Swedish TV1 1993-12-01 By Lars Aldman Transcribed by Matts Henning "Ansikte mot Ansikte" ----------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This document is not an exact transcription and can contain faults because of the difficulty in sometimes hearing what they said. All spelling errors (if there is any) are probably done by me. The grammar errors that might be in the text is deliberatly left uncorrected by me to preserve the interview as exact as possible. Anything in [] is my comments. [CLIP] is placed in the text to point out where a cut is done in the interview. The words in ## are words I'm not really sure if they are the right ones. I hope that you can follow the text, even without seeing the body language and hear how the words are said. This transcription is written without permission. ----------------------------------------------------- B: I've got everything in my life I want these days. I've been very very lucky. [Intro with 'Venus As A Boy' and with stills of Björk. The interview is done in a cafe nearby her home in London. Björk is having a glass of wine and is wearing an orange long-haired jacket, which she later takes off to reveal a red T-shirt.] L: I must say I'm really sorry we couldn't do this interview in some Scandinavian language because, you know, it's crazy, here we're sitting from Scandinavian countries and we don't understand eachothers languages. It's a little bit weird, isn't it? B: Ye, I guess I must say I'm guilty. Icelandic people have got a bit of a attitude towards Scandinavian languages because we were a Danish colony for many hundred years so...it's a bit sort of...we're to proud to speak. L: Ye. You learn Danish in school, don't you? B: Ye we do, but everybody get really good in talking horrible Danish, it's...it's a bit of a pride thing really, it's kind of hard to explain, it's...In Iceland the vocabulury to say someone is like evil or wicked, like a bitch or something, you got..."he's Danish". And...it's just what happens when...because we just got independent 1944 and... I mean, I was obviously not born then...but it's gonna slowly, sort of like, take's, you know, several generations to forget things like that. [CLIP] L: How does it feel to do your 'debut' when you're 27 years and you actually made your first solo album 16 years ago. B: Well, I desided to call it "Debut" just to put importance on the fact it is the first time it's my music. I did a record when I was 11 but...it was just one song written by me, and all the arrangements and... Well I picked the song myselfs and had something to say but, mostly it was produced and arranged by other people, sort of grownups and...so I wouldn't really consider that my album, not really. Eventhough I sang on it because... What's could always truly be my ambition and kind of where my heart is, is making music and kind of like... sort of...sounds, noices and surroundings that I find exiting and intrests me. While being a singer is mostly like...bit of a tool. To be able to do that and... [Björk is interrupted by Lars' next question] L: But you started out playing the drums, didn't you? B: Ye. And I've arranged lot of things and co-produced and stuff like that and...that's why I kind of call my album "Debut" this one, because this is the first time that you hear my noices and my sounds and my flavors. [Birthday, Sugarcubes] From the beginning to the end of the second chorus. B: My mom and ten of her friends started a bit of a comune when I was about three. And they where playing music... 24 hours [a day]. There were always be someone awake who had a record on and...that's kind of...where I come from and... L: A real hippie-life. B: Ye, but I was very lucky because then there was... My grandparents which I stayed a lot with because my parents were busy a lot of the time, they listen to jazz. And then I was sent to music-school when I was five, and them trying to convince me for ten years that modern music wasn't worth anything and, noone was gonna outdo Beethoven and stuff like that, and playing all this music that have nothing to do with dayly life, it's all based on history and it's was like dead. So, I like, three very different point of views, and all three different group thought that the music they were listing to and the lifestyle they were #leeting/leet in?# was correct and everything else was incorrect, which I thought was a bit of a joke, but... The best thing when you're a kid is that you... you're always watching. Everybody think you just really stupid and they treat you when you're in the room that you're not there really. And talk their grownup-talk. But you're always being a bit of a Richard Attenborough and you're, kind of like, "examine the human species" and learning from their mistakes, I guess. I kind of realized that musicstyle, sort of, doesn't really matter, it's all a question of, kind of like, attitude and spirit and... and emotion. [Deus, Sugarcubes] From the beginning to "...taste the forbidden fruit." B: The good thing about Reykjavik is...it's got a mentality of a little village and because we so recently became modern, it's got all the superstitions and the mythology of the Middle Ages. We lived in mudhouses till the century, very poor. And still believe in major force of nature, and nature is the most important thing - but at the same time being very cosmopolitan, being a capital in Europe, having BMW and mobile telephones. On top of everything being obsessed by information and literature and having all the books you want and...and having the extremes, like nature and everybody knowing eachother, the intimatecy of a village and the isolation. But still having all...if you wanna like, cocktail...and like, you know, modern lifestyle and television, and a car... L: Modern discos? ...modern discos, drugs and rock'n'roll, you can have that as well. And then basicly I hooked up with, I mean, all the people that are in to the same things, obviously in such a small place, they...[at] one point got to meet eachother. And when I was 14 or 15, this group of people had kind of started #a# label in Iceland, indie label. Not printing #our# indie music though, but basicly everything else, exept Michael Jackson, jazz, rock music, rap, reggae, whatever, everything that's not...you know...commercial pop. And then later we would start a label that put out books and films, exhibitions. [CLIP] B: And we were very early thought of as being...trouble, basicly. Sort of enfants terribles, or whatever you call it, sort of...angry teenagers that refuse to grow up and...I don't think we were angry, we were very happy actually, very positive, and had a great time. Very quickly all the critics in Iceland went like hated us, and call us "bad taste". So we basicly desided to call our label "Bad Taste". Just face the facts that that's what we were, that's what we gonna be then. [Regina, Sugarcubes] Beginning to end of second chorus. B: We were hanging out a lot together and we disided to form a silly band to play at party, which we would call the "Sugarcubes", it was like the most silly name we could think of, a bit like "Monkeys" or something. We were just being a bit, sort of, opposite the serious band we were in before. Kind of being a bit like...like get a fresh of...fresh air and go like la la la la la la, getting a bit sort of pop, ABBA, listening a lot to ABBA-records and Boney M and kind of like "Yes, that's what it's all about" "Fuck this sort of... you know, existentialism and all those isms, and art, fuck that pretentiousness like, let's be happy", you know. And of course, the most silly thing we're ever done in our lifes, is the most, ironicly, is the thing that's been taken most seriously by media. [CLIP] B: We started handing out "Bad Taste"-awards and announcing people. And everybody went really upset in Iceland. Like the head of Icelandic tele[vision] was always...showed arty-pretentious operas, they were really horrible, but just because they were "art" nobody would criticize it, you know. [CLIP] B: Bad Taste was the most important thing for us - Sugarcubes wasn't. Sugarcubes was a way to travel around the world to meet other people, and to get money to put in Bad Taste. So most of the money we earned, we put in Bad Taste to put out more books, more records... the whole thing. And... L: And having fun? B: And having fun, obviously! I mean, I don't have to say that when you with your best friends, travelling around America, getting free airflights, free hotels, free food, free...drinks, and all you have to do is pretend you're a rock band! [Hit, Sugarcubes] From the beginning to the beginning of Einar's part. B: I've written songs since I was five and I could've put out an album ages ago that only had my music on, that was not the problem, but... The reson why I didn't put my own album out earlier is because it just was against everything I believed in. It was what I consider being very very selfish, being very, sort of...narcissistic, if you want, and...and I just didn't have the need to do it, because I wanted to learn. And I wanted to...meet all this, have this...intimate, over the top, obsessive, intimate music- relationships with people. And the more different they were to me, the better. If they were like the opposite of me - that was brilliant! 'Cause that meant I could show them all these things they never heard about and they could show me all these things I never heard about. And it would be so exiting and that's kind of what keeps me alive and what turns me on. [CLIP] B: I'd be lying if I wouldn't admit that I realized in alot of things I'm a bit, sort of, stupid and slow. And it takes me about, kind of like, 10 years later than my fellow girlfriends in, kind of like...finding out about certain things, and...I would basicly say that, you know, I'm a bit, sort of stupid and a bit sort of slow, you know, and... I think it's lot to do with my...inability to... take in and learn about things with my brain. I kind of have to do it with my senses, is kind of all I got, really. And when you do things like that it takes ages, you know. And I, for example #like#, no way I can drive a car. I had a car for one year and I think I crashed it, sort of... twice a month. And it's just to clever for me, you know, it's got no logic, traffic - just got no logic for me. [Human behaviour, Björk] From the beginning to 1:45 into the video. L: Say something, please, about "Venus As A Boy". Did you have someone particular in mind, a person like Brett Anderson of Suede maybe? B: Not really. It was actually my friend...who I wrote it about...but then again... things aren't that simple, you know, it's...not trying to pretend it's really deep or something saying like that but...of cause it's about several things... [CLIP] B: To tell you the truth, I don't understand anymore than you do. L: I think it's a very sexy song. B: Ye? [Björk's got a big smile and the song starts in the background.] L: Yes. Definitly one of the most sexy on the album. B: You should see the video, I'm frying an egg, so... very sexy. L: We will actually see the video right after this. [Björk bursts into laughter and covers her mouth with her hands.] [Venus As A Boy, Björk] A bit into the song onto were she's reflecting the light with the spatula in front of her mouth. [It's 1:35 into the song.] L: Would you like to play in India...with your new band? B: In India? L: Ye. B: I love to. I not gonna be able to do that though, because of finacial reasons I guess and again - time, there's no time. I don't really wanna play...horrible place like Germany, you know what I mean? Or Europe in a way, because that's what I know already. I wouldn't mind playing, doing a tour like India... Guatemala and Thailand. I would be right on that if it be suggested to me, but...unforturnatly we have to be practicaly and finacialy aware aswell. I mean, not be too, must be too much Utopia, you know. And that's why I play Europe and USA. [Play Dead, Björk] The whole song, but with some picture- interruptions of names of the people involved in this program.