Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Old Press Release with Commentary by Stella

this needs to be updated for more collaboration, but its taken care of in the Wikipedia, however I didn't know how to quote all the responses for Wiki, so this would be a good reference. Eek I need to go back to school for some of this stuff.


Here is an overview of Stella's work

Collaboration timeline with commentary by Stella Soleil:

1996 - Ministry
It was in Chicago, I was doing an independent album, DROWN ME IN YOU, at Chicago Traxx. Ministry was there doing FILTH PIG at the time. I met Al, he asked me to sing on a track. I think I was sort of sampled all over that album. He did credit me, which was very nice.

1996 - Chemlab
I sang on Vera Blue, what a great experience. I loved working with these guys, probably because I loved everything about their music. They kind of treated me like a princess, which is always cool. I was starving, I think I might have actually been on food stamps at that time, and it was great, because it was my first experience with "ordering out for the artist" -- always a buffet of food. This is when I really started to get into industrial music, circa 1995, 1996, 1997. They also told me about 1001 Homo DJ's, which is how I first discovered the voice of Trent Reznor.

1996 - 16 Volt
I actually spoke to eric about a year ago via email. I thought these guys were the most talented of all the industrial bands around at that time. Real songwriting. Again, these guys took really good care of me. Sweet boys.

1996 - Die Warzau
Jimmy Marcus and I became really good friends after this collaboration. It was for a side project of his and Van Christie's. Van and I actually wrote a track for my second album, SOULARIUM, in Chicago. These were the times. everything was exciting, dark and gothic. Jimmy is probably the best percussionist I’ve ever worked with. The beats were pulsating. I miss these guys.

1996 - Chris Connelly
The voice of the Revolting Cocks. My first experience with a rock star who had his head on straight. I felt dwarfed by this guys song-writing ability. I was so young, and clueless, he actually tried to teach me to play guitar too. I remember he played a few shows with Sister Soleil. He would get up on stage, alone with an acoustic guitar, and belt out SHIPWRECK. Rolling Stone magazine called this album of his one of the best of all time. He was about 7 years ahead of what we now call, Elliott Smith, Jack Johnson, and all the singer/songwriter crooners that are making waves today. In addition to that, he was all integrity. He worked at a record store, fans would come in to ask him for his autograph, and he would ask them what kind of music they were looking for, and direct them to it. He was more of a musicologist, and an authority on the state of the music industry, casting a shadow on what was to become of me. He really did try to warn me.

1997 - Joseph Arthur
I was already a huge fan of Joe's when I found myself at Real World Studios in Box, England. I was surprised to find him there, the same time I was writing and recording my second album. Peter Gabriel's studio was paradise. We were tucked away together, in his (Peter's) residential studio for 6 weeks. I fell madly in love with everything about Joe. He would play shows in London, and I would cry, sob, when I would watch him. His voice hits me right in the middle of the chest, and I have never quite gotten over that burn, that is his genius. He is a poet and he is a siren. I literally shook all over when we wrote the two tracks together. HANGING AROUND YOUR BONES and BUTTERFLY. Butterfly would wind up on my second album, it was the best track on it I think. Joseph Arthur, redefined the word brilliant for me. He is a prodigy in his own right.

1997 - Peter Gabriel
This was a funny story. Peter is the kind of guy who would bring tea out to a woman who would sit on the outskirts of the real world studios property, hoping to catch a glimpse of her hero. She would sit there, rain or heat, all day, to hear him say hello. And he would. That was the beauty, Peter, the kind gentle star. He watched out for me too. He knew I was a kook. And, he worried about what would eventually happen to me, and said so. It’s so funny how in hind sight, all these great people that I had the opportunity to be surrounded by, tried to warn me of the approaching storm.

Peter wanted to use a couple of producer's I was working with to program a couple of tracks for him. He asked me if I would be okay with that. I was flattered and kind of caught off guard, that he would bother asking me. I wanted to approach him about maybe doing something for my album, but I didn’t know how. I was pretty intimidated. I mean, it’s Peter Gabriel for fuck's sake. So when he asked me this, I answered, "Sure you can have my producers, but you'll have to sing on my album.” He answered, "Oh, is that how it works?" and I said, "Yeah, its called blackmail." He laughed, and I was gushing. When I came back from break, I was sick as a dog. I was all wrapped up in my blanket, and pajamas. I walked over to his studio, and asked if I could quietly sit there and hear him work. He was almost done with it. It’s a track called BLIND, that I had written in Chicago with Preston Klik and Thomas Cray. What Peter did to it, rose out of the console. There it was, his beauty, his unmistakable presence, the voice, that voice, on my track. On my little song. Like a mantra, he sang over and over again "shine like the sun, shine like the sun.” And, as I write this right now, I am re-living the incredible emotion that I felt that day, in his studio swivel chair, wrapped up in a blanket, and feeling as if, I shined like the sun.

1997 - Yeng Chin Lamo
I am not sure why she chose me, she has to have the most incredible stories I have ever heard. Peter Gabriel signed her to Real World Records, and I met her at the studio whilst she was recording her album. She is the Tibetan freedom artist. Yeng Chin actually escaped from Tibet, on foot, with nothing but flour in her pockets, to mix with puddled water along to way. I felt as if she could look right into me. I felt ashamed for all the complaining I have ever done about anything. She sings about her terrifying experiences and her love of the Dalai Lama. We were eating dinner together (all the artists, including Peter ate meals together in a beautiful dining room at the studio), and she told me that I had a beautiful voice, and wanted me to sing on her record with her. I almost choked. I’ll never forget that session. It was spiritually charged. If there is a god, I swear, he hangs around when she sings.

1997 - Corey Taylor
Corey and I go way back. Iowa days, touring through, always double billing with the then unsigned SLIPKNOT. I got my deal first and tried desperately to convince UNIVERSAL RECORDS to sign this band. I flew Corey out to Real World to record a duet called LIAR. In the studio the engineer set up a plexi-glass window between us, and we recorded the antithesis to “baby its cold outside.” “You liar! You god damn liar!” With an added dialogue bridge, explaining how much we truly hated each other. It was magic! For a long time, when we (Sister Soleil) toured this album, anytime near Iowa, Corey would do it live with me, which we ended with a fist fight, on the floor, rolling around, tearing at each other's clothes and faces. I got at least four or five welts every time I played with him. It was great.

1999 - Trent Reznor
This was the ultimate collaboration. Let me start by saying, Trent Reznor, is, has, and always will be my personal hero. I tried desperately to get signed to NOTHING RECORDS, but without success. Nobody ever believed, that he would want to work with me. Me and my pigtails. Stories swirled around about his dark side. People feared him. I had him pretty built up in my head by the time I had the pleasure of actually meeting him. It went like this. A music supervisor asked me to submit some music for what would be the Stigmata soundtrack. At the time, in my pocket, I carried around a version of Trent’s “A Warm Place” with my lyric and vocal spliced onto the track (something I did myself, without permission, in Chicago). It was originally done, as kind of an audition piece for Trent. Only I could never get it past his fortress of people that protected him. I handed it over, and I kind of knew, that the director would want it. This made me nervous. I never asked permission to re-record his work. And now I was pitching it for a soundtrack. To tell you the truth, I didn’t care about the soundtrack, I just wanted him (Trent) to hear it. This music supervisor worked with Trent closely on the Natural Born Killer soundtrack. They were friends, that was obvious. Sure enough, I get the call, the director loved it. I sort of panic, saying, I didn’t get permission, this isn’t mine to give you. And he says, “I will talk to Trent myself.” A few weeks go by, no word. I almost forget about it. And I get a call in L.A., it was Trent, and I was so freaked out, I knocked a huge carton of milk over the table and onto the floor, and my jeans, and the chairs. I was a dripping mess, and he says to me “I got this thing you did, I’m usually an asshole about people messing about with my music but I was pleasantly surprised.” The next week, I was in New Orleans, in his studio, with headphones on. Re-cutting the vocal, with his direction, and his re-production of the entire track. It got cut in the end, off the soundtrack. I really didn’t give a shit. I got work with my hero. And he was just as Peter was, down to earth, soft spoken, incredibly intelligent, relaxed, and very warm. It was then that, I realized, the truly gifted and successful people, are really the most humble. They have nothing to prove. They just are what they are, normally. Artists.

1999 Moby
I got a call from my publisher at the time, who was also Moby's publisher. Having spent a good amount of time growing up in the rave culture, I was a pretty avid fan of his. I was in New York at the time, and he happened to live a few blocks from where I was staying. He spins at a club every week, and he collaborates with everyone. I met with him, and he was very very sweet. a little quirky, pretty funny, very dry humor. We did a cover of Depeche Mode's "ENJOY THE SILENCE" as a kind of Torch song. Very slow, very trip hop. Very cool. We went to his favorite vegan restaurant afterwards, and I discovered that I did like vegetarian cuisine, and it had gotten me over my fear of tofu. I never received a copy of the track, but I saw his show in England a year later, and he said he spun it at the club and it was well received.

'99 Joe Gore
Joe Gore, has a discography that reads like a novel. He is most well known for his music journalism and his 8 year reign as Tom Waitt's guitar player. He also played 2 or 3 albums worth for PJ Harvey. He probably hates pop as much as I do, but having been challenged by Universal to write a pop album, we dove into new ways of discovering the beauty in it ala David Bowie and T-Rex. I spent 6 months writing every day with him in San Francisco. We wrote and recorded 18 killer tracks. In the end, I had to fight for at least one, twilight, to wind up on the album. He was the first person to help me discover that my writing abilities extended further than lyricism and vocal melodies. He pointed out that most of what I came up with, could be played as bass lines, guitar riffs, and strings. It always confused me that I thought in terms of so many harmonies and counter- harmonies. I sort of attributed it to my music education by way of the Cocteau Twins. (I listened feverishly to almost every release of theirs'). He told me that if I actually sang everything I wrote, I would constantly sound like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Twilight was a song where I sang the guitar riff to him, and then sang the melody that went over it. He opened me up quite a bit.

Chino Moreno (Deftones)
Chino. I first worked with him, briefly, after a 20-minute conversation in a New York club. It was 2 am, and the band and I went back to their hotel, to a make-shift studio, turntables and all, to write a little melody for something that would possibly be used for a new side project, called, Teamsleep. I met up with him again when I was in San Francisco. I hung out with his wife and family for 3 days, and we wrote two really cool song ideas, one of which would later be completed by Joe Gore called "Money". There is a line in that song that would later be the inspiration for a new band (Whorse) I would later put together in Los Angeles. "a pawn in the game on the table, a racewhorse in a stable..." "Money", the track, would never see the light of day, unfortunately, it was way too cool to be on a pop album. I’m waiting to finish the other track with him, I still got it buzzing in my head. I think he got a little busy with mammoth albums like WHITE PONY, and the new self-titled album. Chino, is all talent, raw and haunting.

'00 Siobhan Fahey (bananarama, Shakespeare Sister)
Dear siobhan. I became very good friends with her. She is the ultimate authority on cool pop. She turned me onto the most intense Bowie and old school pop. Motown and Dusty Springfield. I had a severe allergy to pop music, and Siobhan opened my judgemental eyes. She also turned me onto This Mortal Coil, which I eventually bought every back catalogued album of. We wrote quite a few songs together with Marco Pirroni (Adam and the Ants), but didn’t produce them in the end. She still was very edgy, and I was all edge, a combination, that wasn’t quite pop enough by record company standards. Whatever, I love her. She is amazing. Her cool dark brooding voice, very Niko.

'00 Boz Boro (Morrissey)
ROCKABILLY!!!! HELL YES!!! So I never thought I would groove to Rockabilly, but that shit is fun as hell. All the stuff we wrote together with Steve torch was so up and cool. So much energy and personality. We actually put a little acoustic three-man band together with young Dean Micetich, and I talked him into playing acoustic open mic nights in London. It was a blast. Good good times.

'01 Billy Idol
So I was doing a long interview with VH-1 and MTV. VH-1 was getting ready to do Billy Idol's Storytellers in the next studio. A producer asked me if I would be interested in meeting and singing with Billy the next day. (Billy had supposedly asked to sing with some young hot blonde. This I found ironic because I had recently scored fairly low on the askmen.com babometer -- a measly 7 out of 10. Apparently I was not the "most attractive fake blonde on MTV"). We rehearsed through three numbers the next day, Eyes without a Face, Forgot to be a Lover, and Mony Mony. Again, the stories that surround Billy do not do him justice at all. It was one of the greatest highlights of my life. Billy's and my forehead pressed together, singing "have mercy! have mercy!". He was a perfect gentlemen, and his band as well. Very, very gracious.

'02 Louise Post
When I came to L.A., a mutual friend had set up an introduction between Louise and me. I had really hoped that we could be in Whorse together. We wrote a good amount of material in a two- month period of time. I loved everything that we did together. In fact, we’re both native Chicagoans and had a lot in common. But splitting time between Veruca Salt and Whorse would have been a nightmare for her. Louise is a rocker. She could turn a hook around and arrange a song so effortlessly. She is a natural.

'03 Dolphin
This was an interesting recent twist on things. The success of a dynamic Russian duo, called Tatu is very much the responsibilty of the young head of Universal Records/Moscow named David Junk. I had gotten to be good friends with him when I was living in London recording the pop album. He always asked me what the hell I was doing a pop album for. I liked him immensely. So when Tatu broke, I razzed him via email, saying shame on him for such a shocking pop act. He happened to be coming through L.A. and listened to my new demos. And that’s when he got the idea to hook Dolphin and me up. Dolphin needed an English-speaking track, and so I was sent to Moscow to collaborate on a duet. DOLPHIN IS FUCKING MIND BLOWING. Even with a significant language barrier, (he speaks very little English) I got him. I got his lyrics translated, and realized this guy is somewhere between Joseph Arthur and Morrison. Total poet. His style is very Beck meets NIN. It could not be a more perfect collaboration. I went to Moscow with a few pieces I had written, one lyric without music called EYES. He read it translated into Russian, and he took it home and answered each line I wrote. It became a kind of letter to each other. Unrequited love, impossible relationships between artists. Showing the differences between man and woman, and then different language that they speak, by using the languages English and Russian, in the same conversation. It was heartbreaking. I would say a line like " your eyes are the constant that draw me in, your sparkle lashes me to milk" in English, and he would answer by saying something along the lines of how milk that was once pure and white, sours and curdles after a while, in Russian. It was so easy. I got what he was saying, he got what I was saying and we worked so quickly together. I saw him perform at the Roxy in Moscow. He exploded. He was on fire. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him, he made my heart beat rapidly. The collaboration was a success. We are going to be shooting a video together, and he will be coming to L.A. to collaborate on five more tracks, including one more duet.

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