“There was a CNN guy, he was interviewing us live and he was saying that our music made people stupid,” recounts Lene Nystrøm, frontwoman for Danish-Norwegian dance pop band Aqua, whom you will know best for their imperishable 1997 hit ‘Barbie Girl’. “I just turned it around and told him that if you want to call 30 million people stupid, that’s on you.”
For most, their relationship with the Copenhagen outfit, formerly known as Joyspeed, ends at ‘Barbie Girl’. For others, things go just a little deeper. “There’s this guy, an Australian actually,” Lene tells us over the phone from her Brisbane hotel room. “He saw us the first time we were playing Darling Harbour. I think that was in ’98.”
“He’s such a massive fan, his name is Paul Delaney, and he moved to England to live closer to me. It sounds freaky, but he’s a sweet guy and he sends me presents every week. Things that he knows I like. He knows I collect skulls, he sends me vodka, lipstick. He’s way over the top, but he’s a good guy.”
Far from a relic of the ’90s, for many, Aqua are still a phenomenon, and for Lene, the best came after the turn of the millennium. “I’d have to say one of the best performances, for me, one of the highlights, was singing with Luciano Pavarotti in Italy. That was pretty awesome.”
“Pavarotti used to have a show every year called ‘Pavarotti and Friends’. The money went to a good cause. It was a huge show every year in Italy and watched all over the world and we got invited and I was singing this song with Luciano called ‘Funiculì, Funiculà’ and he’s an icon, so it was pretty cool.”
Of course, being one of the most talked-about bands on the planet had its lows, too. As Lene recounts, “[On] a trip from America to South America, we kind of had to crash land halfway with racehorses in the back of the plane.”
“We had to land in Mexico on a landing strip and it wasn’t long enough for the jumbo, but we couldn’t leave the flight because of the racehorses, the plane would tilt. There was a lot of armed guys around the plane, it was just crazy. We were stuck there for about 12 hours.”
“When we were surfing with Aqua on the highs, there was not that much time to focus on just touring and playing live gigs,” Lene explains. “Now, we just want to have fun and hang out with each other in a good way.”
And though Lene tell us that the band’s pensive 1998 single ‘Turn Back Time’ is “the track I have the deepest feelings for”, Lene and her bandmates, René Dif, Søren Rasted, and Claus Norreen, have no desire to do any such thing.
Now in the midst of the band’s latest tour of Down Under — “Australia’s always been one of my favourite countries to visit as a band,” she says — we decided to take Lene on a quick detour to explore the best and the worst of the ’90s.
Overrated or underrated? N*Sync
In a way, underrated. They were my homies, I can’t say anything bad about them.
Blockbuster Video
Oh, that’s a tricky one! [laughs] In the middle there somewhere.
Melrose Place
Overrated.
Tamagotchi
Totally overrated.
Michael Bolton
Oh my God! Absolutely overrated.
Wayne’s World
Underrated.
Twin Peaks
That’s the best series ever.
Seinfeld
You can’t say underrated or overrated!
‘I’m Too Sexy’ by Right Said Fred
Let’s put that as underrated, I kind of like him.
Jurassic Park
Maybe overrated?
The X-Files
Too controversial to touch.
Ace of Base
Overrated.
Tommy Hilfiger
Totally overrated.
‘Barbie Girl’
The doll, overrated. The song, underrated.
If you could bring back one thing from the ‘90s to make a resurgence today, what would it be?
Savage Garden.
If you could take one thing from today and banish it to the ‘90s forever, what would that be?
Facebook.
What’s your most overplayed album from the ‘90s?
I listened to a lot of Live and Savage Garden. Savage Garden, for me, was kind of my soundtrack.
What was your number one guilty pleasure during the ‘90s?
[laughs] Kissing too many men, maybe?
Aqua Australian Tour Dates
Friday, 31st October 2014
Eatons Hill, Brisbane
Saturday, 1st November 2014
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Sunday, 2nd November 2014
HQ, Adelaide
Monday, 3rd November 2014
Palais, Melbourne
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Wednesday, 5th November 2014
Metropolis, Fremantle
Tickets: Oztix
