MaraDreea

Source: 

What do you see when you look at  the mirror? 

A really tired girl! When i am in tour the day start with the sound check at 4 pm and finish at 2 am, after my all dedication to the fans and the people that come in the backstage.

And when aren’t you tired?

I look at the mirror and and i say to myself: “I hope that today everything will be ok”. I hate have problems with my family and with my music, also for the little things like the acoustic during the concerts.

Are the million copies sold of Born To Die the scale of your success?

Personally i use two parameters. First, find a musical community to belong with. Second, know that the community respect me and my job. Unfortunately i have to say that musically i don’t find my “tribe” yet, find somebody to love and share a sense of comradeship. Maybe it’s a romantic inspiration but i think about Bob Dylan when in the 60s he arrived in the Greenwich Village and he found his group of folk music. I’ve tried that too when nine years ago i arrived in Brooklyn but i have to please me of a different version, more simple. I hoped to find people that want to base their life on art. Maybe i found those people in London where i lived for 4 years. And now for 7 months i live in Los Angeles, that’s my escape. I love swim, go to the beach everyday and drive along the coast listening to music.

What do you like to listening to? 

I really like the soundtracks of movies like American Beauty, Il Padrino, Scarface… But the grunge too, Mark Lanegan, Nirvana, and jazz: Chuck Baker, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and then Bob Dylan and all the musicians of that period.

What is your first musical memory? 

When i was 15 or 16 they sent me to the Kent School for fight my alcohol addiction, it was a private school in Connecticut where i didn’t have a lot of friends but a really young teacher, Gene Campbell, told me about hip hop and the beauty of soundtracks.

That’s not for change argoument but do you ever smoking so much? You just lighted up another cigarette, is not bad for your voice? 

Maybe yes but it’s good for me. It relaxes me but i admit that i smoke,i smoke,i smoke. And i drink a lot of coffee. I have to smoke before,after and during the concerts. And also during the breaks with a cup of coffee.

You say that you’re shy, so how can you stay in front of 5 thousand people during your concerts? 

Get on the stage it’s the part that i like less of my job. I love write and make music but i don’t like all the things that comes after the realization, for promoting the album.

How do you react to the critics?

Not really well. If someone’s write something bad about me and i get to know it i become really disappointed but i try to not let them influence my creativity.

Where and when do you compose music? 

I am a nocturnal animal. I write at night, outside, with a lot of noise in the background that comes from the tv or the radio while i’m smoking and drinking coffee. It’s 4 years that i make music with the same group of people, except for Dan Auerbach that produced with me my last album, Ultraviolence.

Why is Ultraviolence the title of the album?

It’s different from Born To Die,which is about the years of my alcohol addiction, Ultraviolence doesn’t have a specific argoument ,the compactness is in the sounds,in the energy. It’s ambient music, the atmosphere mixes the sound of the California with the Jazz of the 60s.

What’s your favourite song of the album?

The first, Cruel World, which it gives the rythm to the album. The song has 25 seconds of guitar that i define “narco-swing”: it’s like being high. It’s like that for 7 song then the sound became more slow and then it grows up again for the last 20 minutes.

Can you be a down to earth person with this success?

It’s really important to me being a normal person. Anonymity and normality are essentials for my creativity. Fortunately  i grew up with strong roots in my family and when they are so deep it’s easy to harvest the fruits of own work. Also live with my brothers help me to be a down earth person.

Do you live with all your family in Los Angeles?

I’ve always have a central role in my family, also now that  i live with my sister,of 24, and my brother,of 20: Caroline is a yoga teacher, Charlie studies cinema at the UCLA. I’m doing everything that i can do for help them to follow their passions.

They say that Lana is an eccentric person but it seems that you have your head screwed on.

I define myself eccentric psychologically but in the interviews that is often misunderstended. Maybe because my life had a lot of transformations, more transitions. But i’m not provocative, i’m a conservative person, i use words for express myself. Even if i believe in different life-styles and in alternative relationships.

What is your reference in fact of epoch? 

In the middle of 60s and 70s when it grows up a new concept of freedom that it was so new to generate deep passions. A lot mor exciting than the freedoms that we have now.

So thanks for the long conversation, I was biased…

Everyone is before meeting me, I don’t know what to do. I can only try to talk sincerly and let my personality come out. I don’t want to inspire the other people. But i want to be a good person.

What does it mean for you?

A patient person with the people that she loves, generous and that is try to find the serenity.

Do you think that you made it?

I am a calm person but it’s been years that i don’t feel in peace. Maybe it’s because i don’t find my tribe yet.

 

 

(Sorry if there are some mistakes but i’m not english and i tried to translate everything in the best way that i can)
 

I once knew a guy who believed in some third eye bullshit & he saw himself as almighty and some other crap, but in reality he was basically an internet troll with no life and some fucked up personality and disgusting habits (once you got to know him). he was also very manipulative.this was a couple of years ago and if you ask me about him now, I could very much say, jokingly, that he was like a sectarian, and being around him was like being in a sect, if I wanna make a long story short. but that doesn't mean I was in a fucking legitimate sect. do you see what I mean?

So someone on Tumblr just gave me this. They said it's not perfect, so if anyone has a different translation, feel free to post it
(At some points it makes no sense, I know, but I think we all get the point of what she's saying; it's the usual Lana interview imo)
 

Lana Del Rey defends herself against accusations retort
 
The iconic American singer Lana Del Rey still annoyed by the doubt as to its authenticity, which emerged especially in critical circles after millions success of her debut album “Born to die”.
 
"I’m not a retort product," says the 27-year-old clear in an interview with culture news - and there is much more confident than they were during its debut in 2012, the one kulturnews Award which she received at that time as the best album of the year: "I feel for the first time during an interview not uncomfortable or in defense. “
 
The head wind that blew in her face at the time, has soured her success, as she says in the interview. "I thought it was even quite terrible," says the native New Yorker, "that I could not really enjoy it all."
 
Now Lana Del Rey gets a second chance: “Ultraviolence” will be released on June 13. (Jk / mw)
 
Lana, you moved from New York to Los Angeles. Are you going to a real west coast girl?
Lana del Rey: Let’s hope it! I like the culture and history of the west coast, especially California’s, very much. In my new video for the song “West Coast”, for example, working with my favorite tattoo artist Mark Mahoney, and I find the beach great. I am from Lake Placid, a ski resort in the mountains, near the east coast. If you come from there to the Pacific Ocean as the paradise of the end of the world feels.
 
You’ve worked yourself up within about three years from the unknown Pop-starlet one of the biggest stars in the world. Spazierst you on the beach and think: Wow, I’ve come damn far?
Del Rey: I think only in terms of my new, casual lifestyle, but not in terms of career. I have other things more important, and I raced not certain.
 
What makes you so sure?
Del Rey: I have a big family, I have not make sure to stay down to earth, that happens all by itself I am absolutely not an egotist. When I sing, logical, then it comes to me. But at home it’s still much more to Charlie and Caroline, and about what they want so. I make extremely sure that it goes well and they both get what they need to be happy.
 
Charlie and Caroline are your siblings?
Del Rey: My brother and my sister. We all live together under one roof. The two are 20 and 25, I fit a bit on it. With Barrie, my friend so we are four. I threw this anchor. The house, the relationship, all that I have longed very much as a kind of life, and now I have it. At the same time aiming my career, strive my plans rather away from this stable domestic situation. I must look like I’m the urge for - can bring solid ground under their feet with my ambition and my desire to move forward as an artist, in line - emotionally and literally. At the moment I have no idea how it all should work.
 
In the title song of your second album “Ultraviolence” you sing “I love you forever”. Is this a barrier song?
Del Rey: No, “Ultraviolence” look back on my time in New York. I was for a while part of a sloping underground scene, which was dominated by a guru. He believed in the concept, finished close people first and then rebuild. I fell for him because that time I longed for security.
 
"Ultraviolence" is a rather quiet, sometimes anthemic and very atmospheric work. The hip-hop elements of the first album “Born to die” missing.
Del Rey: That’s right. The big headline in “Ultraviolence” was “feeling”. The first album, it was due to the work with producer Emile Haynie, who is an old friend of mine that some songs as a 90-HipHop-Beat got.
 
How did that Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach produce the album?
Del Rey: While I was working on “Ultraviolence” already in the Electric Ladyland Studio with Rick Nowels, I met Dan by chance at a restaurant in New York. He was with a few friends on the way to a strip club, and I’m just called. So we all clean in the store. There was “Summertime Sadness”, and we began to dance together. Then we look at so on, laugh and say almost simultaneously: “Would it not very funny when we would go into the studio together” I liked to Dan that he was so spontaneous that he just enter “yes” said to me and my creative ideas and decisions. Six weeks later, the plate was ready.
 
"Born to die", your debut album was to revive the 60s. Which decade was the inspiration for the style to “Ultraviolence”?
Del Rey: Surely the 70s, from bands like the Eagles. But also a feeling of the early 90s comes to me, in the song “West Coast” you can hear the beat and the synth sounds of then clear out.
 
The people, as “Video Games” came out strong doubts about your authenticity, the authenticity of your music.
Del Rey: Oh God, yes … That was a huge issue.
 
Here you have developed despite all classical influences a unique musical language. One recognizes a Lana Del Rey song immediately.
Del Rey: Thanks, that means a lot to me when you say that. I’m not a retort product that I have to clarify again. My music had initially not easy because it was just not as typical and unmistakable attributable to a genre. I have had luck sure - but also a good nose.
 
You agree that you decided this controversy to you? No one claiming more that you’re a made drawing board product.
Del Rey: Possible, yes. You can not create lasting values ​​in pop music, if you have nothing to tell, or if you are merely a fleeting phenomenon. I already know for sure that I can later tell my children my whole life story through my songs. So I do not know if I won. But I know that today I feel for the first time during an interview not uncomfortable or on the defensive.
You start now to truly love your life and especially your career?
Del Rey: Yes. I found it myself quite terrible that I could not really enjoy it all. And I wanted it so much.
 
 
"Ultraviolence" appears in early June.

Her Mtv Unplugged videos are still, to this day, the highlight of her career (imo)

Her Mtv Unplugged videos are still, to this day, the highlight of her career (imo)

The singular most amazing thread on this website #trueart

"I wanna die, I wanna die" don't let The Guardian hear about this.

http://www.complex.com/style/2014/07/neil-krug-interview
 
How did you and Lana get in touch to do the artwork for Ultraviolence?
It's something that has been in the air for the long time. Since 2012, Lana's fans have sent messages to me asking the two of us to collaborate.  (this literally being a shoutout to me)
I generally don't get mail from other musicians' fans, but her audience is dedicated and had me on blast even before we met. Strangely, Lana had picked up a copy of Pulp Art Book years ago but was told that I was dead from a friend of hers, so it came as a surprise when someone at her label suggested that we work together on Ultraviolence. This was the right one for us to do together, as well. It has all of the right elements, and I'm in a good phase to jump on her moving train.
The album cover is a striking, almost haunting image. How did you decide on this shot in the end? 
The cover photograph of her getting out of the car was always one of our top selects. The image was taken in her driveway on our first day of shooting and stood out from the beginning. When we met, we discussed the idea of the cover being the reverse of what you would expect from such a bold album name. When you hear the title Ultraviolence, you almost expect some sort of explosion happening or her shirt covered in blood.
We both agreed that the artwork should have all the undertones present without having to blast it in your face. Stylistically, I was going for something that felt like a lobby card from a bygone midnight movie. In my mind, the cover needed to feel like the last frame of a '60s Polanski film, where the audience has been properly traumatized, and this is the last thing they see before the credits roll.

How does the cover represent the album concept or the title, Ultraviolence?
For me, it says it all without saying anything. It's an easy read when you look at it from a marketing perspective, because it perfectly communicates Lana's vision and is a clear image of her to absorb. For the fans who sit and listen, I think the image will reveal itself like a magic eye pattern. The image is like a window into the narrative.
What do the other photos in the box set represent? The ripped jeans, Lana in the car, the flowers, the city, etc. Where did you shoot them?
All the images she chose are pieces of a bigger picture that work as devices to put you in the right mood or frame of mind—the same way an author can lead you down the rabbit hole with the situation in which he or she places you. We called the selections "in-between moments" when we did the edits in my studio. Everything you see is the moment or action before and after, but not "the moment," if that makes sense. The ripped jeans Polaroid was taken in my living room, and the car shots were taken in her driveway. The allegorical smoking in the hydrangea image is a favorite of mine and was taken at Frank Sinatra's house outside of Los Angeles.

You also shot Lana for our Complex cover. What was that experience like, and what were you going for having done her album photography?
For me, the magazine shoot and the album packaging are two completely separate ideas, so the creative shift is how she is styled and the location choice.  The overall vibe is similar, probably because it's the same guy behind the camera. All of my shoots with her were done so quickly that's it difficult for me to be objective right now, simply because there are so many photographs over such a short period of time.
How did your style as a photographer develop? Have you always been into colorful images, warm hues, Americana, psychedelia, and graininess?
Since the early days I've always tried to keep the work in this space between illustration and photography. Whether the unnatural vividness of the colors is the narrative device or whatever else might be going on, the style is a hodgepodge of many ingredients.
"Window Water Baby Moving" versus "Gantz Graf" if you like. I love making images but never thought I would make photography a career in any capacity. In fact, photography is the only class I ever completely failed in high school. I remember my teacher passing along advice in the vein of "find another outlet for creative ideas." 

Do you have any plans to make a third Pulp Art Book? Why or why not?
Right now I don't have any plans to make another Pulp Book. It's a slightly complicated story, but Joni and I parted ways in 2013, so I don't see any new work from that project happening anytime soon. That being said, we have a giant archive of unreleased work that may come out in some form, but it's hard to say. I could see us releasing a collection of unseen prints, but sitting down to make a new book together again would be difficult. I will forever be proud of that imagery, but it does feel like the old me in a lot of ways. I want the next monograph I do to be completely different.
Is the present ever as intriguing as the past?
The present is far more intriguing and unknown.
If you had unlimited money or resources, what types of projects would you do?
I don't think I would change much to be honest. I love what I do and feel blessed to be in a position to shoot the type of projects that interest me. With unlimited resources I would probably spend a little more time getting the look and narrative just right, or going to more exotic locations, but at the end of the day, you can make magic anywhere. For me, limiting yourself forces the creative side to find a solution which keeps the work more focused.

Penne alla vodka? Sober? 
 
this bitch has been getting her fix in a bowl of pasta...

I mean, has anyone heard Is This Happiness?  

Rolling Stone sure changed their view of Lana 

The sound and vision on this aren't the best, but it sounds like it was a pretty cool performance.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQiinQcRkw0

http://www.thestar.com.my/Lifestyle/Entertainment/Music/News/2014/07/10/Lana-Del-ReyBorn-to-make-music/
 
I don't know if this is a rehash from another interview
 
Lana Del Rey’s new album and musical career are the results of battling snide remarks and winning her parents’ approval.
 
Not long after the release of Born To Die, Lana Del Rey told Vogue that the major label release will be her last one. “I feel like everything I wanted to say, I said already,” the American songstress was quoted as saying.
 
That was back in 2012, a year that also saw the New York native facing allegations of record label constructed artistry and fakery after a disastrous live performance on Saturday Night Live and her less-than-stellar musical endeavours in the past surfaced – a far cry from the sultry singer who captivated the Internet with the haunting Video Games.
 
With the barrage of negative criticisms, it would appear that the former Elizabeth Grant has indeed depleted the Lana Del Rey character. But somewhere along the line, Born To Die shipped over seven million copies worldwide and went on to become the fifth global best-selling album of 2012.
 
Maybe it was the realisation that bad press doesn’t necessarily impede record sales because two years after that Vogue interview, we’re greeted with Ultraviolence.
Del Rey took some time to talk about the follow-up to her commercially successful debut in an interview transcript provided by Universal Music.
 
After your last album, Born To Die, you announced your retirement from music. Yet, here you are again with Ultraviolence.
 
I can’t start an album if I have no idea of the narrative, the concept. If the songs aren’t perfect for me, what’s the point of forcing myself?
 
That’s why I answered that I had no album planned. But everything opened up after a chance meeting at a party with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. Some kind of chemistry happened.
 
What gave this slightly hippie, 1970s tone to Ultraviolence?
 
The first song of the album, Cruel World, decided everything. It places the album geographically. In the beginning of the text there’s something minimalist, a simplicity that repeats over and over, very low profile.
 
And then the chorus comes with its big drums, its electric mess. This mixture, this cohabitation between normality and chaos is very symbolic of what I’d just been through in my life.
 
Your songs offer a strange mix of luxury, opulence and sadness. A bit like Roy Orbison ...
 
I feel like I’m making happy songs but when I have people listen to them, they tell me how sad they are.
 
I can’t run away from my life, which was pretty tumultuous. Three years after my real debut, I’m still plagued by both doubt and sadness. I just have uncertainty, emptiness in front of me.
 
And I don’t like not knowing where I’m going. My love life, my family life ... I’m not sure of anything. That’s why I hate when I can’t write because for ten years, writing was the only stable, reassuring thing in my life.
 
You grew up in the countryside. Was it lonely?
 
No, I had a real group of friends, inseparable, we were very similar. It was the first time in my life – and the last – that I felt such friendship.
 
But at 14, I was sent to boarding school, because we did a lot of bulls**t together – like going out with older boys, running away to parties.
 
In this school, I became friends with one of the teachers – he was 22, I was 15 – who helped me discover Jeff Buckley as well as Tupac and Allen Ginsberg.
 
When I arrived in New York at the age of 19, I tried to find this lost friendship again with people my own age. But it was too late, they all seemed obsessed with their careers, their social success ... so I wondered where the musicians were, (people who were) willing to sacrifice everything for their songs, ready to die for them.
 
So you had the feeling of burning bridges with this idea of social success?
 
I read a book by Napoleon Hill that talked exactly about the need for an artist to burn bridges with any career opportunity. For years, my life took place in my head, no one knew anything.
 
It was almost like a double life. I felt so lucky to be receiving these songs which I never told anyone about because for a long time, except for my roommate, nobody heard my songs.
 
But there was a real enchantment. The music came over me, literally. Entire songs, already composed and arranged rushing out of my pen, onto my notebook. I knew it was in me.
 
When I was 20, since nothing was happening, I decided to continue responding to this call, whatever it took. It sounds strange, but I was a fan of my music. I was terrified by how others saw me. It’s so personal, music, that we’re inevitably frightened by rejection.
 
At what point did you feel you were right to hold on?
 
During the recording of Born To Die, I’ll never forget my father’s visit. He was amazed to see me so sure, so in charge, so fulfilled, asking the producer to give me a beat or a symphony. He had no idea what I’d done for the last six years, that I’d patiently built my little world. My parents didn’t even know I sang.
 
But when he saw me in the studio, my father told me it was one of the happiest days of his life. My parents had insisted that I didn’t leave school for music – and I finished my studies in philosophy, because I knew they could feed my songs.
 
I told them early on that I wanted to become a singer, but they didn’t get how passionate, how serious I was. But suddenly when my father saw me, he understood, it validated six years of work.
 
What part of your work is pleasure, inspiration, hard work, pain ... ?
 
pleasure begins and ends with the recording of the album. Then comes the pain. I’m extremely involved in every phase of the album until mixing, mastering. I don’t leave the mixing board until the moment we hand over the tapes, a moment of sadness.
 
Then touring begins, painful, or the promotion, difficult. I feel I have to justify myself, to defend myself, when I don’t even feel the need to because my music is good enough not to have to do that. Deep down, I’d prefer to remain silent.

The Austrian newspaper "Kronen Zeitung" (called "Krone") just published an, in my opinion, quite good interview with Lana.
Source
 
I did a quick translation again. I hope there aren't too many mistakes in it.
 
TRANSLATION:
 
 
 

While I agree with you I can't stop thinking she's much more aware of the aesthetics she's chosen to portray in her music than we imagine. This particular quote it's pretty interesting:   "There is a whole new genre that nobody is observing. The American Dream and American Psycho are starting to represent the same thing. Cinema and music and life are starting to merge. Death is art. We've played pop music out. That wholesome dream is dead (...)I'm talking about epic, knocked-down, dragged-out love stories in song. That's what I'm heading towards. I want to destroy lives with my music and to understand the glamour of danger. Without Scarface would there be half the gangsters there are out there now?"    For me this quote totally captures her whole persona and what she's trying to achieve in her songs perfectly. It just can't be all that unintentional, you see - or at least that's what I want to believe.

I mean, these articles have their validity, but it should be noted that this all seems unintentional. While Lana's just doing her, people are finding thinkpieces and deeper meaning in everything she does. I guess that's cool for her, but I don't think she knows she's doing anything but telling her life story.

Will they ever drop that damn quote? 

Hmm, I feel like I have read this interview somewhere before

@@Monicker sent me a link to this fantastic episode of "Popcast", a podcast produced by The New York Times' ArtsBeat culture blog. A discussion between Jon Pareles, the author of that great NYT review, and Ben Ratliff, the skeptical yet open-minded host, this is the most intelligent conversation I've heard about LDR in the media ever. Truly a must listen. Apart from being just a great podcast, another reason @@Monicker sent it to me is because I'd told him he'd probably think I was crazy, but the guitar intro of "Cruel World" reminds me in small ways of the intros to several different Beach Boys songs. He did think think I was crazy at first, so we were both incredibly amused when Jon Pareles backed me up! Anyway, @@Monicker says it better than I can so I'll let him introduce it:
 

You can go to the episode page, download the MP3, subscribe on iTunes, or click the player below:
http://podcasts.nytimes.com/podcasts/2014/06/27/arts/music/27popcast_pod/27popcast-rev.mp3
 
Edit: If anyone wants to transcribe this podcast for quoting convenience I'd be more than happy to add it here.

"I wanna die, I wanna die" don't let The Guardian hear about this.

New interview: http://www.welt.de/kultur/pop/article129582236/Ich-fuehle-mich-von-schwierigen-Maennern-angezogen.html
 
It's german again but honestly I don't feel like translating this one as well...at least not today. Maybe someone else wants to do it this time?
Otherwise I'll probably translate it tomorrow.