//Neon Limelight Interviews: Lady GaGa//

Nothing Lady GaGa does is small. Everything in her world is a huge production. She’s never caught without the perfect pair of sunglasses, not even one strand of her platinum blonde hair is ever out of place, and her eye-popping stage costumes are always crisp. So much attention is paid to her image that it’s not hard to overlook her music. But, alas, here’s a chick whose music makes just as big a statement as her wild image.

Lady GaGa, born Stefani Germanotta, released her highly anticipated debut album, The Fame, on October 28 on Streamline/Interscope/KonLive Records after a couple delays. The set is packed with high energy dance tracks that flirt with R&B, hip hop, and pop all lead by GaGa’s unique vocals and “screw you, I’m already a star” lyrics.

Neon Limelight had the pleasure of chatting with GaGa during a whirlwind promotional tour this summer. Find out what she thinks of the early comparisons to Gwen Stefani, working with Akon, and taking her clothes off for a crowd of concert-goers with ADD.

TJ: Your album is one of the hottest dance records to come out in a long time, but you don’t consider yourself a dance artist. If you had to categorize your sound what category would you put it in?

LG: Pop.

TJ: Just plain pop? Anything else to it?

LG: I’d like to call it “future pop.”

TJ: There are a lot of people comparing you to Gwen Stefani. Do you think that is a fair comparison?

LG: I just think that nobody has any other blonde females that love Rock & Roll to compare me to.

TJ: If you had to compare yourself to anyone out right now, who would it be?

LG: [Long pause] I couldn’t. I really couldn’t.

TJ: I don’t think so either. You kinda stand in a class all your own.

LG: It’s GaGa! [Laughs]

TJ: You’re really inspired by the New York club scene. What other sounds and experiences influence your music?

LG: Partying, meeting people, going to different, like, shows and art events, just talking to different people. Everybody’s an artist, you know, so it’s really fun to go out at night because everyone’s making art.

TJ: Have you experienced the club scene in other parts of the country? What’s the scene like in LA?

LG: It’s pretty lame.

TJ: [Laughs] Is it the people? The places?

LG: Well, I mean, it’s kinda like–I dunno. I’ve been to some cool parties and, like, there’s a couple places I like to go for fun, but I just feel like the city is kinda like just roads and sunshine. There’s kinda like no real character to the city. There’s no real street fashion. It’s like whatever’s trendy. And a lot of the people out there…they all want something but they’re not hustling. New York is full of hustlers. They like fight. LA is a little different. Like people are fighting but in a different way.

TJ: Like they expect things to come to them instead of going out to get it like New Yorkers?

LG: I don’t know. I feel like it’s not a great place to try to survive in ’cause it’s like so sunny.

TJ: [Laughs]

LG: Well it is! It’s like so sunny. How can you possibly try to, like, get yourself to fight and breakthrough when you feel like you’re at the beach all the time? I can’t work like that. I need to have like rain, and cement, and cold, and snow.

TJ: If I’m being completely honest, when I first saw you at the NewNowNext Awards, I was like, “This chick is completely weird!”

LG: [Laughs] I love that!

TJ: [Laughs] Then I heard “Just Dance” and was like, “She sucked me in! Now I’m trapped!”

LG: Are you serious? [Laughs]

TJ: Do you find that that is a common reaction to you?

LG: Yeah, and that’s like the best reaction. You don’t want people to think you’re like, I don’t know….normal. I like when people say that about me. It’s like I’ve affected them in some kinda way and I have for sure shown them something that they have never seen before. That’s what ‘weird’ really is. It’s something that’s uncomfortable.

TJ: Yeah, it was like weird clothes, completely blonde hair….I have to know more. You see the visual and you have to research.

LG: Exactly. You thought I was weird but you wanted to know more. I mean, Prince, when he first performed like with the [Rolling] Stones, he went on tour with them, which I really don’t think is a weird collaboration–some people do–they use to throw tomatoes at him. They didn’t get it. They were like, “Oh my God. What the f*ck is this?” Not to compare myself to Prince, I’m just saying. It doesn’t mean anything if people don’t–I think if it inspires any kind of reaction it’s good. The worst that could happen is if you play a show and everyone’s like talking to eachother and stop watching you.

TJ: Have you ever had that experience? I can’t imagine you have.

LG: Nope. Actually, I did more when I was younger. When I was 15 and 16, I got a lot of attention for my voice because I was so young, and for my songwriting because I was so young people were really impressed like, “Wow, she’s so talented.” And then in college, you know, the competition starts to [get noticed] ’cause there’s like bands–especially in New York because everybody’s making music or trying to become an actor, so you gotta be different. So, there were a couple shows I played that people were watching but they were like drinking and partying.

I remember one show I played where nobody was paying attention. It was really late, like one of those late shows. So I took my clothes off. I started playing in my underwear at the piano and I remember everyone was all of a sudden like “Whoa!” And I said, “Yeah, you’re looking at me now, huh?” And that’s really how the performance art started to come into it. I actually never really thought of it like that [performance art] until I started working with Lady Starlight.

We were rehearsing in my apartment one day, and it’s so funny, I had turn-tables in my kitchen because I didn’t want to pay for a rental space. So there were turn-tables in my kitchen and a synthesizer and she would, like, spin and I would play my piano and set up mics with amps which we used to get yelled at about all the time, and one day she was like “It’s not really a concert and it’s not really a show. It’s performance art.” And I said, “Really?” And she’s like, “Yeah. What you’re doing is not just singing…it’s art.” And once she pointed out to me what I was already doing I just started analyzing that more and researching to try to take it in a different direction. And that’s really what we did. Like her and I together with my music and her spinning vinyl we were the underground pop and that was sorta like the taboo thing to be doing because pop is so not cool and we were like the cool kids on the block that were like no…it is cool and we’re gonna do it, right now.

TJ: It seems like pop gets a bad rap for some reason.

LG: Yeah, the worst rap. I’m trying to change the world single handedly and tell everyone like all the cool kids that it’s cool.

TJ: The video for “Just Dance” is so freakin’ hot. I love it!

LG: Thank you!

TJ: I absolutely love the whale humping scene. Is he still around?

LG: [Laughs] No. The Orca is not around. No, I didn’t keep him. But that, for example, that’s performance art and a lot of people just see it as provocative or disgusting.

TJ: No, it’s hilarious!

LG: And that’s what it was meant to be. It was supposed to be like my dramatic interpretation of me being drunk at a party and needing to be in a kiddie pool. I need to be in a kiddie pool because I’m always spilling beer everywhere.

TJ: So, for your first video did it come out exactly the way you wanted? Or did you want to add something, take some stuff out, or was it just perfect to you?

LG: I don’t ever think anything’s perfect, but it was great. It’s always hard to not have complete creative control and I didn’t have creative control over my first video.

TJ: Did you get to help with the treatment at all?

LG: Oh yeah. Like for sure like the ideas and everything. Like the house party and the fashion for the most part. Like, I made the bra [I wore in the video], the disco bra. For the most part it was what I envisioned. But when you haven’t sold any records yet for a major corporation you can’t say very much in terms of the execution. We had a great director and there were a lot of people involved but I’m very grateful for it I want to say. So, I wasn’t as involved in the “Just Dance” video, but there is something that’s very personal and close to my heart about the short film that I shot for this album because that I did completely on my own and it’s my arrangement. It’s just like really amazing. I think it’s like the first ever video mix. Like you know that have album mixes and album mash-ups? It’s like a video mix. So it’s four songs from my album that are mixed into eachother in the form of a movie and it’s like five minutes long.

TJ: Cool. I’m gonna have to check that out.

LG: Yeah, it’s dope. I love it.

TJ: So, how did you land on Akon’s record label?

LG: It’s such a long story. I like got signed to so many different labels then finally I got signed to Interscope after I had met [producer] RedOne when I was not signed and he would come [work with me] for free because he believed in me. Rob Busari sent my stuff to Vincent Herbert and he signed me to Interscope and while I was on Interscope RedOne played my music for Akon because they have a production company and then ‘Kon was like ‘I wanna sign her as a writer for the Pussycat Dolls and Nicole Scherzinger’s solo project and for other artists on Universal.’ So, I was working with him as a writer.

I was already signed and he knew that. So, neither of us wanted anything from eachother other than to just make music. Just like really organically out of that he was like ‘I love what you’re doing so much and I really want to be apart of it.’ So he had his label under Interscope and he started talking to [Interscope exec] Jimmy [Iovine] and was like ‘I really wanna be a part of everything’ so, he signed me as well. I have three record labels. It’s the dynasty.

TJ: Was there ever any influence from the label–the label is pretty hip-hop–was there ever a time where anyone was like “You have to go in this direction…” or was it always “I see what you’re doing. Keep doing it. I just want to be apart of it”?

LG: Yeah, I like definitely wrote songs with him and with RedOne–RedOne is like so amazing–but, they didn’t sign me as someone that they saw the potential to be like an artist. They signed me because I was already an artist. And ‘Kon is just like an amazing person. Between him and Vince and Jimmy, I’m really lucky because they see what I’m trying to do and they believe in it. Like for them, I’m the future of what could save the industry–not to like put too much pressure on myself. I really want to see more artists like carry themselves with the view that I do. It’s not really about being fly, it’s about working hard.

TJ: So, for those who haven’t seen you perform what should they expect?

LG: Imagine a performance…a pop performance that belongs in a museum. That’s what I would say. Expect a band, expect a party, expect an amazing time. Expect to see a show you would have seen in the 80s in New York in a nightclub.

TJ: You’re very theatrical. Are you into a lot of Broadway?

LG: Yeah. I went to school for theatre.

TJ: What’s one big theatre show you take the most inspiration from?

LG: Oh I couldn’t….maybe Fosse. There’s like technology–there’s film that we use. Stage props, there’s choreography, there’s singing, there’s music, there’s, you know, like spinning–there’s everything. It’s just like a big f*cking thing. It’s a big event.

TJ: That’s what people come to a show for. They don’t come to just look.

LG: Right. The difference is it’s not the same way it’s like when you go see a multi-million dollar tour with a superstar. Like, I’m like nobody. [Laughs] So, it’s like imagine doing all of that yourself and having it be like low-fi but ground-breaking and just me trying to come up with innovative ways to be self-contained but still try to make an impact. It’ll feel like you’re watching something that’s happening at [Madison Square] Garden but you’re really in a small nightclub or you’re opening for somebody.

TJ: Let’s talk about the album since we didn’t get to touch on that much. So, you can dance to every song on the album but they all have meaning behind them. It’s not just some random dance album. What would you say is the most message driven song on the album?

LG: I don’t know. I think they all have strong messages. I really love “Paparazzi.” I love that one. I feel like that one has a really strong message about pop culture and it’s really like I pushed the lyric where you kinda know what it means but it sorta means something else, and then you listen back and it means something different. I don’t know. It means a lot of different things. It’s a real test about pop culture and fame and love and can you have one or both or none. What does it mean? And like fame as art. It’s about everything.

TJ: My last one. If you had to…and you have to because I’m asking you to…if you had to sum yourself up into three words, what would they be?

LG: Oh my god…[Laughs] So. Retro. Sexual.

TJ: Awesome.

__________________

Are you ready for The Fame? Learn more about this retro-sexual sexy beast at her official website: www.ladygaga.com

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