Daphne Guinness

0:12Hello and welcome to the special episode of the Monaco Weekly. I'm Fernando Gusto Pacheco, and for today's show, I speak with fashion icon and singer Daphne Guinness on her new single and upcoming album.

0:38Daphne Guinness, what a pleasure. Welcome to Monaco Radio. I've been a fan of your music since your first album, 2016. But would you mind if I go back to the beginning? Because actually your kind of official, let's say, music career started on a later stage in your life. But tell us, did you always knew that you wanted to be a singer at some point? Yes, I was always a singer from when I was a child. I can't remember the year I started singing, but I think it was early, early childhood. I grew up in a church, actually, so I would sing at home in Spain, in fact. And then I think the shape of that church really affected my musical ability to be able to sort of pitch my voice.

1:23So then I had music lessons at school. I went through the sort of choir system. Then I was trained to become an opera singer. so I was trained all the way up until I was kind of 17 and I did all the sort of theory and all the sort of you know exams pertaining to that and I didn't go because I got married so I was trained classically up until that point and then the rest of it was sort of self-taught So I continued to learn and I continued to study all the way through my 20s and 30s. And I mean, if you see me in any of the sort of photo shoots that I ever did, I was always listening to music. That was the only thing that really kept me from losing my mind, as it were, during the so-called fashion years.

2:17So I was always either singing or listening to music. So, yes, I mean, it's been a constant presence in my life. And is it the case that David Bowie supported you, you know, when you wanted to start this career, as I said, with your first album, first music? It was a bit more complicated than that, as everything always is. I ended up, I'd left New York and I'd sort of decided that I was retiring from life forever. I was never going to do anything again in any shape or form. I'd finished FIT and had gone through another round of someone very close to me. My brother died. And I was again up in my family house in Spain, in Catecas.

3:03And I was with an old friend of mine who is a musician, but he had a great influence on me as a child and as a teenager because I was in the sort of local band down in the village. and we were scattering my brother's ashes and I said to him, why don't we go and why don't we record a song for my brother, a Bob Dylan song? So we made a date and we had a time to get to Ireland and he's a hippie so he never got the email so I arrive in Ireland on the 3rd of September I can't remember which year it was, I think 2011 or 12 and he doesn't arrive because of course he's playing flamenco down with the gypsies in the south of Spain somewhere.

3:47And I'm, you know, faced with a very lovely man who's a producer in Ireland. I'm sort of embarrassed that I didn't really have my co-member with me. So one day turned into another day and I just so sort of almost sort of thinking, oh my goodness, I'm wasting time. So I started making stuff up, which one song turned into another song, which turned into another song. and I was right in the middle of Westmeath, which is smack bang in the middle of nowhere. Very little phone reception. But at one point I did go into Dublin and I had met Bowie in New York before, but it essentially called a friend of mine who knew.

4:28It was really, I was trying to find a producer, so I was trying to find Tony Visconti's number. So I actually sent him an email and I didn't know that it was sort of orchestrated, the reception of this email. So Tony dismissed it and Bowie stepped in and said, you've got to do this. This is fun. So he put together the band, him and Tony, and he essentially co-produced the first album. So I am Irish, but I'd become even more Irish. And I knew that it needed to sort of be drawn back from that sort of slightly country feel. And so he was so kind. and people that he worked with, essentially Tony and Gail-Anne Dorsey, he provided the blueprint, but also he listened in on every take from every day and was there with his taste and knowledge, which was absolutely, for me, it was such an incredible privilege and he was such a lovely person to be around.

5:30Tony Visconti, he did the string arrangements on this album. This album was conceived by myself and Malcolm, trusty co-writer. And we've sort of been through, my goodness, this has been a three-year odyssey. And Malcolm and I have been working since album two together. And I think we're having fun, I think.

6:02well let's talk about the first single which is you know by the time the interview is out is hip next pine i think beautiful disco it's kind of electric how first of all do you think that single reflects the album of course i haven't heard all the tracks of the upcoming album there's something quite upbeat about it. Does it reflect the album? Ah, yes, it is an upbeat, but actually it's interesting. I mean, this album has almost got everything in it. It's a sort of a genre-defying album. I think that, you know, it's quite classical in nature. It's really, it's the past and the future all sort of wrapped up in one, because it looks forward and backwards at the same time.

6:45There are 34 strings on it, which is sort of two-thirds of a string section for an orchestra, almost. I mean, it's unheard of on a pop record. So the levels of complexity are quite deep. And we recorded this album in so many different ways. So there are many different ways to break it down. But the sort of final version that you heard is the definitive one. But it's been through lots of different phases. The song is always the same. When you have a decent song to build on, then you can, there are many options. Is it true that in the song Hip, Neck, Spine, you can hear actually the joints? Tell us a bit more about that.

7:29Malcolm could hear me in the chiropractor's office and he knocked on the door and he said, is that your joints that I can hear? And I said, yes, do come in. And so he recorded on his iPhone the sounds of my neck and my hip and my back going and made it into a percussion. I love that. Yeah, it's very funny. And of course, your videos, I mean, they're splendid when it comes to fashion as well. We all know about your clothes and your interest for fashion as well. For example, in the videoclip, I mean, there's a lot of kind of changes in clothing and beautiful, beautiful outfits. How important is that for your music as well?

8:07Does fashion inspire you musically? I think it's probably the other way around in a funny way. Music and literature inspired my fashion choices to a great extent. But also, I know this sounds really bizarre, but I always try to sort of take it down to an essence and then sort of build on top of it. I often think that I'm rather boring because I sort of wear a heightened uniform most of the time. And then I have my basics. But this video essentially is a sort of dive into many periods of my own clothes, which have been in storage because I'm a nomad. I don't live anywhere. I live where I work. I am what I work.

8:49And where I am is sort of immaterial to a great extent. But I do sort of leave a sort of trail of sequins sort of in various storage facilities around the world. I mean, thank goodness that sort of is a little bit more organized now. I did this exhibition at FIT. So it's almost as if I took that exhibition, but slightly different. There are so many different versions of myself that I could still see myself being, if that makes any sense. Daphne, what's your relationship with fashion these days? I mean, are you still interested in going to the shows? Because, of course, we know about your very close relationship, especially with someone like Alexander McQueen, of course, which is very well documented.

9:33I was just wondering now, what's the connection? My connection with fashion is for the last 12 or 13 years, I've been giving out scholarships at Central St. Martin's. First of all, in memory of my friend Isabella Blow, but then recently, actually just under my own name, because the bureaucracy involved in running a foundation, frankly, I was far better off just giving that to the students. so I try to support students and young people going into fashion. My relationship with fashion, I mean when I manage to go and see a show it's normally a house that I have some sort of relationship with or friends.

10:11I actually need to kind of be involved with the stuff. I pretty much make most of the things that I wear. I am surprised when I go out I do see things that I like but I've never had a formal role in the fashion world. I have many, many friends in the fashion world and I've been sort of there for lots of people in the fashion world but I've never actually had a role, an official role as it were. But I love the idea of costumes. I love the idea of being able to transform yourself. I love the craft. I love the conversations. For me, many interesting conversations can be started just by the way that you dress or you look and it's a conversation with the world at large.

10:52I go very sort of deep into the weave and the colour and pigments and sort of the actual fit and the sewing parts. But the fashion world, I don't really understand. I never did, really. But I love it and lots of other people love it too. If I may ask, for example, what are you wearing today? I'm wearing one of my own creations. That's amazing. Yeah, this is a sort of a shirt. I make these shirts and I make these jackets and the shoes, obviously. I just refine the cut again and again and just wear the same thing because it's easy. I like having sort of very simple but yet well cut things. Of course, that makes sense.

11:35Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm curious something about the album because in Hip Next Pine, I feel there's a little bit of 80s electronic. I said disco, but also some kind of 80s vibe. I feel the rhythm, but we're a little closer. I mean, will there be more of that? But you did say that it's kind of quite an electronic album as well. What can you tell us more about it? Yes, it's got a lot of electronic. I think it suits you very well. It does. So it's electronic, it's dance, it's maybe a little bit disco, it's classical to a great extent. It has all sorts of strange and wonderful things that have been recorded, which might not have ever been recorded before.

12:18or Malcolm plays Aerogel on one of the tracks, which I think must be a first. As a whole, it really is quite an amazing thing. I'm so happy it sounds so good. I like it anyway. Is there a part of you that likes to perform live? Because I'm curious, or because I think I read somewhere, correct me if I'm wrong, that you're a shy person at times, right? I know, I chose the wrong profession. For me, quite a sort of, you know, retiring kind of person who likes to read a book and to be somewhere quiet. The Irish countryside. Yeah, exactly. Or just sort of in a white room. I don't really like being out very, very much.

12:59I love the countryside. I love, you know, being amongst the trees and in the wild fields or up a sort of mountain or something. But yes, performing live, I haven't done as much as I perhaps could have done because I seem to go from record to record. So it doesn't leave a lot of time between. And also I tend to overwork. So I, you know. Are you a perfectionist in that sense? Am I a perfectionist? I probably am. At some point you just have to kind of let it go. Try to get it as right as I possibly can. And then, you know, who knows? So perhaps no Daphne again is world tour. Well, I mean, who knows?

13:37I mean, the problem is, is that, you know, I haven't done that before, but it would be a challenge. I think you can pull it off. Oh, gosh. My goodness. Daphne Guinness, what a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for stopping by. Thank you very much.

13:58That was Daphne Guinness, and her latest single, Hip, Neck, Spine, is out now. The show was edited by Christy O 'Grady, and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco. Thank you.