LENKA keeps life on the bright side

IT’S BEEN TWO years since we last heard Lenka’s unwaveringly cute voice. Now, at 37, the Australian pop singer is back with her fourth studio album, “The Bright Side”, inspired by motherhood and other joyful things in life.
Fusing pop with trip-hop, hip-hop and acoustic flair, “The Bright Side” opens with the feel-good single “Blue Skies” and then has you swaying from side to side with sweet acoustic pop tunes like “The Long Way Home” and “Unique”.
While a lot of female pop artists gear their lyrics towards female empowerment, fans can still rely on Lenka for refreshingly honest tunes that revolve around life’s simple joys.
On her latest trip to Bangkok earlier this week, the singer-songwriter gave fans a brief show at Emquartier, in an intimate setting for the tracks from the latest album and old chart-toppers like “The Show” and “Trouble is a Friend”.
We had a chat with the pop star prior to the show.

APART FROM PERFORMING, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS TIME IN BANGKOK?
I want to go shopping around Siam Square – I always find nice things there. Other than that, I’ll just laze around by the pool like any good tourist!

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO IN THE TWO YEARS SINCE “SHADOWS”?
I took a bit of a break, just being a mum. I did a bit of writing and recording, but I just wanted to have a break. I felt much more invigorated and re-energised when I got back into it and I think you can hear that on this album. It’s more energetic, more upbeat again.

WHAT MAKES YOUR LIFE SO UPBEAT?
I had a child. When he was a baby I made him a lullaby album and it felt like being in a cocoon, very nurtured and protected. Now he’s an energetic boy of three and a half. He’s very joyful and he loves to dance. That inspired me to make music like that.

HOW DOES BEING A MOTHER AFFECT YOU AS AN ARTIST?
You can’t be as self-indulgent. I can’t say, “I’m going to the studio and I’m not coming out all day.” All I can do usually is write a few lyrics or sing something into my phone and record it quickly. Then I’ll have to wait until I have time to focus on it. And touring is really hard – a terrible job for a mummy. He can’t come everywhere with me. He’s a nature boy, so he doesn’t like to be indoors too much anyway.

DOES HE KNOW HIS MUM’S A POP STAR?
He knows I’m a singer and he likes to sing “Blue Skies”. I think all children just think their life is normal. His dad is an illustrator of kids’ books, his mum’s a singer, and I think he sees it as very normal, as though everyone’s dad draws cool pictures and their mums sing songs to them.

ON THIS ALBUM YOU RECORDED WITH YOUR FATHER, JIRI KRIPAC – THE TRACK “MY LOVE”.
It’s been a long time coming, because he’s the one who taught me music. He’s a jazz trumpeter, a real jazz purist. His style is very different from mine, so we compromised with a song that’s soul/pop with some ’60s doo-wop.
The song is about unconditional love, and it’s very sweet to have words that came from him.

IS HE A FAN OF YOUR MUSIC?
He’s proud of me and he respects my success, but he doesn’t like pop music. As far as pop goes, I think he thinks I’m good, but he doesn’t like anything else!

WHAT MUSIC DID YOU GROW UP LISTENING TO?
A lot of jazz – Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday – and my mum likes the Beatles and ’60s pop. And, being a child of the ’80s and a teen of the ’90s, I was into girl power-pop like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. Then I started to get into Tori Amos and Fiona Apple.
I just remembered the other day that I loved Lenny Kravitz when I was a teenager. My friends and I were obsessed with him! I remembered because he’s having a comeback and just showed his dick to the world. If that had happened when I was 14, we would have absolutely died!
Then I discovered Bjork, and that was when I decided I wanted to do music.

YOU HAVE A VOICE SEEMINGLY MADE FOR POP.
My voice just sounds like a little kid’s voice – that’s just how it comes out!
I’m also inspired by things like fairytales. I’m interested in how things like traditional folktales affect child psychology. They’re so ingrained in our brain, the imagery of the evil stepmother, the fairies, the prince, that when those words come out of me it sounds almost like a kid’s song because I’m referencing those ideas. I don’t want to sing about being sexy in the club – that’s just not who I am.

IT’S NOT WHO BJORK IS, EITHER, AND SHE’S YOUR IDOL.
And this brings me to the subject of the intimacy that everybody demands of their idols nowadays. I would never expect Bjork to reply to a personal message from me online or take a selfie with me, because she’s from the era when there was no Internet. She just exists as a creative artist.
These days, though, that’s not enough. There’s so much demand placed on artists. The music is only about 50 per cent of the energy we put in our careers because the fans just want so much more.

ARE YOUR FANS DEMANDING?
They all want to meet me, touch me and take a selfie with me. That’s fine and I understand that, but I don’t want to be a guru – I just want to be a musician. It would be great if the music alone were enough.
I put all my love and energy into the songs.

HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN PEOPLE RECORD YOUR CONCERT ON THEIR PHONES?
It’s annoying – I’m not going to lie – but it’s just the way the world is now. I wish I could tell them to just experience the show, right now in the present. You probably won’t ever look at that video anyway, and if you do it’s probably going to look really shit and sound terrible. Maybe do half a song, just so you have a memento?
Filming just takes away from them being in the moment, and I want to share that moment with them. I’ve put in a lot of effort to get there, and they paid for the tickets, so why not enjoy the moment?