A Quote by Shaggy
I just put people on my records that I think bring something really unique to the song, and that's what's going to make it live over time. Not the fact that an artist might be 'hot' at the time.
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I don't think it's an artist's responsibility to be political all the time. I think your first responsibility as an artist is to make music that people will listen to and enjoy. However, I think that when you are able to say something that is moving and put it in a great song, then that is even better.
Every time I'm in the studio, I always think of my professor in undergrad. He was like, "There are so many artists in the world. If you're going to be an artist, make sure you have something to say. Don't just be an artist and put out bullshit. Have something to say." I guess that would be my philosophy and something I think about all the time. Every day when I'm in the studio I hear him and I see him. I remember him saying it in class. So that's something that I always want to make sure I have: I'm saying something with the work.
I spent a lot of time, a lot of energy trying to be a better artist and I still [do]. I spend a lot of time focusing on my craft. If you're going to take your passion into something beyond just something for fun on the side, you got to spend a lot of time on it to be great, and then you've got to make smart decisions about who you collaborate with [and] where you live [to] put yourself in the right situations to meet the right people to catch those breaks.
Our industry is so technologically driven that often I Skype with directors or send tapes in to people. It's so common now that sometimes even when I'm here I'll be send tapes for things that are based in the U.K. There's never really a right place, right time anymore. Even something that's L.A. based, the director might be in New York or they might be on location in Budapest. I think everyone's really accepting of the fact that people are all over the world all the time. In a funny way, you can be an actor now and live anywhere, so long as you have internet.
Like the Birth Of Venus, the song [Yello "oh, Yeah"] denotes the birth of the bro. The song just reminds me of bros looking out over lowered Ray-Bans. It birthed a negative sexual revolution. I was going to a lot of bondage clubs at the time and they did play this song. The song I associate more is that horrible Enigma song with the Gregorian chant. There's something good buried in that song and I might not hate it as much if I hadn't been a sex worker.
I have a gut reaction to stuff that I read. Either it's a filmmaker that I really want to work with, or it's a story that I really want to be a part of and help serve, or there's a character that I feel I can bring something unique to. That's really what it's about. I would go crazy, if I just relied on the same tricks and did the same thing, all the time. It was just be no fun, at all. I really do need to try something different, every time out, and do something that scares me, a little bit.
It's really hard to be an artist and put out records and put your heart out there. It's such a gamble, and you're often spending so much time fighting for something that you really believe in and feeling like it's not really getting anywhere. It definitely can try your patience.
There are records I'll listen to one time and zero in on what's happening, and then I'll listen again to something I didn't notice the first time. The art of making records is something like this: you want to provide a multiplicity of experience in a single object, which is to say you want layers so that people can revisit and have something revealed to them that wasn't apparent the first time. We often will listen to the same music over and over again, and that tells you something, too.
I'm a touring artist - I love going out and playing live, and I was sick of making records didn't translate well live - that misrepresented who I was as an artist. I'm not saying those records weren't good. I think they're great. I think a lot of them have great songs. My challenge was making the songs that were specifically great for the type of personality I wanted to present which was my personality - I wanted to get that across on record - and have something that was fun and energetic live.
I think I've always had an activist stance, yet at the same time, the other side of me - and this is where some people just don't get it, or they'd prefer it if the work was a lot uglier, a lot louder - I have this personality where I just want to put something out that's a fact and then let you interpret it. It's almost as if you might barely notice it, you might walk right by it, but you have to pay attention.
I don't think it's something that people would ask a man. Some people make a huge deal out of the fact that I sing about drinking all the time, but I don't think of it as singing about drinking. It's singing about emotions, and sometimes that centers around drinking. To me, I'm writing about things that I'm going through that mean something to me, but some people just reduce it to: "She must drink all the time." But if a guy sings about that sort of thing, no one really looks twice.
For the live shows, I'm just getting my song together. I go back to my hotel room and I just listen to my song over and over again, figure out how to make it different and put my little Pia spin on it.
I'm just not going to tour. One point I want to get across to everybody is that I'm still going to make records and I may still do some events. It's not the last time I'm onstage. It's been a part of my life for too long to quit everything. I have done it since the '80s, and I think it's time now to maybe see if I can live without that part.
I don't believe that the economy has changed people's thinking politically in Alberta. However, obviously we elected a brand new government for the first time, some people say, in 44 years. It's actually the first time in over 70 years, because the previous government, prior to the PCs, was really just PCs with a different name. And I think what that did, it doesn't suddenly mean that Tom Mulcair is going to win a whack of seats here in Alberta, but I think it did open Albertans' eyes to the fact that, you know, something different is possible and we can do something different.
I just think that's more exciting. When people used to cut records live, there were mistakes all the time that stayed in. It was part of the charm. You're kind of missing something if everything is all doctored-up and clinical. So when we hear a mistake that sounds interesting, we make a point to keep it.
I realize that people won't even download the entire album and might just download a song or two and put it in a playlist for a workout or in the background while people do dishes. That's fine and I can't dictate how people listen to my music, but I structure records the way I listen to records.
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