** SPOILER ** La scène est très courte, mais décisive pour la suite. La devineresse connaît l’histoire d’Amleth. Elle sait d’où il vient. Elle sait aussi qu’il s’était promis de venger son père et de sauver sa mère. (...) La devineresse est là pour le ramener dans le droit chemin et relancer la soif de vengeance d’Amleth. “Rappelle-toi de ton sermon”, lui lance-t-elle, avant de lui souffler que “nul ne peut échapper à son destin”.
Les paroles de Björk font effet. (...) L’aventure peut vraiment commencer. ** SPOILER **
I used to be in a punk band that was so hardcore that if someone came to us and asked for an autograph, we’d just tell them to fuck off and get a life.
I suggest sending that message out to her fan club.
"Get a life !" She laughs.
Then again, there are strange things which make people happy. Like I get really happy and sentimental if my kid writes something to me, or I like the colour fluffy white. We all got our little soft spots ; why can’t you brush your teeth with your socks on, things like that.
I was able to make a record already at the age of eleven. It became a
hit, I became a child star and - hated it. The picture on the cover was
of me, but it didn’t feel like it was my album. All I did was to sing on
it and there was only one song I had written myself.
I felt horribly guilty. The papers wanted to do interviews with me, the
kids in school wanted to be friends with me and all of it felt horrible.
Then I was offered to do another album, but I said "fuck off" and
started a punk band with people my own age.
I had orange hair and everybody hated us, which was exactly what we
wanted.
BJÖRK : You start off with fucking health foods and no alcohol...
POLLY : ...you’re really cleaned out and you’re eating well and doing exercise, swimming every day, and by the end of the tour you’re drinking to calm down instead of meditating or whatever, and eating crap and smoking.
TORI : It’s really great for me to hear this because my tour starts tomorrow.
BJÖRK : And your reading just goes down the toilet. You start off reading highly spiritual, good-for-the-brain things and by the end I’m just reading about fucking and sex orgies.
You learn, after a while, to turn everything into something that turns you on. It’s like you’ve got this button. You learn to use things. If someone shouts at you, you can use it to make a song better.
Why would anyone want to interview me either ? When I was a teenager I just wanted to read interviews with great scientists and great writers. I’m just a pop star. I do have things to say but 99% of that goes in the songs.
Question : What’s your favorite venue and country to perform at ?
Björk : Hmmm... it’s really hard to pick ! It really depends on the show. I’ve done marvelous shows in great places, and then later done not-so-great shows in the same place. There are some gorgeous places around the world, both outside and inside. There’s one place that’s in a cave in the Canary Islands that I hope to play one day.
I guess I was lucky in that I became a public property in Iceland when I was 11, so I had 15 years of hardcore rehearsals before all this hullabaloo. I guess at the end of the day what you realise is that this hullabaloo is not about you, it’s about that person you’ve created. It sounds cold and horrible but you feel very lucky that the person that you are - the relationship you’ve got between you and yourself - is different than with some person who’s never met you. It’s good to have that distance, because when you get Brit Awards and front covers, it’s not about you, it’s a symbol for what you do. And when it comes to what I do, it’s got so little to do with myself. I’m writing songs about other people, my favourite things, whatever, and it’s the most unselfish thing you can imagine.
People automatically think that I am more important than other people which of course is rubbish, but it’s been like that since I was 11 and I guess if you experience things early it’s like little kids who can learn languages very quickly and very well. People come to you and you know exactly what they’re after ; if they want to give you something or take something away or ae simply curious. It’s often a good reason, it’s not like everybody is evil or anything, you know ?
I don’t analyse it much. Then I start worrying about it and I’ll go mad and they’ll have to lock me in an asylum. It’s a lot to do with the fact that I’m a singer and the fact that I’m a girl. I never set out to be famous. I look at the mission I’m on in the sort of range of Aphex Twin or Black Dog rather than the other front-cover people.
Fame has never really been my thing. I have always been a bit bothered by it. In Iceland when I was 11, I did a record and people started recognising me in the street and kids in school started talking about me, in a nice way, but I just couldn’t deal with the attention. It was a platinum seller in Iceland and they wanted me to do another one and I said ’no’.
Half of me is completely fine and very very happy about it, flabbergasted, you know ? But the other half of me is : ’Alright, is it over now, then ?’ Because, in Iceland, I guess it’s so easy to be famous.
I think that most people with a microphone get people that identify with them and tell them personal things just because they’ve got some freedom of speech. At the end of the day it’s got nothing to do with me, ’cos this is the job I’ve got,
Now, you do realize you have a very devout gay male fan base.
Okay. [Giggles] I don’t think too much about it, but I have to say that a little bird whispered it in my ear at some point.
Why is it something that you don’t think about ?
When people tell you marketing figures about your fan base, it just sounds a bit cold. I like to think of people who buy my records as equals. Don’t think of them as gay or black or young or old. They’re just people who enjoy my music. I’ve had so many close gay friends all my life, it’s not that big of a deal with me. [Pauses] But I’d be lying if I said there weren’t things I find easier to talk about with gay guys. [Giggles]
That was some time ago. I’d shaved my eyebrows, I was very pregnant and I exposed my belly on a TV show, performing in my band KUKL, a jazz punk thing. Apparently the combination was too much for some viewers. One woman had a heart attack while she was watching and sued me. Fortunately, she lost !
It was actually what I’m most used to, that format. The Sugarcubes was such an exception to me, because I’d previously done film music in Iceland, music for theatre, produced stuff and also played drums and clarinet. I like to do stuff like that. I never really looked at myself as a singer.
I could never stand guitar rock.
That’s the funny thing.
My father was a hippy who just listened to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and I grew up listening to that music. When I was seven, I was convinced tahth this music was ancient history, that I would do something new.
I think that as soon as any form becomes traditional, like the guitar, bass and drums, then people start to behave traditionally. It’s really difficult to get a band to stay on the edge using typical bass, guitar and drums set-up because it tends to lapse into a predictable form.
My ideal band would be an open-minded group that won’t let anything get in the way of creating something new. They could use saxophones, teaspoons, drum machines or anything to communicate a whole whole concept whether it be a house track, experminatal music, pop, or just a nursery rhyme.
Everyone at my school hated the record and they hated me. The musicians wanted me to make a second one but I didn’t want to. I wanted to be with kids my own age for a bit.
The record label offered me all these songs and I turned them down because they were shit. I got very upset in the end so my mum ran around to her hippie musician mates and they all did songs for me. "The music was happy, light-hearted pop ; half bubblegum, half crazy. It was mostly adaptions of kids’ songs, as well as one I had written myself called ’Johannes Kjarval’.
I guess I’m on this stupid mission — I know it sounds like a silly fairy tale, but I’d like to try to make the perfect song. I still haven’t, and I’ve got 50 years to still try, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes.
I’m naturally quite introvert, but if it’s a question of going to the middle of England and becoming the most extrovert person in the universe, if it’s a question of traveling the world like a lunatic on 950 cappuccinos, I’m up for that. If it’s a question of not communicating and going and isolating myself for 50 years so I can get as much work done as possible, I’m up for that.
The Sugarcubes came about because of the domesticity imposed by Björk’s motherhood. After they were married, Björk and Thor moved into a house, and an avant-garde crowd of poets, painters, and musicians would come around. Six of them created Bad Taste Ltd., dedicated to publishing each other’s work. For a joke they also formed the Sugarcubes. When one of their songs, ’Birthday,’ caused a stir in England, they rerecorded it in English. Suddenly they had a career.
It was a hobby really. We’d all get drunk at weekends and write these weirdo pop songs and then when we had enough we could go on holiday as The Sugarcubes. It was just a group of friends travelling all over the world and thinking, ’this is crazy’. Nobody expected to last even as long as it did.
Folks might say something went wrong with the Sugarcubes. Not so ! We had worked together as a unit since we were 14, 15 years old - we’d done all these different things together and always stuck by each other no matter what. We set up a pirate
radio station - we broke into Radio One for the 200-year birthday of Reykjavik and made all these announcements and played songs that we considered more realistic. So we’ve been arrested, been thrown in jail together.
Sorry, it’s nothing personal but generally journalists don’t have a clue. I don’t expect them to have one. It’s very rare that you read something with some insight. Maybe five per cent of reviews I can identify with and then only a little bit.
I made a sacrifice by leaving Iceland, but I’ve been on a little personal mission - which was for my songs, so that they would get the instruments and the work and the pain and happiness they deserved. Basically, the money, studio and equipment was all here, not in Iceland. I still have a house in Iceland. Iceland is actually like my sub-concious and England my concious.
I loved Reykjavik and my friends there, being a housewife, cooking good food, going out and getting drunk and all that. It was a drastic decision to move to London, to drag my son with me, but I just had to do it. I’d had these songs in me since I was a little kid and I knew that I might submerae this creative impulse forever. But I looked around me and thought about all the things that give me the greatest joy in life. It might be incredibly good wine that’s just perfect or the right music where you can tell that the artist has gone all the way, done anything to create a perfect song, I had to have a go at least once before I die and see if I could do the same thing
I’m well aware of making a sacrifice by leaving Iceland, because I’m so much from there. But I’ve been on a little personal mission, which is my album. Basically, the money, studio and equipment was all here, not in Iceland.
When I first left home, I carried all sorts of stupid stuff around with me in boxes, but I gradually learnt to give that up. I realised that the best thing is to have, when you go somewhere, is what you’re wearing. One book and you’re laughing. Especially when you’re trying to move from one country to another. You have to start again.
It took a lot for me to swallow my pride and move to London because I’m as patriotic as people can get. Going on my Mission, it didn’t make any sense to do it by fax from lceland. After thinking about it, I realised that, anyway, I’ve travelled with my kid since he was one, and he’s still as lcelandic as an icelandic person can get but very international al the same time.
When I first moved here with my kid, I was very aware that he might hate it. I knew we might have to go back and that I would have to do other jobs. I was prepared to do that if he didn’t like it because want him to remain very much an icelandic person but, fortunately, he loved it.
You sacrifice yourself. And you lose everything - like the fact that I’m this big and an Icelandic female and all that. I think this is the reason music and sex are so often compared to each other. The most common way of feeling this is probably in sex. Because when you’re having sex you don’t think, I’m now going to move my left arm 30 centimetres. You just have to do something and you follow your instincts. In that sense, although I’m not saying I’m thinking about sex all the time when I’m on stage, it’s a very similar feeling to having very good sex with someone.
While we were playing (at Big Day Out in Brisbane), the crowd was just standing with their mouths open... we thought nobody liked us. So we thought ’Oh fuck’em...’ and we just had fun. We are a bit strange on this bill. It’s 12 hours of Grunge, and we’re like the pink dot in the middle of all these noisy rock guitars.
I’ve done gigs in Iceland that have been ridiculous because people know you and when you’re singing, they’re shouting, Hey, you didn’t make your English degree ! Your uncle is fucking my niece !
You are known for putting out a lot of releases to accompany each record.
They are really good with that. For my tastes, I think sometimes, they release a little bit too much, I’m like waaait a minute. But I’ve got to respect him, he’s very supportive of what I do, Derek [Birkett, One Little Indian co-founder]. We both come from a sort of punk rock background, where we were trying to do the opposite of what the huge record companies were doing, where nothing was released except greatest hits or something. We come from another standpoint.
I mean, I’ve never been thinking that if you’re a fan you have to buy everything that somebody puts out. I mean, you’ve got a choice. If you don’t want it, just don’t buy it. It’s also a reaction to YouTube and sharing of files. A lot of it is really bad sound, really low quality. So the librarian in me wants it at least to exist there so that in 20 years when I’m sitting in my rocking chair, it will still exist in the best sound quality possible, even though it only sold 1000 units or whatever. As much as I love the whole pirate kind of thing, the quality suffers.
Well, I’m definitely one of them, that’s for sure. But I look on myself as one of those people rather than as a representative. And to me the future will be about being able to do all things at once, You can be, like, a really good businessman and also be a mother and also be really into health food, and you can do basketball - just pick up the best things.
I definitely haven’t got the ambition to be bigger than everyone. I don’t want to sound like I’m arty, like I didn’t pick to be here, because I think that’s a pathetic attitude as well, but I’ve actually started to think a bit about it all. It’s just so... untrendy.
I would very happily live without it. I’m not moaning, but as far as I’m concerned, all that bullshit comes with the job, and if you want to make a big record, you’ve got to take part in all that. I’ve come a long way. Most of it’s the same game, only a hundred times bigger.
I’ve been through a period where I’ve been very anti all that, and I wouldn’t do autographs. We were very politically correct, and passionate rebels. Somebody would ask for an autograph and we would be willing to discuss his life and what was wrong with it, like how come you’re humiliating yourself in front of me ?
The theme of Scanner’s album was that all noises in the world are for free, which I thought was really clever and interesting. I offered them money which they agreed to, but then they signed to a publishing company who thought, ’Oh, Björk has sampled them - let’s try to put the Scanner album in the charts by making something of that’. They obviously didn’t have a clue what they were talking about - these publishing people are not very into music, they’re just trying to get the money.
If I have any vision of my life, I think I’ll be singing until I die, about ninety years old. It’s funny, all the attention I’m getting, but I don’t think I’m hooked on it. I could just as well move to a little island and live by the ocean and just be the village singer or whatever. Singing on Friday and Saturday nights, writing tunes for the rest of the week. That’s my role.
I love singing live, that’s the ultimate... but you sing one hour and you have to hang around two or three days to do it. Then you come off a three-month tour and realise you’ve spent all that time for maybe having done 30 hours of singing.
Touring gives you the freedom to go to extremes. Sometimes you have tours where you’re just drunk the whole time, and you keep really high because you don’t eat and you just go to clubs and meet lots of unhealthy people. Then you get a natural high for the next tour and eat lots of celery, and for the next you only listen to jazz.
Last time, because it was Europe and I know a lot of people, I was getting drunk a lot. On this tour, though, I’m leading a very different life. I know fewer people, so I get up early, run into the ocean and read a lot of books.
Because I’ve been touring for years I can go to 20 gay clubs in 20 different cities, but for the first two years I was completely disorientated and I’d have to sit in a chair, eat a lot of bread and cheese and say : ’OK, you’re in London, your name is Björk, you come from Iceland,’ and keep myself on the ground like that.
You know this touring thing is definitely one of the most difficult things I’ve done, like an Indiana Jones thing, and me dealing with my body, like ’time’s out, Björk’.
For the first five years I toured with my kid. That was brilliant, because we were just looking for waterslide parks. I became an expert on those things... where to find nappies in various cities around the world ! I could write a book on where to find second-hand baby clothes.
My life is too busy at the moment. But who knows what will happen ? I might go on the Punch and Judy show (ndlr. spectacle de marionnettes célèbre au Royaume Uni) – I mean the Richard and Judy show (ndlr. émission télévisée britannique présentée par le couple marié Richard Madeley et Judy Finnigan. (2001-2008)). I’ll try anything once.
One summer, she worked at Iceland’s Coca-Cola bottling plant.
I had pink hair at the time, and I was supposed to sit in a chair, watching the bottles as they passed to see if they were clean. Mostly, I just used to fall asleep. I never made the employees’ hall of fame.
Last year, Coca-Cola held a party, which the Sugarcubes were invited to. Among the employees were contemporaries of Björk who’d intended to leave after three months, like her. "They were still saying, `I’ll be gone by September,’" she shudders.
