Interview: Sally Shapiro

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Somewhere Else

Sally Shapiro

2013 | Paper Bag Records / The Orchard

Sally Shapiro is genuinely happy to be a part-time diva. Having eschewed the trappings of a full-time music career (no late-night performances or tireless promo appearances, and all but a handful of interviews), what we know about her is largely derived from her three albums of unapologetically romantic Italo disco. While Shapiro will admit that she prefers not to sing anything she can’t identify with, the details of Shapiro’s personal life — and even her real name — are all but lost in the haze of producer Johan Agebjörn’s effervescent electro pop, acid house, and dance tunes. Just the way she likes it.

eMusic’s Laura Studarus caught up with Shapiro and Agebjörn, and the two joined her in a conversation about their new album Somewhere Else, the power of nostalgia, and the cinematic possibilities of their back catalog.

Being film fans, do you ever picture how your music might be used in movies?

Agebjörn: On “Sundown” on Somewhere Else, we tried to recreate the sound of a certain type of ’80s ballads, or maybe not exactly ballads, but some kind of slower 80s pop. With the saxophone solo at the end it sounds (especially on the vinyl version of the album) very much like something played in a cheap bar in the ’80s — for example, in the bars on the Viking Line ferries between Sweden and Finland. The lyrics are about having lost your love, so we imagine a scene in a movie taking place in the ’80s, where someone has just lost her/his love and is sitting in a bar, drinking in order to forget, while the live band is playing this song.

Shapiro: Our track “Casablanca Nights” [from Agebjörn's album with the same name] was originally inspired by the film Love Actually, and all the complicated love stories in there. The writing of the song started with the phrase “Since when did love get uncomplicated?” However, if we got to set one of our tracks to that movie, we would choose the last minutes of our first track, “I’ll Be By Your Side,” to the happy ending scene with people hugging each other.

Agebjörn: When we made “Swimming Through The Blue Lagoon” [from the album My Guilty Pleasure], we didn’t have the film The Blue Lagoon from 1980 in mind, but we had watched the film many years ago, so probably it was a subconscious influence. Our track would suit pretty well, we think, to the scenes where they are swimming in the lagoon, obviously.

With love as a running them throughout your music, do you consider yourselves to be romantics?

Shapiro: [Laughs.] Yes, I would really say so!

Agebjörn: Music is a good way to express that. Because I don’t think we are more romantic than everyday people in our ordinary, day-to-day actions. But inside, yeah.

What’s more fun for you, to create a tragic love song? Or one that’s a bit happier?

Shapiro: I think a tragic one is better. Or funnier, in a way. It feels more real, even though there are happy love stories also. But it feels more strong.

Agebjörn: Maybe you have a need to express it more.

Shapiro: Happy love, it feels like it should happen more with a different sound than [ours]. Happy love songs have to be good — at least if you’re going to bother to make a whole album of them.

Agebjörn: I think it can be some kind of therapy for yourself, to express melancholic feelings in the music.

Who brings most of these themes to the table?

Shapiro: I don’t really know who does the most. It feels like we both do. But I can’t really say. I think it’s quite equal.

Agebjörn: In the beginning it felt a bit more like my project than it does now. At least the first few songs.

Shapiro: Yes. I feel more a part of it now. Not that I didn’t have a chance to be more a part of it before, but it feels like I’m taking a bigger part in it.

Agebjörn: I don’t have to convince Sally as much as I did in the beginning. So that’s good.

Shapiro: No [laughs]. In the beginning it was more like my saying “yes” or “no” to the things that Johan wrote for me. But now I’m more in the process.

How important is it to you that your personality comes through in these songs?

Shapiro: It is important that it’s not a total other personality. There is more to both me and Johan’s personality than we express in the songs, but it’s important that it feels like us. Or at least one of us.

Agebjörn: I remember you weren’t too fond of “Space Woman From Mars.”

Shapiro: No. Exactly. Because that’s not something I can really identify with. But I can identify with most of the other songs. Therefore the lyrics are very important for me.

Do you see music as an escape from your day-to-day life? Or is it an expression of it?

Shapiro: A tough question!

Agebjörn: Maybe it’s an escape if you look at what you do. We both have other occupations.

Shapiro: But not in a feelings way. It makes feelings get stronger.

Agebjörn: You feel like you’re more of yourself. I didn’t realize when we first made Disco Romance, but when I thought about the songs, I was just thinking that, “OK, let’s do this the Italo disco way.” I didn’t realize until afterwards that there was a lot of my personality in it as well.

I think that that could be hard to escape, not putting your personality into a project, even when you’re working in a frame like Italo disco.

Shapiro: [Laughs.] Yeah. It would probably not be very good either. Maybe it depends on the artist.

Agebjörn: when I look back at the different types of music that I tried to create back in 2005 or 2006, the songs that were most successful were probably the songs where I expressed my personality. I also made French Filter House music, which was popular about 10 years ago. I tried to do some of that. When I listen to it today, it sounds pathetic, since I was just copying things. Where as Sally Shapiro and my own music, there’s more of myself in it.

Do you find that now you’re taking even more ownership of your music, Somewhere Else expresses who you are maybe more than Disco Romance did?

Shapiro: Maybe in some way, with some of the songs.

Agebjörn: On the other hand, “Find My Soul” from Disco Romance, it’s a song about having a boyfriend who doesn’t understand you, which was a theme in your life.

Shapiro: Yeah, yeah! That’s true. [Laughs.]

Is it easier for you to be vulnerable about things like a boyfriend that doesn’t understand you in song than, say, discussing them with a friend?

Shapiro: Absolutely. Yeah.

Agebjörn: That’s something we’ve talked about. Sally sometimes says if everyone knew her name and who she was, she wouldn’t be able to do this in the same intimate way.

Shapiro: Yeah. I don’t think so. I think that’s also important. You are more free in this way. Some of it can sound very intimate. And that’s a frightening feeling if you’re called out. But I think many people feel that but can’t express that, because it’s been expressed so many ways before. But doing it this way, it feels like you can do it, and not think about that all the time. In that way it’s better.

Was music a major part of both of your childhoods?

Agebjörn: Yes. I recorded stuff to tape when I was five or six years old. I still have some of those tapes. It’s fun to listen to them. I recorded myself singing and making sounds and things.

Shapiro: We both — like most people in Sweden, really — went to this music school in our spare time where we learned to play piano.

Agebjörn: My strongest musical memories are all from the time I was a teenager. It seems like that’s pretty common.

Shapiro: It’s also a period when you start to build up an identity. What kind of music you listen to becomes part of your identity.

Agebjörn: What’s funny with Sally Shapiro is that I didn’t listen to disco so much when I was in my late teenage years. I listened to disco when I was 12. Electronica was part of my later teenage period. Then I returned to my love from childhood.

It’s amazing how we do return to things we loved as children.

Shapiro: Yeah. It’s hard to say if we really do still like them.

Agebjörn: We are very nostalgic people, both me and Sally.

Is there a song or a band that reminds you of the first time you fell in love?

Agebjörn: I remember I was listening to an album by Erasure when I was in a period of unhappy love when I was 17 years old. It was the album I Say I Say I Say that contains the song “Always” [sings], “Always, always, do do do.”

In the past, your music has been called a “guilty pleasure.” What do you think would be the greatest compliment that someone could say about your music?

Agebjörn: Sometimes we get emails from people who tell us stories, personal stories about our music and how it has affected them. That’s the best thing that can happen in terms of feedback. Someone told us our music helped them start a relationship — that’s really fantastic.

Shapiro: It is fun when people feel that they can identify, that it expresses their feelings. I like that.