During her sold out Born This Way Ball in Asia this past May, VOGUE Magazine’s dream girl sat down with Jonathan Van Meter to discuss the simple things in life; like releasing game changing fragrances, angering protestors on a sold out world tour, releasing electronic music in a world where it’s seen as “low-brow” and where Adele rules the charts. Check out our five favorite VOGUE quotes below!
On the upcoming advertising campaign for FAME: “We thought, Let’s just make the most epic fragrance campaign of all time and let’s not care at all about whether they can even print it or show it on TV. Let’s just do everything we ever dreamed of. We basically did this purely for the pleasure of working together. We were just sort of sitting in the corner going, ‘I can’t believe they are letting us do this!’”
On the Jakarta controversy: ““Everyone’s telling me we may not be able to go, and that’s making me very upset. Because for me, that’s precisely why we need to go: because there are extremist groups there that are violent, and that’s where the message of Born This Way is most needed.It has nothing to do with the way that I dress or how I sound; it has everything to do with the power of the message and the mobilization of youth.”
On the Born This Way Ball: “It was intentional for this show to be more sophisticated and more elegant—a little cleaner. Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy. So we tried to make this more French Impressionistic and less like a child’s finger painting. “I really wanted to break the mold of what modern touring is right now. The most important thing to me was that there be no video screens. What if we just really simplified all of that so that you just have to watch me and the dancers the whole time?”
On why EDM is looked down upon in favor of more organic music: “Well, I think we both know that acoustic music isn’t better than electronic music. Electronic music requires a tremendous amount of technical expertise—really knowing the mathematics and beauty of music. At the risk of sounding like a snob, if you don’t really understand how to make electronic music, it might be much easier for you to write it off as low-brow.”
On the future: “I will continue to become whatever it is they [the fans] would like for me to be. I’m not the beginning anymore. I don’t really see myself anymore as the center. They’re the center. I’m the atmosphere around it.”
The September issue hits newsstands nationwide on August 21st. Stay tuned to VOGUE.com for the full article, and don’t forget check out the behind the scenes video of the shoot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott here.
