Katie Stelmanis talks to Negroni about therapy, heartbreak and the dark side of streaming.
The lantern lights have already been switched on, but the flow of people around Berlin’s Rosenthaler Platz still doesn’t subside. We sit in the outdoor area of the 100 Gramm Bar, close to the intoxicating action, close to the always busy tram and talk about clicks, retro smoking and heartbreak.
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Australia: The whole atmosphere here reminds me of Paris, where I have just been. I like that. But I miss real menu cards!
Yes, scanning the QR code is not that chic, I agree with you. What are we drinking? There is a selection here that blows my mind.
I’m classic and choose Negroni.
I’m there. Also snacks? Are you for sharing?
Sure, my nuts are yours. Ok, now that sounds strange.
But I appreciate that, thank you. And what was Paris like?
I liked the combination of album promotion and free time where I could always sit around somewhere – just for myself.
So being alone in public places works for you?
When I travel it’s not a problem at all. This feels downright iconic, especially in Paris. There are also often tables for one person only. I tend to be too anxious to do that when I’m at home in Toronto. In such a situation I could suddenly meet someone I know…
Do you smoke? I feel like that goes into whether you’re designed to hang out alone and not feel stupid about it.
I think smoking is totally disgusting, but the thing is, people in Paris make it look cool.
In films and series it can currently be seen as more than just a cool person habit.
Smoking is so retro. I don’t know anyone in my circle of friends who smokes. Now when it’s portrayed as glamorous, it’s a Y2K thing.
So I think it’s cool that you can sit alone in bars when you’re traveling without worrying about what other people think of you. Does this also apply to how you deal with your music – so do you also not think about other people’s opinions about it?
Oh no, I think about how people might judge my music 24/7. This is a topic that I have often addressed in therapy. It’s so hard to just let something you created happen in the world. Because you almost never get the reaction you wanted. My therapy sessions were supposed to prepare me so that I would be more relaxed by the time of the new album, but no… As soon as a new track of mine was on the internet, I was obsessively reading the comments about it. I guess I’m not as enlightened as I would have liked.
How do you try to keep yourself balanced?
I’ll try distraction. By the way, there are a lot of nuts in front of us…
But really! And it’s nice how you’ve now proven that you’re good at distracting people.
(laughs) True. But it’s also a sad topic… Streaming services work like social media platforms. The streaming services show how many times a song has been played and it is so easy to become fixated on it and develop another addiction to it. You shouldn’t be able to be judged by it hour after hour! But that’s how it is and it makes me constantly think about how I could further increase the number of views. This is so unhealthy. And in the end, despite the number of views, I don’t know how something will be received by people. My previous album was released in 2020 – in the middle of the pandemic. I had to cancel 75 shows; in terms of feedback, it felt like the record never came out. But when I was able to play concerts again, I was surprised at how well certain songs from that same album were received by the crowd. I wasn’t expecting that because the streaming numbers didn’t tell me exactly what.
So I mainly use Spotify to discover new things and then I’m more happy when a song doesn’t have that many clicks yet.
Yes, I know that too. And I choose Spotify to be up to date and to know the views of other artists. But it’s like this: If I really want to enjoy music, I sit down at home with a Negroni, dim the lights and put on vinyl. I like the physicality of it. I love going to auctions and garage sales, buying old classical and jazz records for 20 cents and turning them on in some sort of ceremony in my own home. For others it may have no value, but for me a scrappy LP like this is crazy. By the way, just like the Negroni. It’s perfect.
Just right. Sitting outside and sipping this… But I’ll address the elephant in the room: We don’t sit opposite each other, but next to each other and always have to turn a little to look each other in the eyes when we talk. On a scale of 1 to 10, how uncomfortable are you?
So for me it’s totally clear, it’s somehow part of my new Parisian lifestyle. (laughs) Is it too weird for you?
The more Negroni I drink, the happier I feel. All good then! Which musicians, dead or alive, would you like to sit so close to in a bar?
I would really like to meet Puccini. Just to know how he acted like that. This also applies to Debussy. Somehow I think they were secretly gay. I know they had wives, but my head tells me: In no world did they make the kind of music and weren’t not gay. I would like to know that they do not necessarily correspond to the tense, state-supporting concert halls in which they are now only played. And because my favorite film is “Amadeus”, I would also like to have a drink with Mozart. I don’t know if it’s okay to say this, but I feel like he was autistic. He was so incredibly prolific, but all of his compositions, which were truly fantastic, had something similar to them, as if he had fixed himself on something specific that he had to work through. I’m thinking about this a lot right now, especially because Trump is talking about how he thinks people with autism should be cured. But why would you want that? To stick with my shaky example of Mozart: Why would anyone have wanted to cure Mozart? Who would that have benefited?
Trump won’t stop saying and doing things that are scary. Did you also include these socio-politically problematic developments with your album, CHIN UP BUTTERCUP?
The album title already suggests that it’s about still going to work and functioning in everyday life even when everything around you is collapsing. I mean that in a political sense as well as in a private one. At the moment everything feels like chaos in the world. But with the record I still mainly meant my personal chaos because I went through a bad breakup in 2020. The breakup completely destabilized me. Now I’m at a point where I can almost laugh at the melodrama aspect of it all. Also about the fact that at the worst time of the relationship breakup my head was showing me realities that weren’t true, but on the album I leaned into these fake realities a little more and sometimes even made fun of them. But not in a negative way, not as laughing at you, but laughing as something that makes you feel better.
Is alcohol a good or bad idea when dealing with heartbreak?
When I’m really sad, I stay away from alcohol. And the heartbreak was so bad that I didn’t even make music for a year. I immediately started therapy sessions and tried to find motivation elsewhere. For example, I started making jam during the pandemic and heartbreak. But making music, which had always regulated and relaxed me before, stopped because I was worried that it wouldn’t have the same power as before. It wasn’t until I felt less depressed and actually permanently euphoric thanks to my new relationship that I knew that the music would take off again.
More about Australia
Since 2011, Katie Stelmanis has been bringing her clubby synth-pop to the world as Austra, in which her haunting voice – which is clearly based on classical training – is in the foreground. The Toronto-based musician releases her fifth album, CHIN UP BUTTERCUP (release: November 14th), which is all about separation grief in dance garb.