ShockHound

Interview by Tom Lanham
 
When Stefani Germanotta strolls into a swank San Francisco café, two distinct reactions occur: Every male jaw in the place plummets straight to the floor, and the eyes of their female lunch dates narrow into vengeful “how-dare-she” slits. But oh yes, she dares. And then some. Because Germanotta has come in the outrageous guise of her alter dance-pop ego, Lady GaGa, and she’s all dolled up in platform heels, tan hot pants, a see-through diaphanous top revealing a black lace bra underneath, huge Italian sunglasses, and a gangster-moll fedora. The kind of outfit that can simultaneously get an average guy’s pulse racing and also chill the blood of the most confident, competitive gal. Which, ironically enough, is nothing compared to the skimpy, stripper-inspired costumes GaGa wears onstage.
     All this, of course, would just be so much sensationalist window dressing if the Lady didn’t deliver the musical goods. Which she does in sensuous spades on her Interscope debut The Fame and its chart-topping stomper of a hit single, “Just Dance.” With more potential smashes like “Poker Face” frothing right behind, she’s literally on the brink of becoming the next crowd-pleasing Madonna. So Stefani, out of necessity, is long gone. “My mother and father still call me that,” she tells ShockHound with a sigh. “But other than that, all my friends call me GaGa, and not because I say they have to. Everyone just…just enjoys it.” And despite her racy image, this New Yorker is no brainless bimbo. She’s one of the shrewdest pop stars on the scene, who has carefully planned every last stiletto-heeled step of her career.
 
SHOCKHOUND: So how much do you love San Francisco?

LADY GAGA: I actually really love it here. Its my first time here and the city is very beautiful – it reminds me of New York, where I’m from, and it’s a bit European, too. And I’m ultimately gonna end up living in Europe some day. I’ve been to Paris briefly, but I had a friend that lived in the South of France, so I went to visit her once. And I really loved the South of France. And Italy, too, I love. But I’m sure I’ll find a place there where I’m like “I am not leaving!”

SHOCKHOUND: Well, the greatest thing about your album is, you didn’t settle on just one genre. It’s all over the map.

LADY GAGA: Absolutely. I think about the performance-art aspect while I’m writing, and I think about how I can visually translate a pop song to the world in a way that’s new and interesting and fun. And whether you live here or in some random country, how it’s perceived is important to me — I want that song to come on the radio and get everyone going. So how do I make that universal sound and make it feel new and fresh? There are so many pat-you-on-the-back mundane, really poetic artists, and I appreciate all of that music. But it’s not who I am – I really wanna have a joyful, fun record. A party record. A good-time record.

SHOCKHOUND: There’s even a touch of metal on The Fame.

LADY GAGA: I’m a huge Robert Plant fan — I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, and that was my first experience with rock ‘n’ roll. And it was his vocals that really inspired me the most — he sounded like a girl, but there was a man behind that high voice. And I didn’t hear a lot of great female singers at the time. And I really sing like a guy, the way that I phrase things. So David Bowie, John Lennon, the Beatles. I’ve never really been a girl’s girl — I was always kind of a guy’s girl, and I was rejected in the industry for a long time because of that.



SHOCKHOUND: What did music-biz moguls tell you?

LADY GAGA: “I don’t get it.” “I’m confused.” “I don’t understand.” But nothing made me feel bad. I was pretty angry with L.A. Reid for dropping me — he took no meetings with me during my stay there. I was signed for three months, and I used to wait outside the doors of his office for hours, just to have a meeting with him. And I’d tell my A&R guy “If he’s not getting it, I need to talk to him.” And he never took a meeting with me, not ever. And I remember I was auditioning for a guy at Virgin, and I was in his office, playing for him, and he said, “I’ve read so much about you — apparently you’re the talk of town.” And I sat down and played the piano, and by the time the song was finished, everybody in the room was looking at me like, “It’s all good! You nailed it!” Except this guy, who just stared at me and said, “What planet are you from?” And not in a funny-ha-ha way, either. And I took that as such a wonderful compliment, because it was so new to him and so different that he couldn’t even wrap his brain around it. I did theater for a while, too, and they’d tell me “This is a musical, but you’re too pop.” And I’d go into record labels, and they’d tell me “You’re too theatrical.” So I just thought, “Well, why don’t I do both? And why don’t I do it my way?” And without even realizing what I was doing, it became performance art – I thought I was just doing music, but people started going “What’s it like, being a performance artist?” So I really put all my eggs in one giant basket – I never wanted a backup career, because this is my life.

SHOCKHOUND: How did you pay the rent?

LADY GAGA: I worked. I lived on the Lower East Side in a tiny little apartment that I found for $1,200 a month. And I worked three jobs – I worked for a famous music publishing company during the day. Beck used to come in, Linda Perry too. And at night I worked at restaurants or bars, or I’d go-go dance for extra money.

SHOCKHOUND: How does one go-go dance, exactly?

LADY GAGA: You just do it! And I’m a performer, so it was fairly easy for me. So I just did it. I really scare myself sometimes, the nerve that I have. And out of the ballsiest things I ever did, one of them was Lollapalooza — to play a festival where the audience expects a certain type of show. And I made a bikini inspired by Marc Bolan that was covered in mirrors, I brought my friend Lady Starlight and we did a set of nine pop songs that I had written and wore these bikinis and did go-go. And the audience must’ve thought “Who is she? Why is she here? And is this even music?” And I loved that. I inspire shock in people, and it’s fascinating to me. What’s so shocking? I just want people to be entertained in a way that they’re not used to, and you’ll never see the same show twice.

SHOCKHOUND: “Dirty Rich” sounds pretty twisted.

LADY GAGA: It’s from my coke years. 2005 was where it began, and I thought I was gonna die. I never really did the drugs for the high — it was more the romanticism of Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger and all the artists that I loved. I wanted to be them, and I wanted to live their life, and I wanted to understand the way that they saw things and how they arrived at their art. And I believed the only way I could do this was to live the lifestyle, and so I did. So it wasn’t about getting high — it was about being an artist. About waking up in the morning at 10:30 and doing a bunch of lines and writing a bunch of music, and staying up for three days on a creative whirlwind and then panic-attacking for a week after. It was one of the most difficult times in my life, but it was important for me to experience, since it unlocked parts of my brain. But I wouldn’t encourage people to do it for that reason — you can arrive at all those things on your own.

SHOCKHOUND: How did you quit?

LADY GAGA: My father. My father is a really powerful man, a telecom guy. So he looked at me one day and said, “You’re fuckin’ up, kid.” And I looked at him and thought, “How does he know that I’m high right now?” And he never said a word about the drugs, not one word. But he said, “I just wanna tell you that anyone you meet while you’re like this, and any friend that you make in the future while you are with this thing, you will lose.” And we never talked about it again. But I was able to stop, because I was panicking more on the drugs than I was sober. So I’m fine now. I can drink, and I’m not gonna say that I don’t party. But it’s not everyday, and it’s no longer a tool for my creativity. The label gets mad at me for talking about it – they say, “We don’t want people to think that you’re not a pop star.” But I am a pop star. I’m a pop star with a story!

Related Artists Lady GaGa