Dj Buddy Beaverhausen: Welcome, Nad, and thank you so much for this interview with Leave It to Beaverhausen. New York City and America want to learn more about you.
Nad Mika: Happy to be here!
We understand remixes from Sobel Nation are in the works for "Cassandra." Can you tell us a little about this song? How you came to record this?
"Cassandra" means a lot to me and is more like a project than just a song. All my songs have a different strong influence from unique directions. Here, I wanted to catch the '80s wave feeling and throw it into here-and-now electronic sounds. I like the melancholic base of this era and a part of me feels a lot at home there. I also always wanted to write a song about a person that is lost in a lot of different worlds like identity, gender, scenes and so on..... I met a lot of these personalities in my life. So I guess I was successful to melt all these ideas together. Plus I met the actor who plays Cassandra in my music video in Berlin one night and I knew he/she was the right one. So, for me to also direct a music video to this touching song was a big step in my creative legislating. I am very happy about this project, "Cassandra," which is for me the song and video pictures together as one.
You currently live in Berlin. Were you born and raised there?
No, I grew up in another part of Germany. I moved to Berlin three years ago and it was the right decision even when this city is hard and tough. But, after these years, I finally met the right people to realize my vision. I love Berlin for this.
What was your childhood like and what music influenced you growing up?
I grew up in a very small city and I met a lot of artists that also did. I guess that makes us all very unique because you have to fight for being different in any kind of way from the very start. My biggest influence is the punk and pop music of the '80s. I love everything about it.
On Discogs, they describe your music by saying: "What would happen if Lords of Acid, Grace Jones, KMFDM, and New Order collectively donated their DNA to create a new pop-punk-electro-trash German dance diva?" How would you personally describe your sound?
I could not describe it better. It is definitely a very wild mix of punk, trash, pop and dance.
"Cassandra" has a Lene Lovich touch to the vocals I thought. Is she an influence at all?
If she influenced me then I don't know it.
"On the Phone," "DiskoRomance," "San Francisco".... I love all your songs. What inspires your writing them?
Life inspires me, meeting people, crazy situations and different feelings that comes up with all this. "San Francisco" is actually [about] my dream to go to San Francisco and see naked girls in every disco. Of course, this is not reality, it is more like a dream. But without dreams and visions, we are nothing. A lot of my songs are meant to be understood with a big bunch of humor. I like to take fragments out of contexts and put them together in my own, sometimes absurd and trashy way.
Could you say something to your LGBT fan base and tell us how you identify yourself?
This is hard to tell. I am totally unique and am crossing a lot of borders. I am not a part of any scenes or groups so it is hard to put this into words. It makes me happy to have fans from any kind of direction and scene and everyone who is touched or sees something in my music is very welcome. About me personally: mostly I fall in love with women but I give myself the freedom to be what I want in any minute. So anything could happen actually, even when I discovered myself a lot in gender roles and I see myself apart from this. I made freedom and celebrate my male side as well as my female side.
You did a song with Pierre Pascual. How did you two link up? And what was it like to work with him?
Pierre is one of my dearest friends for over six or seven years now. We first met in Paris when I had a concert and, just before we got in touch without ever having met in person, we decided he comes on stage... and sings one of my songs with me. It was good fun. Since then, we are very close and have very similar souls.
What is the LGBT scene like in Berlin right now?
I like it a lot that Berlin is so mixed up. You can find whatever you wish in special places or parties. But you can also let yourself go and find a very queer open, mixed crowd everywhere, actually.
Winter Olympics in Russia. Any opinions?
Fuck them.
Nad, thank you again for our Q&A. Any last shout outs to your fans?
Thank you so much for supporting and liking my art. Dare to share my music. Fuck and love!
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