Nesrin Sen Interview, part 2

Nesrin Sen Interview
part 2/2
by Ingvar Loco Nordin at Sonoloco

Nesrin Sen: Back

Let’s get some chronology. When would you say that you began playing in a more ambitious, determined way?

I was about 15 or 16, in senior high. It was about that time I picked up my old, dusty guitar, which had lay there since the junior level. It had been too big for me to carry around, and my fingers too short, until then.
I also started a rock/pop group and commenced playing about then. I started taking my music more seriously at around the age of 15, 16. I began writing songs.

On my first CD – type Nesrin Sen, from 2002 – I have songs about rapists and hookers, and I sing the hooker song from a hooker’s point of view, and people think, huh, what’s she been up to!? I say, ok, misunderstand me and blame me, ok, but I’m just trying to express life! Good and bad sides of it. Everything!
I had worked ten years with the songs for my first album. It was an album I had really longed to get out there. I still stand for those songs. It was a dream of mine to release those songs on an album.

You said that you’d studied jazz. Are you utilizing any of those experiences in your songs?

Yes, I believe I do, both the classical studies and the jazz training, as well as rock and pop. I mix several styles. I don’t want to be associated with genres. I don’t want any borders, between countries or musical styles or whatever. I want to be able to experiment. You understand me? I want to mix and do things that many people can enjoy. In my own production company I don’t have to adhere to any particular genre or style or do ten tracks that all sound the same. I can have a blues song followed by a jazz tune and some rock songs and so forth.
I record with 14 or 15 musicians, so I can get opinions from others anyway. I work with qualified teachers/musicians and students from the Royal College of Music, for example, and they enjoy the cooperation

Ok, that was one of my questions. Where do you find your musicians?

Well, it started with my band when I was 16. There was a girl whom I’d just met, who had heard my first two songs. I’d played them live to her. This is a fun story. A week went by, and then she called me on the phone:

“Hey, Nesrin, I’ve bought an electric guitar and an amplifier. We’re gonna start a rock band! All we have to do is find a rehearsal space.”

From there we started. Later on I met a guy who also joined the band, and we went to the same music school. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and he brought me to the College, because he wanted me to record a song we’d done together, and I met a lot of talented musicians. I invited the musicians to the recording sessions for my first album, which we recorded at Studiefrämjandet [one of many organizations that provide all kinds of education, courses and facilities, for a fee]. The second album was recorded at Studiefrämjandet too.
In other cases I’ve just phoned musicians, presented myself and my plight and asked them to play with me! This means I’ve learned this sell-myself-technique along the way!

All these musicians on your CDs, do they get paid?

They do get some payment, yes, because that feels better. They are students, and they regard the recording sessions as a good experience, which they can benefit from. They don’t care all that much about money in this context. Rather, they’re grateful for the opportunity. It’s mutually beneficial.

Who’s done the arrangements on Plenty Coloured Bird? Is it you?

I’ve played guitar live and done the vocals, and then I’ve instructed the musicians how I want them to sound, like “here I want the drums to kick in”, “and here the bass”, and “if you attack like that” and so forth.

In the beginning of the first track there is a wooshing sound coming in from the right; what’s that?

I thought it sounded a bit empty at that spot, and wanted to have something to make a build-up, to make things hit it off, so I do things that way, and besides, you can fix things in the studio afterwards too. Sometimes I feel that something is missing, and I might call in a percussionist to add a tingle here and a tambourine there, so that’s how I arrange, but the strings and the wind section are arranged by Daniel Möller, my first boyfriend, who played in my rock group to begin with. Daniel does very good arrangements. He understands how I want it. We work together: I explain to him how I want it to sound, and he arranges the music thus.

But you also talk about – in the CD leaflet or on your homepage – that you aim for a live sound, and to me it sounds very much live too, with instant energy and a strong presence.

Yeah, I’ve done my part in one take, guitar and vocals. It was a great challenge, to become a good guitarist and singer – and people that showed up at concerts remarked that the music was so good live… so I decided to go along with that then.

Nesrin Sen: Thirty-Three

How did you settle for the title of this new album; Plenty Coloured Bird?

I thought it felt fitting. I’m a visual artist, I paint in all different kinds of colors, the music is a mixture, and I also made a colorful design for the cover. You know, on the CD itself, the yellow: that’s the sun, and in the middle, the logo woman holds the moon. I worked hard with the pictures too, because they had the wrong proportions. I even painted those pictures in the post-production of the cover art.

Are you able to tell me some about your compositional process; how music and text emerge and manifest themselves in songs?

Oftentimes I start to paint; a wordless expression. My emotions flow out in colors. Maybe a day later I reach for the guitar, pronounce some words and begin to play some, so as a melody emerges out of this, the text sort of formulates itself. It is a strange occurrence, probably very much originating in the subconscious, formulating itself from everything that is experienced.
I also try to turn the negative into creativity! A song appears. I may take years for certain songs to deliver themselves. I let the process take its time, and finally I understand what the song really deals with!

I have the impression of your music that it comes across in a flow, a continuous creative flow.

A song – I’ve realized – isn’t measured by how perfect you sing, but by how sensitively you sing; how you can convey what you say. I want to touch people. That is what’s important.
Even though some people tell me I may sound like Nico of the Velvet Underground, I try not to sound like someone else!

I’m interested in your paintings, drawings and sculptures too. Have you been active in these fields long?

I’ve been at it in the arts and music as long as I can recall. My father found cassettes that I recorded in 4th grade, in English, with my own tunes. I didn’t remember this, and it was quiet a revelation to hear them, that I was doing this so early in my life. The melodies weren’t simple either! I’ve painted too. It just feels completely natural to me. In the visual arts I work with all kinds of means: crayons, acrylic, oil, water colors… I don’t need genres when painting either. I’ve studies art and music, all kinds, and I do not need confines or borders.
I devote pretty much time to painting etcetera. I’m not that old, but I have sixty artworks – that I stand for - to my credit - and many more that I don’t consider good enough. I will continue always with painting.
I sculpture various kinds of objects. Most of the time I work with different materials that I combine, like, for instance wood, metal, steel wire, glass beads. I don’t work with ceramics right now, because I don’t have access to any kiln. That’s pretty time consuming too. I did that mostly in senior high.

Lots of folks want to buy my paintings; they keep nagging! I can’t sell them. Well, I did sell a sculpture, which appeared at the Liljevalchs art gallery when I was 16. However, it doesn’t feel good to get rid of my art this way. Maybe one day soon I’ll get over this aversion and start selling my stuff, since people always ask me, after exhibitions, for example. I only do originals, I mean, I don’t do series of very similar paintings or art objects. These objects become too much a part of my life, my history. My art becomes so personal. Yet, perhaps one day… Music is different. I can have CDs printed, however many, and sell.

Once someone wanted to buy one of my paintings, and I kept raising the price, until the person finally realized that it didn’t have anything to do with the money, but that I couldn’t make myself sell it and part from it. I have to get an art broker to do it for me! Haha!

I read a lot too. Some people tell me my songs are like short stories or like films, visual.

Do you have any specific plans for the near future?

Yes, to market this CD, and then to continue writing material for the next CD. In fact, as of right now, I’m out of new songs!

Do you experience an emptiness when you’ve finished a recording project and committed the songs to a CD?

Maybe… The hard thing is to share the songs… I’ve done it all myself… or practically all. Of course it’s very personal. I feel some hesitance at delivering the songs for everyone and whomever to hear.

I understand, but as the poet Gunnar Ekelöf says: “What’s deepest in you is deepest also in others”, meaning that when you’re very honest, expressing the innermost, people will recognize this; it will be familiar to them – because deep inside we are the same. If you speak the truth to yourself, it will be felt, understood, recognized. Deep artistic impression is a kind of recognition.

One of the reasons that I chose this interpreter job is that it’s creative. I can work independently with it too. I’m my own boss, as I am in my company. I can work when I want, or refrain from it when I want to go into the studio. I can’t have a steady job. I will probably take a test to become an official, authorized interpreter. That will greatly enhance my work opportunities.
This job works fine, but it can be hard; you never know what will happen, in what kind of situation you’ll find yourself. It’s no use planning. Better take it as it comes.
Then after an interpretation I walk away with a big load; a sensitive person like me. Having to deal with what I just heard, what I just said, interpreted. It has become a great challenge for me to learn how to shield off and divide my professional life and my life. Many good songs are going to come out of this, though, haha!

At this point Nesrin and I touch briefly on Tibetan Buddhism and methods to deal with the mystery and hardships of our lives, and how any kind at all of spiritual activity will lead ahead, she says:

As long as you’re decent to other beings, it’s alright. That is the ground rule.

And we go on talking about helping toads across roads and beetles out of cold basements and things like that; also being sure about watering our plants so they do not suffer and so on. You should always help beings out of bad situations right where you are, in this very moment. It makes you feel better too.

However, when people are mean and stand in the way, you can always write a song about it! Haha! If everybody treated each other with respect everything would be so much easier. With love it’d be even better!

Nesrin, what kind of people go to your concerts?

All kinds, young and old – and I enjoy that! It’s music! I’m just trying to make good music. I don’t want to belong to any one genre that attracts just a certain group of people. Recording companies decide a lot of this. They think in terms of target groups and target audiences. As a contrast to all of that I feel I make a contribution towards diversity.

How do you live? Do you have a family, kids?

No, I don’t have kids. As a matter of fact, I’m presently living with my mother. She’s gone much of the time, though. She commutes – almost – between Sweden and Turkey. I go there too. Sometimes she’s in Turkey and I here, and vice versa. My mom’s in Turkey three, four, five, six months a year. We don’t get tired of each other! No use having unnecessary expenses, and we get along very well too. She’s a wonderful mom! She supports me in what I’m doing. I have many people to thank, especially those to whom I dedicated the CD, for example my God Grandma. She was a fantastic woman, who has passed away. She also supported me in what I wanted to do. She believed in me. There are wonderful people. Everybody needs everybody.

I have lived away from home since I was 17, though. I’ve just lived with my Mom for a couple of years now. I’m not a domestic, homey kind of person! Haha! As of now, it feels ok, though.
It’s hard to get an apartment. I’ve lived second-hand, third-hand. I got weary of that, and felt it had to come to an end. Not knowing when you have to evacuate the place where you’re living isn’t healthy. You know, not knowing where to go. It feels so good right now, not to have to think about that. I’ve been standing in line for an apartment for so long that I should be able to get a flat of my own, but I feel so comfortable with how things are, haha! We share household work, making food and so on.

What language do you speak at home?

Turkish, mostly, especially now when I’m becoming an interpreter and want to be an authorized one. It’s good practice. I’ve never lived in Turkey. In just a year of intense studying I’ve learned how to speak and write Turkish fluently. It’s about deciding on something; that you really want to do it. It’s not so easy. It has to do with law proceedings in courts and so forth.

In my own, personal, artistic life, I feel I have to enhance and better my way of connecting with people, establish relationships, contacts. You know, I do so much. First it’s the song writing, then it’s studio work, being a producer, and then I play and sing, and I feel like I have ten personalities. I have to shut one door to open another, though. Now it’s a new Nesrin, doing marketing!

Yep, you reminded me, and here I am, and now we’ve done this Nesrin Sen interview!

Nesrin Sen: Fifty-Two

To Part 1 of the interview!

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