MTV (Europe) 1995-04 By ??? Transcribed by Gideon "Interview transcript" Narrator: N Bjork: B Gideon's comments in { } N: Tonight's show features a candid interview with one of the most successful artists of the 1990's, Bjork. Everyone from Madonna to the Beastie Boys has become fans of her music. This summer sees the release of Bjork's new album POST, and we met up with Iceland's most famous export {groan} to find out more. Bjork first captured the public's heart with her band the Sugarcubes, and that period in her life is one she remembers with a smile. {Clip of Birthday (blocky version) } {Bjork has very long (I mean down to her shoulders) hair which looks to have a lot more body and bounce than it used to (what am I turning into a hairdresser here? Get a grip!) I guess its goodbye to those knots!)} B: The only way I can think about things like that is like a photo album. Because I am into it now but you know I was 10 times more into it then. So I'd only noticed like my own fingers, my tongue, my fingers and maybe the loved ones maybe one metre radius around me. I didn't see any further that that. {Clip of Hit} For me it all went right. It started when it should of, it climaxed when it should of and it stopped when it should of. And I think when you've got something which is brilliant, you shouldn't try and freeze the situation or cling to it for ages, you should just let it run its course. And when its finished you've got to have the courage to pack your bags, stand up and move on. N: Moving on meant leaving Iceland in search of pastures new. This is reflected in the title of her new album, POST. B: Two years ago I moved away from Iceland for the first time in my life and I'm a bit sort of a homey person. {Clip shown from The Pulse last year when Bjork showed the MTV Europe cameras around her house. She unlocks her front door and says "This is my house" to the camera.} And its been quite strange for me and I still feel like I don't live here. But in an exciting manner, I'm not moaning, but all my emotions are all sorta post, kinda like erm not sort of erm not at home still you know? N: Bjork regards Post as more of an open album than her previous offering Debut which was very much a personalised account of her music. B: Debut was definitely not written for other people, it was written in my house when my son had gone to bed and just for myself, and when it was made into a record it was kind of a funny thing. It was kinda like someone reading you diary out loud for a party you know, that sort of thing. {Clip of Human Behaviour} This album is a lot more like now and I know when I'm writing it that everybody's going to hear it and also Debut was written over 10 years so a lot of the things are quite naive, I wrote a lot of the things when I was like 17, 18. Where as on this album I wrote all of it in the last 2 years. So its not as erm untouched and naive as this one is. N: The recording of Post took Bjork to the Bahamas and after a hard days work in the studio, she found the only way to record the vocals was at the beach at night time. B: After we had finished all the mixes, we'd take each song every day to the beach and I had a microphone with a very very very very very long lead on it, and headphones with a very very long lead and it would be quiet and the stars would be above us and the moon occasionally and I would take my shoes off if I felt like it in the middle of the song and stick my toes in the water then I would run away and nobody could see me because it was completely black and I could go inside the little forest and hide behind the tree and sing a bit of the song there and I'd run really fast down the beach in the action part of the song. It was brilliant. I was just goose pimply all the time. {A small clip of Bjork shooting Army of me. The cameras are ready to roll and Bjork acts out a mock karate kick in the air} N: One track on post which that's guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine is Army of me which is about waking up to reality. B: Army of me is about a friend of mine who for a very long time was in a way in a coma, not literally. But he would live his life every day and kind of not be alive and it used to be very frustrating for me. I used to shake him and try to wake him up and get him to do things but he wouldn't. So that song about if you complain once more, you'll meet an Army of me. N: And when it came to making the video Army of Me, Bjork's imagination turned it into a real adventure. B: Heh, Basically me driving this gigantic truck and then it breaks down and I have to get a new tooth for it because you can't drive it without a tooth. I go to a dentist, and the dentist, the gorilla dentist finds a diamond in my mouth and I don't know I've got a diamond you see so he try's to nick it, but I notice so I attack him and we have to wrestle quite a lot. And then I run away with the diamond, and as I run away with it it grows and grows and grows and then I can throw it in the hood of the car and continue driving and explode a new scene to wake up my boyfriend from the coma. N: Apart from working on her new album Bjork found time to write a song for Madonna which she handed to Nelle Hooper as a special gift. B: In a way it was more like a little present from me to Nellee, in a way er even though I respect Madonna, probably she's one of persons I respect most in the world, and if there was someone I'd want to give a little present to she'd probably be one of them. {Clip from Bedtime Story} B: When I wrote the song for Madonna, it was the first time I did that especially to write a lyric that you really want, you look at that person, you really want the person to say something and you really know what you want that person to say. And then you write a lyric like that to a person and I would love to do that. Maybe when I get old and fat and that when I'm sort of 40 or 50 or something or even sooner, you know? You never know I'll be writing songs for people. {Clip of Unplugged Violently Happy} N: After all the song writing and recording is over, playing live is what Bjork enjoys most as its a true way of expressing her music. B: I've been singing live for a very very long time, since I was 11, on stage for people, and I love it very very much. But I've discovered very early I mean you're probably gonna puke when you hear this as its such a clique but erm that if I sing for myself and if I'm happy myself, other people are gonna get it. If I start pleasing people I wont please anyone in the end. {Clip of Bjork singing Venus at Glastonbury last year} I was a bit nervous last time because Debut album wasn't really written to be played live. It was written with 900 details all over the place, it was a so called "Studio Album" if you want. Because I didn't expect people to like it {said with unique cockney accent ;-)} it was big surprise to me how many people liked it. But this time around I'd written the whole album with at the back of my head that its gonna be able to play it live. You know, so this time it's the first time that in my life that actually I'm really really looking forward to playing live because this time around it's just like I'd like it to be. Everything's just falling into place. Clip of BTS Video N: The special quality of Bjork's songs and character is that they are open to many interpretations and that's something she is happy to play along with. B: I think I've got a lot of things in my character and I think if you want to go into it, I think everybody has you know? But I'm not worried, I mean people are always going to misunderstand me, they always are, I'm quite pleased with it because they just don't know me. So I might as well make into a game this misunderstanding and enjoy the misunderstanding you know? I think my role is to just write pop music, which is kinda like erm for everyone to enjoy, you don't need to be agitated in any sense to enjoy it. But at the same time It doesn't mean that you can't be spontaneous or adventurous or experimental, and that's erm, that my little role.