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Interviewed in November 1997 for INSTANT MAGAZINE (Issue #15: February/March 1998) By: Lianna Ness |
| Belgium's principal and primary musical export, The Lords of Acid, were formed in 1988 when dance club diva Nikki Van Lierop met mixer/producer/songwriter/record label owner, Maurice Engelen. They teamed up with producer Oliver Adams and released "I Sit On Acid," a 4-track remix album that quickly became a dance floor favorite. They followed it up in 1989 with the independent single "Hey Ho" which included three mixes of the song, as well as the original and re-mixes of "I Sit On Acid," and another track called "For Grown Ups" which never made it onto the first full album, Lust. When Lust was released in 1991, it scored the Lords of Acid four hits: "Take Control," "Rough Sex," "I Must Increase My Bust," and "The Most Wonderful Girl" (which was featured on the soundtrack to the Sharon Stone film, Sliver). Their second album, Voodoo U, was released in late 1994. The first single, "Young Boys" showed up on the soundtrack for Virtuosity and a non-album track, "The Real Thing" showed up on the Strange Days soundtrack. The new record, Our Little Secret, combines the techno dance elements of the first record with the Industrial and aggressive guitar sound of the second. Much has been said and written about the band's history - most of which has been rumors or straight-forward deceit. - and information in the States has been hard to come by. But despair not, oh Loyal Lords lovers! Your intrepid reporter recently caught up with the lovely Ms. Van Lierop before their impressive show at Axis in Boston and finally discovered the dirty little secret... |
| NIKKIE: That whole thing [with the Lords of Acid Orchestra] was all the record company's idea. They came up with all the covers and all the credit lists. They sent me a fax of 70 artists and people and said "Study these names!" I called them back and said "Are you out of your fucking mind?!!" That's when they overstepped the line and I told them I wasn't doing it. First of all, I'll look stupid no matter what because people are gonna ask questions about it - about people I don't even know about. I liked the first two record covers but when they sent me the cover of the new one, I asked them "Why are you trying to make this girl look like Lady Galore? I mean, why can't it be me if we're going to use a real girl?" I mean, everybody's looking at me and thinking 'But this is you!' and I feel so shocked because I don't think it looks anything like me! I think that girl is so ugly so they're insulting me by implying that she looks like me. And she has a big dick inside her pants! I think it's a guy! Men will never admit to it, but you can tell by the body structure. They will not fucking listen to us when they send stuff over for covers and ideas and we say "no" to everything but they go ahead and do it anyway. |
| Lianna :A lot of people are confused about your identities. We know that Maurice is also known as Praga Kahn, but who are Lady Galore and Nathalie Dalaet? NIKKI: Nathalie was just the model for the first record cover and she sang the songs live, but I sang all the songs on the record. After we did Voodoo U, we had to find a replacement for me because I was touring in Japan with Praga Kahn on another project called Digital Orgasm so they brought in Ruth McArdle who is also known as Lady Galore. But then they thought "hey, we can't keep your voice on there if you're not going to perform" so Lady Galore re-sang the album but most of my backing vocals are on it. How did you meet Maurice? |
| NIKKIE:I met him at a club and he asked me if I wanted to do some backing vocals because I'd already done some in studios. He owns the label, Antler/Subway. I hadn't really done any big projects before that. What kind of vocal training do you have? NIKKI: I'm a self-trained girl. I've always sang, ever since I was a kid. I was in the church choir when I was 11. Then I went into some garages and screamed with punk bands. By the time I was 18 or 19, I was singing in little jazz clubs. I took a year of jazz singing just to see how far I could go with stretching the words and breathing exercises. The jazz influence definitely comes across in the song "Man's Best Friend." |
| Lianna :What's your favorite song to play? |
| NIKKIE: NIKKI: I like "Lover" which is the first track from the new album. I love to do the ballad, "You Belong To Me" and that was something that shocked our American record company. They want to have a say in everything we do but I said "Excuse me but I will be playing this ballad as well." They were like "No! You can't do that! People are gonna run away!" but the response has been excellent...you know, you throw a sad song there into the set which is full of jealousy and depression... |
| Lianna : As opposed to your more kinky numbers like "The Most Wonderful Girl" where you simulate masturbation. How far would you be willing to push it if given the opportunity? |
| NIKKIE: No further than I'm pushing it now because I don't want to bee seen as 'freak of the year.' Everyone thinks our shows are all just pussy and tits but I don't actually show anything! It's sort of implied. I may have a little masturbation scene going on in front of a mirror when I'm doing "The Most Wonderful Girl" but I've got my clothes on. It's just about a girl having fun looking at herself in the mirror and thinking she's the most wonderful thing there is. I actually didn't even want to do the song before because I thought it was quite a stupid thing to say "I'm fucking beautiful...I'm the greatest thing I've ever seen...God, I love myself..." and touch myself, until I came up with the idea of the mirrors - and then it became a funny thing again. |
| Lianna : Yeah, let's talk about those lyrics! |
| NIKKIE: They're funny. I'm not making fun of people, but situations. Especially the new record - they're all like little secrets that I know. |
| Lianna : So you're writing about other people and conversations you've overheard? None of it is autobiographical? |
| NIKKIE: I keep my eyes and ears open. Some of the older songs were [autobiographical]. But you always put your own imagination in there anyway. The marijuana song ["Marijuana In Your Brain"] on the second record is a good example. Everyone thought it was a pro-drug song but it's not true. They're not pro or against. It's just like everybody does what they want to do and I'm just the objective viewer. I thought that song was particularly funny. It's about a guy I know. |
| Lianna : Do you consider yourself a feminist? You write a lot of songs about women but even though they're of a sexual nature, they come across as empowering instead of degrading. |
| NIKKIE: I don't want to be called a feminist or something. I think everybody should be able to decide for themselves. For me to write sexually degrading songs maybe sometimes, it's always meant in a funny way but people take it the way they want to. Many feminists think that I'm against them but they don't see what I'm writing about. All they hear is sex and there's sexy women on stage but it's very much about women in control. Women to me, are as equal as men. In every way, I would almost sense that we [women] are the stronger gender though. It's been proven. I mean, we get to bear babies and stuff like that. I wanna see men do that! They say that when women have their periods, they become bitches but men are like that too. Believe me, they get cranky at different times during the month but it's just called something different. Now they've proven then men have menopause! |
| Lianna : What's your impression of American culture? |
| NIKKIE: The only culture I get to see in the one in the clubs. I don't get a chance to really go around and meet people. I don't know anything much about the culture here. I only know it seems to be different from state to state. Like in one state you cannot have girls dancing naked on stage so we put liquid latex on them and that's OK, but in other states they say we can have girls on stage but they all have to wear their clothes. In Milwaukee, for example, we couldn't have any girls on stage - not even in ripped jeans and sweaters. We had them lined up but the security guards wouldn't let them on. They fucked with my show. But in Salt Lake City we had women on stage - they weren't naked or anything and they had to have their clothes on, but at least we had them on stage. And nobody cared. I was amazed because that's like the Mormon capital of the world! |
| Lianna : Have you noticed any differences between American and European audiences? |
| NIKKIE: We can get away with nudity in Europe - they're used to seeing much worse things. But America has been the most receptive to our music. In Belgium, they look down on musicians and they have no respect for them at all. When you perform there, nobody reacts and they'll all stand still but they next day you'll hear how fucking great and wonderful you were yet nobody will even clap while you're performing. It's very awkward and cold. The last time Lords of Acid played here, there was a slam pit. NIKKI: Yeah, I'm still surprised when I see that here. I didn't even know what they were doing at first. I thought they were actually fighting the first couple of times it happened - people moving from left to right and there's fists flying and people on the floor and other banging their heads together... Now if there's no slam pit I think we must've sucked if they aren't moving. We haven't had too many bad shows but a week ago there was so much aggression in the crowd, it was scary. They seemed to be having a good time but they were out of control, especially the crowd surfers. There was no barricade and too many people were up on the stage. One girl in the front got a surfer's foot in her face and the people in the front row were getting crushed and they had to pull people out because they were fainting. It was a nightmare. |
| Lianna : What about politics and music? |
| NIKKIE: I keep politics away from music. It should all be fun, that's all. How do you feel about the whole B&D crowd you attract at your shows? NIKKI: S&M and bondage isn't part of my life. I'm not really into that. I just write about it. Sex should be about playing games - it shouldn't really be about hurting people. I didn't know people would take it the wrong way and think I was into B&D. I thought they'd see the fun and humor in it. I get a lot of lesbians after me too! |
| Lianna : Do you get offended when people assume you're either bisexual or lesbian? |
| NIKKIE: No, not at all. I sort of brought it on myself. I'm like yeah, whatever. Yesterday a lesbian interviewed me and asked me if I had any preferences but I said I didn't care. If I see a pretty girl I could be attracted to her as much as a pretty guy. I really don't care at all, as long as they don't get too aggressive. One of them bit my ass on stage and I wanted to kick her ass! |
| Lianna : Do you feel it's harder for a woman to be taken seriously in music? |
| NIKKIE: Yes, it's always harder. But the men quickly change their mind as soon as they see me work with a complicated machine like the Akai 3200. That's something guys don't expect a women to work with at all. Then they shut up. The Akai 3200 is one of the most important samplers that we need. The filter machines in the studio we have can't even be found in shops because Oliver Adams has this friend who make them for him so everybody wants them because they have such excellent sounds. Also, Oliver is a drummer so he's very good at programming drums. It's his studio we work in - me, Praga and Oliver. We are the core of the band. We've always worked together for the past ten years, sometimes on other projects but this one is the main one. |
| Lianna : Do you feel you are successful? |
| NIKKIE: I consider myself successful in the sense that I've been able to make a living out of doing what I want to do, which is making music. I'm not saying it's made me rich so far, but it's made me lucky and successful. For many people, it's their dream to sing or make music and they just don't get the opportunities. When I say lucky, I also mean that I feel I've been blessed. I believe in karma and reincarnation and natural healing. I don't believe in coincidence. I just showed up in the right time in the right places. Like when I was out dancing in a club and Praga Kahn came up to me. I didn't know who he was. It was like destiny. I believe that very strongly. I'm a very spiritual person. I'm a very quiet girl actually, and I live in the country with my husband and two dogs. People think I'm a party animal and a pig and I'm not. I spend my personal time recharging my batteries and working in the studio in a small town where the record company is at. The guys from Front 242 have a studio 300 meters away from me and it's a very musical little place with many artists living there and studios all over. I record some of my own stuff in addition to little vocals for underground club tracks for other people. I think I've written over 300 songs now. Those one-offs are very easy. I usually do them for friends, just doing some ad-libbing. I made a Cornelia album - which is my real name - with Daniel from Front 242 but it never came out. |
| Lianna : If you couldn't make music anymore, what would you do? |
| NIKKIE: I would do something else. Again, destiny will take me where I should go. |
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