Your headphones are there, volume down the side.
Once you get comfortable and you're good to go, I've got a very serious question for you.
How are you?
I am doing super great.
Welcome back to Los Angeles.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
There's so much to talk about.
I'm so excited to be able to have this conversation on the record.
Oh my God, me too.
What brings you to Los Angeles at this moment in time?
For the people that don't know, why are you here?
Why have you chosen to come here right now?
I mean, basically to see you.
Get out of here.
Which is a good reason to do it, reason to be here.
I appreciate it.
What's been going on?
Tell us about your life.
Tell us about creativity.
Tell us about the last of six to 12 months of your life.
And we can begin there and then we can just follow the thread and go over as it started yet.
We're going, we're on.
Wow, really?
We're on.
Okay, so I was like, I think this is just a little chat.
No, no, no, we're going.
Okay, let's do it.
We're going.
So what have I been doing for the last six months, you said?
Yeah, yeah, six or 12 months.
I finally released a new song.
Which we love.
Thank you.
Which is called What You Want.
It's hard to start.
It's a song I've made with Justice, the incredible French electronic band.
As you gave away in the cover art as well, in a very brilliant way, in an exciting way, exactly.
Thank you um, so the song is out.
It's been maybe a month yeah, and it has been years since i haven't put anything mine out.
So i was super excited to finally share some new music, and i've been working on that one for quite a long time i would say about a year.
So this is the beginning of a new chapter of my music life.
It's a new point.
I mean, you've achieved so much.
I mean, it's probably been as unexpected to you as anybody else, given the success that's happened, given where you started in your life and probably what you thought you were going to do versus what it's become.
So I'm not surprised if I could take a look at it from a distance and just observe why you would take some time to assess and figure out what this actually means to you.
Is that why you've taken your time to just kind of pause and say you know, who do I really want to be as a musician or artist, a creative human being, versus what I've become?
Yeah, exactly.
It's just always a little like when you're touring and you do a lot of stuff and you're always busy.
It's incredible, it's a fast life, it's fun.
But it's never really the good time to make some new music, at least not for me.
And I just figured out that I needed time to know where I wanted to go musically.
And, for example, to find this I want to say, like boldness to do a song with Justice.
It required a lot of time for me to feel like I could do it.
I've always been a fan of Justice.
I've always been a fan of the French touch.
And I think time- They've got a French hammer.
I mean, there's French touch and then there's justice.
And it's more like a-
French breeze block.
Well, but to be honest, I never thought it would be possible.
And I just went to see them on a show.
With your mom?
With my mom, that's true.
Because can we just establish for the entire world that's listening?
You have a pretty dialed in mom and dad.
I mean, you come from, and brother, you come from a great background.
Yeah, absolutely.
With pleasure.
My mom asked me, she was like, just as he's playing in Brussels, can we go together?
And I was like okay, let's go.
Yeah, so we've been to see, and with one of my best friend, which was fun because we literally grew up listening to justice yeah, yeah.
And after the show i went to say hi, and then xavier was asking a lot of questions about what i was doing And then I was like would you like to come to the studio?
And I don't know how I found the strength to do that.
And they said, sure.
And they came to the studio like two weeks after.
You asked them just right there backstage.
Like, you want to roll?
Come on.
The band that says no to everybody.
I know.
Which is maybe why I asked.
Because I was like, I have nothing to lose.
Yeah, it's a long list.
Put my name on it.
And they were like, sure.
Wow, now you're on a very short list.
I mean, I know, I know.
I still can't believe it, to be honest.
I feel super happy and excited about that.
So when you decided to go into the studio and hang out with them, what was the reality versus the fantasy?
The idea of asking that question.
You're thinking gosh, you know this could go anywhere.
And then you get in there.
Just real talk, what was it like creating with the two guys?
It was super fun because first, they're super human and easy and making music.
Ultimately, it's just about doing something super fun and something with passion.
And if you don't have fun in the studio, You just, you can hear it.
So at first it was like a very fun human experience.
They came to a studio that I worked to this time was in Paris, and they just came by and I was with my dog and Tristan, my guy who like, would make music, was And it was just the four of us, five of us with my dog, just hanging out and talking, and they listened to a lot of demos that I had.
And then in the end, I was like, I have this song, I'm going to send it to you.
And I don't really know what to do with the production.
And I'm a little stuck in here.
And what was the format, can I ask, of the song at that moment before Justice got involved?
It was pretty much the same chords.
The production was very like...
It was not that like the little triplets.
It was more like just a little arpeggio that I love the the texture of it.
It was like very like, like super filter like unfiltered.
And I wanted something a little.
You gave them kind of breadcrumbs.
You know you were like this is unfinished, but this is the vibe, and I think they heard what I was doing at that time in the studio and I think they were like okay she's, she's down to go into more, like dirty that.
And i think the lyrics also made them like smile and they're like this is fun, it's kind of like cheeky.
They love their english and french uh blend together and i think they just, you know, came back like two months later with that song and i just jumped.
I was sitting in the car and i was like It's got such an amazing sense of dystopian freedom, this song.
I love that.
I love the emergency and the drama in it.
It's got emergency to it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Can I ask you, when it started to come together and you realized this was really special, how did it feel?
How did it make you feel versus what you'd made before?
If this song was, by design, supposed to open up a whole new world for you and to create a new pathway, new freedom, how did it feel when you realized you were achieving that?
Well, I have a video.
I should show it to you later.
It's literally when I listen to it, because I had a feeling, because I'm such a big fan of their music.
I had a feeling it could be really good.
So I filmed myself and I literally like jumped like out of excitement.
And I'm usually like again, like making music is a fun like process, but it's also stressful and whenever you give something you've been working on to some somebody else oh, it's a risk.
It's a risk and this time it was just like perfect and everything i i could ever.
I mean, i didn't even dare to dream about it, But it felt very exciting because I knew that they understood exactly where I wanted to go.
And it was, in my opinion, a very good blend of my vocals and they understood how to like really give them the space they need and I love to have like a very like airy vocal that's not pushing too hard with a lot of reverb, and they kept that and also the production was really working with it somehow.
It's incredible because I think I may have said something to this effect when we listened to it in Paris for the first time that even though vocally for you, you've found a way to immerse yourself in the music, you're not out front like you have been on certain other songs, leading with performance.
I feel like you still have the dominant effect over the song.
Like the music that Justice have created is just very Justice.
The drums pound.
Exactly.
Everything is pushed up front.
The compression is just right where it needs to be.
But in the softest way, you're dominating the song.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that French speaking music it's always like the vocal is always very much in front, up front in the front.
And because you need to listen, like to hear the lyrics, and there's so much, like you know, And all of this needs to be heard.
So it's kind of hard to make the vocal sound understandable.
So it was important for me to get the vocal really upfront, but also to not make the song less bouncy.
You versus Justice, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so yeah, it felt super exciting because I was like I'm glad that I had so much time to really figure out that this is the music I'm doing now.
And it makes sense with what I've done before.
It doesn't feel like a huge departure in many respects.
I feel like there's been steps towards this.
Absolutely.
And it's also the very organic way to move on and to make new music.
I'm so proud of what I've done in the past, but I'm also very excited for what's to come.
Very tasteful.
You've had a really tasteful pop music career.
But pop is very nature probably the most malleable of experiences for a music listener because it's got real magpie effect.
It's a real magpie effect.
It's like, oh, that's cool.
I can make that pop.
And really clever, really smart talented, tasteful people can make some of the most kind of edgy, really sort of dangerous sounding music, popular.
They can bring it and force us into a room.
That's very true.
It's also super important to understand that the audience and the people, they're ready.
They give people credit.
Exactly.
They really are ready, and especially now in an era where all of the music it's blending together.
There's like playlist of everything together and we can really give them the, we can be confident and we can.
We shouldn't like underestimate the people and if they've been loving like very like easy pop song, which I love, because I've done that my whole life, i love a very easy, very like comfortable, i would even say like colorful pop song, but i also love a darkness and i've been super happy to see that my my french-speaking audience belgium, The French audience, which is the core audience that I have so far, they replied very well.
I was a little scared, but I was also excited.
That's the point, isn't it?
To be a little scared.
That's why you took your time and did it.
The video really helps as well.
It's beautiful.
The choreography, the casting, the feeling of it, the filter.
It was shot on iPhone.
Let's get that out in the open.
But we're not here to try to continue to promote Apple products.
But we're very proud to have played a part in that experience.
Not your first experience working with iPhone.
You've been in iPhone in a video before as well, which was hilarious when you actually played an iPhone as an iPhone.
Oh, my God, yes.
I was like, what?
Yes, it's true.
I did that.
I played an iPhone.
That's the thing you forgot.
You're like, wait, what?
Oh, yeah, it was a life-size iPhone.
I completely forgot about that.
That just happens all the time.
I did that.
Yeah, I always had this relationship with social media, because I started making music on the social media, doing little covers, and I got a lot of people following me, at first through the social media, even before anything else happened.
And then it's a super important part of my career.
But it's also, of course, as everyone else, you can get attached to the phone a little too much.
And so I impersonated a phone a few years ago.
To great effect, by the way.
To see what it feels like.
I don't think I've ever seen anybody play a life-size iPhone with the same convincing believability as you, Anja.
The social media thing is really interesting because it's changed shape, in particular in recent years.
There was a time when it was very available to artists like yourselves, and if you did great music or did great content, then an audience was available to you.
And it was in everyone's interest to make the connection, build a following, and that's where the stickiness is.
I think it's become very challenging for people, even with an existing following, to find their actual audience anymore, because the algorithm's changed.
It's all so confusing.
Do you think and I was talking to Li Ke Li about this as well that artists nowadays, including yourself, have to rethink how to use the internet, that it's not the only tool because it's becoming confusing space, I think to reach each other?
Do you know what I mean?
It is.
I have no answer to that, because I'm also myself a little confused.
The only answer i got so far is i think if you make great music, or at least music that you're proud of and that you found great, the one thing that is for sure changing, in my opinion, is how much live is again such an important part of it, because i started in 2017 18, and i started like touring.
When I was starting my career, I was already performing and testing the song with audience.
Every time I was like oh, I made this song.
What do you guys think?
Probably before you even felt ready Oh, I wasn't ready.
That's for sure.
But now I see that after COVID it was really hard because the live was not happening, of course, for a while.
And I feel like now it came back and people are like looking forward to see their artists on a show and that's super exciting.
And I feel like it's also good that not every show translate well on the social media, or not as much.
I've seen Rosalia show in Paris two weeks ago.
And I've seen some images and it was incredible.
But when you see it in real life, it's like absolutely incredible.
It's incredible.
She's beyond.
Yeah, she's definitely doing her thing better than anybody could do her thing.
It's like it's unbelievable what she's pulling off right now.
Yeah, it's true.
I went and saw Bruce Springsteen last night at the other end of the spectrum.
And I filmed something to show my kids.
And I was like, oh, man, this doesn't translate at all.
It was such an amazing experience.
And my phone just could not handle it.
Your beginnings, not to go over it all, but are super interesting because I feel like people knew you had it in you before you even did.
I feel like there is this sense of people gently urging you or nudging you, or giving you the confidence to explore this.
Looking back on your life now with a bit of perspective, does that feel true to you?
You mean that I had a lot of support?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Even though you probably knew you wanted to do this, that you may have required that support to just nudge you in that direction.
It feels like I mean in the very beginning, the way I remember it, because it starts to be a little blurry, because it's almost 10 years ago.
Tell me about it.
It felt like I really did not know what I was doing.
I was genuinely confused all the time because I was like, what's going on?
Do I have all of this stress and pressure and happiness at the same time?
I don't know what to do with it.
Based on the success that you achieved very quickly.
Yes, and it was super quick.
And it happened in the social media, but also on the radio.
And I did not know how much the French radio would help.
And I was... you know, Brussels is a small city, but it's already a big place for music.
And I was just understanding how much it was real.
But also I was myself like uploading the videos on my YouTube channel because I, I was independent.
So it was a lot of things and I felt like a little unprepared.
Yeah, you were independent during that time, which is insane.
It caught on so fast.
I feel like records are getting broken left, right, and center.
Everyone was talking about it.
We were hearing it out here.
We were like oh, this artist Angel is doing huge numbers in France and in parts of Europe and this is a really big thing.
And I was like, okay, this is great.
But I didn't realize at the time because I didn't know you and I wasn't as deep into the conversation with you that you were dealing with this kind of in a very sort of, like you say, independent way.
Yeah, I mean, of course, I had an incredible team.
But when we started, we were literally my two managers and me.
And of course you know, by the time more and more people got involved and we got to construct a team, but we had to do it when it was happening.
And my first tour was chaotic and beautiful chaotic.
I wasn't ready at all.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
When did it start to feel comfortable for you?
When did you start to realize you know what i actually think i can make this work for me and not in the way everybody else works?
Well, when i started therapy, i think it definitely helped because i was like that's the one, that's the one thing i the one thing that worked for me so far.
Yes, I started therapy during COVID and it was a very good time to reflect on everything that has happened for the last four years.
And since then I've found a way to feel more confident and to understand that I need to be well surrounded.
I still have the same team since the beginning.
My manager used to be my nanny somehow, so we're very family style.
I stayed very like grounded, very like close from Belgium.
I never left Belgium, which also helped because it Paris is such an incredible city.
I've spent a lot of time there, but I think The fact of staying in my country really helped me stay grounded.
That's a very Belgian thing as well, not to try to create a generalization of the Belgian creative experience, but a lot of my friends, or any of my friends who are from Belgium, do not leave Belgium.
Yes.
That's true.
So what do you think that is, apart from it being, to your point, somewhat of a safe environment, a close community?
What is it about Belgium that inspires the creative spirit and ultimately wants you to keep creating there?
I think it's a very interesting balance between, as you said, smaller community.
We're very close from France.
It's like an hour and a half by train, so it's super easy to get there.
But there's not the same concurrency.
So when you're a Belgian artist, if you go to France, it's incredible.
You won, basically.
As a Belgian artist, if you have a French audience, it's like, bingo, this is it.
But if you have a Belgian career, it's already a big thing.
It's already its own important thing.
So I feel like- So Belgium nurtures its own superstars.
It does support- I feel like, yeah.
I feel like there's this thing where, like Belgium would say, we need to like go in Paris means like work with a lot of like French infrastructures and the industry is maybe more like powerful in France because it's bigger.
But it's also incredible to have your world.
And I mean I cannot speak about Belgian pop music without speaking about Stromae, which is a good example of someone who stayed in Belgium.
And he's massive in the entire world.
But I think the fact that he can live a normal life, he can make his music.
He fought for that.
Absolutely.
I was exactly thinking that this song is such an important song for me.
I really remember where I was and what mindset I was when I wrote it and listen to it with you here in LA, in California, which is so far away from Belgium, I feel like so.
It's nice.
What was going on?
Where do you go when you hear it?
What was going on in your life at that moment?
I was making my first record called Brol, which means disorder.
And it's a Belgian slang.
And I was working on that.
I was in Brussels in a tiny apartment and I had a nice little view.
I wrote that song because I wanted to like write.
No, I did not want to write a feminist anthem.
I did not even know what i was doing, but i had something to say about about it, apparently and i started writing this song and it took me a while to really find the right tone, because i wanted to have a lot of humor and it was a little bit of a joke, but it was a way to to be like I feel like something is off in the way women are being treated in this world.
And I was like freshly 20 years old, very like unaware of the actual feminism.
But I had this thing that was telling me that something was off and it was pre-MeToo.
And then Me Too happened and it's called a different way.
In French we say balance ton porc, and so balance ton quoi is like a way to use this Me Too, but like make it my own, and of course, I did not expect this song to to be huge and to also give me a certain responsibility.
Yeah, I was going to ask you about the balance between trusting your inner voice and releasing something that speaks to you personally but then ultimately speaks to so many people, becomes kind of anthemic to people yeah, and how you kind of then sort of stay connected to the music and the origin of it versus what it means to people, which is important too.
That i don't really know.
I never, i mean, by the time i did not expect it.
So it was, it was a sudden, you know.
Of course it was a responsibility.
It was also just amazing to understand that that song was really connecting to a lot of people and to a subject, into a more like political subject.
I think it was just also like a kind of in the moment, because then me too really kind of exploded and became such a real thing when that song also became a thing, and so I was myself so surprised but also so much understanding the importance of it.
And when we had to do the video, we really took a long time to make it.
I did it with Charlotte Abrahamov.
She's also Belgian and she's an amazing photographer and we've been working a lot together.
And when we wrote that video, it was super important to be right.
And, of course, if I had to do it today, I would change it, because it's been years now and you always want to get better.
And feminism is such a like.
It's wide and the subject is so wide and there's so many things to say about it.
But I'm very glad and I'm proud of my young 21, 22 year old self.
That was just kind of not really knowing what she was doing but really speaking with the instinct and what was in my guts.
You obviously have a really powerful, thank you for answering that.
You obviously have a very distinct inner voice, a voice that, when it chooses to present itself, it's like all right, I'm listening.
I understand.
I think I understand where I need to go right now.
Has it always been the case?
Would your parents say that you will always?
You would always listen to yourself and trust your instincts?
As a kid it's fun.
I don't really know as a kid that's a question for my therapy but i would say for sure it's something that i've been following since the beginning of that crazy life which is being a musician.
When we started, that was the only thing that I was following, because nothing else made sense.
And it was just, I want to do this, I want to do that.
This feels off, this feels weird.
So it was just following a little path that I was making my own little way through my instinct.
And then I can tell when things got weird for me and when I became famous also, and that part of it was also weird to just deal with.
When I stopped listening to my instincts, that's when things got weird in my life.
So I think my instinct is the one thing that I always come back to for sure.
And it's not always easy to know exactly if you're right.
But I would say, even if you're wrong, at least you followed something that you know that you're going to learn with it.
That's where the learning is.
Yeah, when you try to do something for the wrong reason, like i should do this yeah, and it's no matter in what perspective.
If it's like production-wise lyric or like just like the strategy, or like where should i go?
Like should i do this?
Should i, should i answer this question?
What should i say?
And sometimes just like reconnecting to your inner little voice.
And in my life, it has always worked pretty much.
Trust your spirit.
You know, you just talked about making music.
You're a producer.
You write all your own songs.
I mean, you're very self-contained in that regard, which I'm sure for people like Justice, really makes it for even more fun experience, because it's like, oh cool, we're dealing with a peer here.
It's not someone who's asking us to paint a picture for them.
Yeah, I mean probably it was also fun because when we met after we did the song, I mean they did the first version and they sent it to me and then we met actually in New York and It was fun because they started working on Ableton not a long time ago, which is the one program I've always worked.
And so I knew what they were doing.
And so it was also fun because it was kind of this I don't know how to say like mysterious thing when you listen to.
Justice is so much like rich.
And then you see the stems and I was like, Oh, You got the inside track.
Well, I mean, no secret.
I think they do listen to their instinct too.
They have incredible ears and I love that they love a good song.
They love the like harmonic and melodic aspect.
They're very technical and they're i mean, they know, joe.
They learn a lot from Daft Punk, who obviously made their first couple of albums.
Famously.
Famously made their first couple of albums, Daft Punk, in charge of all of the music.
But then, as they established, the problem is that they made a better album than they made for themselves.
That's exactly right.
It's like the best thing on the internet.
That's what happens.
We joked about that last time.
Apologies for my bad French accent.
So producer, songwriter, artist, performer at the highest level.
The choreography in the new video is so great.
We have to talk about La Horde.
They're incredible.
These three people named La Horde are a collective.
They have a dance company.
They also work in Marseille.
Uh, as the director of the dance wait, i'm losing my words right now yeah, but like that.
Yeah, like the like the like the, the dance collective exactly, and we've been knowing each other for quite a bit now.
And I asked them to work with me for that special project because I really could see the emergency that we were talking about, but also the tension.
I wanted to make something sexy and fresh.
And I wanted to play with codes.
I wanted a nightlife, nighttime video.
Because I can't tell sometimes whether it's a party or a riot in the video.
And that's what I really love about it is it's like which way is this going?
You don't really know, and i love that through the video you don't.
You're like, you feel almost a little uncomfortable.
Yeah yeah, and i wanted that.
I wanted a little also like self-awareness and a little like the.
The french lyrics are a little cheeky, as i said.
Um, it was weird to make my parents listen to it, for example, so i was kind of like talking over the lyrics to make sure they wouldn't listen to it.
You're not going to leave, you're not going to listen to it on their own time.
It's like you just don't want to do it with them there.
No no, no.
Exactly.
But it happened.
It was fine.
But as I said, I wanted that lyrics to kind of like feel fun and self-aware.
And I love to play with all of these things together, like romantic, sexy, but also fun and playful.
And I knew that La Horde was perfect to bring also a lot of like poetry.
And we've worked together on that project and I want to work with them a lot more because they're absolutely incredible.
Understandable.
You know for the visuals to accompany a song which feels like a fresh start, or at least an evolution for you.
Then Yes, add to your crew.
And isn't that what it's all about?
And I feel like you're really good at that.
You have a great taste metric where you're able to go, really like that photographer.
Can I work with that photographer?
Really like these choreography troupe.
Can I work with this crew?
Exactly.
I mean, that's the best thing when you get to a certain point and you're like, I love La Horde.
I wish I could work with them.
And then we met.
And then I was like, same as Justice.
We went to have dinner.
I was with Sylvie, my manager.
And we kind of did not prepare that.
We were like, would you guys like to work with us?
And they were like, sure.
I was like, OK, do you want to listen to the song?
Yeah.
What about now?
OK.
And they were like, OK, let's go.
Sometimes it's easier than it feels, than it seems.
And so, yeah, I was like, okay, dream to work with La Horte, done.
Dream to work with Justice, done.
Next dream.
You don't have to verbalize it.
Manifestation is a private thing.
But are you thinking, let me roll this into an actual question.
That's my job.
What is actually next?
Where does music go for you now that the train is on track?
It's a lot of time in the studio, a lot.
I mean, I'm starting to feel like it's, you know, it's good to stop at some point because I've been doing so much studio.
I've been doing so many songs.
I'm so excited for what's to come.
You feel like you have it?
I feel like I'm ready.
I feel like I'm like about to be ready.
There's so much that you can do and you don't want to overdo.
Because when a song is written, it's written and usually you can come back to like change a word, change this that, but usually the melody, the chords, the lyrics, that's it.
The production can be a whole different world and I don't think you ever spend too much time on one production.
But we were listening to Balance Ton Quoi and when I think of it feels like maybe simple, but it took me a year to really get there because i wanted it to be like very specific and i wanted to sound like round but also kind of sharp, and you always want to have all these words that don't actually relate.
Oh my gosh, That makes sense.
It totally makes sense.
I know what you mean.
I was literally talking to someone the other day about something I've been working on and I was just literally like I just want it to be a little bit brighter, but don't lose the warmth.
I need it to be warm.
And they're just like, those are opposite things, bro.
What am I trying to achieve here?
It's so hard to communicate it, which is, I think, why it's so important that you learn as many languages as you can.
You being able to open up Ableton and just fire off something that you've got inside of you and not have to wait for somebody to show up.
I think is crucial.
That's true.
Yeah, it's super fun to have that.
And, talking about language, it's always fun because you think that you know.
Sometimes you use crazy words and even it could go like in the food, like this is a little like you know, like you know this type of cheese.
Well, I want this type of cheese and this is to this type of cheese, not because I've work with french people, but maybe, come on man, i try to make them understand in their own language.
You know, like cheese, you know, but not in an offensive way.
You know, i know you only really like cheese and really tasteful cinema, but you know, i just wanted to be like cheese, Exactly.
It's like this is too much like Roquefort and I want a little bit like Camembert.
But no, sometimes it can go like everywhere and we've had very absurd conversation of like how, how you like picture it, and so i feel like even when you do the mix, you get very much like it's a lot of images all of a sudden because you can go to like this, like frequency on the treble right here, But sometimes it's never as effective as if you go like I need some like softness in the treble and I need, as you said, like some warmth.
But don't, you know, don't get rid of the sharpness.
And usually we understand each other.
Yeah.
Well, you obviously have a real ability to be able to speak your language through the arts and in a creative way.
It's a very exciting time in your life, at least as a fan of your music, I feel.
With this song just kicking the door wide open in so many different directions for you to be able to now go and play in.
I cannot wait to hear more music.
We're so grateful here at apple music that you came out to say thank you.
I'm so glad we're going to have another conversation when the time is right, with more music to talk about and way more to dive into.
So i'm going to leave it there but angel, thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Amazing, amazing.
All right, the end of the world is upon us, but let's have a good time listening to it.
