A Quote by Art Alexakis
About one or two songs per record is me doing a little bloodletting.
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It can get a little costly if you try and leave it until then to write songs. But you're writing all the time. You're collecting songs. I've had songs that have been collected over a two-year period for my next record.
I didn't really feel any pressure when I've made records, I haven't as yet anyway. I feel when I'm making a record that I'm so excited about making new songs that when I'm doing demos of new songs, as soon as I make one that's really different I get really excited about the record, I don't care about the last record anymore.
Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.
I certainly didn't predict people who spent years actively disliking the band to all of a sudden like the band. That's pretty funny to me, and it makes playing live kind of interesting, 'cos we're doing lots of things that don't really have a lot to do with that record, and even presenting the songs off that record in a way that's a little more muscular and without as much of the sheen, which is what I think part of what people really liked [about Kaputt].
When I start writing songs, and they come easily, I'm always very suspicious. That usually means they're reminding me of something I've already done before. When the songs become unsettling, and I feel anxious about what I'm doing, that usually means it's going to be more interesting later on when we actually record the stuff.
We were concerned with having good songs, not just songs that go two hundred miles per hour.
I was able to notice in a very early stage, there were discrepancies between the people who are writing the songs and discrepancies about the self that I was writing about. I was feeling that there were all these different people, both writing the record and having the record being written about them, even though ostensibly it was me sitting down and documenting a series of life experiences. Part of that, when I recognized this unconscious thing I was doing, was about these spaces, about these gaps.
That's what is so great about being able to record a 13-song album. You can do a very eclectic group of songs. You do have some almost pop songs in there, but you do have your traditional country, story songs. You have your ballads, your happy songs, your sad songs, your love songs, and your feisty songs.
I met Arcade Fire on their first record, 'Funeral.' I loved that record, and it was a record I was listening to while I wrote 'Where the Wild Things Are.' Those songs - especially 'Wake Up' and 'Neighbourhood' - there's a lot of that record that's about childhood.
It never really interested me in the past but, for the first time, I wanted to make a pop record. I thought a good way of doing it would be to make songs that didn't really make sense to me as songs; songs that I couldn't just sit down and play in front of someone and then get them to play over it.
I have been singing since I was two years old, my parents tell me, and started to write songs when I was fifteen. Eventually, my friends and my parents knew that this was something I liked to do. They also knew I had a dream of making my own album. They have always been encouraging me to do something about it, and so I did. So I went to a local radio station in Tromsø, and there I got to record a couple of songs.
There's nothing like getting feedback that's positive and supportive. That's what I'm all about. I'm really just genuinely doing good music. I'm not looking to be on the cover of magazines and I'm not in it for the fame. I'm not in it for selling or the biggest Pop song in the world. I have to go for critically acclaimed. I'd rather go for my peers that I look up to say "I listen to her record." I'd rather do a small little touring venue that has two people who support me as opposed to thousands of people. I mean if it happens, it happens but I'm doing it for me.
I don't feel like I thrive doing livestream comedy, per se. It really triggers a lot of little neuroses that I have about performing and it's not conducive to me to do a good job.
I'm just playing songs for my friends and for people, and they're just like, 'Wow, this is powerful.' I'm excited. It's also important that, in the record, I move the focus a little bit away from me to more about the things that I think about, communities like drag, gender expression, and friendship-concepts that go beyond me.
Oh, I'll tell you about 'Anyone Can Whistle' - the lesson I learned with doing that record is that the simplest songs are the hardest to do.
I think there's a curiosity that can make you feel anxious as to what the world's going to make of what you're doing. It's not necessarily what you're going to get back in terms of record reviews or how people talk about your record, it's getting on the road and playing the new songs live.
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