GayCalgary Magazine - mai 2013

Dido Thanks You

Singer-songwriter on 'loyal' gay following, anger issues and which song of hers she doesn't want at your wedding

Celebrity Interview by Chris Azzopardi

It would be easy to mistake Dido as being as mellow as her music – but don't.

In our chat, the British singer-songwriter – promoting her first album in five years, Girl Who Got Away – didn't just chat about her gay fans and the Eminem song that launched her career. We found out what turns the musically meek songstress into an angry beast. Let's just say this: Tequila makes Dido dangerous.

GC: Welcome back, Dido.

D: Thank you very much. It's nice to be back.

GC: When did you recognize you had a gay following?

D: Pretty instantly, I would say. I've always had a very loyal gay following, which I'm very thankful for.

GC: Do you have a lot of gay people in your own life?

D: Oh yeah, tons. I mean, friends, work people... everybody.

GC: Everybody?

D: (Laughs) No, not everybody, but a huge amount. I'm surrounded by very good people.

GC: Two of your biggest singles, 'Thank You' and 'Don't Leave Home,' are wedding favorites.

D: It's funny: I think 'Don't Leave Home' at a wedding is just completely weird. It surprises me that anybody has that at their wedding. It's a song about being incredibly claustrophobic. (Laughs) People are like, "I've played that at my wedding," and I'm like, "Why, if I can be honest?" I guess it's the title. 'Thank You,' though, is a perfect wedding song, and I've actually sang it at quite a few friends' weddings. But if someone asked me to play 'Don't Leave Home,' I'd just be like, "Really?"

GC: Have you ever sung at a gay wedding?

D: I haven't actually, no. I haven't really sung at many weddings. It takes quite a bit of alcohol and coaxing to get me to sing at anyone's wedding.

GC: What kind of alcohol?

D: Back then I used to drink quite a lot of tequila, but then that all went a bit wrong and I found that's just the one thing I cannot drink. So now I like to drink wine. Does that mean I'm getting old? It probably does. (Laughs) But tequila makes me get into fights.

GC: Tequila makes you fight?

D: Yeah! It used to make me weirdly aggressive – and I'm like the most unaggressive person ever. (Laughs) But tequila makes me quite angry.

GC: But, Dido, you seem so mellow.

D: It takes so much to piss me off. Someone's gotta poke at me quite a lot to get me even remotely angry, but if I have tequila, I'll just get angry at the next person who comes around.

GC: How personal is Girl Who Got Away in relation to your other three albums?

D: All my albums are pretty personal. You can't help your life filtering into your songs – or if you're me, you can't. I can't help it. I'm a very open person. I'm very honest in life and I'm very honest in my music, as well. I think I'm always going to write that way.

GC: Who is the "girl" and who/what/where is she trying to get away from?

D: Actually, my brother (Rollo Armstrong) is the "girl who got away," and he wrote most of those lyrics.

GC: There's some gender-bending going on there.

D: (Laughs) Definitely! I love that song ('Girl Who Got Away'). He sent me the lyrics and I just remember reading it thinking, "I love this song." It's about so many things: about how I used to feel, that sort of restless feeling, that feeling of maybe there's another life somewhere and that feeling of wanting to be exceptional but not quite reaching it. It's my favorite song. But then, as far as the title of the album, it's also about everyone reaching out to me (saying) that I keep disappearing, and it was quite a good comment on that. I don't think I was disappearing, but everyone else thought so.

GC: Maybe because it's been five years since you released an album. What's your life like when you're away from music?

D: I'm never really away from music. I might be away from the public eye, but I'm never away from music. I'm always making it, I'm always writing it, I'm always playing it, and then obviously it builds up into an album and I put it out and I'm back in the public's consciousness. And then I'm out of it again.

I took a bit of time between albums two and three just because I realized I'd been on the road for nine years at that point and that it was probably time to go home and clean up the mess I left, and so I took a bit of time in making the third album. But actually, this record I put together quite quickly. Then in the middle I had a baby. You know, a small event. (Laughs)

GC: How do you feel before an album drops?

D: Oh my god, I'm so excited. I've only put out three records in my life; this is only my fourth, and so this is still so fresh and exciting to me. It feels like the first time I ever put a record out. I'm really proud of this album. I feel like it's my best record. It was such a fun record to make. Me and brother just had such a brilliant time. I'm so lucky to have my brother as my producer. It's just a happy record for me.

GC: What kind of place in your life were you at when you recorded the song 'Let Us Move On'?

D: You know how we all go around saying life is short? I remember saying once, "Life is actually really long, and not in a bad way but in a good way." When things are just really dark, when you look back on it, this will be such a small moment in your life. You know when something's so huge you can't get past it? Actually, it's not. It's just a very small part of a very big life.

GC: Your debut, No Angel, obviously had such a huge impact on your career, as did your featured spot on Eminem's 'Stan.' Did you worry about the possible repercussions of performing with one of the most controversial entertainers at the time?

D: I didn't, because when I met him he was so respectful to me and treated me so well. I saw integrity. I think he's one of the greatest storytellers around, and so no. As a real fan of his music, I have a lot of respect for him musically, and he treated me well. That, for me, was enough. I just really enjoyed working with him.

GC: You had mentioned to Playboy once that people kept asking you about your feelings on the misogyny and homophobia in his music. Working with him, did you feel sucked into that controversy?

D: I didn't really feel sucked into it, to be quite honest. I'd heard that he was making a social commentary on things and I just thought he was a great storyteller and I didn't get too sucked into it. Isn't that, I guess, why he performed with Elton John at the Grammys?

GC: Yeah, he was debunking the homophobia talk.

D: Yeah, exactly. I go on the person I see in front of me, and he was really not a misogynist to me at all. Quite the opposite. Just utterly respectful – and all the people around him were utterly respectful, as well.

GC: Many of your songs have been featured on television and in film. For you, what's a standout scene that included one of your songs?

D: Being played during "127 Hours" was really cool. While I was watching it, I was wincing and listening to my song and thinking, "This is so wrong but so good." That was a thrill being nominated for an Oscar. A dream thrill. "Sliding Doors" was the first song I had in a movie, and that moment was most exciting for me because I had never heard myself used in a film before.

GC: They used the same song, 'Thank You,' during the love scene with Ellen DeGeneres and Sharon Stone in "If These Walls Could Talk 2". Have you seen that?

D: Oh, totally!

GC: What'd you think of your song being used during a lesbian sex scene?

D: That was really cool! There have been so many good uses. It's just been brilliant, and I've been really lucky.

Source

Vanity Fair - 21 mars 2013 [Traduction]

Dido parle de son nouvel album, Girl Who Got Away, de sa folie pour la pâtisserie saine pendant sa grossesse, et de son amour pour la motoneige

Au début du mois, la chanteuse et parolière britannique Dido est revenue après un congé sabbatique (et maternité) de cinq ans, avec son quatrième album studio, Girl Who Got Away. Vanity Fair Daily a récemment rencontré l’interprète de 'White Flag' pour discuter de son processus créatif, de ses aventures culinaires sans gluten, et de sa capacité à écrire et à enregistrer un morceau en une journée. Voici quelques extraits de notre conversation :

Vanity Fair : Félicitations pour votre nouvel album ! Vous avez déclaré que c'était un mélange de toutes les musiques que vous aimiez : la dance, la musique d'ambiance, le hip-hop, la pop. Est-ce une approche différente d'avec les morceaux que vous avez écrits pour vos précédents albums ?
Dido : Pas vraiment, non. No Angel [sorti en 1999], en particulier, a représenté quelque chose de similaire. Chaque fois que j'écris une chanson, je veux simplement la produire de la manière qui lui soit la mieux appropriée, et je finis par faire des références à toutes les musiques que j'aime. Et j'adore des tas de types de musique différents, que ce soit la dance, le dub, le hip-hop, la musique d'ambiance, la pop, ou la musique folk. Ce que j'aime, c'est me sentir libre de partir dans toutes les directions. Du moment que c'est cohérent avec la chanson, j'entends. C'est comme ça que je garde une cohérence entre les albums.

Vous parlez de liberté, et vous avez déclaré dans une vidéo de votre label que vous aviez ressenti un véritable sentiment de liberté avec cet album. Pourriez-vous en dire un peu plus à ce sujet ?
Pas mal d’années s'étaient écoulées, et c'était comme s’il n’y avait pas de pression, dans un sens positif. L'album s'est fait de manière très naturelle, je menais ma vie, je travaillais avec des gens, et j'écrivais des chansons. Travailler avec mon frère [Rollo Armstrong], ainsi qu'opérer un petit retour aux sources, a permis de rendre le processus libre et facile. Pour le troisième album, je pense avoir été plus intéressée par le fait de faire quelque chose de différent et de changer les choses, et c'en est presque devenu un disque plus difficile. C'est souvent le cas avec un second album, mais pour moi, je pense que ça a été [le cas] avec le troisième album.

Cet album ci est un peu plus joyeux que le précédent, n'est-ce pas ?
Les choses ne sont jamais aussi simples que ça, avec moi, et il existe toujours un mélange entre le sombre et le lumineux, dans chaque morceau. C'est de cette manière que j'aime écrire des chansons. Le troisième album étaient très sombre, c'était une époque très sombre, et c'est un album chargé d'émotion. C'est aussi le cas avec celui-ci, mais d'une manière différente.

Le troisième album est un album intensément sombre. Je ne l'avais pas vraiment réalisé avant d’en chanter des extraits en live, en pensant : "Ouah". Je chantais des morceaux très sombres chaque soir. [Rires] C'est ce qu'on attend d'une carrière : revenir en arrière et voir que chaque album représente une période de votre vie, que vous y avez tout déversé, et que tout ce que vous avez ressenti est présent sur ce disque. Ce qui était plaisant, avec le dernier album, c'est d'avoir cette assurance, du fait du troisième album. Je me suis sentie d’avantage capable d’aller au bout de quelques idées que j'avais, qu'elles aient été folles ou non.

Votre précédent album date de 2008, mais vos albums ont chacun trois, quatre ans d’écart.
C'est en grande partie dû aux tournées. Pour No Angel, par exemple, je suis partie en tournée pendant trois ans. Et j'étais en tournée pendant deux ans, après Life For Rent. Je partais sur les routes, et je continuais sur ma lancée, encore et toujours. Je n'ai jamais été capable de faire un disque lorsque je suis en tournée. Je trouve que l'état d'esprit est complètement différent. Et entre chaque album, je veux avoir une vie, une aventure, et avoir quelque chose sur quoi écrire.

Quel est votre processus créatif lorsque vous écrivez ?
Lorsque j'écris une chanson, c’est comme une image floue, et puis, soudain, je sais vraiment ce sur quoi j'écris, et tout devient clair. Si ce n'est pas quelque chose de très clair, ou que je ne sais pas ce sur quoi j'écris, ou si ce n'est pas chargé d'émotion, alors je ne terminerais probablement pas le morceau.

A d'autres moments, je m'assois simplement dans le studio, et j'écris. Je peux produire beaucoup de choses, dans ces cas là. Tout est là, dans ma tête, et je me dis que si j'attendais simplement ces petits moments [d'inspiration], je n'écrirais jamais rien. J'aime vraiment m’assoir avec ma guitare, et je commence à jouer, et ça me conduit à écrire une chanson. J'ai l’impression que c’est toujours comme ça que ça se termine.

Quand ou comment savez-vous qu'une chanson est bonne ? Ou qu'elle est terminée et ne nécessite plus de modification ?
C'est la chose, je crois, dont je tire de la fierté. J'ai l’impression que j'ai de l'instinct pour ça, et je pense que c'est réellement un art de le savoir. On peut aller trop loin, ou ne pas s'arrêter assez tôt. Mais pour moi, c'est lorsque j’ai envie d'écouter une chanson encore et encore, lorsqu'elle m’émeut, lorsque je suis absolument d'accord pour la jouer à mes critiques les plus sévères. A la minute où j'atteins le stade où je veux vraiment jouer la chanson devant des gens, comme des membres de ma famille, qui me diront la vérité avec des termes précis, alors je sais.

Travaillez-vous sur vos chansons pendant un bon moment, où réussissez-vous généralement [à terminer] assez rapidement après que l'inspiration pour une chanson soit venue ?
C'est à chaque fois différent. Avec 'Thank You', ça m'a pris cinq minutes, et avec 'White Flag', j'avais le chorus un an avant de pouvoir terminer les couplets. Ca tournait sans cesse dans ma tête, et l'image était floue, et soudain, c'est devenu très clair. C’est aussi le cas avec cet album ; 'End of Night', par exemple, a été écrite en un jour. Et j'ai traîné 'No Freedom' avec moi pendant une éternité, sous différentes versions. J'aime enregistrer les voix dès la minute où j'ai écris une chanson, si ce n'est pendant que je l'écris. Pour 'End of Night', j'étais d’ailleurs en train de l'écrire pendant que je la chantais, et je trouve qu’on obtient ainsi un vrai effet brut.

Quelques unes de vos chansons sont apparues dans des bandes originales de films, comme pour "127 heures" ou "Sex and the City 2". Les gens passent-ils commande ?
C'est ce qui arrive, le plus souvent. Dans le cas de "127 heures", la chanson a été écrite spécialement pour le film. Ca a été un grand choc lorsqu'elle a été nominée aux Oscars. Je n'arrivais pas à y croire, c'était inattendu. Je travaillais avec A. R. Rahman, et je crois que Danny Boyle a entendu ma voix sur ce morceau, et il [m'a contactée] pour me dire : "Voudriez-vous faire une chanson pour ce film ?" Je connaissais déjà l’histoire, j'avais lu le livre, donc j'étais absolument partante pour le faire. On a fait [le morceau] en une journée, et j'ai trouvé que c'était sympa. Et puis, j'ai commencé à recevoir des e-mails, quelques semaines plus tard, qui disaient : "Tu as été nominée aux Oscars !" J’étais étonnée. C'était complètement inattendu, et génial.

Etait-ce une chanson qui a pris cinq minutes à écrire ?
Non, mais ça a été assez rapide. Ca a pris un week-end. J'ai passé beaucoup de temps à y travailler pendant le week-end, et je l'ai ensuite enregistrée en 45 minutes, ou une heure, et c’était tout, elle était finie. A. R. Rahman est une gars intelligent, vous savez, le crédit ne me revient pas, en grande majorité. C'est lui qui a fait que ça fonctionne avec le film, et j'étais très heureuse de simplement prêter ma voix. C'est tout un art de faire en sorte que ce genre de choses fonctionne vraiment avec un film.

Lorsque vous ne travaillez pas, quel genre de choses aimez vous faire ?
J'aime la motoneige. [Rires] Je dois avouer que j'adore faire des activités qui déconnectent complètement mon cerveau de tout. Je ne peux pas trainer à rien faire, parce que je pense alors à l’écriture d'une nouvelle chanson. Si je veux vraiment me détendre, je dois en fait m'adonner à quelque chose qui nécessite toute ma concentration. Comme conduire une motoneige lancée à grande vitesse.

Et j'adore faire de la pâtisserie. Pendant ma grossesse, j'ai eu une frénésie de pâtisserie... Oui, jusqu'à ce que mon mari m'arrête, parce que ça devenait tout simplement ridicule. Il a l'impression qu'il doit tout manger. Il ne veut pas gaspiller. Et moi, je faisais gâteau sur gâteau. Il y a quelque chose de très beau dans la pâtisserie. On commence avec une bouillie informe, qu'on transforme en quelque chose d'extraordinaire. Je suis très forte en pâtisserie saine, différente et un peu bizarre. J'ai toujours des recettes sans sucre, ou sans blé, ou sans tout-ce-que-vous-voulez, et certaines sont absolument infectes ! Certaines finissent très mal.

Traduction de Dido France. Reproduction interdite.

Vanity Fair - 21 mars 2013

Dido on Her New Album, Girl Who Got Away, Going on a Pregnant Healthy-Baking Spree, and Her Love of Snowmobiling

By Bennett Marcus

Earlier this month, British singer-songwriter Dido returned from her five-year sabbatical (and maternity leave) with her fourth studio album, Girl Who Got Away. VF Daily recently caught up with the 'White Flag' artist about her creative process, her adventures in gluten-free cooking, and her ability to write and record a song in a day. Highlights from our chat:

Vanity Fair: Congratulations on your new album. You've called it a mix of everything you like—dance music, ambient, hip-hop, pop. Is that a different approach than on songs you've written for your previous albums?
Dido: Not really, no. No Angel [released in 1999], especially, was a sort of similar thing. Whenever I write a song, I just want to produce it in the way that's best for the song, and I'll end up referencing all the music I love. And I love tons of different types of music, whether it's dance or dub or hip-hop or ambient music, or pop, or folk. What I enjoy is feeling free to jump around. You know, as long as it's held together with the song. That's how I hold the albums together.

You just mentioned freedom, and you said in a video from the record label that you felt a sense of freedom with this record. Would you expand on that a bit?
Many years had passed and it felt like there wasn't a lot of pressure, in a good way. The record happened really naturally, and I was sort of going about my life, working with people, and writing songs. Working with my brother [Rollo Armstrong], and going back to basics a bit as well, it just felt like a really free and easy process. The third album, I think I was just more concerned with wanting to do something different and change things, and that almost became a more difficult record. Often it's the second one, but for me, I think it was probably the third.

This one is a bit more joyful than the previous album, isn't it?
With me things are never quite as clear-cut as that, and there's always a mixture of dark and light in every song. That's how I like to write songs. The third record was quite a dark record, and it's quite a dark time, and a very emotional record. This one is as well, but in a sort of different way.
The third record is quite an intensely dark record. I didn't really realize until I started performing it live, and thinking, Wow. I was singing some quite dark songs every night. [Laughs] This is what you want from a career: you want to look back and each album is a phase in life, and you pour everything into it, and everything you felt during that time is on that record. What was nice about this most recent one is there's this confidence there from making the third album; I felt more able to follow through on some of the ideas I had, whether they were crazy or not.

Your album before this one was in 2008, but all of your albums have had three to four years in between.
A lot of that is because of touring. I toured for three years, for instance, with No Angel. And I toured for two years after Life for Rent. I would get on the road and then just keep going and going and going. I've never been able to make a record while on tour. I find the headspace quite different. In between each record, as well, I want to have a life, an adventure, and have something to write about.

What is your creative process like when you write?
When I'm writing a song, it's like a blurry picture, and then suddenly I really know what I'm writing about, and it all becomes clear. Unless something's really clear and I really know what I'm writing about, or it's really emotional, I'm probably not going to finish it.

Other days I literally just sit in the studio and write. A huge amount can come out then. It's all in there, and I think if I only waited for those little moments to happen, I don't think I'd get anything on the page. I just do love to sit with my guitar, and I start playing, and then it turns into writing a song. It just always seems to.

When or how do you know when a song is right? Or when it's finished and doesn't need any more tweaking?
The one thing I think I've prided myself on. I feel like I do know that, and I think there's a real art to knowing that. You can go too far, or you can stop not soon enough. But for me, it's when I just want to listen to it over and over again, when it moves me, when I'm definitely O.K. with playing it to my harshest critics. The minute I get to the stage where I really want to play this to people, like family members, that are going to tell you the truth in no uncertain terms, you know.

Do you change your songs for a while, or do you usually nail it fairly quickly after the inspiration for the song comes?
That's always different. A song like 'Thank You' I wrote in five minutes, and then a song like 'White Flag,' I had the chorus for a year before I could finish the verses. It just went round and round in my head, and the picture was just blurry, and then suddenly it got really clear. On this album, too, a song like 'End of Night' was written in a day. Then a song like 'No Freedom' I carried around with me for ages in different versions. I like to record vocals the minute I've written a song, if not when I'm actually writing the song. Like on 'End of Night' I was actually writing it as I was singing it, and I think you get a real rawness to that.

You've had some songs on movie soundtracks, like "127 Hours" and "Sex and the City 2". Do people commission those?
Often that happens. In the case of "127 Hours", that was done for the film. It was a complete shocker when it got nominated for an Oscar. I couldn't believe it. That just came out of the blue. I was just working with A. R. Rahman, and then I think Danny Boyle heard my voice singing something over this track, and then he said, "Would you like to do a song for this film?" And I already knew the story, I had read the book anyway, so I was completely up for it. It was just done in a day, and I thought, Well, that was fun. And then I started getting e-mails a few weeks later, saying, "You've been nominated for an Oscar!" And I was like, What? That was really, like, out of the blue, and brilliant.

Was that a song that took five minutes?
No, that was pretty quick. It was a weekend. I spent a lot of time doing it over the weekend, and then recorded it in, like, 45 minutes, an hour, and that was that, and it was done. And A. R. Rahman, he's one clever guy; you know, I can't really take a whole heap of credit. He's the one that made it work with the film, and I was really happy to just use my voice. It's a whole art to making things like that really work with a film.

When you are not making working, what kinds of things do you like to do?
I like snowmobiling. [Laughs] I have to say, I love doing things that completely take all my brain away from everything. I'm not great at sitting around, because then I'll start thinking of writing another song. If I really want to relax, I actually need to do something that takes all my concentration. Like driving a snowmobile very fast over the snow.

And I actually do love baking. While I was pregnant, I sort of went baking-crazy and... yeah, until my husband stopped me, 'cause it was just getting ridiculous. He feels like he needs to eat it all. He doesn't want it to go to waste. So I was, like, baking cake after cake. There's something really beautiful about baking. It's sort of like, you start with a pile of mush, and you make this amazing thing out of it. I'm very good at slightly strange, alternative, healthy baking. Like I'm always coming up with sugar-free, wheat-free this and that and the other -free recipes, and some of them are absolutely disgusting! Just, some of them go so wrong.

(Source)