EMILIE AUTUMN – Del 1

Vår dyktige fotograf Francesca Tullio, bedre kjent under pseudonymet Red Art, møtte Emilie Autumn i februar i år. Anledningen var en konsert som ble holdt på Subscene og Francesca hadde avtalt å møte henne i forkant av konserten for en prat. Nå ble dette intervjuet lengre enn først antatt og det ble ikke tid til å gjøre alt i Oslo, og deler av intervjuet ble besvart via e-mail. Pga lengden er intervjuet også delt opp i 2 deler og her kommer del 1.

I'm here at Subscene with Emilie Autumn. We have not much time to talk, but she gave me a 25 minutes interview and I'm happy to be here.

I came here to interview you for ET and for the Muffins (EA fans). First of all I want to thank you for your time and I don't want to ask you the same thing that other people asked you in the past interviews (see YouTube and on net), so I'll start asking you about "The Asylum" book.

Wow! Did you buy it? I'm so pleased! I thought that to make a record was not enough to explain all the world there's behind my music…

Yes, is amazing…and huge! I didn't have the time to read it all, because I've just got it couple of weeks ago, but I love the graphic…did you make all the stuff inside by yourself (drawing, graphic…) ?

It's all mine. I've made all!  The drawing, the graphic, the text…it had just to be a completely personal project, nobody could make it for me, because it's so intense: it's my diary.

Yes, and because of that I did hear that you had to change some name because of privacy of the people you're talking about…

Yes, I wanted, but at the end it turned out that I didn't have to change anything. It was mostly a question to myself, if changing names could make me to be safe, but I didn't want to have any compromising. I wanted to be able to tell the truth, so at the end I didn't change anything.

So everything is true. There's nothing that you did build up, then?

No, everything is true. I think it gets into a place between a modern diary and the Victorian world that I use to be in. And anyway all is true, even if is difficult for myself to understand where this blending line divide those two worlds, and neither I'm sure where and where is the end or what happened next. It's anyway a diary, a diary that is been written in my hospital bad, where, like in a jail, many people do when they are constricted in a place where they don't want to be and don't have any communication with the outside world, where you have no control of your mind, your body  …anything is made to you physically and mentally and you have nothing to say; you can't decide when you leave, THEY decide when you leave, and it could be NEVER, so you (i) just start to write constantly about the world where you live (outside and inside). This world in between is real to me, and become more and more real…this is the world where I live all the time now, I can't go back.

I understand…how long time have you been in the mental hospital?

A long time

Months? Years?…

It was months…a lot longer that it should been.

It was less than one year, then?

Yes

Your songs and your shows are ironical. A kind of sad-funny humor…and sometimes there's something that could be misunderstood. I have question about your lyrics in the song "thank god I'm pretty". When you say that everybody thinks that you're a Suicide Girl, do you mean the SG group or just that you'll kill yourself?

Haha! Yes, it's a good question. It's a word joke, but in that particular sentence it refers to the SG group, yes. I've nothing against SG, of course, it is just a joke about me be what I am, and the other people confuse me for a SG because of my attitude, my photos, behavior … So it was just a joke about that you're not free to be yourself that you have to be categorized as someone else.

Haha! I understand. Watching your photos, especially the last erotic photos with the cakes, (which remember me very much SG) …

Haha! It's true!

Hehe! Those photos are very hot and artistic, I like them very much, but some Muffin disagrees about them. You say to be feministic, you speak badly about man that use you just like an object…but some Muffin didn't like the strong feelings that comes out from the photos. What do you think about it?

I took those pictures because I thought that it was the most feministic thing I could do. Because when YOU decide that you don't want to be afraid and you want to be proud of your body, and feel ok (because girls are genetically predisposed to have this problems about themselves, their bodies, etc), then you're free. I know I'm not perfect, but I'm happy with my body, so I made this because I wanted to, not because someone else asked me. And that's the most feministic thing I could do. I made the cakes, I made the set, I made everything and it was because I wanted it like that.

I understand and agree what you're talking about, I had the same period myself, and I don't regret it at all. It was something that made me feel free. Now I don't need it anymore, because it was a self transformation-period, not a thing I made for someone else, and it made me feel good in one of the worse period of my life!

Yes, and I think that many girls have the same feelings I describe in my songs, and that's what I think that the Muffins and everything had become a world. To realize that no one of us is really different, and that we are not alone making and feeling stuff. Of course all the people are different and unique, but we have this bond, these connections. All we want all feel a little bit healthy, and this was actually the healthiest thing I have ever made for myself. And what it makes me angry is that someone else can have a problem with me showing my body…I mean: is this a problem for you? I don't have a problem. Would it be more feminist for you (I mean the person with the problem)  if I'm gonna cover my body all the time, or if I'm gonna through up all the thing that I eat because I hate myself so much? Or maybe I can put on a burka and walk around with that?

Of course! I agree 100% about that, when you do the things for yourself you're free, and if you are a woman, then this is very feministic.

Yes, and you don't become a feminist denying your sexuality, and just because you use your sexuality doesn't mean that you use it for men. And this is even another reason why I chose to use a very sexy show, with purpose, because sex is power, and it can be use in a very good way. Money is also power and we use money all the time, but no one have a problem with it, because you use what you have. If you have something (beauty, money, etc) you're free to use it, unless you don't use it to hurt somebody, and you're free to use them for a good reason, in a good way, as we absolutely do. Even on stage: we're not the same age, size, hair color…but we are just girls that goes around with the freedom of express ourselves in all the possible ways, not being afraid. And actually this is the dream: do what you want, going around as you are, and nobody has to bother you…

Yes, I wish it too…I come from Italy and if you're not as the rest of the people, still the people watch you as you're like a freak! In Norway fortunately is not like that!

Yes, it looks like that. It seems very nice…

About your sexuality; what are your tendencies? Are you hetero, bi, lesbian…?

I think for the most part I feel asexual, which is a kind like you are not completely attracted to either men or women, is in between spaces which is almost as to be bisexual, because you don't have a real choice. I've been with men, of course, but I love women so much (and you can see it on stage) …and that's what men think: "oh, this is what women do?" that doesn't make me a lesbian, it's just what happened. But at the same time there's a part that I don't like, and is to don't be on only one side, because it makes me confuse.  And often I watch all from the outside, and I watch all as it is fine, and I respect it. I'm just proud that more and more people show their own tendencies and sexuality in a more free way, I speak even about my shows, where there's a "lesbian marriage" every night. We started like a joke, and it develop in a very good thing, where people feel more and more comfortable to show themselves.

Yes, it's all very interesting, and I'm so sorry to jump so fast to the next questions, I wish to talk for hours about it…

Yes, I understand it, we have such a short time, and I wish to talk more too, but we have to make the soundcheck…

I heard by another interview that you don't perform your old songs (before "Opheliac "album) on stage because you're not the same anymore, and you can't make something you don't feel anymore, and I agree with it, but I know that you're working on the new album, how it is going to be? Classic as "Laced-unlaced", romantic as "enchant" or…?

Yes, is gonna be even crazier, maybe…because is not really "how I feel today", but "what will happen next" (in the story, I mean)…because all is connected: once you're into the Asylum, you're gonna never go out. So, "what's happened next" is the next chapter. And in the next chapter we're gonna find out who is really crazy: the prisoners or the people who keep them close there? What happened when all the girls come together figuring out the way (maybe) to get out. Asylum became a safe place where all did happened bad it turns out in something to learn, and use it as a good thing in the future. And this is what asylum is: a place where the people don't feel alone is a kind of sanctuary, and I wish it will help many girls (people) in the same situation.

A little personal question: I've past one of the worse period of my life alone, living in an "asylum" myself, and suddenly a person came into my life and my life changed. I feel out now. If something like that will happen to you, how you'll react? Will you send this person away (man or woman) or will you accept it in your world and maybe you'll go out from the Asylum too?

I understand what you ask, and it doesn't mean that I'm close off, of course not! I was, yes, in the past, but this is why now I want to be completely myself, and showing myself as I am. And this is even about the shots of my leg in the Asylum book. It is a personal area, and I thought that who could see it, could run away, and that would be a good thing in my mind all the time, because I did close myself. And that's what I believed: just avoid the whole thing. But now I know there's something different. If someone can see that, and say "I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid of that.  That's not scare me away, and I'm not going anywhere" that's when you know that you can hang up with this person for a while.

Del 2 kommer 26. juni 2010.

http://www.myspace.com/emilieautumn