NME 1994-02-26 By Roger Morton Photography by Andrzej Liguz Typed in by Bert Ocrone "Björk - Love & Hate" Pressing ever onwards with our occasional series, BJÖRK salutes the great and good, disses the devious and reveals all about the new soup sensation... HEROES David Attenborough MY HERO as a kid was David Attenborough. I was brought up on him. But he's everybody's hero, isn't he? Have I seen Once More Into The Termite Mound? No, I haven't. But apart from David Attenborough, I didn't really have heroes as a kid. I think I had more heroes when I was older, after 20. Before 20, I didn't need people so much, or I wasn't conscious of it. But after 20, I needed people to identify with. Of course, really, everybody's biggest heroes are their best friends, and the people who've helped you with your work. Karlheinz Stockhausen I LIKE him not so much as a musician, more as a philosopher. I learned about him at school when I was about 11. He just had pretty cool ideas about the universe. He's just pissed off with the world's tendency to be conservative and not allowing you to go with the flow. As a philosopher, he's just a top person for the century. I agree more with him as a philosopher than with any other person. There are a lot of books that are on interviews he did and also collections of his lectures. It's not like I was sort of learning about Jean-Paul Sartre and able to discuss his theories backwards and forwards, it's just he had a certain view. Certain people have a view on things and they're called phílosophers, I suppose. I get so pissed off with people that think old times were great, and old music is great, and the '70s were great, and they don't look ahead, they're scared to tear themselves away from the past and go forward. He just has this optimism about his views, which I like. Twyla Tharp I'VE BEEN reading a biography of her and she's kinda cool. She's a dancer, and I like her because she kind of re-invented dance. I just read the book last week and what she did with dance was really cool. She's from America, from Indiana, brought up in California, moved to New York and formed her own dance company and was her own person. She just didn't take anything for granted and kind of went for it. I've only seen her stuff on telly, though. She's just a brilliant person. Always questioning everything and obsessed with sincerity and originality. People like her that are dancing are great because she kind of allows herself to not know the answers to everything. She's kind of looking for things. When you pretend you know it all, it's downhill from there, really. Tom Ka Kai Soup IT'S A Thai soup. It's really nice. Soup has changed a lot of people's lives. you know? It's the most popular one. What's in it? Lime juice, coconut and chicken. Why does it change people's lives? Well, food is pretty important. You'd be dead without it. Jane Campion I'VE BEEN a big fan since her first movie, Sweetie. She's from New Zealand. I can just relate to her really well, her point of view. She seems a very down-to-earth, no-bullshit kind of woman, but at the same time quite spiritual, I guess. It all sounds like clichés when you say it, but I think I got a certain comfort from her because I was just getting pissed off with women moaning and complaining about everything, and she happened to be a woman director who was quite happy to be so, and quite proud to be so, and made a strong film with feminine strength in it. I mean, I hate the majority of feminist movies. If I had the right opportunity and could get away with it, I would easily burn all that. But Jane Campion's also pretty cool with guys as well, 'cos another pretty pathetic thing was women attacking blokes all the time, like it's their fault. So that's cool. But at the end of the day, I just like Sweetie and An Angel At My Table. I've been too busy to see The Piano yet. I can just identify with her energy. It's positive, matter-of-fact, but sort of spiritual, I guess. A lot of people have compared her to David Lynch, which I think is completely unfair because I think all his weirdness is done with a brain, it's all clever and planned. It's like, 'Let's put a dwarf here, eating spaghetti'. It's pretty cheap. I mean, I respea him, but with Jane Campion, things like that are so earthy and natural. You don't think she'll be happy to be put in the same category as a soup? No, I think she'll understand. Shotokan Karate IT'S JUST something I've been taught. I had a Malaysian teacher in Iceland, but with something like that I think the biggest discoveries you make on your own. Obviously it's a defense thing, but it's very focused. It basically aims to kill in one hit, but it's a lot about breathing. It allows you to use oxygen as a fuel for what you do. It's one of the few physical things that's good to teach singers to breathe and run at the same time. So it's really good for gigs. Simone SHE'S A character in Story Of The Eye by Georges Bataille. It's basically a book that proves that you should do what you want, no matter what. I mean, it is a book, but the good thing about books and music and stuff is that things can happen in them and you don't have to take the consequences. Like you can kill people and you don't have to go to jail for it. And that book shows that you can play games like that with your head. And anything in the world you want can happen. And it's kind of anti-morals. It's like there's all these behaviour patterns you're taught, and it's saying, 'F- all them'. And you should just follow your instinct and your need, and trust your system. Because all the little signals it's giving you all the time are actually right. It's not just about sexual obsession, it's about being obsessed with one's needs and going all the way, just if you need it, and that you don't have to find logic to it. Of course, the master in that category is sex, because the way your mind works with sex, you want to have sex with all sorts of people, but it doesn't make any sense and that's why you never do it. Or at least, very seldom. Because you can't take the consequences of it. Sex is like the master of illogical needs, but at the end of the day, what this book is saying is that the needs are logical and real and you should believe in them - which is brilliant. I read that book when I was 17 and it just changed my life. It proved to me that I wasn't mad. VILLAINS Narrow-Minded People IT SOUNDS really stupid to say that, but it's the only way to nail it down, really. I could say, 'All banks and politicians and so on', and institutions just in general. But being the anti-establishment person I am, it's too easy. There are too many politicians and people like that to choose from. Because I think it's so typical to judge politicians as baddies and nurses as goodies, but when it comes down to it, it's much more complicated than that. If things were that black and white it would be easy to live without making errors. But it's all much more colourful than that. Like you get awkward things like companies that are supposed to distribute music to the world, like record companies, and they do lots of stupid evil things. And it's just stupid. Bureaucracy WHEN IT limits people. I went to the USSR when it existed and bureaucracy kept everything down. I don't like filling in forms. A friend of mine went to Canada once and on the form you fill in as you enter the country it asked if he had committed a crime in Canada, and he put, 'Not yet'. And they threw him in jail. Smoke Machines I'M OBSESSED with oxygen. I just hate smoke in general. And just basically lack of oxygen in anything. I just get phobic. Also, I got in situations when I was singing on stage with a punk band when I was 15 or something and there was a smoke machine right next to me and I lost my voice halfway through the first song because of it. And they've just freaked me out after that. Fortunately, I was in a punk band, so you were allowed to make quite desperate noises in the microphone. It kind of suited the music. But ever since that I've hated them, really hard. * Björk was just talking and talking very much to Roger Morton, you know?