Shania_Freak
07-22-2006, 1:25am
VH1: How does it feel to be back in the public eye?
Shania Twain: We've been working on the music for so long that I was getting a little anxious to share it! After spending the last couple of years writing, recording and going through the creative process, I'm ready to tell everyone about it.
VH1: What made you move to Switzerland?
Twain: It's beautiful for one. It’s like Canada. There are a lot of lakes, mountains, and snow. I love the snow. I want to have hot chocolate all year 'round! The biggest reason was privacy. People there are discreet. They’re very reserved. I enjoy that privacy.
VH1: Were you worried that by dropping out of the music business at the height of your stardom you would lose what you had achieved?
Twain: I needed to get back to a real life for a little while - buy my own groceries, and do my own laundry. Show business is everything but normal. The balance is what’s important, so if I can escape it and go home and live a basic life for a little while, I feel rejuvenated!
VH1: Last August you and Mutt had a son, Eja. How has having a baby changed you?
Twain: I'm just a deeper person in general. You mature in a short period of time when you have a child. It’s made me take my career a lot less seriously. I’m more serious about keeping life easy and enjoyable, so I have energy and time for Eja. I worked very hard making Up!, but that's something that I can now do in my own space and my own time. I’ll work the rest of my career around my family.
VH1: Did your rejuvenation period change how you approached writing songs for Up!?
Twain: There’s no formula. Sometimes Mutt and I write independently. Other times we get together and write things from scratch. Sometimes I'll listen to Mutt playing something on the guitar and an idea will come to me, and I'll join in. We don't have to make an appointment to write a song together! But I can't get into a creative mode at home. I get creative when we take weekend trips somewhere stimulating. We went to France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Caribbean. Some of this album was also recorded in India. Up! has been written and recorded very internationally!
VH1: Do you get a lot of your inspiration from traveling?
Twain: It’s stimulating to be in places that I've never been before, experiencing new cultures. I find other art very inspiring. A lot of times inspiration comes from being bored and isolated. If I’ve got too much going on in my life, I'm too distracted to write music. I almost need to get to the stage where I'm bored. Then, I just want to write. It's a way to pass the time, I guess!
VH1: What are some of your favorite songs on this album?
Twain: I would say “Forever and For Always,” “Waiter! Bring Me Water!” and “Ka-Ching!” “Ka-Ching!” started out as a Christmas song. I wanted to write about how we all go into debt at Christmas time! But I ended up not doing a Christmas album, so I stuck with writing about the pressure society puts on us to spend. It stems from my childhood Christmases. My parents didn't have the money to spend on gifts. They had to beg, steal, and borrow to give us a decent Christmas. Now that I have money, I find wealthy people are under the same pressure to spend more, have more cars, a bigger house … [Laughs.] It’s crazy how we all fall for it.
VH1: Does looking back at your childhood give you a better idea of how your parents felt about you?
Twain: I realize how heartbreaking it was for them to not be able to afford groceries when they knew we needed groceries. We cleaned our clothes in the bathtub when we couldn’t afford to go to the Laundromat. That’s difficult in the winter, because it's 40 below zero in Canada! Sometimes we’d run out of electricity, so we didn’t have hot water. We went through a lot of nightmares. How did my mother manage to get me up to go sing at 1 A.M. at a bar when I was eight years old? I don't know how they ever thought I was gonna get discovered in some northern Ontario bar! I guess they thought I had to start somewhere. And it worked! But if I knew better as a child how much the odds were against me, I would have told my mother she was absolutely crazy. But she was certain that I would make it someday; I wasn't as certain as she was. My dream was to be Stevie Wonder's back-up singer. I didn't want to be the star. I was shy, nervous, didn't like the pressure. I was 16 before I started performing without my guitar. I was so scared. When I was a kid it was so big that it became a prop I could hide behind.
VH1: Can you relate to your mom a lot more now that you're a mother, too?
Twain: I can, but I would not bring my eight-year-old child into a bar to sing on stage. I don't know where her ambition came from. Maybe it’s because she was so desperate and convinced that I had a talent. I don't understand it and I never will.
VH1: What would she think about you now?
Twain: I think she'd be proud. She would cry every time she saw me sing! She’d be a nervous wreck every time I went on television. It would have been wonderful to spoil my parents a little bit. I would have enjoyed that. Every last dollar meant something in that household. That $5 of gas that it took to get me to the club and back home should have gone towards bread and milk or something. They made the family sacrifice so that I could sing …
VH1: Your child will probably never know the kind of need that you did. How will you make Eja empathetic to what's going on around him?
Twain: It’s all about education. He will have the education I wish I'd had, but he’ll also grow up understanding where I come from and what it’s like to go without. Obviously, I won’t starve my kid and say, “Well this is what I had to go through!” It's about exposing him to different people and cultures. If he stays in a little, cozy, comfy world all the time, he won't be sensitive to those who have less. I'm very sensitive to it. I understand both sides of the fence very well. I'll share that with him, and hopefully he'll learn.
VH1: Are you still careful with money?
Twain: I don't like to have more than what I need. If I have too many shoes, I give the ones away that I'm not wearing. All the glamorous clothing I wear to awards shows and everything, I either give it to charity or the Shania Twain Museum in Timmins because it helps out my hometown. I feel so good when I can clean everything out and get rid of all the things I don't need. That’s stayed with me from my childhood.
VH1: Maybe that hard upbringing is why you write such uplifting songs.
Twain: It’s a great escape to write songs that bring you back up again. People say, “Aren't you ever down? You're always writing upbeat songs!” Of course I am, but that’s the whole point. No matter what is going on in my life, I'm gonna get up there onstage and get into a very positive mode. “It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing” is the only heartbreak song on Up! I thought it was about somebody feeling [bad] and trying to get on with their life, so it stayed.
VH1: Was “What a Way to Want to Be!” written after having the baby?
Twain: Yeah. It's all about the pressure we have to be perfect. Sometimes I just think, “Oh, enough of trying to be perfect already!” As time goes by, I'm getting more comfortable accepting my faults. Okay, I got cellulite. What am I going to do about it? You can't spend your whole life trying to perfect yourself physically. It's impossible. I have fun playing with make-up and clothes, but I try not to buckle to the pressure of trying to be perfect in every way.
VH1: Is there a lot of pressure to maintain your sexy image?
Twain: I genuinely think it's silly to put that much pressure on yourself. Several weeks after I had the baby I was jelly belly. I started riding my horses again six weeks after, and that helped, but I didn't go on any crazy regime worrying, “Am I ever gonna be able to bare my midriff again?” I was lucky enough not to get stretch marks, but I have to put a concentrated effort to get my tone back. I'm not losing any sleep over it. My stomach flattened out, but it just happened over time. I eat well, I stay active, but I'm not stressing over it.
VH1: How much of your persona represents the real you?
Twain: I see the whole visual side of what I do as fantasy. It's like when you're playing in front of a mirror and you're putting it on. I don't take it seriously. It's all just very superficial. The music is closer to being me.
VH1: There are a lots of songs on Up! about love and being happy.
Twain: I don't think I could sit and write a bunch of sad songs at this point in my life. I’m enjoying writing songs that make me smile and laugh. We had a lot of fun writing these songs, too. We get a kick from writing lyrics like on the title track - “Even my skin is acting weird/ I wish that I could grow a beard.” It’s fun to write goofy things like that.
VH1: When you first came to Nashville that was a different way of writing.
Twain: I'd stay up all night and write songs, but nobody wanted to do that. Everybody stops at five o'clock! [Laughs.] You would have three and four-hour writing sessions that you'd book like doctor appointments. I would say, “What do you mean we can only write from nine to 12? What if we're right in the middle of a really good idea and we break for lunch?” It was a system that I didn't understand. I wanted to meet the young Willie Nelsons, Waylon Jennings and Dolly Partons. I come from a rough enough background that I can relate to all the stories that they wrote. It's the country music I grew up with. I was more disappointed that those people didn’t represent Nashville anymore.
VH1: That frustration is apparent in your career. On your first album, you only had one songwriting credit. So did you write all new songs for your breakthrough second album The Woman in Me?
Twain: I had gone to Nashville with a lot of the ideas that appeared on The Woman In Me. They never developed because nobody was interested in them. But I met Mutt and he thought they were great. “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” wasn't a finished song, but the title blew Mutt away. I didn't have any confidence in my writing, because I had been rejected by Nashville, but all it took was for Mutt to say, “Wow, that's a great idea!” He kept my ideas, built on them, and then we built together.
VH1: How did Come On Over build on the success of The Woman in Me?
Twain: Everyone was waiting to see if this girl was only going to have one big album in her life and that's it. When Come On Over took off, it got me over that hump. I felt like I didn’t have anything else to prove any more.
VH1: So do you feel like you’ve made it?
Twain: I feel like I made it a long time ago, because the original goals I set for myself were always quite humble. I hoped that music would make me enough of a living so I could buy my own home, have some financial security, educate my children, and buy my own car. I'm talking just basic life here, not a mansion in Beverly Hills. To me, that was making it!
http://www.vh1.com/artists/news/1459208/12182002/twain_shania.jhtml
Shania Twain: We've been working on the music for so long that I was getting a little anxious to share it! After spending the last couple of years writing, recording and going through the creative process, I'm ready to tell everyone about it.
VH1: What made you move to Switzerland?
Twain: It's beautiful for one. It’s like Canada. There are a lot of lakes, mountains, and snow. I love the snow. I want to have hot chocolate all year 'round! The biggest reason was privacy. People there are discreet. They’re very reserved. I enjoy that privacy.
VH1: Were you worried that by dropping out of the music business at the height of your stardom you would lose what you had achieved?
Twain: I needed to get back to a real life for a little while - buy my own groceries, and do my own laundry. Show business is everything but normal. The balance is what’s important, so if I can escape it and go home and live a basic life for a little while, I feel rejuvenated!
VH1: Last August you and Mutt had a son, Eja. How has having a baby changed you?
Twain: I'm just a deeper person in general. You mature in a short period of time when you have a child. It’s made me take my career a lot less seriously. I’m more serious about keeping life easy and enjoyable, so I have energy and time for Eja. I worked very hard making Up!, but that's something that I can now do in my own space and my own time. I’ll work the rest of my career around my family.
VH1: Did your rejuvenation period change how you approached writing songs for Up!?
Twain: There’s no formula. Sometimes Mutt and I write independently. Other times we get together and write things from scratch. Sometimes I'll listen to Mutt playing something on the guitar and an idea will come to me, and I'll join in. We don't have to make an appointment to write a song together! But I can't get into a creative mode at home. I get creative when we take weekend trips somewhere stimulating. We went to France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Caribbean. Some of this album was also recorded in India. Up! has been written and recorded very internationally!
VH1: Do you get a lot of your inspiration from traveling?
Twain: It’s stimulating to be in places that I've never been before, experiencing new cultures. I find other art very inspiring. A lot of times inspiration comes from being bored and isolated. If I’ve got too much going on in my life, I'm too distracted to write music. I almost need to get to the stage where I'm bored. Then, I just want to write. It's a way to pass the time, I guess!
VH1: What are some of your favorite songs on this album?
Twain: I would say “Forever and For Always,” “Waiter! Bring Me Water!” and “Ka-Ching!” “Ka-Ching!” started out as a Christmas song. I wanted to write about how we all go into debt at Christmas time! But I ended up not doing a Christmas album, so I stuck with writing about the pressure society puts on us to spend. It stems from my childhood Christmases. My parents didn't have the money to spend on gifts. They had to beg, steal, and borrow to give us a decent Christmas. Now that I have money, I find wealthy people are under the same pressure to spend more, have more cars, a bigger house … [Laughs.] It’s crazy how we all fall for it.
VH1: Does looking back at your childhood give you a better idea of how your parents felt about you?
Twain: I realize how heartbreaking it was for them to not be able to afford groceries when they knew we needed groceries. We cleaned our clothes in the bathtub when we couldn’t afford to go to the Laundromat. That’s difficult in the winter, because it's 40 below zero in Canada! Sometimes we’d run out of electricity, so we didn’t have hot water. We went through a lot of nightmares. How did my mother manage to get me up to go sing at 1 A.M. at a bar when I was eight years old? I don't know how they ever thought I was gonna get discovered in some northern Ontario bar! I guess they thought I had to start somewhere. And it worked! But if I knew better as a child how much the odds were against me, I would have told my mother she was absolutely crazy. But she was certain that I would make it someday; I wasn't as certain as she was. My dream was to be Stevie Wonder's back-up singer. I didn't want to be the star. I was shy, nervous, didn't like the pressure. I was 16 before I started performing without my guitar. I was so scared. When I was a kid it was so big that it became a prop I could hide behind.
VH1: Can you relate to your mom a lot more now that you're a mother, too?
Twain: I can, but I would not bring my eight-year-old child into a bar to sing on stage. I don't know where her ambition came from. Maybe it’s because she was so desperate and convinced that I had a talent. I don't understand it and I never will.
VH1: What would she think about you now?
Twain: I think she'd be proud. She would cry every time she saw me sing! She’d be a nervous wreck every time I went on television. It would have been wonderful to spoil my parents a little bit. I would have enjoyed that. Every last dollar meant something in that household. That $5 of gas that it took to get me to the club and back home should have gone towards bread and milk or something. They made the family sacrifice so that I could sing …
VH1: Your child will probably never know the kind of need that you did. How will you make Eja empathetic to what's going on around him?
Twain: It’s all about education. He will have the education I wish I'd had, but he’ll also grow up understanding where I come from and what it’s like to go without. Obviously, I won’t starve my kid and say, “Well this is what I had to go through!” It's about exposing him to different people and cultures. If he stays in a little, cozy, comfy world all the time, he won't be sensitive to those who have less. I'm very sensitive to it. I understand both sides of the fence very well. I'll share that with him, and hopefully he'll learn.
VH1: Are you still careful with money?
Twain: I don't like to have more than what I need. If I have too many shoes, I give the ones away that I'm not wearing. All the glamorous clothing I wear to awards shows and everything, I either give it to charity or the Shania Twain Museum in Timmins because it helps out my hometown. I feel so good when I can clean everything out and get rid of all the things I don't need. That’s stayed with me from my childhood.
VH1: Maybe that hard upbringing is why you write such uplifting songs.
Twain: It’s a great escape to write songs that bring you back up again. People say, “Aren't you ever down? You're always writing upbeat songs!” Of course I am, but that’s the whole point. No matter what is going on in my life, I'm gonna get up there onstage and get into a very positive mode. “It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing” is the only heartbreak song on Up! I thought it was about somebody feeling [bad] and trying to get on with their life, so it stayed.
VH1: Was “What a Way to Want to Be!” written after having the baby?
Twain: Yeah. It's all about the pressure we have to be perfect. Sometimes I just think, “Oh, enough of trying to be perfect already!” As time goes by, I'm getting more comfortable accepting my faults. Okay, I got cellulite. What am I going to do about it? You can't spend your whole life trying to perfect yourself physically. It's impossible. I have fun playing with make-up and clothes, but I try not to buckle to the pressure of trying to be perfect in every way.
VH1: Is there a lot of pressure to maintain your sexy image?
Twain: I genuinely think it's silly to put that much pressure on yourself. Several weeks after I had the baby I was jelly belly. I started riding my horses again six weeks after, and that helped, but I didn't go on any crazy regime worrying, “Am I ever gonna be able to bare my midriff again?” I was lucky enough not to get stretch marks, but I have to put a concentrated effort to get my tone back. I'm not losing any sleep over it. My stomach flattened out, but it just happened over time. I eat well, I stay active, but I'm not stressing over it.
VH1: How much of your persona represents the real you?
Twain: I see the whole visual side of what I do as fantasy. It's like when you're playing in front of a mirror and you're putting it on. I don't take it seriously. It's all just very superficial. The music is closer to being me.
VH1: There are a lots of songs on Up! about love and being happy.
Twain: I don't think I could sit and write a bunch of sad songs at this point in my life. I’m enjoying writing songs that make me smile and laugh. We had a lot of fun writing these songs, too. We get a kick from writing lyrics like on the title track - “Even my skin is acting weird/ I wish that I could grow a beard.” It’s fun to write goofy things like that.
VH1: When you first came to Nashville that was a different way of writing.
Twain: I'd stay up all night and write songs, but nobody wanted to do that. Everybody stops at five o'clock! [Laughs.] You would have three and four-hour writing sessions that you'd book like doctor appointments. I would say, “What do you mean we can only write from nine to 12? What if we're right in the middle of a really good idea and we break for lunch?” It was a system that I didn't understand. I wanted to meet the young Willie Nelsons, Waylon Jennings and Dolly Partons. I come from a rough enough background that I can relate to all the stories that they wrote. It's the country music I grew up with. I was more disappointed that those people didn’t represent Nashville anymore.
VH1: That frustration is apparent in your career. On your first album, you only had one songwriting credit. So did you write all new songs for your breakthrough second album The Woman in Me?
Twain: I had gone to Nashville with a lot of the ideas that appeared on The Woman In Me. They never developed because nobody was interested in them. But I met Mutt and he thought they were great. “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” wasn't a finished song, but the title blew Mutt away. I didn't have any confidence in my writing, because I had been rejected by Nashville, but all it took was for Mutt to say, “Wow, that's a great idea!” He kept my ideas, built on them, and then we built together.
VH1: How did Come On Over build on the success of The Woman in Me?
Twain: Everyone was waiting to see if this girl was only going to have one big album in her life and that's it. When Come On Over took off, it got me over that hump. I felt like I didn’t have anything else to prove any more.
VH1: So do you feel like you’ve made it?
Twain: I feel like I made it a long time ago, because the original goals I set for myself were always quite humble. I hoped that music would make me enough of a living so I could buy my own home, have some financial security, educate my children, and buy my own car. I'm talking just basic life here, not a mansion in Beverly Hills. To me, that was making it!
http://www.vh1.com/artists/news/1459208/12182002/twain_shania.jhtml