Interview to GAFFA (February 2007)

Found a 2007 interview from the Danish website GAFFA.dk

(Used Google translator, so I'm not sure if the translation is accurate)

By Nicolai Hartvig

Most of Denmark is closed down, and what should you spend your time on? Yes, one can, for example, read some of the slightly longer articles that GAFFA has brought in the past 36 years, and which can still withstand a revisit. We will bring some of them in the coming time under the heading "Gold from the caches". The article was previously published in GAFFA in February 2007

She broke through as England's new, young soul hope, but has also been called the female answer to Pete Doherty. Meet the unruly great talent Amy Winehouse.

The children at the music and art school cried. Amy Winehouse stormed out after an argument with her boyfriend and did not return to a TV recording where she had to inspire the next generation of English artists to achieve the same success as she, the singer and guitarist with the angular big-black-woman-in-small -white-jewish-girl-voice, has enjoyed since the debut album Frank three years ago made her England's great soul hope. Two weeks earlier, she had drunk a female fan.

Then Amy gave his girlfriend a slap in the face and a kick in a somewhat more sensitive area as he tried to calm her down. The tabloid newspapers have taken over and now write more about Amy than the critics and writers, who rightly fainted over her extremely passionate mix of smoky soul, jazz and swing with a few beats deservedly considered the bridge-builder between on one broad Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James and on the other Erykah Badu and Jill Scott.

When Amy Winehouse debuted, she said loud and clear that she did not want to be another contentless jazz-pop girl and the puppet of star managers, with image first and music as reflection. Now at least she does not look like one. The hair is set up large, but looks like a collapsed wedding cake with countless black knots. Dirty tall and probably once white basketball shoes, suffocating tight black pants. Sleeveless white undershirt that reveals large tattoos of girls in miniskirts and an anchor - and with Amy's jerky movements often shows more than this in bra-free breast level.

Three empty Fanta cans, a half-emptied yoghurt cup and a light smack covering the girl's "cut-half of the consonants-in-every-word-away" London dialect. An overuse of the words "know what I mean?" She has regained much of the lost body weight that a vintage gave her column space with Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie as "skinny celebrity." She can hardly sit still. The cell phone buzzes, and she smokes on the floor. "Naughty boy" she says with a few insidious growls as she reads the txt message.

It is clean surface, and much hides underneath. 23-year-old Amy's image as an indifferent girl may well be real, but it is also her shield. She has struggled with eating disorders, has stopped smoking fats and has accepted her alcohol consumption. She may seem bloody violent and skinny. But Amy is a girl who has suffered under many emotional wounds from failed relationships and a search for life content that can only be satisfied by leaving everything open, being sober and rap-jawed about everything and taking the knubs that belong to it.

From dark times to warm music

From the first round of guitar tones on Frank to the last stanza on her new album Back To Black , Amy Winehouse has been a heartbroken girl with bones in her nose and a somewhat unique talent for grabbing deep into life's dark moments and turning them into real, gripping warm music with a God-fearing voice.

- I'm happier as a human being now, says Amy, who has a new boyfriend. But even in the uplifting rhythms of sugary swinging American 60s girl groups, which she charmingly incorporates on Back To Black, hide heartbreaking tales and a unique bitterness.

- I was in a relationship that was so ... intense. First, I dug up old records and listened to The Angels sing My Boyfriend's Back . Later, I became completely obsessed with The Shangri-Las. They have a song called I Can Never Go Home Anymore ; it's the most depressing song ever. It's about a girl who runs away from home to be with a boy that her mother will not accept.

- When they arrive at where they want to go, she realizes that she does not love him and thinks: "Oh, what have I done?" But she still does not want to go home, and it ends up that her mother dies of grief. When my ex-boyfriend Blake and I stopped talking to each other, I sat on my kitchen floor every day with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and cried, with that song on repeat. My roommate came in every now and then, saw me on the floor and went straight out again. All I could say was "hello," Amy says with the snort and trembling assumed.

Emotions are needed

- I have to have strong emotions to be able to write songs. But it's not always about love. At Addicted , I sing about how my roommate's girlfriend smoked my hash. I was not in love with either my roommate or her boyfriend ... but I was very unhappy that he smoked my fat, says Amy with a wide smile. - I can not just say: "No, what a beautiful sunset, now I write a song." But I have written songs about being happy. Mr. Magic on the first record was about my love affair with hash, but it was just nice. It was not like I said, "I hate you, hash!" It was closer to "I love you ..."

However, Amy is not worried about reliving the dark moments. - I do not understand people who cut themselves, who smoke crack. I've never been like that, I've always just said "asshole!", And then I grab my guitar. Once your heart is broken, it can never be broken again. I still look up to Blake a lot and I will always love him, but he just does not have access to my head anymore. He will always have my heart ... everyone I love will always have a part of my heart, but no one can mess with my head again. I only think that one is allowed to be really in love once. No, that's wrong ... my current boyfriend wants to say "what ?!"

Nothing to hide

And what do you have to do when your boyfriend is a musician, needs to go through past heartaches to write his songs, which are usually not very friendly to past or present flames in their lyrics ... and in addition, one kicks in the balls every now and then?

- He's probably okay with that, because I'm pretty honest with him. Sometimes he asks, "Well, where have you been today?" "I've been out with Blake." And then he says, "Okay, don't talk to me the next hour, fuck you," and I just say "okay." I'm honest, but I believe in lying to protect people. But after a while, you simply do not bother anymore. I'm a good liar, but it's just getting too boring. I do not really like lies. It's not good for you, good for your little heart. It's not because lies constantly worry me.

- I'm the kind of liar where I believe it myself if I say so. "Do you still love him, honey?" "No, no, not at all," Amy says with big innocent eyes for the sake of the play. And acting is paradoxically part of the girl's disarming but slightly schizophrenic openness that has grown with the confidence she has gained by affirming her worth as a songwriter. Then people can think and gossip magazines write as they please.

- It does not worry me at all, says Amy. - Because I have not made a shit record, I have made a record that I am really proud of. So if people think I'm too thin or that I have a reputation as a girl who's drunk and shouts ... if it can make just one person say, 'She's damn crazy. Now I'm going out and buys her record, for she must at least be interesting ", well, then everything is just fine. I have nothing to hide.

Amy Winehouse + Pete Doherty

In line with her alcoholic excesses, Amy Winehouse has gained a reputation as the female Pete Doherty. Rumors have been swirling about a possible musical collaboration, but Amy recently said no thanks to Doherty's offer of a Billie Holiday cover, as she would rather write a joint, original number.

- What rumors? Amy asks almost frantically, prepared for the worst the gossip mill can commit. - My manager called last night and said: "Sådaaan! Congratulations! You've obviously got a new boyfriend. Pete Doherty." And my answer was, "Oh, my God," Amy says with hopelessness in her voice. - I would love to work with Pete Doherty, he's a huge talent, but he's just as absent-minded as I am. I do not have his number anymore, he does not have mine. We throw away our mobile phones once a week and then have to buy new ones. I should not be allowed to have a phone at all, and neither should he. Maybe we should not be allowed to be in the same recording studio either.

Amy Vs. Bono

Amy Winehouse asked with a shout U2's Bono to "shut up, I do not give a fuck", when he recently received an award from the British music magazine Q.

- They're about to give some kind of "best band in the world" award, and the award presenter says something along the lines of: "This band has always rocked, they've been there, they were there, they started it all, and they will one day end it all. " And I thought, "If they say U2 now, then I swear I'm fucking ..." And then of course they say U2. And everyone gets up and claps, and I think, "You guys are all damn idiots." Bono stands on the stage and speaks as if he is Gandhi. He came to me later that evening and said, "Hi, I'm Bono." As if I would think his name was Charlie. So I said, "Thank you for funding my two records!" We have the same record company. He did not know what to say to that.

https://gaffa.dk/art...-amy-winehouse