ZTV 1995 By ??? Transcribed by Lunargirl "Interview transcript" Björk in swedish: Hallå, jag heter Björk. (clip from Army Of Me) Björk: I think I'm half five year old and the other half is about fifty but the side that's fifty of me is very private, and people don't see that side of me, cuz actually I'm very organized, I'm very disciplined, I work very much, and I've always been like this since I was a kid. And people just don't see that side of me, they see the, the, the five year old - because that's the person that's outside, you know... (clip from HIT with Sugarcubes) Interviewer: Björk Gudmundsdottir was born in 1965 in Reykjavik on Iceland, She is one of the children in a family consisting of three sisters and three brothers with three different mothers and three different fathers. From the age of 6 until 14 Björk went to Reykjavik's Musicschool where she learnt to play the piano and the flute. She released her first album as soon as 1977 which contained songs with covers of for example Stevie Wonder and The Beatles and Icelandic singers in a seventies style. She joind different punk- and new wave- groups before she, 20 years old, together with some friends formed the band The Sugarcubes. Björk, lying on some cliffs, probably in Iceland: The Sugarcubes, number one: It was people. We were a group of friends and... we liked eachother and had good times together. And the music that came out of that relationship was a bit of an accident. (clip from HIT with Sugarcubes) Interviewer: The band directly became very hyped, not only in Iceland but also in England, and after a while also in the USA. And it didn't take long until the became cult and toured with bands such as New Order and U2. After three albums and one double-album the Sugarcubes split up in 1992. Björk on cliffs again: When ...eh... I realised the Sugarcubes had become this ...eh... serious "band thing" ...eh... I started to ...eh... realise that it was now or never. Either I record all those songs of mine that have been floating in my head all those years, or I would never do it, you know. Interviewer: In 1993 came the album Debut which was celebrated around the world Björk instantly became world-famous and the album was something NEW and MODERN and was a great mixture of many influences, especially from the modern dancemusic. The album was produced by Nellee Hooper, once member of Massive Attack and producer of both their albums. Björk: Debut was very much for me ...eh... like, a little virgin trying to express herself...I mean musically a virgin..and, and that's why I called it that "Debut", even tho some people knew that I'd been around for years and thought it was, I was, thought I was taking a piss or something. But it, for me it was very much like the first time my songs, that I'd kept like in darkness and in my little, locked in my little diaries only to be seen by myself. ...ehm..first time they went out, and sort of, sort of had to figure out a life of their own and how to survive.. Interviewer: And last spring came the album Post. Björk: I guess, the biggest difference between Debut and ...eh... Post is that ...eh... Debut was, was all songs I wrote over ten year, eh, period, ten year-period, all in my house in Iceland after ...eh... my son had gone to bed. So they were quite private and intimate, like little experiments, and more like a...a diary thing, you know, something in order to keep you sane rather than you want to tell the whole world about it. Interviewer: 19 years old Björk got married and got her son Sindri. Nowadays she is divorced and lives with him since two years in London. Björk: This album is, on the contrary, I had, I moved to England two years ago and all the songs on this album a-are written since then... so they are all written with, in mind that other people will hear them, they are more, eh, not shy and introvert, they're prob'ly more sort of consceous and, and more, eh, confident. (army of me clip) Björk: Because it's it's the girl who who left home and is trying out all these brand new she's never tried before and tasting all those cities, and meeting all those lunatics, and best of all, meeting all the lunatics...like herself you know..because there aren't that many back in Iceland. And communicating with all them and figuring out there are more people out there who feel like her...and, and... it's just, eh... It's definately like a brave album, but at the same time kinda scary. Post is more scary than Debut, so I'm definately jumping off more cliffs, this time around. (big time sensuality clip) Interviewer: 100% Icelandic, no escimo-blood here, Björk claims. But raised in Iceland she is and Björk was as a child a great fan of scandinavian childs books! Björk: Most of scandinavia exists in my head as the children-stories I heard, when I grew up. Which is obviously, eh, Pippi, Pippi Långstrump and...eh.... and the moomins from Finland and Thorbjörn Egners, you know, "Karius and Baktus". (big time sensuality clip) Björk: Well at the moment I'm the moomin mother!...I think very much, because touring and, and, eh...ehh.... running the project I'm doing is very much being the moomin...mother and being very, eh, understanding in every situation and always having a bag full of things and..if somebody breaks her favourite vase she just goes "Oh, I didn't like it anyway" and she always has..eh.. So I'm very much, especially when touring, I'm very much of a moomin... moomin mother... But I think I used to be more of a Pippi Longstocking... you know... a few years ago.... I still am, but I, I'm, I used to be very much, especially as a teenager. (clip of Venus as a boy) Interviewer: It used to be a more wild Pippi Långstrump, but today Björk is her own organizer and has a finger in most of whats going on around her - from the album covers to the concert decorations... Björk: All the things I do I run myself, like, from doing the lawyers, eh, contracts to T-shirt colors to the album cover, the videos the photography the ....... how to travel, the touring, the lights, the, eh, the eh.... the sound and, and, hrrm, I don't even mention things that are, obviously are closer ...eh..that I love more, which is like, eh, producing..or co-producing, working with people, picking the instruments, the engineers, the studios, the methods, arranging - all those things. So it's it's very eh colorful job with lot of lot of people... (clip of Venus as a boy) Björk: In a funny way, I am, eh... I love discipline very much...and, eh... I used to think, 'specially being brought up by hippies, and then later becoming a punk, that, eh... that discipline was my biggest enemy, and, eh... But then you realise very, eh, quickly - 'specially when you start eeeh... recording, that you try to do the perfect song and record it. And you want to do it in a very spontaneous way, and of course the whole punk thing was about all getting in a studio and just doing one take.... and do another take was was a joke...It didn't exist, because rehersal, eh, life isn't a rehersal, and you can't reherse for something, you just have to do it once, you know... Then you realise very quickly, that eh, freedom and discipline is the same thing....It's just the other side of the coin...is discipline and freedom...and the more discipline you have - the more freedom you have - that is, if you have the right kinda discipline! (clip of Play dead) Björk: So the trick is very much to know how to, eh.. what to be disciplined about and what to keep open, so how to prepare yourself..if you go to a studio and you have to make desitions about half of things...and not make desitions about the other half, and have the courage - which is very very important - to not make desitions of the half, eh the other half... Interviewer: To trust other people? Björk: Yeah, both to trust other people, also just to trust...eh..the day! That day, that you will just think of something when it happens... you have to trust it and just relax and, and let go, you know? (clip of Play dead) Björk: So very much my job is very very much to organize an accident... that's my eh, that's my job...and so, in a way it's a bit like hunting in the forrest - you put a trap somewhere for the animal, but you have no way where it's gonna run, or what it's gonna behave, you can guess - and that's how you get good with discipline organizing as you can sort of become a good guesser WHERE it's gonna be... but the same time you know, you never know - you never will know.... And I would never know how to write a song, because no two songs are the same.. And I try to, treat, I, I uncons... un, un, eh wh..unconsceously I try to treat each song completely different, that there is no rule, you know... but, but I like, eh.. I like this very much and for me it's like playing a game with yourself... you know, like, you're trying to surprise yourself and, and sometimes being the most predictable is the most surprising... (clip of Play dead) Björk: Because the stuff that being in bands since I was twelve years old... and I was - most of the time I was the only girl... that, OK, what is most important for the Björk; that's to make a song, you know..a good song. So if you want something like this you have to very quickly ignore things like the food taste of the person, the fact that he like sausages but you don't, you can't make that stand in the way that you write a good song...and, and very quickly it goes on and on, like, the clothes the person wears doesn't matter, the eh, the way the person looks doesn't matter, the sex doesn't matter, the, the race does ma - don't matter, the age don't matter...so very quickly I became completely like (waves her hand before her eyes) I don't want to know, I ignore on purpose, all I'm trying to do is work with this person... the best I can, so 1+1 becomes 1 ..... and if it work well, and if you're lucky, it will continue all the way until the more impossible happens, which is 1+1 is 3!!! Then you've got a song... (clip of Violently happy) Björk: So, every time when I was a teenager, and I was in bands and its fu,a, lot of boys and I was the only girl and they s, and I hear something like "Oh, but she's a girl"... I know I can just smell trouble...it's something wrong you know, so..just..It don't stand in the way...you are working with people, characters, not with sex or age or, or race or whatever, so if one of the, eh...misconception people have about me when they meet me - "Oh, yeah, and she's a woman", "Yes she can do this - and she's a woman" or "She can't do this because she's a woman"....eh, I, I'll just work with them just for one or two day and the they're - forget. It's just the beginning stage you know... (clip of Björk live in Sweden, doing Human behaviour in her white paper- like dress, and skipping around in little circles between the verses) Björk: You know like these things you remember always, when you're a kid... I was about five year old and I was, eh...playing with my kids in my neighbourhood...and we were gonna do something, I can't remember what it was, but we were all gonna do something together and we were having a great time... and then all the other kids suddenly said "But we can't do this"... and I'm like "But why???" .... "Because you're not supposed to!"...and I'm like "But I, eh, but we want to, and we're not hurting anyone"....and I just remember suddenly realising that - it was very great feeling - that doing what you're supposed to do was like over here (pointing to her right side) and doing what I want to do in my intuition is over here (pointing to her left side) and there's a greeeeat big canyon between. And it was a crossroad, and I'd went over here and I have never regret it...gret it since. And the only thing I have is intuition..I think lot of, eh...eh...people don't understand me, they look at me from over there and don't get it. I still meet today in Icelandic discos people who were with me in school when I was a kid.... and they go, eh.. "NOW I understand you!" you know, and I'm like "...oh ok..." you know, and sometimes it can even be dangerous, because I remember I was on television very pregnant, when I was 19, with my stomach sticking out....and, eh...the Icelandic television had never got so many complaints....and they got all these letters and people calling very angry, and one woman got a heartattack! (leaning forwards and looking very surprised)...so it can even be dangerous to, eh...do what you want... (clip from Isobel) Interviewer: Björk has, as told, been married, but after that she has not gotten into any serious relationships, but there has been rumors about different love-relationships, f.x. with the british trip-hoper Tricky, also co-producer of Post. Björk: Yeah, I'm very over-romantic, and I very very much believe in.... relationships, and, but I don't think they are as simple as being.... husband and wife you know...because I have very intimate relationships with lot of people...like most the people just on this album, Post... like, like Tricky, like Nellee Hooper, Marius the programmer, eh...the engineer Al Stone, Howie B the engineer...Howie B wrote a song for me as well, Graham Massey...just my manager Derek B. is a friend for twelve year...the guy who did the album sleeve with me I work with for eight years, another friend... These are all relationships that I have..and are very important and vital for me but none two are the same, you know...and, eh... very important. I definately believe that there is something as meeting a person and being with her for the rest of your life, but, eh...yeah! I think this..eh.people have to stop ehm...sta.. eh..putting standards to ..eh..realtionships...like you can have a friend, that you sometimes feel erotic with, you can have a friend you never feel erotic with, you can have a friend which is very humerous, you can feel a, have a friend that you feel very strong and he feels very vulnerable...you can have a friend that, eh... that you both get very angry when you are together and it feels good because you're angry together at the world...you can f..have a friend that you feel very s-s-silly and childish with and and..all these things should exist because every person has got all these things in him or her self...and stop sort of trying to say "Oh..this relationship it's like this" Because no two relationships are the same, you, no f*cking two marriages are the same, you know... (clip from Army of me) Interviewer: In the beginning of the eighties Björk started to listen to technological music, and it was Brian Eno and Tangerine Dreams that she was into. And Björk, apart from others, sees the fast progress within technology as something positive for the human. Björk: If I get one more person who come to me and complain about that computer music has no soul I will be furious! You know...because of course, if... computer is just a tool, and if there is no soul, in computer music, it's because nobody put it there...and it's not the role of a computer to put the soul in it. You know it's, eh, it's, eh.. it's the role of the person who write the song... and if the person who write the song don't want to put the soul in the song, the person wont put the soul in the song... But you can't look at a guitar and say ...the guitar will never write a song! You know and a computer will never write a song...these things are just tools! You know...and I think, eh...that people were terrified in the beginning of this century when people de..eh..discovered telephone...they were like : "But people are gonna stop meeting! They just gonna talk on the telephone and be inside the houses all the time!" ... Which is nonsense, you know, ofcourse, nothing will ever be a substitute for meeting another person, you know... A telephone is just an object, like matches or, or eh...a knife and a fork or... and computers are as well! You know...and people say "Oh computers are gonna take over and control us!" and it's so much nonsense... (clip of Big Time Sensuality) Björk smiling: But, we'll see.. we'll win in the end, we will! (clip of Big Time Sensuality) Björk eating chockolate cake and has crumbs around her mouth, smiling happily: Aaahhh...so nice....