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THE NEW ERA OF STELLA SOLEIL THE COSMIC BALLET INTERVIEW: July 2006 Wearing a comfortable looking Nine Inch Nails tee shirt untucked over grey dungarees, Stella Soleil looks well rested and cool on this hot, muggy afternoon. The person who greets me is more content, even-minded, healthy, and real than one might expect an artist of her pedigree and experience to be. Soleil is a singer, songwriter, ballet dancer, and performing artist with no less than four records as a solo artist to her credit. There is a brand new disc on the way in the form of STELLA SOLEIL AND THE COSMIC BALLET. As a session and live vocalist, Soleil also has worked with Ministry, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Yungchen Lhamo, Moby, and Billy Idol. The music of Stella Soleil has gone through many incarnations. Her debut release was 1997’s Drown Me In You. Drown Me In You is a cosmopolitan confluence of exotic and industrial influenced rhythms that drive an original, brilliant and fluid sense of pop melody seasoned with international coloring. As Sister Soleil, Stella’s first full-length release on Universal, 1998’s Soularium, is an interesting albeit unfocused collection of songs produced in a mish-mash style of disparate rhythms and occasionally abstract interludes that act as seemingly undefined connectors from one song to the next. Whereas Drown Me In You relies on minimalist discipline and derives its color from the music itself, Soularium tends to forego cutting edge songwriting in favor of ambitious production value. 2001’s Dirty Little Secret was the first disc to feature the Stella Soleil name. It was also Stella’s last disc for Universal. Dirty Little Secret is a highly commercial pop record that redefined, once again, who Stella Soleil is. Finally, an independent, more modern pop/rock Ep called To Swell So High was made in 2005, showing yet another stylistic facet of who this artist is. So far, no Stella Soleil disc is alike. Such dynamic is either an indication of a maverick recording artist, or a harbinger of creative chaos unharnessed so far into a focused vision. It is difficult to contain a singular concept of who Stella Soleil is. She is neither one dimensional as an artist nor as a personality. At times, Stella Soleil is confident and animated. At other times, she is pensive and contemplative. Perhaps the most provocative indication of Stella’s expressiveness can be found in her eyes. Depending on the moment, those eyes are sharp and gleaming with a wealth of joie de vivre that goes beyond mere enterprise, and more into the realm of intangible riches that suggests a love of life, music, art, dance, romance, and the very essence of what defines a true shooting star. Stella Soleil is either an artist who knows she is a star only in those moments of slowly waking up in the early dawn and has transcended such prefabricated notions; or she’s an artist who forgets her own bright sentience and approaches living with the same cathartic bent given to her live performances. If Soleil’s body is the engine, her soul is the permanent vehicle that drives through universal cosmos spanning Earth to Neptune and back again. It’s a soul that seems to traverse the gravity of terra firma with an ability to stay grounded even as her consciousness goes higher and higher into rarified air beyond that which meets the eye. Another look into Stella’s eyes, and one sees deep pools of preponderance, sadness, sensitivity, and a genuine niceness rarely found in modern society, but one for which everyone is looking. Stella Soleil is at once a brand new artist and one with a pedigree at the same time. Her new show is called Stella Soleil And The Cosmic Ballet. The Cosmic Ballet is the expression of an artist whose development has been fully realized; a creative solar system that transfers its energy from the universe into music and dance. Creative impurities that mar the endeavors of countless artists have been distilled for The Cosmic Ballet. All that the audience is left with is planetary dust, the ground to which their feet gravitate on planet Earth, and the unadulterated essence of Stella Soleil that has finally broken on through to the other side. The Cosmic Ballet is high art; it's pop art; it's beautiful and glamorous; it's engaging; it's a lot of things for a lot of people. Over afternoon breakfast and coffee drinks (decaf for Stella), Stella Soleil didn’t just define herself nor merely outline what The Cosmic Ballet is. She went beyond obvious conditions and colored in the center for no one in particular, and yet for everyone. GD: Who is Stella Soleil? Stella Soleil: A chameleon. I’m a big fan of all music; and I think that as a pop artist, I tend to be different and a little bit on the edge and weird. Weirdo pop. As a Rock artist, I tend to bring pop to the weird music, like Industrial or the more obscure niche genres. I like to balance things out. I never want to be a formulaic kind of artist. I want to keep the audience guessing. I don’t really write music for the audience, but rather for my own feeling of the moment or that year. It’s always reflective of what I’m going through, so I think that Stella Soleil is an honest chameleon. GD: What do you think is the difference between you and other recording artists? Stella Soleil: I’m very risky and I take a lot of chances. Some things that I’ve done have worked really well; and some things that I’ve done have not. With my first record, Drown Me In You, I had worked with Industrial artists and Metal producers, and brought very hooky, ambient pop vocals to that kind of music which gave it a new slant. Generally, that kind of music is very vibe-oriented with layers upon layers of sound; a wall of sound. I found that groups such as Skinny Puppy and Ministry kind of lacked melody. The one artist that I do think hit a home run with it is Nine Inch Nails, because Trent Reznor is an amazing songwriter. He made the crossover from that pocket of Industrial musicians and combined it with good songwriting. I wanted to do something similar on my first record where I could utilize pop writing, but with a more ethereal as opposed to aggressive vocal delivery. There’s a bit of irony to that combination, but it worked. What didn’t work was my second record, Soularium. I was trying to combine that whole Industrial rhythmic approach with more straight ahead pop vocals. But it became too cluttered. There was too much layering; and it was hard for me to maintain a creative balance because the approach was more along the lines of a Hip-Hop record, where I had eight or nine different producers doing a single track. I didn’t realize that it would be so clustered, claustrophobic, and schizophrenic. The sound was all over the place. I think that record was less of a theme and more of an experiment. Because I had so many producers on that record, there were so many styles. It made me feel directionless as I was at the mercy of each individual producer. GD: Where is Stella Soleil as an artist now? Stella Soleil: I think that where I’m at right now is where Soularium should have been: Ethereal pop vocals over beat driven music. Instead of the vocals taking the cue off of the beats, I think that the beats are now taking the cue off of the vocal melodies which is how it should be. Most of the artists that are in that beat-making niche of Dance or Industrial music, as opposed to organic Rock, generally start first with the beats. For me, you have to come from the song first because you can do all the production you want, but if you don’t have a great song, then all you have is feel. That’s an example of why I don’t want to be compared to Industrial music or its beats. My problem with Industrial music is that at the ground level, there’s no song most of the time. There are layers upon layers of production, but melody isn’t really prominent in that kind of music. As an artist now, I focus strongly on songwriting as opposed to beat-making. Lyricism is the strongest element combined with melody. I don’t fit words into songs; I build songs around the lyrics and the melodies. GD: What is THE COSMIC BALLET? Stella Soleil: The Cosmic Ballet started as an idea I had where I wanted to take, musically, old-school influences like New Order, Joy Division, and combine them with very Pink Floyd, theatrical elements. On the performance side, I don’t think anyone has ever used a classical movement with pop music. I had been a ballet dancer for 22 years. With my last full-length record, Dirty Little Secret, I had wanted to do something like this to give it a more high-brow flavor. I needed to do pop music, but with an edge; and I wasn’t really allowed the freedom to do that with the last record. I was trying to fit into a box, but at least have a different colored bow. GD: In what box were you trying to fit? Stella Soleil: The ‘Pop’ box. GD: But you have huge elements of Pop in your music now. Stella Soleil: Yeah, but I think it’s balanced now. There’s a difference between good pop and bad pop. Good pop songs are, like, Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, T. Rex, and even Pink Floyd. Very strong melodic hooks and great songwriting. On this new record, I’m combining great pop with something weird and different: Classical, Bob Fosse influenced dance. It turns out to be very strange to watch, almost like a ‘shock ballet.’ What makes it different is the whole performance art of it. I compare it to Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust theatrics combined with a Hedwig & The Angry Inch kind of delivery. We’re mixing a lot of classical choreography with very new sounding music. And the delivery is different. It’s not go-play-a-set-with-a-Rock-band and that’s it. It’s very thematic; and the whole album is a progression as much as the performance is. GD: Thematically, how would you describe the new record? Stella Soleil: The actual theme of the album is becoming free of all constraints in art, and having the freedom to express myself as differently and uniquely as possible without having to squeeze myself into a box. At the end of the day, I can deliver something that comes out of the box. The music is a soundtrack to the live performance; and the live performance is an artistic delivery of the record. GD: When you describe THE COSMIC BALLET as being theatrical, are you talking in a visual or musical sense? Stella Soleil: Visually theatrical. GD: How are you using dance in THE COSMIC BALLET? Stella Soleil: Specifically, I use dance as another medium to express what is going on in the music and also what I’m trying to say. That’s what I was trained to do my whole life, which is to express myself through my body and silence. I used to be the dancer that was overtrained and pegged as a ballet dancer. I always felt as though I wasn’t that great as a musician, but I was a great dancer. Now, having developed so much as a songwriter and musician, my ballet and music are pretty much on the same level so that they can coexist in a really great way. GD: In THE COSMIC BALLET live show, what’s the role of the dancers in relation to you? Stella Soleil: I want to create tension and dynamic with the dancers. So far, there are great moments of tension; but there’s also a disconnection right now between the dancers and myself because they stand behind me. I want to work more on the relationship between the dancers and me, who are kind of like my muses. That’s their role in the show; but the muse doesn’t have to stand behind you. While I’m standing up there on the mic stand, singing my heart out, they also are conveying what I’m trying to say. GD: Are you saying that the dancers are not there to support you, but rather they’re there to be your equal? Stella Soleil: Yes. They’re definitely supporting me; but I want it to be more like a troupe as opposed to backup dancers, to build a more integral relationship between the dance and the music. The dancers are supposed to be involved in what’s going on as a direct relationship. That’s in sharp contrast to unattached dancers that are commonly used as eye candy. GD: What’s different about the dancers in THE COSMIC BALLET from dancers that appear in, say, a Madonna concert or any other realm of pop performance? Stella Soleil: Visually, when pop artists do live shows and there’s dance involved, it’s not only run-of-the-mill; there’s no connection to the music. Aside from Toni Basil, who’s an amazing choreographer, I’ve been a victim of that situation as well in working with other choreographers during my record deal with Universal. Toni Basil is the only choreographer I worked with at the time who is artistic. Most of the others were one-trick ponies who would replicate whatever was going on at the time, where everything looks exactly the same as far as dance goes. Everything you’d see is all about bumping-and-grinding; and there’s no connection between the movement and what the music is about. GD: Aside from the dance having an actual connection to the music, what else is different about THE COSMIC BALLET? The mixing of ballet and pop music hasn’t been done. Given the direct relationship between the girls and me as expressing what’s going on in addition to my singing, there is an energy that happens in ballet that doesn’t happen in, say, Hip-Hop. It has to do with the clean lines. In ballet, energy flows out of the legs and arms. The lines aren’t broken. They’re not disjointed nor are they staccato movements. They’re very flowing, so the energy is continuously flowing as well. That’s as opposed to, “Wow, look at those cool hip-hop dancers” that are chaotic. There’s no real sense of why they’re moving the way that they are. With ballet, there’s a well-planned reason why they’re doing every single movement. It’s not only a beautiful thing to watch. What people might not realize is that they’re watching energy through the whole body, not just a torso or a breast. This is the body all-encompassed in the art of what’s going on up there. GD: How do you think the dancers affect the audience in their feeling of the music and the show in general? Stella Soleil: I think at first, for most people, we walk on stage scantily clad. It’s for a reason, though. We don’t wear a lot of clothing on stage because I want people to see all the energy moving through the body. What people think is just one movement might actually be six. With ballet and the body, everything is very dimensional. So when we first walk out there with our bodies, people might say, “Oh, my god, they’re strippers.” 10 minutes into the show, and the perception is “Wow, that’s really beautiful.” Ballet is the dance of the body, not the body doing dance. GD: One would imagine it’s also much easier to perform those movements when you’re not wearing very much clothing. Stella Soleil: Oh, yeah; and costuming can be all about sexuality as opposed to sensuality. A lot of the time, costuming gets in the way of that sensual nature and it distracts. I definitely don’t want to wear anything on stage that’s distracting from what is going on with the movements. GD: Right. You want a certain sense of subtlety. Stella Soleil: Subtlety, yes. A lot of the whole premise is to take something that would seemingly be erotic and turn it into something that’s actually beautiful. Suddenly the body becomes a beautiful thing as opposed to a porno where it’s being taken advantage of and exploited. GD: Describe your new music for The Cosmic Ballet. Stella Soleil: The Cosmic Ballet mixes beautiful, catchy, vocal pop hooks over driving, darker electronic music, but with real guitars. Or sometimes it can be vice-versa, a more pop beat with a darker vocal. There’s a tension there that’s not in straight electronic music nor in straight-up Rock music. I think this music is a full circle from my first record, Drown Me In You, which was an independent. I think I’ve gone through this whole journey to come back to the starting point. My vision is much more focused now. Before, I was feeling things out, trying to figure out where I was coming from; and those records are reflective of that equation, not just in a bad way, but in a good way, too. I seemed a little lost. With these new songs, I’m very confident. I know what my theme is and I know exactly why I’m doing whatever it is that I’m doing. Having come to this place, the music has much more integrity than a lot of the other work I’ve done. It’s very intentional this time around. GD: And you have more artistic control today. Stella Soleil: Yes. By the same token, when I thought I wanted artistic control on my first record, the truth of the matter is that I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. I needed some guidance through that process; and I was given a lot of guidance. I’ve come back to use everything I’ve learned to make this new album. GD: How do you relate to your own music? Stella Soleil: It’s a therapy for me. As far as lyrics go, they’re blatant and blunt. I’m not a poet; I just write out of my journals or my blogging and I turn them into songs. My music is an expression of whatever is going on at that moment or in those last couple of journal entries. They become immortal pieces that take tragic situations for use in my art, giving them a bit of closure. If I take a voyeuristic attitude of what’s going on in my life, watching it, writing it down, and then using it to create songs or anything, it gives a sense of release from the pain of what is going on in your personal life because you may have turned it into something beautiful. So it’s kind of like surviving. Music is survival. GD: Is one of your new songs, “Feels Like You Do,” an example of that equation? Stella Soleil: Yes. “Feels Like You Do” is about getting to the age and place that I am. There’s a line in it, “Did you ever think you would find someone that feels like you do?” We’re still looking for love. That’s the whole point of the song. It’s about going through so much; and you still have not found that one person where you go, “Ah, this is it.” There are pieces of people that you fall in love with; but the person in their entirety that you would want to be with? Yeah, I’m still looking for that one. GD: Do you think monogamy is a realistic goal for most people, or do you feel that concept is a human folly? Stella Soleil: Two things: Instinctively, you’re always wanting to look at what you don’t have outside of what you’ve got. I think that because we’re free-thinking people, as human beings, we are able to be rationale about that kind of stuff. We make our choices. And furthermore, I watched March Of The Penguins and thought, “Goddamn, if a penguin can find a soul mate, we should be able to, easily.” (laughs) GD: So you have faith and hope? Stella Soleil: I do; and I haven’t given up. That’s pretty much what “Feels Like You Do” is about. I haven’t found it yet, but I’m still asking the questions. GD: What’s more important, music or love? Stella Soleil: They’re one in the same. For me, I can’t survive without music ‘cause I can’t get the stuff out fast enough to not sabotage my relationships. And I have to have relationships in order to find inspiration for the music. So, it’s kind of like this whole push-and-pull sort of thing. GD: What do you think STELLA SOLEIL AND THE COSMIC BALLET does for modern pop music and pop culture for that matter? Stella Soleil: I think The Cosmic Ballet gives it more integrity than most pop music does. There’s a well thought out, calculated reason for every single thing that goes on up there, on the record and on stage. Pop writers in general, especially when you’re writing with a dozen and a half of them, have no real plan. Most pop records are just collections of songs as opposed to something that’s thematic and goes through development with a dynamic as a cohesive statement. The Cosmic Ballet is more like a soundtrack to your life instead of just a mix tape. GD: What else do you think THE COSMIC BALLET brings? Stella Soleil: I think there are two kinds of artists. There are the pioneers and then there are ‘perfectors.’ Pioneers create new things and conceptualize brand new ideas. ‘Perfectors’ take the pioneers’ ideas and wind up perfecting them at some point. Pop has pretty much run its course as far as being a new thing. It has constantly been reused and recycled. It’s not pioneering anymore because it’s completely formulaic now. So, I’m hoping to be one of the pioneers that takes pop to a different level; a new facet to the face of pop music. GD: How do you think your innovative concept of ballet mixed with pop music can reach kids? Stella Soleil: The answer is Pop. Pop music will always be popular with the youth culture regardless of what medium it is. A great pop song will last forever because people like the songs, not the style. What makes it cool and hip is what you do with the song and the performance of it. If you want longevity, there’s the answer. GD: Do you consider yourself a pop star? Stella Soleil: Oh, no. Stars have money. (laughs) GD: Have you ever felt like one? Did the label ever try to put your head in a certain place? Stella Soleil: No, quite the opposite. My mentor up there was very critical, but in a good way. My head never exploded. I was too in touch with everyday critiquing. So it’s quite impossible to have your head in the clouds when you’ve got people constantly nailing your feet to the floor. GD: You do have a fan base. What is their effect on you? Stella Soleil: I have a really good relationship and connection with the fans that have stayed with me, the die-hards. I’ve had a yahoo list for six years. The same 250 kids are still on that list. I talk with them all the time; and doing so definitely keeps you in touch with reality, when you’re exchanging e-mails and sometimes phone calls with kids that you’ve never really met before. GD: You call them? Stella Soleil: I have; yes. GD: Aren’t you afraid that your number comes up on their caller ID? Stella Soleil: They’ve called me, too. I definitely have been advised against it; but I’ve never actually had a problem. I’ve found that most of the kids who are on my list probably understand better the plight of a supposed pop star than the people that are creating it. GD: How do you think that rapport is going to be affected the day you gain an even greater profile given what’s happening now with THE COSMIC BALLET? Do you have a certain wistfulness or sadness that you might not have the time to keep up with those relationships? Stella Soleil: No, I’ve had that same list for six years. It doesn’t grow and it doesn’t get smaller. I don’t tell too many people about that list, so my core base of 250 fans are kind of like a street team. They do a lot of work in that capacity. GD: You have a lot of male fans, but most of them don’t seem to view nor treat you as a sex object so much as they relate to you as a kindred spirit. Why do you think that is? Stella Soleil: I think that the lyrics have a lot to do with it. It’s hard to paint a picture of a sex object when you’re saying things like, “Pour me a drink and mix it with anti-depressants.” It’s really heady music. Even though there may be sexy elements to it, just the fact that you want to dance when you hear it, it’s not overtly sexual. GD: Are your new songs for THE COSMIC BALLET only about personal experience or are some of them based on imaginary fantasy? Stella Soleil: The new songs are 100% personal experience. The new record is totally about what’s been going on in the past three years of my life. Every time I write something or am interactive with my fans, I become much more creative because I’m not only in touch with what I’m saying; I get feedback and it remains in the forefront of my brain. A lot of my blogs wind up in the lyrics. I just wrote this song with Billy Mohler (Smashing Pumpkins’ bassist) called “Repercussion,” using one of the most intensely suicidal lines I’ve ever written, which was “You shouldn’t play with girls that tend to throw themselves in front of moving cars.” Or there’s “slicing blades and slow, sad finishes.” That’s some seriously personal stuff out there in the open. GD: To your fans and to the press, you seem very open, personal, and candid. What and how much of the real Stella Soleil are we getting? Stella Soleil: I would say that about three quarters of me is in print. There’s 25% that no one will ever get. You have to hold that quarter of yourself completely dear and protect yourself from being 100% open and honest. People have respect for a little bit of mystery and aloofness. There’s something definitely more under the layers and it comes out through your eyes. In order to survive in the public eye, you have to keep some part of yourself private. There are things I don’t even want to admit to myself, let alone to an interviewer or the public, so I keep that part back. GD: What lies ahead for STELLA SOLEIL? What do you see as being your biggest challenges? Stella Soleil: I’m more concerned with the art than the business right now. I’m not even sure a label would want to put this music out; and I guess I just don’t care. If it comes along, that will be fine with me; but I’m not actively pursuing it. I’m focused on turning The Cosmic Ballet into a full-fledged production. Instead of getting international acclaim and delivering an international hit song, I’m more concerned with getting to bigger venues. I’d like to break into the performance art scene that’s going on here in Los Angeles. All these cool performance art kinds of people and musicians who are more theatrical play these massive warehouse parties. Very similar to what raves were back in the ‘80s is what’s happening in the L.A. art scene. I’d like to take The Cosmic Ballet out on tour, maybe in and outside of Los Angeles, and take the production as far as it can possibly go. -- Greg Debonne © 2006 Greg Debonne - All Rights Reserved. Stella Soleil online: www.myspace.com/stellasoleilmusic http://www.myspace.com/stellasoleilmusicshapeimage_3_link_0
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