJJ 1996-03-06 By Angela Catterns "Interview transcript" Subject: Interview on JJJ (Au. radio station) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 00:12:18 +1000 From: Davin Chow To: Multiple recipients of list BLUE-EYED-POP This interview was conducted on Triple J, an Australian government radio station on 6 March '96 at about 4:30pm. Transcript may be slightly flawed, well, I'm only human! AC Angela Catterns B Björk [I Miss You] AC: The amazing song, I miss you from, Post, the latest album from Björk, and she's been a favourite artist of ours for a long time here at Triple J, and I'm thrilled to welcome her to the studio... B: Oh thank you very much. AC: It's very nice to meet you. Now, just for the definitive final word, how do you pronounce your own name? B: Björk. AC: Björk. B: Yep, you're pretty close, actually. AC: Thanks! That's lovely. Not Beyork, Björk. B: Yeah, I usually tell foreigners to think of jerk... AC: [LOL] B: ... and then they can say it right, yeah. AC: Thank you... [LOL] that's very good. Is it true that it actually means birch tree in Icelandic? B: Yeah, basically it's birch... AC: Is it a common name where you grow up? B: It's quite common as say a middle name... AC: Is it? B: ... but probably not very common on its own. AC: Uh-huh... B: but... it's... yea it's a common name. AC: Iceland sounds like a really rich... a wonderfully spiritually rich sort of place to grow up with kind of gods and legends, and those sort of things that go far back. Are they part of your life now? B: Well... I think because Iceland was a bit, say, still in the middle ages till this century, because it was a Danish colony. Um, and it kinda didn't really develop a lot last 500 years, and then this century it developed very, very quick. It became independent 1944, and then it became, like very quick, like the 5th richest country in the whole world... AC: Really? B: So it was like, from like... from like green to pink in like 5 minutes. AC: Are you telling me, it's still really one of the richest countries in the world? B: Yeah. It is now. AC: What do you make the bucks out of? B: Fish. AC: Really? B: Yeah, we sold fish to all the stupid people in Europe that kept fighting each other in WW II. AC: [LOL] B: And so that's how like we became... really quickly, so we're kinda like a bit schizofriend (?) there. It's like full of farmers and that full of mythology and viking (?) sagas and they drive them BMWs and they got those hi-tech sorta concrete roads with the very techno lights to light it, lampposts. And then the road suddenly goes in a big curve around the rocks that the elves and the fairies live in. AC: [LOL] B: So, uh, I quite like it because it's extremes, and they live together, the extremes. It's like very natural and very techno together. AC: Wow, sounds wonderful. Do you take personal responsibility for taking Iceland into the 20th century, and so uh... so rich and well off? B: No, no. Um... I don't know, they joke about it though, in Iceland. AC: About you being a big export sort of thing? B: Yeah, that I should come and give them more money and stuff. AC: Oh really? B: I think they've got it a bit wrong, because I don't think I earn as much as they think. AC: [LOL] B: Then again they think that I hang around with Michael Jackson and that, and do them private jet thing, and all that, but I quite like it. I think it's quite sweet. I think it's flattering in a way that they think so much of me. AC: You don't hang out with Michael Jackson? B: Um... no I wish, you know. AC: No, you don't really, do you? B: You'd be surprised really. AC: And is it true that you grew up in one of the only hippie communes in Reykjavik? B: No that's a lie actually. AC: Is it? B: Yeah, well basically what I'm trying to say is that my mom is a bit of a hippie, but she just had, like a really normal job, but what I was trying to point out to a lot of journalists was that, uh, a lot of people my age were brought up with people with those kind of ideals in life. That when I watch the cowboy films on TV, like my mom would support the Indians, you know, not the cowboys. And we would be for ethnic things, and anti-nuclear energy, and alternative medicine, and all those things. But I think that's really common, with people my age, that was this sort of like having parents who fought the system and fought a lot of machoness and you know, westernalised civilisation, to put it that way. AC: And, I know you have a son, who must be... 10 now, is that right? B: He's 9 and 1/2. AC: Nearly 10. So do you think he'll look at you the same way as you look at your parents like that. B: I don't know. He'll probably rebel against me and all that crap. AC: He doesn't have the same upbringing, though, does he? Does he live mostly in London these days? B: Yeah, but he goes to Iceland though. I don't know, I think that's the thing with your kids, they always rebel against you the way you expect least, isn't it? AC: [LOL] So he might turn into quite a conservative, young, you know, English public school lad? B: I doubt that though. AC: Do you? [LOL] B: Björk, Matthew from Canberra has rung to ask if you could possibly speak in Icelandic, if we could just hear a little of your native tongue? B: [Icelandic, I can't transcribe it!] AC: It's a beautiful tongue, absolutely beautiful. Can you give us an idea of what you just said? B: I just said that I'm doing a radio interview, and I'm drinking tea, and I might be leaving this building very soon. AC: [LOL] It could have been an ancient poem for all we know, it's so gorgeous. Björk, your music is so individual, that kinda makes other artists sound plain and a bit the same by comparison. You doing something special, or is everybody else just doing something ordinary? B: Um... I think people are very good at pleasing other people, you see. And, then they forget about themselves you see. I don't know, I'm so happy that there are these people out there like ??? who makes my granny happy, and Peter Gabriel and his thing make my mum happy and Nine Inch Nails make my brother happy. And these people are so obedient and wanting to serve, you know, and I think that's a very nice skill... AC: These musicians you mean? B: Yeah. But I'm like complete bastard and selfish, so I'm just doing the music I like to hear you see. So I could sit down with my grandchildren in my lap when I'm 75 and say that this is something that I don't have to blush about, you see. So that's why my music is different from other people. But I don't think that's a better thing. AC: It shows that there are amazing influences though, aren't there? I mean an extraordinary range of influences we seem to hear in your music. Are you kind of aware of them or is it just that you've absorbed as you've grown up? B: I think until now, I was very lucky, because my grandparents used to like a lot of jazz and my parents listened to a lot of Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin all that hippie kind of stuff, and then I was in classical music school from 5 to 15, so I learned everything one can learn about European classical music, so to speak. And so I've sorta heard everything, then I went into punk, and electronic music and craftwork and all that bollocks and then into other things, so... but at the end of the day, being influenced by things is just like, it's hard to define it really, but I think Debut/Post, my albums, that's why I called them Debut/Post, is because it's before and after. It's kinda me showing off all these different things I've tasted and sampled in my life, but now I'm not gonna do that any more you see. Now it's turned to I'll show you my interior, you know. So my next album's gonna be very different. Whereas Debut/Post was very much me visiting, like greatest hits of the last 20 years, revisiting all those different, like, buildings. I usually think of stars as buildings a bit, I go into a red room and then I go into a green room, you know. And like being in a jazz mood or a classical mood or whatever bollocks you know. But now, it's now about that any more, and it's about building inside me and that, so now it's gonna get very, very scary. AC: [LOL] B: And I'm really scared actually, it's the biggest chance of my life, my next album. AC: Wow. B: But um, maybe it won't even come out, it's so scary. But we'll see. AC: We will. B: I'll have to face that. AC: Björk, stay with us, we'll play now a track from a fairly obscure kinda jazz album that we've gotten hold of here. It's actually a cover, something you don't do very often, is it? B: No this album was when I was very bored hanging out at studios spending a month, doing each song, which is 3 minutes, which doesn't make any sense. So I hooked up with the jazz legends of Iceland, I did this in 1990, so 6 years ago, and we chose, recorded, rehearsed, 14 songs in 3 days. So it was like a celebration of spontaneity, much more than a celebration of jazz. But it was like, OK, done that, never do jazz album ever again. AC: This is Björk. You're listening to Triple J. [Track from Gling Glo, Ruby Baby] AC: That's the wonderful Björk, who joins us in the studio, a cover of the Ruber and Stoller song, Ruby Baby. Who did that, do you remember, Björk? B: I think quite a lot of people have done that song, actually. AC: It's gorgeous. B: I think, my parents used to listen to it by Steve Done (??) or something gross like that. AC: [LOL] Totally gross. Hey, now what was I gonna say... oh, do you miss being part of a band like the Sugarcubes? B: Um, I thought I would, but I realised that after I started doing my album, that I'm still very, in a lot of very intimate relationships, musically, and not only musically but also, say with the guy who does album covers with me, we kinda meet a lot and have ideas about a lot of things and I work with him now for like 9 years. And then like the video directors and the photographers and the engineers and like, the guy who masters, and all these different people. And like the live things like the guy who does the lights, and the guy who does the set, and all the musicians. So I got, like, 30 relationships going on, that are all like completely different from each other. And also where I can be a lot of different people, because I like that, because I've lived with myself for 30 years now, I get very easily bored with myself see. So I can like jump from one thing to another, but still be like, very sincere with it all, see? So I've never been as little lonely ever, as now. So it's more social, actually, since I quit the band. AC: Björk, the video for It's Oh So Quite is this incredible Hollywood style spectacular, in the sort of Gene Kelly style. We wondered if that was something you've always wanted to do? Is that a fantasy that you've forfilled? B: No. When I do my videos, the last thing, I want to be in them is myself. And when I hook up with video directors I'm being protective, like a mother to a child, with the song, like explaining the song the same way I would like explain my kid to a doctor, so OK the doctor says, oh he's got the 'flu, and no no no no, I know him, this is not 'flu. So I like know the song with instinct, but the video director knows it more from like a professional point of view, like dead glamorous and all that. So, but when I hooked up with the video director to do It's Oh So Quiet, I was just explaining the song, and just thinking about the song, and I wanted people to believe in today, and it can be like magical today, and people can burst into a dance like today, and it would be exciting to go to a local supermarket and everybody would just start to dance together. Because it would be so easy to do this video with everything dead glamorous like in the 50s, but that's escapism you see. People say it used to be magical in the 50s and it's gonna be magical in 2020, Space Oddessy and all that but they never have faith in today, 1996 and that. So I wanted the video to be a bit like that. So we just had a lot of talks, and I think when we started that me and Spike got into the tapdancing postbox, and that's when we knew we were on the right track. But it's though, like me I don't even think about what dress I'm gonna wear till the day before or whatever, but it's just about the song. I'm just like supporting the song, or whatever. AC: Do you fancy being in a movie? B: No. AC: No. Not interested? B: No. AC: You mentioned you don't even know what dress you're gonna wear, which brings me to a question on a lot of peoples' lips here, where do get your clothes from? Do you go shopping yourself? Do you have some favourite shops where you go shopping? B: No, I just find these things here and there you see. It's a lot of second hand shops, and a lot of just blibs and blobs. I try all very much you see. AC: What did you say, a lot of blibs and blobs? B: Oh that's just, like thingadybobs see. But I know, because I'm obsessed with people that are creative, and are trying to express themselves you see, and I don't mean that in a deep philosophical sort of way, but just like common sense sorta thing. So I've gotten to know a few people that make clothes now. I've got a friend named Hussein, and he makes clothes, so I sometimes wear his clothes you see. He's like me, immigrant, in London trying to express himself. AC: Is that how you see yourself? B: Definitely. AC: Really? You're um... I think, despite being a mother, you image is still of a young girl. Do people sometimes expect you to behave like one? B: I don't know really. I think I've got two sides of me, and I'm half girl, half granny. And I probably don't show my granny side to strangers because I'm too shy. But, it's easy to be a girl when you're shy, you see. AC: Easy to be a girl when you're shy? B: Wha'? AC: Easy to be a girl when you're shy? B: I don't know, I'm ???? on radio now, aren't I? AC: [LOL] B: I don't have a clue, to be honest. AC: Look, love, it's been an absolute delight to meet you. B: Thank you. AC: Thank you so much for coming to Triple J, it's a real thrill to talk to you. And good luck with the shows, I'll just quickly run through the dates... [Concert dates] AC: I'm just wondering if you're gonna do any sightseeing when you're in Australia, this time? Or have you not got time? B: Um... well I would love to go to the outback, but I've heard that to do that properly you have to come here for two months or something, don't you? So, the only thing I want to do really, apart from rest in the hotel and make sure I've got a voice for the gigs, is I like the ocean you know? So I try to go to the ocean, but I haven't seen it yet, you know. I might. AC: If you just look out the window, round the corner... it's not very far away from every city you're going to. B: That's gorgeous, that's such a good concept that. AC: Yeah, it's right next door to every one of these cities. Have a wonderful time, it's been a delight to meet you. B: Thank you. Good bye. [It's Oh So Quiet]