Chris Corner AKA IAMX has just released his newest LP Alive In New Light (AINL) on the 2nd of February. In his brand new work he captures a sense of metamorphosis, an invitation to the next phase in IAMX’s dark journey of self-discovery. Appearing on four tracks and along for the tour is the brilliant and super popular tattoo and make up powerhouse, Kat Von D.
On Saturday 3rd of March IAMX is getting ready to perform in London accompanied with the sultry tones of Kat Von D, but a few hours prior the show we get to meet both artists to have a chat regarding what will be a very interesting and winning collaboration.
RAMzine: You are currently doing a tour in support of the release of your brand new album Alive In New Light, how’s that going so far?
IAMX: It’s really good. It’s always a bit bumpy in the beginning because you make a lot of mistakes and you get sick and your body re-adjust to this lifestyle which is quite an extreme lifestyle if you don’t go out much like me. In normal life I just don’t do anything (laughs). So far it’s been wonderful and the shows and the people have been wonderful. It’s really nice to have Kat here as well, it really adds a ray of sunshine to the whole thing.
RAMzine: While you were writing the lyrics what was your main source of inspiration?
IAMX: My own psychology, it’s quite a selfish process but it’s definitely an album about becoming more at one with yourself and with the world, becoming more uplifted by being alive and accepting who you are. That’s pretty much the lyrical inspiration. My interest in the deeper, darker emotions will always be there, although I don’t know sometimes I think I am too emotional but maybe in fact I am not emotional enough and doing these records actually helped me to motivate my emotions.
RAMzine: Kat, you are a multi-talented woman and you seem to excel in everything you do, are you planning to get more involved within the music business in the near future?
KAT VON D: Thank you for those complements! I’ve been playing music since I was five years old in the classical music world. And then I had written and recorded an album years ago that I will finally be releasing this year, so yeah definitely! I’m excited about giving music a bigger part of my life.
RAMzine: How did the collaboration with Kat happen and are you guys happy with the outcome so far?
KAT VON D: Miserable (laughs).
IAMX: It’s all shit (laughs). How did that happen? I was made aware of the fact that Kat had posted a very beautiful slow motion video of herself falling backwards to one of my songs. So I got really excited and we had management contact Kat to see if she was interested in doing something together. I mean I didn’t even know she was musical at the time, basically because I just don’t go online. I don’t really do this whole social media thing. Then I found out she was a great pianist and that she had a beautiful voice, so I got even more excited. When she said she would have been interested, we finally met. I went to her beautiful house in LA, full of creepy objects and a black garden. She eventually came to the studio and it all went pretty smoothly, no dramas.
RAMzine: What can we expect from your live performance?
IAMX: Just mind blowing sexual energy and sweat and craziness. Whenever I get that question I’m like I don’t know what do you expect? What do fans expect? I know what I’m gonna give. It’s definitely high energy performance. It’s gonna be different injecting Kat to the system, I don’t how much I am gonna jump around or if she’s gonna jump around. We haven’t done a lot of rehearsals together so it’s gonna be more spontaneous and fun I guess.
RAMzine: In the brand new video ‘Stardust’ that just came out yesterday, you really captured the darkness mixed with the live experience and the beauty of it all, how did you put together this piece of visual art?
IAMX: I’m not very conceptual, I find it difficult to come up with a solid concept. I generally just mess around a lot. So if I set up a space and I have the right people and the right cameras in place I can spend a lot of time experimenting, I’m very interested in visual art so somehow I trust my aesthetic. I don’t trust my concept but the aesthetic comes naturally. I’m quite a good editor so I spend a lot of time editing .
KAT VON D: He did such a great job to capture the sentiment of the song, I remember when he told me about the video he said ‘I want you to shave Janine’s head’ and I said ‘O my God that’s the coolest thing ever’, because I felt like that was already such a rough around the edges idea and I think my biggest challenge was being as aggressive because it’s not in my nature to be aggressive. Janine was such a star player, seeing her face in the shots while she’s being OK with having this symbol of female being ripped away is just on another level. It was really powerful, I think she was my favourite part of the music video.
RAMzine: Kat, what’s the best memory you’ve created with Chris so far?
KAT VON D: It’s really cool to have made a friend out of this. I like that one time in which we were texting each other narring an entire video through emojis (laughs). I think we share a similar sense of humour so there are a lot of laughters, in a good way, like laughing about dark shit. I’ve always been a do-it-yourself person, I’ve always cut out the middle man. It’s like when I was writing my second book I thought I have to learn how shoot photos and deal with visual cameras so even watching him making the ‘Stardust’ music video made me really appreciate the fact that there was an intense amount of work that he puts into everything. I’ve always felt like the more you understand the process the more you are a part of that and the more you manage to make things more beautiful. It’s refreshing to see somebody working the same way that I do.
IAMX: I think that’s why we click. I see the amount of unstoppable drive in her and I see myself and I see a real connection there.
KAT VON D: Exactly. I don’t have an appreciation for dreamers, I mean I have dreams, but I have an appreciation for executors, people who do things and Chris is definitely on that. Plenty of times people asked me to be part of projects but it’s all like hopes and dreams. I have no interest entertaining that or wasting time. I have an x amount of heartbeats in this lifetime and I want to invest them wisely. So it’s exciting to work with somebody that is on the same level.
RAMzine: Can you tell us anything about your future plans?
IAMX: Let’s see how tonight goes uh? (laughs). I think each thing we have done so far has happened pretty much spontaneously and I like life like that. I wanna live now.
