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Interview
by SashaS
4-9-2003
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| Venus Hum's strange egg, Annette Strean |
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Cyber-rustic sparklers
Venus Hum: a retro-futuristic stream of magic
As summer gets its Technicolor dreamcoat on and we gear up for the seasonal harvest of discs (tough luck?), let’s take one last look at the season gone by. Just before having the third best summertime in the recorded history, Venus Hum released a delectable/inventive/intoxicating album, ‘Big Beautiful Sky’, and delighted Glasto crowd with their ‘electro-pastorale’ (cyber-rustic?) songs, we spoke with singer/lyricist, Annette Strean.
More details on the band can be found in our previous Interview as well as Reviews (pls use Search) and only wish to add that thence they collaborated on a cover of the Donna Summer classic ‘I Fell Love’ for the Blue Man Group’s album; BMG is a performance art trio, as seen on the Intel Pentium Plus commercials, and the two acts appeared together on the Jay Leno’s TV chat-cum-variety show for one of the most surreal moments in the programme’s long history.
Today we concentrate on a discussion with Mrs Strean who waltzes in the post-lunch record company’s café attired in a retro-cum-timeless flowing-flowery dress, topped with vintage glasses and period costume jewellery; her chic recalls Audrey Hepburn’s ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ character at downtime. Alas, Annette’s only outta-marriage affair is with music. And it is a very passionate tryst…
Still, in a pure girlie fashion, we compliment her on the dress she sports, alike music, with class.
“Thank you,” a dazzling smile brings sunshine to the corner where piped-in MTV channel is hardly audible. “I like to dress how I feel and it would be weird if I put a sparkly, big, underskirted dress from the 1950s. The whole dress thing developed because I grew up in Montana, near Canadian border, and it gets really cold in the winter. I liked the look of dresses and they are extremely warm, much more than you’d expect. Well, my mom also encouraged me to dress how I wanted to.”
Dress to express
If you were interested in dresses from an early age, how come you ended up a singer rather than a fashion designer?
“The whole dress thing started with my mom, and then my two sisters; I also have a brother. I sort of inherited the whole thing and I have yet to wear all my dresses onstage and it will take me a while to get through all of them! But I combine things differently and can wear the same things few times although they’d never guess it. There was a period, about four years ago, just after I moved to Nashville, I was working as a waitress and didn’t really have time for dress- and make-up. So, I took a sabbatical…”
“It all got back on track when we started the band and it is a great fun for me and I believe people really appreciate the effort. Before the band, people looked at me a lit bit freaky but it was never an issue and a lot of people complimented me, saying that I could carry it while they couldn’t. I’d tell them they could; everybody can and should. Growing up was less restrictive in Montana than Nashville, a much more conservative place. I think I’m not intimidating so people didn’t mind it… I used to design my own clothes but only for me and was never interested in it as a profession.”
Wasn’t Nashville a strange destination for a non-country aspiring act?
“I just felt I should move there and the cultural changes were really too much for me. It was so different to where I grew up but it is a great musical place. It is easily accessible place and you can make a record for a very little money. Also, you could swap singing backing vocals for some recording time… Soon after moving there I met Tony (Miracle) and he became one of my first friends.”
“I’ve always been into music and can’t remember ever not singing; my family used to sing together… I used to watch variety shows, used to love musicals and Disney soundtracks and then church music; because of my siblings I was exposed to different kinds of music, from The Police to Marvin Gaye to Depeche Mode…”
Music for dreamlife
The debut album contains some many different elements, so many different influences and flirts with myriad genres, never straying into ‘functional-pop’ of today?
“We’ve realised that and as far as industry is concerned, they like our music but don’t know where to place it. The gap between business and artistic sides has widened… The business side is a whole new world and I don’t do it, don’t want to know it even! Let’s hope that in the future all the movements would start in one man’s mind, as in the past. When things change maybe not many people love it but there will always be people who appreciate it…”
Tony Miracle (keys, gtr, computers as well as Kip Kubin whom we fail to see) walks in at that moment to steal her for another promo duty. He explains what ‘Venus Hum’ is, claiming that not even doctors know of it, an ailment that affects children; it is like kiddie’s tinnitus that eventually clears up, although it can remain into adulthood, informing us that he suffers from it.
“We are all so different, our influences are so different and that’s what makes us unique and I don’t care what any genre is and if I like it, I’ll take it in. It comes from growing up in a small town where we had one regular radio station, apart from a country one, and all great songs were played on it without much thought given to playlisting.”
Playing festivals, do you know how to behave towards your former idols and now fellow musos?
“No, I feel like a real dork; some months ago, at a festival, we met Johnny Marr and I had to tell him how much his work with The Smiths inspired me to pick up a guitar and he was so kind, so sweet and sincerely freaked by it… It was encouraging for me and I can appreciate people coming up to me and complimenting the music but I don’t need such validation. I know why I do what I do and I feel so strongly about it, it is a gift, and I’ve always had a vision of something and I feel that… Right people are hearing it, the people that is supposed to speak to is speaking to… But, that is completely out of my hands.”
“My heroine is Björk and I can’t imagine how I’m going to behave when I meet her. I’ll probably disgrace myself but that will not bother me much. I’ll write about it in my journal and I’ve kept them since I was little kid. It helps me write songs when the time comes. Artists always make something in their heads…”
Do you talk to yourself?
“All the time; doesn’t everybody? I’m my best conversational partner, never disagree!”
Mrs Strean is quite an extraordinary woman in the business where ‘sexing up’ is required to sell its product. Venus Hum simply have it and much more…
SashaS
9-4-2003
Venus Hum’s album ‘Big Beautiful Sky’ is available now on BMG
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