NME/2012/May/Interview

Interview
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﻿The Two Hottest.. 
STARS OF ELECTRONIC POP
"I"M DARK. I'M EXPERIMENTAL. I EMBRACE EVERYTHING"
Grimes is a fresh breed of icon, melding pulsing electronics into a new kind of pop that's as captivating as it is unpredictable. "It's like a big game," she explains
As we're nearing the end of our interview with Claire Boucher, camped out on gravelly Brighton Beach, a group of twentysomething hipsters head over. "Erm, sorry to be terribly rude, but are you Grimes?" someone with a buttoned-up-to-the-top paisley shirt and sock-less kufers marbles. "Do you Like Brighton?" a man dripping with jewellery blurts "What are you going to wear tonight?" his Ray-Ban-clad [?] pipes up.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Canada's newest electronic pop icon a woman. A woman so hot she makes even the coolest of the cool crumble before her.
A few hours later Claire's Great Escape gig will have queues stretching down the seafront, but for now she's explaining why Grimes is taking on traditional pop music. On stage, she fidells with wires and buttons like a production maestro, twisting her stunning debut album "Visions" into new digital shapes- but she dresses like a pop fashion icon while singing like Kyle. She's a completely new class of pop star.
NME: What do you think it is about Grimes and Visions' that has captured people's attention?
"A few years ago the way pop music was perched would not have been like this. Things come in waves. In the 80's it was totally fine to be in an advert and make pop music. Then the 90's was a response to that, where it was important to be authentic, and now aging back the other way people are just down with music that feels good. The thing that unifies pop music accros the board for me is the fact that it's very gratifying and elicits at response immediately. That's something that's often ewuated with being lowbrow because it seems easy and there's a weid opinion with a lot of people that music has to be difficult to be respectable.. "
Your music is quite complex though... 
"It's like, dark, experimental, forward-thinking pop. I want it to feel good but I want to go to places that pop music doesn't usually go. that's the difference."
Do you think your strand of pop music could ever cross fully into the mainstream? 
"There's the opinion that mainstream music is not forward-thinking but "Stupid Hoe by Nicki Minaj is basically [?] made. me it's really [?] and weird. There are Ciara singles from 10 years ago that have chopped up vocals and no-one thought about it, then Salem do it and it's like, 'Oh my god that's so original! It's Dj Screw coming back'. Well no, DJ Screw came back a decade ago and no-one paid attention because she's Ciara and she's hot so nobody sees what it really is." 
You seem to be trying to make an impact visually as well as through music. 
"It's like a big game. Once people are paying attention, you have the ability in manipulating hose they perceive you and respond to your music and you can be smart about it or you can be stupid about it. If you sit down and say, 'T'm really important. I'm really innovative', people are gonna start thinking that about you, that's the essence of Kanye West or Marilyn Manson. I'mn sitting here saying, 'My music is important and it's doing something different', Ciara doesn't say that, but she could and people would perceive her differently."
What do you mean when you talk about manipulating perceptions?
"I don't think I've achieved androgyny.. but I like to be more boyish. It can still be something that's alluring and attractive but you don't know why you're attracted to it and maybe it makes you uncomfortable. With making experimental pop music, it's the same. On one hand it's in 4/4 time so it's familiar enough that people understand and can dance to it, but then you throw in a bunch of [?], chopped-up vocals and weird stuff and people almost don't realise they're changing the way they think. That's how culture progresses, it's not something suddenly coming in that's totally radical, things slowly morphing and introducing people to things almost against their will."
Can Grimes have that impact?
"The idea for me is to be innovative and memorable, I would rather be respected and somehow written into the history books than sell a load of recordds right now and be forgotten. I don't want to fade into nothing. You read a history of punk but there were so many more punk bands than in that book; it's just that these were the ones that did something interesting. I want to be is that catalogue. I'd embrace anything: there's nothing that's too big".
Grimes' electronic pop heroes
Claire Boucher reveals her
inspirations, old and new
NINE INCH NAILS 
"Their production style is the perfect mix of everything good about industrial music, but in a way that's easy to digest. Nine Inch Nails is like industrial pop music. My next record is very much going to be in that vain".
GATEKEEPER 
"Gatekeeper are kind of really classy industrial music. It's really aggressive but it's also kind of gay. They're really ecstatic and probably the best live show I've seen in the past year."
NO LAY
"It's very grimey but she samples her voice the backing track and stuff. I'm not gonna [?]".
﻿
PIECES OF ME 
GRIMES
The new heroine of electro-pop reveals who she fell in love with when she was 11 and why she (reluctantly) went to see the Backstreet Boys
My first album
OUTKAST, 'STANKONIA'
"I really enjoyed Outkast as a kid, I don't know why. Obviously back then I wasn't like, 'Oh, the production's amazing' or anything; it's just that the whole record is totally solid. 'Bombs Over Baghdad' is pretty sweet; it's like a rap/drum'n'bass sound."
My first gig
BACKSTREET BOYS
"My stepdad bought me tickets. It was the first time I'd met him - it was like he was reaching out as a stepfather or whatever. I hated the Backstreet Boys but my mom made me go. In retrospect, I'm really glad I went; it was one of the only stadium concerts I've ever been to. I went with my friend. We were goths and she was like: 'You'd better not be enjoying this.""
My favourite lyrics
BIGGIE SMALLS, 'DEAD WRONG' 
"I really love the lyrics to that Biggie Smalls song (raps), Hail Mary, full of grace, smack the bitch in the face, take her Gucci bag and her North Face.... It's just really fun to say, I guess. Lyrics aren't that important for me. Obviously if they're homophobic or racist or anything then I'm not down, but really good lyrics can make a mediocre song good."
My favourite possession 
MY BEAR, TEDDY
"He's the only possession I have that I would actually be heartbroken if something happened to it. He's my first possession; I've had him since the day I was born. He's just a brown bear (laughs)! Maybe like 10 inches tall. My dad's friend-who was dying of cancer in hospital when I was born-gave it to me."
The book that changed me
JRR TOLKIEN, THE LORD OF THE RINGS
"My dad had been reading it to me when I was like four or five. I went to kindergarten and they were trying to get me to read and I was like, 'I don't wanna read anything except The Lord Of The Rings.' So I read the whole book with a magnifying glass and it took me three years to finish it."
My favourite film
ANTICHRIST
"It just really affected me. It took me three days to get back to normal, which in my opinion means it's a good film. As an actress Charlotte Gainsbourg is just so powerful and scary and cool. It was such an amazing performance. It went into some really dark places but in a very untraditional way. I came out of that film and couldn't deal with reality for a while."
My style icon
MARILYN MANSON
"He became a famous mainstream pop artist doing the most fucked-up scary performance art. It's kind of a miracle, actually. Respect to that. That's just never been the case with anyone else. I've been in love with him since I was about 11. The way he looks is iconic, but in a really scary way."
My favourite piece of art 
HIERONYMUS BOSCH, THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS 
"It's incredibly psychedelic and creative and totally stands out in its time. It could be made now and it would still be adored. I've spent hours looking at that painting, going through every single scene and it's just the most horrific thing I can possibly imagine. When I go to an art gallery I look at a painting for 10 seconds and then go on to the next one. But that painting just captures me."
https://grimes-claireboucher.tumblr.com/post/23947706409/grimes-on-nmehttps://grimes-claireboucher.tumblr.com/post/24209025615/iaintcool-grimes-in-nmeCategory:Interview
Category:2012