On the 17th and 18th of November the Europavox Festival will take place at WUK in Vienna. To find out what it’s all about and what it’s like to be on the road and make music internationally, WUK has met the two bands Ada Oda and Bipolar Feminin.
An interview by Alina Brandstötter for the WUK.
Thank you for being here! Let’s start with Ada Oda, can you tell us a bit about who you are and what your music style is?
Victoria Barracato: Hi, I’m Victoria. I’m the singer of Ada Oda. César is the guitarist and producer of the group. We are a band from Belgium and we play rock music in Italian.
That’s something I’ll get back to later! But for now, let’s also hear from Bipolar Feminin.
Leni Ulrich: Hi, my name is Leni. I’m the singer and guitarist of Bipolar Feminin. Also here with me are Max, Samu and Jakob. We make rock music with punk and some pop influences.
What kind of motifs and themes do you describe in your music? What is important to you?
Leni: Our music is about the things we always have around us. It’s about the troubles we are facing, it’s a feminist view on life, it’s an anti-capitalist view on life. We try to talk about those topics and find a way of coping with the struggles we face in our lives.
César Laloux: A bit like Bipolar Feminin, we are speaking about things that surround us, our problems and situations. And people around us with whom we don’t agree all the time. It’s also anti-capitalist and sometimes feminist.
Why is it important for both of your bands to write about anti-capitalism, feminism and social issues?
Leni: We write about it because it bothers us. We feel that it’s making our lives worse. It’s creating big differences between people, it discriminates against people and it’s just shit. We have a feminist view because it’s important, it’s the only way of living and getting along with each other. To me, feminism just means looking out for each other and keeping the differences between us small. And capitalism just brings so many shitty things with it. It’s bad for the world. That’s frustrating. And that’s why it’s part of our music, because we are frustrated about it and we want to talk about it. And maybe it changes things, or at least the view of some people.
Victoria: Our lyrics are about a crisis we were facing at the time because we were almost 30 years old. As artists, we were having a very different life than our friends or what society wanted us to be like. We wrote about being in a different situation, we wrote a lot about love as well. We were in really bad relationships at that moment.
César: I think it’s less of a political statement for Ada Oda than for Bipolar Feminin. I don’t know if we are ready to assume that general point of view. We talk about it more in relation to specific situations between us and other people – boys who talk too much, or people who don’t understand what it’s like being an artist and ask us, “Why don’t you get a normal job?”
Victoria: We don’t check all the boxes that we were supposed to check, like having children and a house. So we just write a lot about being different and being comfortable with it.
In preparation for this interview, I’ve noticed the way your lyrics are written, and in which language they are written. Bipolar Feminin, you are based in Austria, you speak German, you also sing in German. Ada Oda, you are from Belgium and sing in Italian. Why not English? Why is it important to you and what is the writing process like?
Leni: I sing in German because that’s the language where I know the most words. Sometimes I like the hard sound of some German words. And I also know more word games in German which I like to use in my lyrics. Most of the time, I think about some words or sentences, or I hear something and then I write it down. Or when I feel very overwhelmed, the writing process helps me to get along better with stuff sometimes or to reflect on things.
Do you feel like writing in German is less difficult?
Leni: It’s my mother tongue. In English, sometimes it’s possible to say things in a more charming way. I’m super direct in German. If it were English, there would maybe be a twist.
Victoria: The use of Italian – which is not our mother tongue – makes it easier because we can talk about really intimate things without using our language in our country. I don’t know why, but it makes it easier. César already had a rock band in English and French and he wanted to do something different. We chose Italian because I’m half Italian, even if I don’t speak it perfectly. It was funny to start writing in another language using sentences that sound really weird for Italian people. At first we thought that they wouldn’t really like or understand it. But actually they were really happy to hear another way to put words in their language. Thanks to that, we are touring a little bit in Italy now. But when we sing in Belgium, they don’t understand a word.
César: But they do in Vienna!
What’s the response you got while speaking Italian?
Victoria: Actually, in Belgium, some of the audience do understand Italian because there is a huge community there. But for those who don’t know Italian at all, I try to make them understand an emotion and they can use their imagination to make up a story in their mind. In Italy, it’s funny because they say that my Italian is “exotic”. But they try to work out where I’m from. They think I’m Polish most of the time and I don’t know why because my accent is actually French.
What does it mean for a band to tour throughout Europe and not just in your home country? And how do you feel about Europavox?
Leni: We are actually on tour at this moment, we played in Frankfurt yesterday. It’s very good to leave our safe surroundings, it’s a new experience and it’s a different motivation for us. We don’t know how many people will come, do they even know us, where have they heard from us? We are like, “Now let’s play the best concerts!” Different cities come with different behaviors of the audience. Sometimes we play in cities where I feel that people hold back a bit more, they are not as outgoing, and we never know: Is it because they don’t really like it at the moment or is it just common behavior? To leave your hometown and your country, meeting new people, playing different stages with different space and sound, it’s important to grow and learn as a band and to learn. It helps us to communicate with each other. But we haven’t played in a non-German speaking country yet. We did play in Italy, but it was South Tyrol and they also spoke German. This would be a different experience for us, yet to come, hopefully. So I think Europavox is a very good thing, because it connects people all over Europe and it brings bands to different countries.
César: Just like Bipolar Feminin, our goal from the beginning was to play abroad as quickly as possible because Belgium is a small country. Europavox is really good for us. We received propositions from Austria, Croatia, Romania and Lithuania. Those are countries that we didn’t expect to play while doing the planning.
Victoria: Thanks to Europavox, we also had the chance to discover other bands. It’s all about new perspectives for us. We’re very lucky to be part of it.
Is this your first time in Vienna or at WUK?
Victoria: We played at Waves Festival in Vienna this year. We are very happy to come back!
Leni: We played at WUK before, and we played several times in Vienna already. I’m curious about how it will be. There are so many different bands coming to the Europavox Festival. I think we feel good, we know WUK, we know some people who work there, we can sleep at home. Maybe we are less nervous or maybe we’re even more nervous. But it’s still very exciting to be part of it. I’m also excited for the other bands.
Max Ulrich: It’s strange to be part of a European project but in our hometown. But still, it’s good to be around people from different places.
Leni: And we can show them around!
César: Are you playing in other countries with Europavox?
Leni: It’s not planned yet, but we are open to it!
Max: We will give our best!
César: I know the people in Belgium, so…
Leni: Yeah, we would love to play in Belgium! Connect us! Like an exchange program…
Do you feel like playing internationally is easier because of the internet or do you feel it’s more difficult? How do you connect to music people in Europe?
Leni: Exchanging social media is super easy, that’s what we always do when we play with other bands. It’s a very good way of connecting.
Victoria: It helps a lot. We have met a lot of artists with whom we share loads of ideas on Instagram. In Italy, we met different independent music artists, so maybe we are going to work together. Also, we motivate each other. César is also a booker, so he helps other bands play in Belgium.
César: I wanted to ask Leni: What is the situation like for artists in Austria? Do they get money from the state to be an artist? Or are you obliged to have a part time job and then to do music at the same time?
Leni: I get money from the Public Employment Service. They have an artist service. My bandmates have part-time jobs. But this program ends for me in a few months, so I have to work again. But there are some funding opportunities. We receive money from the state for our album. We also got some tour support for the production. You have to apply for it and not everybody gets it. I think more artists should get it. You have to be kind of known already. But it’s a start. How is it in Belgium?
César: In Belgium, it’s the most comfortable situation, because we also get money like you do, but for a longer time. We have to prove every three years that we’re still artists and then we receive money each month like a salary. And we also get money for recording, promotion and travel. I feel that we are very comfortable. I think it’s a good thing. It gives us time to create. We feel pretty lucky.
