BIELFIELD: “LET’S MAKE CRAZY SHIT!”
KYLE BIELFIELD IS AN OPERA SINGER WITH A POP CAREER – BUT HIS NEW ALBUM OF COVERS, MANHATTAN IS NEITHER. CONFUSED? IAN HORNER MEETS AN ARTIST KEEN TO KEEP US GUESSING.
Kyle Bielfield is the opera singer with a pop career – but his new album, Manhattan is neither! Confused?
I would love more creative gay people to come out of the woodwork… photographers, writers, producers, videographers… come and work with me.
DNA: Manhattan is, mostly, an album of love songs about a guy pining for a girl.
Kyle: You think? What tracks are you talking about? Well, Kathy’s Song. And lines from other songs like, “Lady, don’t turn your heart away.” And “She’s coming in 12:30 flight, hurry boy, she’s waiting there for you.” And “I met my old lover on the street last night, she seemed so glad to see me.” I’m going to disagree with you. It’s called Kathy’s Song because Paul Simon wrote it about Kathy, but the song itself is not gender-specific. Lady is my original track and I understand it could be taken as a straight love song but that’s not what it was written about.
Most people listening to this album would hear a man talking about his love for a woman. That’s not you.
Let me explain why I don’t see it like that. Human Nature probably has the most female pronouns. It’s about comparing New York City to a prostitute. It’s not a love song. The “she” he’s talking about is the streets of New York. It’s a parable for something else; how seductive the seedy side of the world is, how glamorous the dark side can be, sexual, sensual and wonderful.
And feminine.
It’s not about the feminine-ness. Depending on where this album goes I hope to do some video content that will tell more of a story. I’d love to do Africa as a very dark Alice In Wonderland sort of thing with papier-mâché animals in a pseudo ballet. There’s a lot of desperation in the music, there’s a lot of yearning. That’s how this collection came about. It has nothing to do with straight-gay, feminine-masculine.
Some of your gay peers might want you to sing love songs that are unapologetically gay.
It’s possible, but isn’t it more interesting to go against the grain? To do things people don’t expect. Like I do opera [including a magnificent Handel’s Messiah in Sydney recently]. And before this album I did Dance Again with Courtney Act.
Talking of going against the grain, it’d be awesome if you recorded that fantastic gay love song you wrote with John Foreman.
I put several of my original songs to Sony for this album and I was hoping to have several originals on it. Lady was picked, but the guy at Sony didn’t know it was an original. He thought it was one of Whitney Houston’s songs that never made it. I’m not quite ready to say exactly what Lady is about but it’s not a love song. I’ve been writing a lot of new music. It’s ironic that I’m putting out these covers.
What are you exploring in your own lyrics? Things we’ve been brainwashed into believing. Things that don’t exist in the way we think they do. Growing up as an American we were taught that we’d go to work in an awesome job, come home to an awesome house… none of that ended up the way [we were told it would].
You’ve been in Australia three years now; do you still feel it’s brimming with the hope and possibilities that brought you here?
Yes and no. Yes because there’s enough here to allow me to create some of what I want to. But every time I like [working with] someone here they leave for America! Even the guy who did this album with me! The guy who did the Courtney song with me, Jay Cee… right after, he left for LA. The first producer I worked with here is now in Nashville. I mean, what’s the point? Everybody I start working with just leaves – to my country! It’s frustrating. Because it stops you doing the work you want to do? I’ve realised it requires me to take my vision and say, “I wanna do this.” If someone says, “No, you can’t”, I might have to take what I’m making and finish it somewhere else. I listen to Triple J and I’m like, oh, that’s nice but what is this we’re listening to? It’s one word and a bunch of music that’s not that great. As a classical musician, I hear the way these songs have been orchestrated and they simply replicate thousands of songs that’ve come before in the last three years. It’s becoming blander and blander and blander. I’d like to put something out as Bielfield and that is an uphill battle. Pursuing artistic vision is becoming increasingly difficult here and I don’t know why that is.
Maybe it’s the Cultural Cringe. Our artists have to become famous overseas before we recognise them.
It’s not the creating that’s hard, it’s finding the people who want to move what I’ve done to the next level. People here don’t collaborate in the same way [as in the USA]. I haven’t found directors or artists who are trying to reach out.
Why do you think that is?
People are hungrier in the States. Everyone there gets paid less. Here they’ll charge you $30,000 to do a music video. Really? Am I actually going to get a video worth $30,000 or is that just the Australian rate? It’s crazy-expensive. That’s why there’s so much content coming from the US.
And that’s why finding collaborators is important?
In the States people are happier about sharing stuff. Maybe I’m from a different world? I do wish there was more community here, especially because it’s so small in the first place. I have to say, though, life is definitely easier and better in Australia. People aren’t as downtrodden here.
Then why did marriage equality take so long? Come on, we all know why. It was ridiculous. A minority was being oppressed and the response was, “Let’s have a public vote on this thing and see if the majority care.” You can’t ask the majority to decide on the rights of a minority. But Australia did care! Even though we won, it was fucking bullshit. What would make your creative career in Australia more fulfilling?
I would love more creative gay people to come out of the woodwork… photographers, writers, producers, videographers, come and work with me. I’m after gay people who are seriously interested in doing some cool stuff, not the same junk, not the same bull shit we’re always doing. Let’s do some weird stuff! I can dream up all sorts of crazy shit but I need help making that stuff exist, right?