Q: How did you get into music?
I believe it was the music that came to me… in me. As a young girl I began taking piano lessons and started to feel that I wanted to play what was inside my head. Then I started to break my friends’ ears with all my demos [Laughs]. After years and years of growing up listening to Funk, Pop, Rock, Blues and all the musical influences around me, I was surprised and ultimately inspired by Massive Attack.
Q: How did the band form?
When Nicolas (Neidhardt) and I met there was an instant musical connection. He started to play the piano and I did what I do best (improvising) and boom! – what came out sounded really beautiful.
Q: Can you give a brief history of the band, or of you as a musician?
I compose on piano, but my collaboration with Nicolas has no rules so we can start a song with just my voice, or Nico can come to me with an instrumental track or even just a beat. Then there’s Paul (Breslin) who is part of the band too. He’s a very spiritual and talented composer and song writer. We’ve been working together since 1995 and have even done soundtracks together.  Our secret, I would say is our spontaneity, there’s no calculation or plan except to make us happy to create music and hear the result. We are both on the same page when it comes to creating and enjoying beautiful vibrations with sound.
Q: How do the new songs differ from your older material?
Our style and inspiration grows and changes at the same rhythm that we’re changing ourselves. Where we are right now as human beings is what defines the style of our music.
Let’s talk about the songwriting and recording process and what makes this record different:
Q: How do you come up with your lyrics?
We [Paul & I] just look around at the world, at ourselves and then inside ourselves – that’s where the lyrics come from. I love the idea of seeing this album as an electro-cardiogram, with ups and downs, sad and happy , profound and light… within the lyrics.
Q: Are there any general themes, social commentary or personal sentiments?
Ashamed is a song about us (the human race). It’s about a man who takes a woman’s life. Every day we see on the news all kinds of horrible things happening between people, and that makes me ashamed. I always compare us to the 2 extremes; we (humans) can be the “Mother Theresa” and we can also be the Tyrannical dictator, in that we are able to show our best and our worst. It is amazing – our potential to be so beautiful and still be so cruel.
Q: Is there anything you can say that will help give the listener a deeper understanding of your lyrics and ideas?
Our biggest compliment from the audience is when people tell us,” I love your album it makes me feel so good, it has such good vibes”. That is for me the best compliment. My belief is that music has something magical that can change your mood – your state of mind – your way of thinking or moving. This is the ultimate vibration that empowers each of us to dream, heal, cry, smile, dance, scream, make love, fall in love, release tensions etc… music is universal and much more powerful than we can ever imagine. These are some of the ideas I try to relate in my lyrics.
Q: What about your experiences beyond releases and tours and what about the music industry?
Our world and the business change in the blink of eye. Many opportunities in the music industry are gone, and at the same time new ones are emerging. There’s a big chaos in the music business creating a gigantic wave of talented artists getting smashed financially by the consequences of those changes. It is extremely hard today to get a deal with a record label, but I’m a big believer in the power of the internet, even if it’s still very young and artists have to re-invent everything in terms of promoting ourselves.
Q: How do you feel about selling music online?
I love this idea also because I buy a lot of music this way; itÃs instant access to any music you want, and since our world is changing so fast, to have such access to music makes sense.
Q: How do you feel about illegal music downloads?
When I see my very talented friends struggling because of that it makes me sad. Artists are people who are musically gifted, and it’s because of that gift they are able to give such wonderful music to us. Artists must survive to create music and it can’t all be free because so many artists rely on music to make a living.
Q: How do you feel about the future of CD and vinyl sales and do you think digital music will ever completely replace these formats?
Of course not, it was a different format for a different time, the new era is here now, everything has changed, but I believe that one day vinyl will make a comeback and cost lots of money… in some places it’s already happening. The future of CDs; I don’t believe it will last long. Vinyl, I believe will become one day like a piece of art because it was the original medium created to record, play and eventually sell music. We can’t think of replacing those old formats because the reality is that all the past and present changes are simply the continuing of our [technological] evolution, and I believe we’re still just at the beginning. It’s quite possible that one day a person will have a music library on a hard drive at home,  access thru phones and portable devices with codes ectÖ ready to plug in wherever we go, cars, hotels, etc… as well as a vinyl collection.
Stay tuned -Â Part II of the interview is coming soon…
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