Ulrika loves Robyn: July 2011

Robyn’s back at Melt! After her early gig at 4:30am in 2008, she’s performing during festival primetime now. The things she remembers about her last performance, what she thinks about her album trilogy in hindsight, and what she does to stay on track despite the music industry’s harsh rules, she told us in an interview.

Robyn, you already performed at Melt! in 2008. Tell us about the time you spent at the festival site.

I remember lots of things from last time I was there. I remember seeing Gui Boratto and a really good DJ set that he had in the evening because we played at 4:30am. So I had time to watch other people perform before I went on stage. I remember falling asleep around 1am, and then waking up at around 3am still having two hours to go until I was going to be on stage. I remember being so tired. I remember it raining sideways onto the stage, and me slipping because it was so slippery. Of course, I remember the big cranes. I mean, it’s a really interesting festival, and I’m happy that I’m not playing at 4:30 in the morning this time.

With your Trilogy Body Parts, you released three consecutive albums in one year. Do you think the format of your album was responsible for the widespread attention?

I don’t know why the album did well. I hope it’s because the music is good. I think the way the album was released makes sense for a lot of people but for a lot of people it doesn’t. But for me it was a success in a way that I set out to do something for myself. I wanted to change the way I was working creatively. I wanted to adapt the release pattern to my creative process. And I didn’t expect people to get it at all. I thought, I’m going to shoot myself in the foot with this, and people are going to think it’s weird. That didn’t happen, and a lot of people got the idea.

Are you going to do it again or was it just too stressful?

I’ll never make three albums in a year again. I think with the tour schedule I have now, it wouldn’t be possible. When I made the album and released three parts in a year, I was still basing that on the last album, you know, and that was a totally different kind of schedule compared to the one I have now. But it was kind of a way to jumpstart a routine of releasing shorter albums and buy myself time. So with these three albums, I still have a little bit of time to go before I feel like I have to release something new. But I’ll keep on releasing shorter albums. I hope to get something out quicker than what I had done in the past. I’m going to be back in the studio in December.

So this trilogy release is not the new format of the future, the new way for you to release albums: fast-paced, catching on the speed of the Internet with everyone releasing their own stuff immediately.

I don’t that what I did was ground breaking in any way. Albums, 20 or 30 years ago, were always this short. I think, we’ve just gotten into a different kind of routine where albums got longer. There’s a lot of reason why I think. I think most artists would agree. It takes a lot of work and a long time to make 15 really good songs. It might even change from this. I might do just five songs next time, I don’t know. I just want to be able to work in a more spontaneous way.

In addition, you get the audience’s attention permanently by releasing your material in short intervals giving them something to hang on…

Yes. I think that’s how it works nowadays. People are also so in tune with the music they listen to. I think, it’s like a backlash from when I was starting out in the 90s where the industry took over and music was so hardcore-marketed onto kids. And I think people are showing that this is not how we like to consume music. We like to be more invested in what we listen to, and that’s cool.

About your own label Konichiwa. In regards to the Internet making labels redundant in a way because everyone’s recording and releasing music on their own via YouTube etc. What do you think keeps labels alive these days? What kind of things need to be done to keep a label alive?

The music has to be there, you know. People naturally have to adapt to that. There’s no other way, there’s no money in it. So you have to be in it for the right reasons. I think slimming down is what people have to do. That’s what I had to do. I have a very small organisation that I work with, and I work with labels here in Germany and other countries outside of Sweden on a very intimate basis. You have to be really hands-on with things and get invested. If you don’t want to be like a huge superstar and do a deal with Live Nation*, which is probably a great thing to do if that’s what you want to do as well, but it’s not for everybody. It’s just a few people that get to do that and most of us just have to take what’s left. I think it’s an interesting environment. I like it. It gets me creative. It gets me focussed on what really matters for me.

The solution for many is that they just have to tour excessively just to get the money in, right?

Touring is not a way to make money. I know that people think that but it’s not. It’s a very expensive operation, and if you’re lucky, you can make money, and you can make good money off of it, but it takes time. I’ve been on tour for a year, and I just started making money off of my tour. So, it’s an investment as well. You can make money, but you have to stay on tour for a while. So, you can’t really make money in the music industry any more unless you work really, really hard. But that’s good. That’s how it is for everybody else, so it should be like that for us, too. It’s still not decided, though, what the new structure is going to be. I don’t think there’s going to be just one solution. There will be lots of different solutions – old ones that still work, and new ones that’ll be great. I hope that it becomes a structure that is good for the music and for the artist. I think that’s what’s going to be good for everybody.

How are you going to lure in the crowd at Melt! Festival this year. Any special plans?

I give’em my all! I have no tricks. I just work really hard on stage to get people’s attention. There are no fireworks and no costume changes. It’s just me and the band, and we just play music. We rehearse a lot. I think that’s where my focus goes to make sure that the music’s there, that what we do, when we’re on stage, makes sense.

* Live Nation: a US company that focuses on live entertainment with signed artists such as Jay-Z or Madonna.

http://www.meltfestival.de/en/news/2450783174/robyn-keine-tricks