ROCKWiRED MAGAZiNE HiGHLiGHTS | MARTiKA TALKS TO ROCKWiRED ABOUT HER FORTHCOMiNG RELEASE 'MiRRORBALL'!!!

FEBRUARY 22, 2013
ROCKWiRED MAGAZiNE HiGHLiGHTS
ORiGiNALLY FEATURED iN THE DECEMBER 2012 iSSUE

MIRRORBALL is almost out there for people to get a listen to in full. How do you feel about the finished work?
I'm loving the MIRRORBALL. I love these great new beats and the electronic house-styled takes on some of my old catalog. There are also some new jams as well. I'm having a great time working on it and I'm loving how it's coming out. And who are you working with in terms of production this time around? I'm working with HAN ANDERS who we call HAN SOLO and also MD - MICHAEL DAEMON - whom you know as MICHAEL MOZART who I'm married to. He's got his hand in it as well. I can't do a project and not have him work on it because he's the most amazing musician. He and HAN have been in the studio working on these new takes on old MARTIKA hits and for the live set we've done a few shows already and it's going over amazing. Everybody is loving the new versions and the new songs as well so I'm very happy.

You've don the first few shows as part of the MIRRORBALL TOUR. How dos it feel getting on stage again as MARTIKA?
Amazing! Every show has been really different from the other. The first show we did was in Chicago. It was so happy. The fans were crying and hugging and singing along to every song and they just made me feel so much love and so welcomed. They were so happy that I was there. I was really excited. The show went off great. The second show was at a club called HUNTERS in a suburb of Chicago and that show was really nice as well. It was a different crowd. There were a lot of MARTIKA fans at both shows but at the second show I could tell that the people remembered me but weren't the die-hard TOY SOLDIERS army. It was nice to turn them on. I got to meet so many fans and they said so many sweet things to me. We just played the third set a a club in Cincinnati and once again it was just incredible. SKYY VODKA promoted that event so this was our first chance working with SKYY and they did a great job. Everything looked amazing and the people were really happy. we had great feedback from every show and I can't wait to spend all next year touring and playing this music for everyone.

When I last spoke with you seven years ago you were part of the duo OPPERA with MICHAEL. At the end of that interview, you guys said that you were going to release a new album every year. What happened?
Unfortunately it was something that had happened in our personal lives. One of our family members had taken very ill and she just passed this year. We took a year off to take care of her and that really stalled our whole momentum and flow with the OPPERA project. after a year we were exhausted and I didn't have the energy to go hit the road again so we got into another project at that time - something to keep us centrally located and not on the road. I miss OPPERA so much. I really do and I'm saddened that we didn't get to evolve that project in the way that we had intended. I'm still very proud of it and wished that we had been able to continue with it but after so many years my fan base from all over the world has always stayed in touch with me and would say things like "MARTIKA we miss you! We want to hear you sing TOY SOLDIERS and MORE THAN YOU KNOW and all of these songs that we grew up with!" We thought that t would be a good time to do a MARTIKA project and we've just been tackling it 100% head on since.

Also when I talked with you last you talked about being dismayed or maybe even disappointed in the stardom the first time around.

I think for me, I'm extremely flattered that my career was so successful. I just think that I was really young and wasn't ready. I didn't understand the implications of having such a successful mainstream career at the time and I think that it really freaked me out so I stepped away because of the fear of being overwhelmed with it all and there were other reasons as well. In hindsight it's a really good feeling now. I'm in a completely new space in my life. It feels really good now and I feel fortunate that I had such a big career so long ago and to have people still remember me. When you're a kid you don't want to see pictures of yourself because it feels embarrassing and it feels awkward it's the same with me for MARTIKA. It's been a long time and I've grown so much and have lived many lifetimes since then and it fells cool to be able to tap into my youth and share in that energy and it's very rejuvenating. I'm having a great time doing it and sharing that with the fans.

Talk about the inspiration behind MIRRORBALL.
The MIRRORBALL was originally set to be an album of all new material. In fact we were in the studio for many months working on these great new songs and at some point along the way I had the unfortunate experience of losing a very close family member who actually passed away while I was in the room. It had such a profound impact on me that I just couldn't go back into the studio and sing these extremely happy songs when I was so so sad. I needed to take a minute to regroup and everyone was like 'Come on! Let's get you back into the studio! Lets work on these live versions of your past material which will be a part of the MARTIKA live set!' So in the process of working on the live versions of my old songs I started to get my mojo back and I was falling in love with all of this so much and that is when the idea struck to make MIRRORBALL the new versions of old MARTIKA songs and add in a couple of new songs and all of this other material that we recorded for MIRRORBALL can be used for the follow up project. So that's the story of how MIRRORBALL started in one place and ended up in another direction.

How will the new versions of this old material be different?

They really dig deep into club dance music in a big way. I came up in the era when drum machines were first coming on the scene so I loved electronic music and my first album was heavily electronic. Even my second album MARTIKA'S KITCHEN was electronic even though there was a lot more live instrumentation on it. It really made a lot of sense to go more into those electronica sounds on this album and bring about a high energy show and put me into my strength market which is dance music. My first single MORE THAN YOU KNOW went to the top twenty on the dance charts. Dance music is my background so it made a lot of sense to take this project in that direction.

Will there also be more organic sounds on this new release as well?
Absolutely! We have guitar and bass and keyboards and some great organ parts. There is all kinds of great playing on this record along with our drum beats and samples so the whole thing is bubbling with life.

Talk about the songwriting process for the new material?
The first song is FLOW WITH THE GO and it started off with this concept on how to re-introduce MARTIKA to the world. I wanted to make sure that it stayed in tune with the energy of the entire project which is really high energy. It's a happy sexy sassy party song. I basically worked with the producers in terms of the story line and the persona some of the lyrical content and the vocal melodies and we evolved it . The hook was the first thing that we came up with and once we got that then we got into the verses which started as a rap to really get into the rhythm of the vocal and then did a melodic take on it. It was the same thing with SLOW MOTION. We started with the track and then went with the hook. After we had the chorus we worked on the verses and came back around and the chorus changed again. It's like we started in one place wrote the rest of the song and came back to the chorus and we flipped it.

From the time that you first set your eyes on stardom up until now, what has been the biggest surprise for you?
There have been a lot of surprises a long the way. It's just surprising that I'm still in show business and that I've made a life out of it. I'm very surprised that I've had such a huge break away form my career. I never saw that coming when I was a kid. I was working for a good solid decade since I was twelve before I felt burnt out in my twenties which is not good to feel burnt out when you are only twenty three years old but when you start working so young that is what happens. It surprised me that I would feel burnt out at that age because I never thought that I would and today I'm sill surprised that music is still with me. It's my passion and now it's stronger than ever. I amazes me that the music is still with me. Despite everything I'm still the same little girl that loves to sing and dance and that's kind of cool.

Once this album is out, what do you hope people come away with after they hear it?
I just want them to have fun. I remember when I was young and me and my girlfriend would go to clubs and it would take us hours to get dressed and put on our make up. You would've thought that we were going to some kind of Cinderella ball but actually we were going to the local dance club. We used to put on party music back in the day and then you drive to the venue and you keep the music going until you get to the club and it's all a part of setting the vibe for a really good time and that is what this new MARTIKA project is all about. It's an upbeat party record and with it, I want people to feel happy and hopefully they enjoy the melodies and the vocal harmonies. For fans of my voice I think they will be really happy I did all of my background vocals. In the past I worked with different singers but this time it's just me and I want to give them as many sides to my voice as possible on this project.

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