http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/1996/11/23/brjork23.xml
Telegraph 1996-11-23
By Jan Moir
"'I've always been called weird'"
Björk's success put Iceland in the charts and provoked an acid bomb
from a crazed fan. Jan Moir meets a singer with attitude
ACCORDING to Björk, the main difference between the Icelanders and the
British is that we have no energy whereas they are always zooming around
full of vigour, like the thermal geysers which stud their land. They are
a dynamic people, she claims, just like the Swedes.
The Swedes? "Yes! Like Neneh Cherry. She just blasts into a room. In
Iceland, we are the same, although I was always the quiet one compared
with everyone else. I was never the centre of attention, and that is
still how I see myself now."
Oh, really? Today, she is wearing a blue plastic tube dress, zipped at
the front from her throat to her ankles. "Very cosy," she says, although
the stitching has burst at the waist and a little pillow of white belly
mushrooms through the gap.
Her bare legs are stuffed into silver trainers and her hair is twisted
into dozens of springy clumps, secured to her scalp with blue elastic
bands. It makes her head look as though it has been colonised by a
little army of Walnut Whips.
And her voice - a crazy collision of guttural Nordic and received
Cockney - is so loud and clear, her conversation so frequently dipping
into utter dottiness, that I have to fight the urge to make regular
circuits of the hotel lounge, apologising to the sedate tea drinkers
within earshot.
So far, we have all been treated to Björk's theories on alcohol - whisky
brings up her "dark currents", cognac makes her "sharp", champagne keeps
her happy and sometimes she could drink for 14 hours and end up "on the
rooftops or jumping into the ocean". She has already explained how
famous she is in her homeland - "I am the Lady Di of Iceland!" - and
stood up to demonstrate the voice exercises she uses when her throat
gets sore.
To the casual observer, there does not seem to be much difference
between these therapeutic yelps and the noises she has made on both
Debut and Post, the million-selling albums that have made her a star. On
top of all this, her mobile phone - the loudest I have ever heard -
rings at five-minute intervals and she does not feel it necessary either
to answer it or switch it off.
"When I first came here, I thought British people were not human. I
thought they were robots," she shouts, continuing on a cultural clash
theme. "I was saved by Have I Got News For You." Pardon?
"Yes, I was. I would look at all these cold, grey men; no colour, no
character. Then when they start talking, they are like gargoyles. They
become full of life and very juicy and sparkling. And I began to
understand everyone, although people still lie around everywhere, with
no energy. Like you!"
True enough, I am practically prostrate on the sofa, quite possibly
because I am trying to hide. She holds me up with her strong, little
arms and orders a raw egg from a passing waiter.
"I need some protein," she says, bouncing up and down on her end of the
sofa. She has just polished off two cappuccinos and a fruit salad
platter and when her egg arrives, she knocks the top off and attempts to
sip it in a dainty fashion, before apologising and scoffing the whole
thing down. She wipes the strings of albumen off her chin with the back
of her hand. Her phone screams. I feel myself sinking down the sofa
again.
It has been a funny old year for Björk, who was named Best International
Female Solo Artist at this year's Brit Awards. In February, she made
headlines for attacking a female journalist at Bangkok Airport as she
arrived - accompanied by her 10-year-old son Sindri - for a tour of
south-east Asia. Back home, watching news footage of the two women
scrabbling on the concourse floor, we all wondered if Björk had finally
flipped, although her explanation today makes her behaviour
understandable - if not advisable.
"She was rude to my son. She stuck a microphone in his face and asked
him, all snotty, what it was like having me as a mother. Can you
imagine? I don't care what people write or say about me, but you do not
abuse my son. I swear to God, I cannot remember what happened; I just
saw red. I am not proud of it, but I would do the same thing again."
In September, her celebrity provoked a much more sinister episode. A
crazed American fan called Ricardo Lopez posted a sulphuric acid bomb
from Florida to her home in west London. Police on both sides of the
Atlantic searched for the device after v.
He had videoed himself making the bomb while talking about his obsessive
love for Björk. After he had returned from posting the package, he
switched on the camera again, held a pistol to his head and filmed his
own suicide.
His parcel was found, leaking acid, in a south London sorting office. "I
was more worried about my son than frightened," she says today, the
first time she has talked at length about the incident.
"I had to sit down with Sindri and tell him there might be a certain
parcel arriving and that he could not open it. When he asked why, I had
to tell him there might be a bomb in it. Can you imagine if you were 10,
and your mum told you there was a bomb coming to your house? It would
always be in your dreams. It would be the most memorable thing in your
childhood."
It made her feel guilty as a mother. "I do this awkward job - I am not a
plumber or a nurse - and my kid has to deal with it."
On a wider level, it has made her apply a new rationale to her career,
particularly on how she presents herself on stage and on screen. This
morning, while editing the video for her new single, Possibly Maybe, she
had insisted on a fantasy sequence being removed.
"It could have looked like I was presenting myself as a religious icon.
Then some people might start cults and sending me different kinds of
letters. I question everything now, although I am not saying I am
responsible for that guy's death."
Oddly, this is the second time she had mentioned her own culpability. Is
she suggesting that she does feel responsible, even though common sense
must assure her that she is not?
"Well, if a person dies and that death is related to you - even remotely
- then you must be dead if it does not affect you. And I am not a
robot. It made me think: am I sending out the wrong messages?" And
although clearly troubled by the incident, perhaps only the chirpy,
effervescent Björk could see the positive side.
"When people send bombs to my house, I am not saying I accept it, but I
am saying that I can deal with it. England is the most experienced
country in the world when it comes to coping with letter bombs. I
couldn't have been in a safer place.
"Now I am on a list, the same one as the Prime Minister, and it means
that all my mail and all my family's mail is checked. My grandmother in
Iceland is delighted. She knows that all her Christmas parcels, even the
fragile ones, will arrive in perfect condition."
Björk Gudmundsdottir was born in Iceland 31 years ago, the daughter of
hippy parents who provided her with a "soft, cuddly, gorgeous youth; I
was spoilt rotten". There was not much parental discipline in the home,
but odd little Björk ("people have always called me weird") compensated
with her own remarkable store of self-discipline.
Unbidden, she would take the bus to attend extra classes after school
and always made sure her homework was completed on time. She had deep
friendships with what she calls the "interesting people - the kids who
had insect collections or something else that was really 'Wow'".
When she was 11, she became something of a child star in Reykjavik after
a song she had recorded became a hit. Over the following years, she
joined a punk group called Spit and Snot, played some existential jazz
and formed the Sugarcubes with guitarist Thor Eldon - Sindji's father.
Before they achieved the unlikely and put Iceland on the pop map, she
supported herself and her small son - she has always regarded herself as
a single mother - by gutting fish in a factory and working in a
bookshop.
The Sugarcubes made their base in London and when she finally left them
in 1992 to make her own records, it was clear that the unconventional,
unpredictable Björk would become a star. Hit songs like It's Oh So
Quiet, Venus as a Boy and Violently Happy quickly followed.
The roots of her sound - which has been described as so "neophiliac"
that it is barely music at all (she was once lampooned on Spitting Image
where she was shown supplying the vocal for a heart monitor machine) -
were formed in the days when she was forced to listen to Beethoven at
school and then to Jimi Hendrix at home.
"I agree with Stockhausen, in that old music should only be listened to
once a year. My friends call me a music fascist, but I don't care. You
must listen to new music now. In Africa, they used sticks and imitated
the bird noises around them and made it into a beautiful thing. That is
courage, true courage. Today, you can use anything; you can use cars and
fax machines and turn them into magic."
In the past, she has used a slamming toilet door and the white blur of
radio static in her songs. She flounders for a moment when asked to
describe her own singing voice before concluding: "Most people just
remember me for my screaming, but I do sing gently and humorously at
times. I can be warm and I can be cold. Why not? It's my party."
Which is all very new and exciting, of course, but it would be
interesting to know at what point she decides that the new becomes old
and thus consigned to the once-a-year dustbin?
"I dunno if that is such a big issue," she says, scratching her Walnut
Whips. "There's too much escapism out there. People look at their photo
albums too much or they think everything is going to be great in 100
years. They never have the courage to say that right now is a hot
moment."
I am tempted to say that "right now" is a perfect moment to switch off
her bloody phone, but perhaps Björk hears a magic melody in its falsetto
shriek which escapes my ear. Eventually, she does pick it up and
arranges to meet a friend at a Thai restaurant in the evening.
Then the Lady Di of Iceland, replete with eggs and fruit, squeaks off on
her trainers to her next appointment. She will look neither forward or
back but concentrate - as she always does - on the hot now.
Telegram, Björk's new album, is released next Monday