#002: French/israeli artist Petite Meller on inspiring Beyoncé and Jacquemus

Petite Meller is famous for her nouveau jazzy pop and colorful, cinematic music videos. Aux Haus caught up with her in Tel Aviv for a chat about quantum physics, her theory about why Swedes are so great at creating melodies and how she inspired designer Jacquemus to do big hats – and Beyoncé to explore Africa for Lemonade. 

Hi Petite! You’re in Tel Aviv right now?
Yes, It’s very hot and sunny. It’s 35 degrees.

Oh ok, it’s quite the opposite of Sweden then, the weather here is pretty garbage.
Really, what’s it like? 

It’s 17 degrees and raining. It’s been like October weather all July.
Haha oh no! 

So what do your days look like in Tel Aviv?
I do pole dancing, I go to the studio and I gå on tours. I have a DJ that I work with, Darco, he plays on bongo’s and sax. Tel Aviv is my base when I go to Europe, but my home is in West Hollywood in Los Angeles. I just came back to Tel Aviv from a Soho House tour in Istanbul and Mykonos.  

You’ve recorded with HYENA (Andreas Söderlund) and I saw a YouTube video of you in the studio with Jocke Åhlund of Teddybears. What’s up with all these Swedes? 
Haha yeah, I do have a lot of Swedish people in my life. Jocke actually recorded my whole album Lil Empire. I can’t wait to come back and record more in Sweden. I really, really love the Swedish sound. Sweden has the best producers and melodies, more original than LA, more original than anywhere.

Video of Petite Meller hanging out in Stockholm with producer Jocke Åhlund.

That’s quite the compliment!
I’m actually really curious how you do it. My Norwegian friend thinks it all comes from these very unique, pleasant and unpredictable childrens’ songs that you have and that you get inspiration from. Is that true? 

I mean, I never thought about it but maybe there could be more than one reason? Maybe it’s also because we have a big middle class, with the accessibility to create music. Does that make sense? 
Yes, but opportunity isn’t a reason to make music. Creating these interesting and unpredictable melodies that you do is a thing I haven’t seen anywhere else. 

Yeah, it’s weird. Because we’re not great at other art forms in the same way. For example, we’re not very good at making films. In my opinion we mostly do shitty crime drama. 
I like the director of Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund. And Roy Anderson and Bergman!

True, those are great. But the Danes are way better, with all the Dogma directors. 
They have Lars!

Speaking of, most great art seems to come from a place of pain. Do you think it’s the same with music?
Yes, for me music is mathematics and emotion. Swedes are very good at mathematics too! So my goal is to help people dance the pain away and heal through music. When I came to Sweden they took all my songs and put them in major, to make them happier, to make them more of a contrast to the lyrics, that come from a painful place. Like pleasure out of pain, to me that’s the essence of creating music. In philosophy, this term is called jouissance. 

Do you have any plans on releasing new music?
Yes, I’m gonna release a Patti Smith cover soon called Dancing Barefoot.  And then lots of more singles.  

Really looking forward to hearing that! Ok so I’m gonna go back in time a little – tell me about Terry Poison! 
That was a girl band I was in, with sort of an electro punk sound. We got together in Tel Aviv. We were Norwegian, French and Russian girls. I was writing the French part of the lyrics and a Norwegian girl called Louisa wrote the English part. We toured all over Europe and opened up for Depeche Mode. 

Oh wow, that’s cool.
That’s where I gained my live performance experience. So when I went to do my solo thing I was already very experienced on stage. First time I was on stage I discovered that it was my home. Because I was shy in real life but on stage I was a different person.

I was gonna ask about that, because seeing your music videos and other clips of you it seems like you don’t really give a shit about what anyone else thinks. Is it because you’re in character? 
I would say it’s a discovery of my character, which is myself in real life. It’s just me evolving. Like, at the same time as I was taking music to the next level I was also mastering in philosophy. I want to create poetry in my videos. Next thing for me is cinema. 

You wanna do acting? 
Not just acting, I’m working on a script.

For a music video? 
It’s a music video that evolved into a movie. It’s very hard to say but a director that I was talking to about a video wanted it to be a movie. So it’s in the writing, we’re about halfway through. 

Exciting! To mee, reading your interviews, you feel very much like an explorer – of art forms, of the world, of philosophy ... Where does all this curiosity come from? 
I say my ear is my compass so I think it all comes from sound. In the Bible, God created the world through sound first. For me the sounds of bongos from my African roots took me in the studio with Jocke and to Africa to film my music video for Baby Love, which now has 13 million views on YouTube. 

Official video for Petite Meller’s smash hit Baby Love.

A lot of people get ideas and then nothing happens. How come you manage to do it? 
That’s true, I have this thing like it’s itching until I make it into reality. I don’t know where it comes from haha. Sometimes it’s weird to other people, as it’s huge video budgets, like little movies. But when I have a vision it becomes my goal.

What happens if you don’t follow through? 
I can’t stop thinking about it. I have to do it because I feel like that’s the meaning of my personality. I have to create these worlds. 

In many ways you sort of remind me of Björk, in fashion, in creating worlds, in using orchestrated music. I remember reading that she never thinks about the past. Are you the same? 
Oh I love her! But no, I’m very Freudian, like an archeologist I like to dig in the past. I learn things about myself and my past through making videos. For example, when I shot the video for Barbaric I knew I wanted to film with old people, because I grew up with my grandparents and I always wanted to cheer them up and dance with them. I only realized retrospectively that this video is for them. 

“I feel like an alien most of the time”, what do you mean by that? 
It’s related to the worlds I create. I believe in quantum physics and the idea that there are many worlds. Most of the time I go in and out of different realities that I don’t belong to. But it doesn't matter because I understand my role is that of a clown. Life is absurd and I’m here to cheer you up, to help you overcome. I have a lot of bandages in my music videos, which symbolizes me overcoming things too.

I was actually gonna ask you about the “life is absurd” quote that I read in another interview. 
Yeah so growing up between Paris and Tel Aviv near a war situation and having people partying and getting high all around you … That’s absurd to me. But there are absurdities everywhere, even in Sweden. 

Music video for Petite Meller’s catchy tune Barbaric.

Are you a romantic or a cynical person?
My parents are very cynical. That’s why I’m anti-cynical, I’m very optimistic. My latest song The Drummer is about that. Kids are not cynical, and I think leaders of the popular realities have had sad childhoods. That’s why I ask in my song:” Are you as happy as the other kids? Tell me?”. 

Has your experience of working in modeling helped you in some way with your music or your music videos? 
I think the visual side of an artist is very important. I studied photography when I was younger and people used to photograph me at school. But I’ve always been modeling as a musician, as my character. The visuals is a big part of me expressing my songs.

Speaking of modeling and fashion, you’re sporting really cool outfits in all of your videos. I noticed you were wearing the insanely big Jacquemus La Bomba hats in Baby Love? 
Yeah that’s funny, because the hat wasn’t from Jacquemus, it was just a hat I wore that later became a Jacquemus hat haha. 

Model Emily Ratajkowski wearing the Jacquemus La Bomba hat. Images courtesy of Instagram.com/ Jacquemus

Oh really, how did that happen? 
I have a really good stylist, Nao Koyabu, we were always looking for new things from fashion students. So we went to Central Saint Martins in London and we saw this girl who made these huge, heavy hats from felt. She had made three of them, blue, white and gray. So we asked her to take them to Africa for the video. And we also picked up some Jacquemus clothes.

So the girl did the huge hats, you used them and then Simon Porte Jacquemus saw the video and got inspired by your style?
Yes. It’s interesting that you asked this because no one has ever pointed that out. I always knew it and my stylist always knew it. And the student girl who made the hats never got any credit for it.  

Has your videos inspired anybody else that you know of? 
I also received an email from the manager of Beyoncé saying she was very inspired by the Baby Love video. Because after that video she did the Lemonade album with lots of African visuals. I think my video inspired a lot of people. Knowing this makes me just as happy as when me and Jocke sat in the studio together. But back then, we didn’t know the power of that piece. It all started in Sweden!