In this video, Lady Gaga opens up about her relationship with celebrity and how her latest album, ‘Mayhem,’ explores the dark side of fame. Plus, Gaga reveals her creative process and how she embraced complex issues in her music.
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00:00I just realized too what I should have said to you when I said that I wasn't made this way.
00:05I was born this way.
00:05You were born this way. I was going to say it, but I didn't want to take it from you.
00:13I do want to first revisit what you told me last year in our interview about Harlequin.
00:17You said that album laid the foundation for darkness sonically, particularly the reference
00:22to Portraits of a Strung Out Girl. We talked a lot about that lyric and pain from your early career.
00:29Perfect Celebrity, on this album, I was smiling the whole time listening to that song because
00:34it felt like you were re-harnessing that darkness, especially when you say,
00:39choke on the fame. I love that lyric so much. What does that lyric mean to you,
00:44and was there a specific moment that maybe made your perspective change from suffering that pain
00:50to fighting back against the fame monster, I guess you could say?
00:53Well, I would say that that lyric is, choke on the fame and hope it gets you high.
01:02I think I've had a complicated relationship with fame since the beginning of my career,
01:07and I think that I'm probably not the only one. Even more people now in the world, I think,
01:14have a stage with the way that social media is today. In that song, I also talk about
01:20there being a clone of me asleep on the ceiling, this idea that we have two versions of ourselves,
01:25there's who we are in private and who we are in public, our public-facing persona.
01:33I think that lyric, choke on the fame and hope it gets you high, comes from this idea that this
01:38thing that I have loved doing my whole life, devoting myself to my artistry, has also been
01:46complicated, and something that has at times felt like suffocating, but also giving me
01:54these extreme highs and then really low lows. That song was kind of scary to write,
02:02because when I wrote it, I'm like, am I ever going to allow anyone to hear this? It's kind of angry.
02:09But I ultimately decided that it was part of my personal mayhem, and I thought the album was
02:16authentic to include it. I love hearing all of that come out, and the sounds that
02:23come out on this album too, because I think it's such an eclectic mix. It really took me by surprise.
02:27Fans have noted a lot recently that despite maybe the meaning of the word mayhem, you seem
02:35so genuinely outwardly happy at this moment, I think. A lot of that usually comes under
02:41comments of you and Michael, who I know you also worked with on this album. You once said he
02:45encouraged you to make another pop album. So was the initial plan to maybe not go in the pop
02:51direction at first? It wasn't so much that I was not going to go in the pop direction. I just think
02:57I met him, and I fell in love with him, and I just was so excited to settle down
03:03and start a family. That's something that we both want. But when he came on the
03:10Chromatica Ball with me, he saw me performing and saw my relationship with my fans in person,
03:18and I think it really touched him. He was like, you have to do this. This makes you
03:24so happy. He just saw it bring out another side of me, a side of me that's very different from
03:31the idea of being a celebrity. Who I am with my fans, I actually think is a totally different
03:38thing. I don't know quite how to explain that other than when I'm on stage, I feel like I'm
03:45exactly where I'm supposed to be. He said you have to make a pop record, and I was really
03:52nervous too, but then I did, and I decided to approach it in a way that I also hadn't
03:59done in a while. Instead of completely reinventing my sound with every album that
04:06I've ever done, I started to think about what makes me me. What are my references?
04:12What are my inspirations? What is my style? Being unafraid to actually answer a question that
04:19I've been asked my whole career, which is could you please define yourself for us?
04:23I had a really hard time doing that because I didn't really know, but I think I found
04:28some of it with Mayhem. I think it's those different parts of yourself. I'm reading
04:34into maybe the Cracked Mirror on the album title maybe a little bit too much, but those different
04:39parts of yourself that are coming together and making this thing that represents so many
04:45different sides of you. It is kind of like a middle finger to, I guess, people that are trying
04:49to define you in a certain way. Yeah, well, I mean, there's always been slight retaliation in
04:54my music in some way. I think the artwork too, it's fragmented. It's like there's a piece of me
05:03that's completely disoriented, and it's almost like a ghost of me is a part of the whole me.
05:12I always think that that's kind of interesting with the song Vanish Into You, also this idea
05:18that if you're haunted by yourself, are you carrying a ghost with you all the time?
05:24Okay, ghosts, haunting. Were you feeling inspiration maybe from beyond for this album
05:30too if we're talking about ghosts? No, I called this album a series of gothic dreams,
05:37but I think I've always had gothic dreams. That feels very the fame and the fame
05:42monster to me, even born this way. Kind of visions and images of these symbolic
05:51stories that mean something bigger that I turn into pop music. Yeah, so can you give an example
05:55of maybe one that a vision that came to you that inspired this album? Yeah, I had a vision
06:00of a lady in red standing over the nightclub and reading you the last few words of your life and
06:06saying, I'm going to test you now. Do you have what it takes to make it through the night?
06:11It could be the greatest sign of your life or it could all be over. And that song is about
06:16resilience. But yeah, it came in the form of this gothic dream. That makes me think of also
06:23when you say at the top of the video, dance or die. And then also fans are also pointing to the
06:27scene in the disease video where you're dancing, going down these two walls. And when you're
06:32dancing, the walls go out. And then when you stop dancing, they're closing in further. So that's
06:37always been something I think that people want to know as well. Like that pull, that push and that
06:41pull between feeling compelled to keep feeding the fame monster, but also the pain that it brings you
06:47in some ways. For sure. For sure. That's part of it. It's sort of like, like sprinting towards
06:53something that isn't really intense. And, and trying to maintain my sense of like vulnerability
07:01and softness and fragility through it all because it like kind of made me a hard person for a while.
07:08But I think that it makes me so happy when I hear that, like my fans see that I'm really happy
07:13because I know that I'm not a role model for everyone, but I hope that I can maybe be an
07:21example that you can be a deeply artistic person and that we don't have to romanticize torture.
07:27Even though there's a lot of that in my music, like, and a lot of that in my art. But that's like,
07:33that's kind of the mayhem of it all is that it's a part of me, but it's, I'm, I'm just trying to
07:39channel it differently and not let it run me. And the different parts of you that do come out
07:43also, like, I mean, I obviously paid attention over the years to your musical influences,
07:47people that you've spoken about. And I, I do think in this album, I'm hearing a lot of that come out.
07:54Like, I mean, I'm hearing Michael, I'm hearing Whitney, I'm hearing even Elton on Blade of
07:58Grass a little bit, I think on there. But the one that really struck, stood out to me was I'm
08:03hearing a lot of, like, very Prince strings and throughout the whole thing. So I'm wondering why
08:09those specific influences and the brighter sounds of the artists that fuel you and make you happy
08:15came out in lyrics that in some ways are very dark.
08:19That is my, my, like, sonic aesthetic. Like, that's the way I would say it is that I've,
08:24like, these artists have, you know, influenced me for a long time, even on my early, early records.
08:35And I just, it's, it's like, it's like taking what made you fall in love with music
08:44and then turning it just into your own thing. And like, my way of writing a chorus or
08:53the intervals that I like, or the, like, the lyrics that I make that don't really make any
09:00sense, but to my fans, who I love so much. That's like, that's me. And I think that I
09:08wanted to kind of make a statement in a way of like, you like, I've always been asked what Gaga
09:14is. And like, it took me 20 years to figure it out, in a way. And I think I still am. But
09:20um, this album really feels like, defined to me in a way that I feel really good about.
09:27Well, given that you said you people have been asking you to define that in a, in a way,
09:32since the beginning of your career, but it still begs the question, like,
09:35if you're saying you've defined it, what is that? What is the definition to you?
09:40It's mayhem. It's like, it's having a hard part of yourself and a soft part of yourself,
09:47and having those things be at war with each other all the time. And just like,
09:53the resilience of keeping going and dancing through that.
09:56Now, there's also a term that fans used to describe the sound of disease in Abracadabra.
10:01It is reheating your nachos.
10:03I have newly heard this.
10:05Okay, okay. That was gonna be my question. You've heard this.
10:07I've heard it.
10:08You're aware.
10:08Yes.
10:09What do you think of that, that saying and also the sentiment behind it?
10:14I know that it can be used both in like positive and negative ways.
10:18But I would say that my nachos are mine.
10:22And I invented them. And I'm proud of them. And like, so much of what I did with Abracadabra
10:30was about claiming music and imagery that is my own invention. Meaning that the combination of
10:39those things are my invention. And I wanted to really own that for myself. As a woman in music,
10:46we get often told that someone else made us who we are. Or that somehow it didn't come from us.
10:54Like we were made that way. But you know, this is who I am.
11:01I just can't believe I'm talking to you about reheating nachos. It's just like...
11:05I mean, it's a real conversation.
11:07Yeah, no, it is. And I think, you know, one of the things that falls into that category,
11:13obviously, like the resurgence of Bloody Mary recently was such a, like, I mean, that song
11:19has been on repeat in my house ever since it came out. But like to see people respond to it in such
11:24a way recently was such a cool thing. Which, you know, obviously, there's the TikTok dance. And
11:31Wednesday, season two is coming up. I'm wondering if that collaboration with Jenna
11:36came together because of that. And like, if she reached out to you, because she gave a lot
11:40of interviews saying how much she loved Bloody Mary and the TikTok dance.
11:43I don't want to give away anything about being a part of the show. I want to keep it extra secret.
11:49But I love Jenna. And I really had an amazing time.
11:55Okay. Okay. Also, one of my favorite teases for Mayhem was when you commented, you know,
12:03the fans are always reading into your comments and your little and your little responses on TikTok,
12:07especially. And the one that you had was somebody asked where LG seven was. And you said it's in a
12:12vault guarded by and then you put the little monster emoji, which I'm assuming was Miss Mayhem,
12:17the lady in red. I just wonder what else is in the vault is that she's guarding is maybe art
12:23pop back to in the vault. Oh, my. Really going for it. In the vault. No, only LG seven is in the
12:32vault. Okay, coming out soon. I just realized to what I should have said to you when I said that
12:38I wasn't made this way. I was born you were born. I didn't take it from you. Art pop back to is in
12:46a different vault. Presumably. Okay. The other thing, what when I interviewed you for House
12:53of Gucci, we talked a lot about early acting. And one thing our readers went crazy for was when we
13:00talked about The Sopranos and your role in The Sopranos. Like that was everybody loved that
13:06story. And I cannot think of anything that exemplifies the definition of mayhem more
13:10than another early acting gig on Boiling Points. Do you remember this?
13:18Do you remember how you landed that gig? And what do you see in the young actress when you look back
13:22at that footage? That was not acting. That was just so long ago. So embarrassing. I was so excited
13:30to be an extra on The Sopranos. I was so excited to be on Boiling Points because I was like gonna
13:38be on TV and I was trying to, you know, make my way as an artist. I don't know. They were just
13:43exciting opportunities. I look back on that and I just go how it was like so sweet. You like just
13:48imagine me screaming in the bathroom or in my dorm room with excitement. And then, you know, 15 years
13:55later being like I can't believe this is resurfacing. So, you know, careful what you wish for.