‘Best Ink’ Contestant Guest Blog: Jessica Rotwein’s Tattoo Tips

Talk about a career transition! Before becoming a tattoo artist, Best Ink contestant Jessica Rotweinstudied piano at Juilliard and performed as a classical pianist for 29 years! Getting her first tattoo at 26, the New Jersey native was a lot older than most tattoo first-timers. Her tattoo artist boyfriend at the time encouraged her to pursue the art of ink, teaching her the ways of tattooing – and since then she’s never looked back! Jessica joins Buzznet this week as a guest blogger, giving Buzznet some handy tattoo tips.

Here’s what Jessica had to say:

Getting tattooed is the experience of a lifetime.  And it can be a very enjoyable one.  If you listen to these mistakes that I have described for you and avoid making them when getting your tattoo, you will have a great experience and will also make your artist’s job a little easier.

Hopefully these tips will help you all!

1. First and foremost, the most common mistake I feel that people make is not putting enough thought into what you are getting. Getting a tattoo shouldn’t just be for the sake of just having a design on your body. Don’t come into the shop and tell an artist that you have no idea what you want and that you want them to recommend something to put on your body.

2. A more serious mistake that people too often make is not choosing the right shop or the right artist.  I’ve seen some very scary results for this serious mistake.  You really need to take the time to also research shops, read reviews, make sure the shop is clean and safe, and especially to check your artist’s portfolio.  Don’t be afraid to ask questions. You can get a serious infection, disease, or even have your skin scarred permanently if you are not careful.

3. Another mistake is haggling about the price of your tattoo.  Just don’t do it.  If you have found an artist you like to work with, complaining about the price is an insult to the time and dedication this artist is going to put into bringing your idea to life.

4. Not tipping after the work has been done for you is also a very common mistake.  It’s like you going out to dinner and not tipping your waitress. We are in the hospitality category of services.  We are doing a service for you to enjoy for the rest of your life.  It is also a nice thing to do because most shops take half the money of the cost of your tattoo. Giving them a tip is your way of saying thanks for the time and effort the artist took to making sure your tattoo was done the right way.

– Jessica Rotwein

[Buzznet]

Interview: Mike Shinoda Talks New Linkin Park Album And Ranks His Top 5 Rappers

Photo by James Minchin.

When the Cali-based “rock meets rap” outfit Linkin Park released their first album, Hybrid Theory, it beat out Britney Spears to become the best selling record of 2001. That level of success freaked them out. After releasing their second album, Meteora in 2003, they regrouped and re-emerged four years later with a completely new sound that caused an uproar amongst loyal stans.

The albums Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns bore the sonic signature of legendary producer Rick Rubin. Rubin was also behind the boards for the band’s latest studio effort, Living Things, which is set to drop June 26th.

Last Friday Complex got a chance to hear a few tracks and chat with Linkin Park co-founder and resident MC, Mike Shinoda. He’s a smart dude with an interesting take on the band’s place in music history.

The new songs have a big, modern polished sound, but with that warm, fuzzy, hard-hitting Rick Rubin feel to them. Linkin Park has evolved from MTV frat-house faves into a class act and MC Mike Shinoda makes that clear in the rap-heavy joint “Until It Breaks” off Living Things. Over a bed of big healthy drums, he confidently spits, “I’m a Banksy / You’re a Brainwash / Get the picture like that?” Yes, we get the picture.

Interview by Jeff Sanico

Do you keep abreast of rap current affairs?

I think I do. These days everything moves really fast. There’s all kinds of sub-genres so it all depends on what you’re talking about. For instance, just this morning I heard about this track. It’s a Foster The People remix for “Blue Jeans” (by Lana Del Rey) that Azealia Banks raps on. She’s dope. The guy that mixed our record was doing her record right after ours and I was like, “Dude, can I sneak in?” I’m excited to hear Azealia Banks’s stuff.

What excites you about the new Linkin Park album?

It doesn’t lose any of the creativity of the newer stuff and it brings in the energy of the older stuff. It’s kind of a comprehensive sound. I feel like we’ve been able to take all the stuff we’ve learned on the way and put it all together in each song and still keep it fresh and forward-thinking.

Whenever we get in the studio we react really badly to anything feeling like it’s a throwback or a repeat of what we’ve done—as long as it feels like we’re taking a step forward it feels good. This record echoes a lot of different random things from what we’ve learned along the way. I think every artist’s “new album” is their favorite one.

We’ve been immersed in this one for a year. It’s like we are currently in the eye of the storm. All of my focus is on getting this record perfect and presenting it to the fans in the way that I think is the perfect way. It’ll never be perfect, but we just do our best to make it the best it can be. I’m thrilled about the record, I couldn’t be more excited about people hearing it.

Read More >>

[complex.com]

Q&A: Juliette Binoche on Filming a Masturbation Scene in Elles

Must Read !!!

Hugh Grant: Yes, Fatherhood Is Life-Changing After All

Just last month, Hugh Grant didn’t seem entirely sure about whether fatherhood had changed him. Now, he’s willing to concede it has indeed.

“Everyone was right all these years, saying, ‘Hugh, why don’t you have some children? It changes your life,’ ” the actor, 51, and dad to 6-month-old daughter Tabitha, says in an interview Friday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

“Now that I have [a child], it is life changing,” he says. “I recommend it. Get some!”

Warner Brothers

Tabitha’s mother is Grant’s ex Tinglan Hong, who is Chinese. In Friday’s interview, Grant reveals that one of Tabitha’s other names is Jīngxǐ, which, he explains, has something to do with how she was conceived.

“I can’t pretend it wasn’t a little bit of a surprise,” Grant, who stars in the new film Pirates! Band of Misfits, says. “But it’s a very nice surprise. In fact, the baby’s name in Chinese, because the mother is Chinese, means ‘Happy Surprise.’ “

– Tim Nudd

[people.com]

Interview: adidas Designer Robbie Fuller Breaks Down the adiZero Crazy Light 2

Yesterday in Los Angeles, adidas Basketball introduced the adiZero Crazy Light 2. Set to hit stores on May 24th, the $140 9.5 ounce shoe will be the lightest basketball shoe in the world — edging out its predecessor, the Crazy Light, by 3/10ths of an ounce. We sat down with designer Robbie Fuller to get some insight into the process, and find out what it takes to make a successful sequel.

So where did you guys start with this?

Not from scratch [laughs].

Right – because I know how long the leadouts are, you must have been working on this before the first adiZero Crazy Light came out.

Yes. For sure. There are bits and pieces of the shoe we can trace back for years. But generally when everyone was celebrating over the Crazy Light1, I was at my desk putting pen to paper for the Crazy Light 2.

Were elements from the D. Rose line — did those get incorporated into this, too?

I wouldn’t say directly, but I’m the same guy going after a similar benefit, which is light. So I think of it as a spectrum. If you pick up the Rose shoe, it’s light — sometimes freaky light — but it has the lifestyle a little more into it because the recipe for success for that , but here it’s just laser focus of the lightest basketball shoe of all time, so some of those same solutions like the SPRINTFRAME go across both, but over here we gotta turn up the knob on lightweight.

Was there a specific weight you wanted to hit with the 2, knowing where you were at with the 1?

Lighter than the 1. [Laughs] I mean literally, it was just like, all right we have the Crazy Light 1, we’ve had half a million people all around the world ballin’ in this shoe, D1, NBA, so we know it’s a great shoe, but any shoe can get refined. Any product can get refined. A house, a car, whatever. A [Porsche] 911, right? It doesn’t change over the years that much, just slight tweaks. So in the same vein, I was just looking at this shoe [the 1] like, “all right, did I take enough advantage of the SPRINTFRAME,” “did I take as much advantage of the forefoot support,” of the rubber, could I thin down the rubber? So I really just made a list — I call it a gameplan — marketing gives me a brief, but I’ve got my design gameplan and I just call out the pieces that I thought still had room to improve: who was the sixth man on the Crazy Light 1, you know? It was like, all right, SPRINTFRAME, here we go, you’re gonna step up. That’s definitely how I made it up for this particular shoe, because it’s so geared towards performance — it lives and dies on the performance of it. Trends come and go, winning is always cool. As long as we keep delivering like this, we’ll always be in the mind of anyone lacing up their sneakers.

Is that where you looked to first, the SPRINTFRAME, to lose weight?

Yeah, because it’s the material on the shoe that has the most strength for how much it weighs. So the more you can use it to stabilize the shoe, you’re taking off some of the other layers, the laminates and such that you’d like to reduce. And so, that was definitely the key thing. And the bigger thing was also just about, the first one was just focused on the ultimate court, the NBA court. This one we were like, hey, can this be outdoor? Can you get these things where you thicken up the rubber, you add more abrasion-resistant rubbers, in order to make sure it can play indoor and outdoor. So if you go around the shoe, whether it’s the high-abrasion rubber, how it’s different, we’ve got high abrasion on the toe, the stripes are reflective, little cues from outdoor, one of the materials, the embosses are ripstop from outdoor jackets. So that was another little piece of the pie. The first one was so great, but can you add a little more durability to it. Which is crazy, right? I’m the designer, I’m thinking “hold on, this brief is asking how can I add all these things to it and still make it lighter?” But luckily, with the right team, we came to the right product.

Keep Reading >>

[complex.com]

Interview: Norah Jones Talks About Her New Album, Danger Mouse, and Murder Ballads

First two Norah Jones shots by Frank W. Ockenfels. Last, with Danger Mouse, by Noah Abrams.

“Go out with me!” These are the kind of requests—or rather, orders—that came flying at Norah Jones as the sultry vocalist took the stage at South by Southwest to play her forthcoming album …Little Broken Hearts (out May 1) in its entirety. “I think I’m taken,” she responded, flattered.

“Is it weird hearing music you’ve never heard?” she asked while floating from the piano to the guitar. “No? Great!” Indeed, the packed-out crowd was obviously in love with Norah’s latest work, produced in collaboration with Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, who’s worked on projects as diverse as the Jay-Z/Beatles mash-up The Grey Album and Gnarls Barkley. Working with him was a bold move for an artist who’s sold tens of millions of records and earned a slew of Grammys on her own. Though she still gets dismissed by some critics as a soft jazz act.

Broken Hearts more or less chronicles the stages of grief that occurred during Norah’s split with her boyfriend last year. It opens with “Good Morning,” in which she awakens realizing that she’ll be leaving her unfit man. She confronts him about the younger woman he’s seeing on “She’s 22,” then threatens to kill her on “Miriam.”

Her feathery vocals carry all these hefty subjects with ease, while writing partner and producer Danger Mouse provides a bounce that knock those “coffee shop singer” critiques on their ass.

The day before her SXSW show, Complex met up with Norah, 33, in a worn-down house just outside of Austin’s downtown area. She met us outside on the patio’s bench swing in a denim jacket over a long summery dress. Her publicist offered lemonade. Walking across the creaky wooden floor, Norah kicked off her shoes, curled up on the living room couch, and talked about everything: her critics, her breakups, working with Danger Mouse, and that song about killing off her man’s mistress.

Written by Brad Wete (@BradWete)

Some critics describe your music an “uneventful.” Others say it’s amazingly well built contemporary jazz. How would you describe it?

Some critics describe your music an “uneventful.” Others say it’s amazingly well built contemporary jazz. How would you describe it?

How do you feel when they say you’re a “coffee shop singer”?

That makes me cringe a little bit. I don’t think it’s really fair to lump somebody up like that. But also, who cares? [Laughs] Some people don’t mean things as an insult. Some people do.

I heard you say that you want to do a “real” jazz album or a “real” country album. What do you mean by that? Is your new album not “real”?

People always ask me, “What would you love to do?” I would like to do it some day. I mean to kind of go back to my roots and really do what I intended to do when I was young, even though I strayed from that path and I am really happy I did. My world has been a little bit more open. But that’s the kind of music I grew up loving and I really wanted to play it for so long. It would be fun to play it again. For my mom, for my teachers growing up, stuff like that. I think it would be sentimental and really nice.

Keep Reading >>

[complex.com]

Interview: Travis Pastrana Talks NASCAR Nationwide Series Debut

On April 27 Travis Pastrana is headed to the Richmond International Speedway for his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut. After dominating motocross and rallying for years, Pastrana is now making the unbelievable transition into NASCAR. Travis has won numerous X Games Gold Medals and performed life-risking stunts on Nitro Circus, but presently the pressure is mounting as Travis revs up for his first prime time Nationwide Series race on ESPN2. The legendary motorsports competitor was the first to land a double backflip on a dirt bike, and even leapt from an airplane without a parachute. Now, the stakes for Travis are as high as they’ve ever been as he looks to command his spot amongst the best drivers in the world.

Complex recently spoke with Pastrana to discuss his upcoming Nationwide Series debut and transition into NASCAR. Here’s what the record-breaking athlete had to say.

Your transition from motocross to rallying was impressive, but now it’s NASCAR. Do you feel like your previous experiences have helped you prepare the new pressures that come with racing NASCAR?

Without a doubt, racing anything is beneficial. Knowing how everything works, being able to find lines. In motocross and rally, I had dirt to dirt. I knew how to read lines, I knew how to look for traction. But, I had to basically learn everything about cars. I’ve driven my whole life, raced Go-Carts, but this is something really new. I had to listen to the co-driver, and really trust him, and trust the team. I moved from just one mechanic (in motocross) to rally where we had three. With NASCAR, there’s probably like 40-50 guys that touch my car before I can even get in it. Just learning how to communicate and listen to the spotter and understand what he’s saying. We’re sort of starting from the bottom of the barrel, but I do think my other previous races are beneficial. Maybe not exactly comparable, but definitely beneficial.

You’ll be making your NASCAR Nationwide Series debut at Richmond on April 27. After just a few K&N Pro Series starts, how are you feeling about your first Nationwide appearance?

“THIS IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE THAT I’VE EVER TAKEN ON.”

We have our work cut out for us. It’s been exciting. By the end of the day, I can usually get up there and run lap times as fast as anybody. I know we can do this. It’s all about communication. We’ve got a great team with Michael Waltrip Racing working together with RAB Racing, my crew chief has been with us for the past year and a half, plus my cousin in the pit crew, so there’s been a lot of familiar faces. I’m in the Toyota #99 so my goal is to stay in the lead lap.

Keep Reading >>

[complex.com]

Mike Tyson: I’m in a good place…but if I met the younger me he wouldn’t be nice ©

Chief Sports Writer Oliver Holt met former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson and discovered a mellowed man who has put his demons behind him.

Mellowed man: Mike Tyson looks back on a successful, but controversial, career

The baddest man on the planet is no more.

He is an ogre only in our memories now. The savage fighter, the man polite society came to regard as a monster, is finally at rest.

The rage that defined him inside and outside the ring, the rage that terrified his opponents and thrilled his fans, is at bay.

When Mike Tyson thinks about the way he was and the things he used to do, he laughs sadly.

Once, more than a decade ago, he told a group of British journalists that he had grown “old too soon, smart too late”.

But against all expectations and in defiance of the violent chaos that used to rule his life, he has reached middle age.

And now that he is there, he has found the happiness that once seemed far beyond his reach.

On Friday, he will begin a six-night one-man show at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas called Undisputed Truth where he will lay bare his life and career.

He topped the bill at the MGM many times, including the night he bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear. This time, he promises he mood will be different.

And even though his tone can still veer with unsettling speed from articulate ­introspection to fierce disdain, it is clear that at 45, he is embracing this new phase of his life.

“I am a big glory freak,” Tyson says. “I am an ego-maniac. I like being a peacock and strutting on the stage.

“I guess I was born to ­entertain. It just happens that the first way I found of doing that was by fighting.

“Now I have moved on to another way. Fighting, dancing, singing, telling stories.

“I make people cry now but in a sympathetic way, not because I am causing them pain.”

He is revelling in his new direction. He has a new generation of fans now, people who know him as the cameo star of The Hangover movies, admirers who saw him inducted into the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame in Miami a fortnight ago.

I remind him about what he said about being “smart too late” and he laughs again. “Better late than never,” he says.

He talks now with a mixture of pity and curiosity about the kid who became, at 20, the youngest world heavyweight champion there has ever been.

He never watches footage of the night in 1986 when he destroyed Trevor Berbick at the Las Vegas Hilton and sent him stumbling round the ring like a drunk.

“No way,” Tyson says, retreating from his former self. “I never watch any of those fights now. If I met that young guy right now, I know he wouldn’t be nice to me. I don’t like the person I was back then.

“He had no reason to be so angry. All that money and he still wanted to be angry. I should have been a little kid having fun.

“I want to stay away from that place where I was. I had to be that frightening person to reach the top.

“Looking back, I suppose I had to make people ­frightened of me because I was an ­insecure kid.”

Iron Mike: In his prime Tyson was dubbed "The Baddest Man on the Planet"

The truth, of course, is that there were plenty of reasons for Tyson to be angry.

His father deserted the family when Tyson was two and Tyson ran wild in the notorious Brooklyn suburb of Brownsville.

He had been arrested 38 times by the age of 13 and spent several years in Borstal before he was taken into the care of boxing trainer Cus D’Amato.

The rage stayed with Tyson throughout his boxing career, unsatisfied by the accolades, the titles and the millions that he won.

He served three years in jail after being convicted of rape and the rage grew worse as he began to decline.

By the time he agreed to fight Lennox Lewis at the start of 2002, Tyson was gripped by self-loathing.

In January that year, I sat a few rows back from the stage at the Hudson Theatre in New York for the formal fight announcement.

It turned into a brawl. Tyson threw a punch at Lewis’s minder and all hell broke loose.

When Tyson emerged from the melee, standing on the stage like the Hulk unchained, a journalist standing behind me who called himself “Scoop” Malinowski baited him.

“Someone get a straitjacket,” Malinowski yelled. “He’s an animal. He belongs in a zoo.”

Tyson looked as if he was about to climb down into the audience and take him out. He wanted to. That was obvious.

Instead, he settled for screaming and gesturing at him from the stage and ­threatening to introduce him to a form of prison romance.

Tyson was a man out of control. “By the time I was fighting Lennox Lewis I was so miserable I just wished somebody would have shot me,” he says.

“I hated myself and ­everything around me. I heard Sugar Ray Leonard talking recently about how difficult he found it when his career was ending but it was 10 times worse for me.

“Imagine if he was in the position I was in when my career was over and he was not fighting any more and they were still treating him like he was the champ.

“People still treat you like you’re the champ but you aren’t sh**.

“There is no way I miss boxing but if I was 17 or 18 years old again, it is still the first thing I would do.

“When I was fighting, I was at my best. It was easy money for me. I would be a fighter again if I was a kid.

“But my life has moved on. The WWE Hall of Fame night was one of the highlights of my life because my kids were there.

“I wanted them to see that Mike. I don’t want them to know nothing about that other guy that I used to be. Now I’m trying to do all the right things.

“Am I happy? Well, as long as I’m not fighting with my wife and she is not running out the house in the middle of the night with my kids, I am happy.

“This is a different stage of my life. I had children before, I was in love before but I was never committed. My life is stable now. I am cool. I am where I want to be.”

Wrestling icon: Despite his boxing success, he says being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame was one of his proudest moments

Tyson, who suffered tragedy three years ago when his four-year-old daughter Exodus was killed in a freak accident, is still a compelling man. There is still a fierce intensity lurking behind his softly-spoken words.

It emerges now and again, mocking Frank Bruno for crossing himself as he came into the ring before one of their fights or railing against first wife Robin Givens.

There is intensity too when he talks about the history of boxing. For five minutes, he breaks off into a eulogy about Ted “Kid” Lewis and the great Jewish fighters.

He carried the spirit of men like that with him when he fought, Tyson says. It helped give him the air of ­invincibility he once carried.

“I think the ­heavyweight scene is pretty good right now,” Tyson says.

“The Klitschkos are doing great. They are beating everyone. It’s not their fault that there is not enough competition.

“What David Haye did in Munich when he had that brawl with Chisora, that was not good. That was the kind of stupid stuff I once did.

“I thought that when I was watching it. No one did as much as me to bring boxing low.

“Haye and Chisora would have had to go some to beat what I did. At least Haye didn’t bite anyone’s ear off. They’ve got to do a bit more to get down to the level I was at. What they did was nothing.

“But I don’t buy the idea that today’s fighters are not as good as the old fighters. If you had asked Joe Frazier if he could beat me when I was at my best, he would have said ‘hell, yes’. That’s the way boxing goes.

“I think I could beat the next generation of fighters but the reality of history is that the fighters get better and better, bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger.

“I was bigger than Rocky Marciano and I was not even one of the big guys in my generation.”

The conversation draws to a close. Tyson has to rehearse for his show. He thanks me for being respectful, as if it is something he is still getting used to.

“I feel good,” he says. ­

“Everything is beautiful right now. I have no control over anything or anyone but myself.”

mirror.co.uk™©

Exclusive: Alison Goldfrapp on Her Decade of Pop Decadence ©

‘The ROLLING STONE blog greatest interview this season in my opinion’ .. Tommy Z. Author & Blog Administrator

Exclusive: Alison Goldfrapp on Her Decade of Pop Decadence

By COLLEEN NIKA

Allison Goldfrapp
Serge Leblon

British singer Alison Goldfrapp has been a pioneering presence in international art-pop for over a decade, with her namesake act’s five albums touching upon everything from trip-hop to stomping electro-glam to pastoral folk. As their signature mid-2000s chart hits “Strict Machine” and “Ooh La La” permeated the mainstream, the duo left Schaffel-style electronic beats behind and fled to the forest to produce 2008’s idyllic but uneven Seventh Tree and 2010’s dreamy, synth-spiked Head First. Now, as the duo’s first greatest hits album, The Singles, hits stores, they are already at work on their sixth album.

Goldfrapp’s visual influence has proven just as far-sighted as her music, if not more so; with titles like “Satin Chic” and “Crystalline Green” in her oeuvre, it’s obvious that sensory delights are integral to her world. Brilliantly art-directed and couture-savvy, her style has left a lasting impression in music and fashion circles. Each of her new musical eras has been heralded by a new, evocative look; at various points, Alison has embraced everything from Art Deco-meets-Disco decadence to bubblegum-pink jumpsuits to feather headdresses. She often has an animal partner-in-crime for it, too; horses, cats, dogs and owls all have played important symbolic roles in the Goldfrapp kingdom. All these aesthetic choices have made for memorable video and art while elevating the overall sensual impact of the music, especially in concert.

Rolling Stone called Miss Goldfrapp to discuss her visual identity, the new record and the naughtiness of playing hooky at the cinema.

Where are you in the world today, Alison?
I’m in London catching up with things. These days, I’m normally up in the West Country in the studio, working on the new album. It is nice to see what the world is up to again. I’m trying to achieve a balance, spending my time here, half tucked away up there…

How far into it the sixth album recording process are you?
Oh, I don’t know… It’s always hard to know early on. It could be done in two years, it could be next year.

Going into this new album with a new label situation and with a greatest hits album behind you, does this feel like a fresh start?
Oh, yes it does. I find it quite exciting, something of a rebirth; it feels like a new era. Very much so.

Will you be touring at all for the greatest hits?
I made the decision to not do any gigs this year; I really want to get into the writing and just think about that. I just need to step back a little and think about the next phase. I felt that was very important. You know, we’ve been working pretty solidly – doing this back-to-back writing, recording, touring cycle – for 10 years, really. I just want to think about what’s next.

While you’re in the throes of creativity for a new record, do you intentionally seek out outside inspiration?
Well, I try to read as much as I can, all the time really. And I absolutely love going to the cinema, especially during the day. It feels a bit naughty. I love entering the bowels of the cinema and immersing myself in another world.

What films have you enjoyed recently?
I really liked Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights – and that there was no music used in the film at all. I thought it was really bold; it really made you appreciate small sounds much more. The wind, the branch of a tree batting against the window… I really like the atmosphere it created.

Goldfrapp’s songs often possess a wonderful synaesthetic quality, and you’re known for your strong cinematic allure and art direction. Do you ever envision the visual world songs will live in before they even exist?
Oh yes, definitely. I have a color scheme in my head right now for how things are; I am composing a setting, so to speak. The two have to go hand in hand – the atmosphere and the music. I actually get rather worried if I can’t see the music first. There always needs to be a mood, a feeling, a story, even if it is abstract. There’s got to be a narrative to guide things before they’re even created. But Will [Gregory, Goldfrapp’s other half] and I also spend a lot of time jamming. So, even though I have these themes in mind, I leave myself open for it to change as we move through the process. That’s what works for us.

Is Will as visual as you?
It’s more my side, really. Will trusts my judgement, but I always ask for his opinion. He is very sensitive to that sort of thing, too. He understands how I see things. He’s pretty damn good at catching onto my brainwaves. Sometimes my ideas come from a personal place, others come from a “fantasy” place.

A good example might be the signature human/animal visual motif Goldfrapp established long ago through videos and album art. What was the genesis for that theme?
Going way back, it starts from things like fairy tales and childhood imagery. It’s always there in children’s stories, and I guess it’s a form of mythology. Humans have always used animals to depict ideas about themselves: ideas about their status, about their position in life and society and the world. So, it’s just there in my psyche – and yours, and everyone’s. I’m interested in the strangeness of that. Which I guess is why I like sci-fi, too, probably: really good sci-fi involves humans trying to figure out why they are human. What makes us human? What makes us animal? The mystery of animals, and the idea they might be superior beings, intrigues me.

Some of those human/animal themes, especially in the Black Cherry and Supernature eras, became rather sexualized, even a bit delightfully pervy.
[laughs] Yes, I remember an American lady wrote to us, telling us we were disgusting – that we were promoting beastiality.

You moved away from those themes on the last two albums. Was it a deliberate omission?
Well, we had the owls for Seventh Tree but, yes, we didn’t use animal imagery for Head First. It’s not a deliberate decision to exclude it; in fact, I’m sure we’ll do it again. It’s a big part of our world still. When it’s appropriate, I’ll bring the animals back out. But it feels less unique now, maybe.

Well, many other artists “followed your lead” with that idea…
Yes! They certainly did. Isn’t it funny?

…Along with general Goldfrapp aesthetics: the Schaffel beats, the Art Deco glamour, even down to the very fonts and visual branding you used. Does it bother you?
Well, I think it’s just the way things are. I know exactly what you mean and which artists you mean, but I don’t feel it is my place to moan about it. But, of course, I’m very aware… [sinister chuckle]

The Art Deco feel you’ve explored reminds me of the Biba myth, and you’ve mentioned the label as an influence. What do you love about it?
I love their surreal and sexy Seventies take on the Twenties and Thirties. It’s very romantic and soft; I love the shapes and lines and the extravagance of it. I think you have to look like a matchstick and be about six feet tall to wear it, though. Not really my body type, sadly!

What did you think of the attempted revival of the brand?
If I’m completely honest, I think it’s very disappointing. It has nothing to do with where Biba came from, none of its essence. It didn’t have the excitement or fun or glamour of the original label. It didn’t work at all.

Do you follow contemporary fashion avidly?
Not religiously, but I do keep my eye on it to some extent. For instance, I love to wander around London just looking at people, or going to the shops and flipping through magazines. I go to some fashion shows; I like to go to the Central Saint Martin’s shows and look at the new designers. I get a bit stumped trying to remember specific names, though!

What do you enjoy about fashion right now?
I have to say I’m enjoying people wearing color again! However, I’m slightly bored of the Palm Springs Fifties look.

What is an era of 20th century fashion you think is underexplored?
Oh my goodness. I suppose the Twenties, and I don’t mean the flapper look. There’s a whole range of looks no one has really revived, probably because they’re not very sexy. There were a lot of drop waists and straight lines, and that can be hard to wear. But I’m really into the culottes that are around now, and I think women were wearing them in the Twenties and Thirties.

Is it always important for artists to have strong visual identities?
I think it’s style that matters, more than having a strong image. Coldplay is the biggest band on the planet, but they just wear jeans and t-shirts. But that itself is a look. Charlotte Gainsbourg has a great image, but it’s very subtle. I’m more and more into having a non-look, I have to say. Maybe because everyone started to look so extravagant; it became boring. Also, it may have to do with my age. I probably won’t be wearing a mini-skirt again, which I used to do quite a lot. [laughs] I do think we’re drawn to looking at lovely things; it’s part of our musical tradition, right down to when we’d pore over beautiful album sleeves.

Are we losing some of that visual romance in the digital era?
I don’t think so, actually. I think it’s so much about the power of the idea. You don’t need to have tons of money if you have a good idea, and I think it’s actually great people are having to “make do” with less. It makes us think and work harder and be more resourceful. If you’re Lady Gaga, you probably need a big budget. I know what you’re saying, though, and there will probably be a backlash. Then we’ll all be making extravagant videos again. [laughs] Right now, I kind of like it reserved, though, maybe because I’m in that mode overall.

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