Following Stella Explorer through water, weed and a fire at Soho-house
It’s April 2022, Stella Explorer is standing on one of the highest points in Paris, Parc de Belleville, and watches the red horizon burn the rooftops before her eyes. Last minute, she turned down a 50k music video made for her single Goldrush. Now, she finds herself in Paris with a friend and a camera to make one of her own. The girl on the hill has walked a winding road to get here, but with the city of dreams at her feet she might have felt that Goldrush was going to give her fame and fortune. Or something like that. Our conversation came to be about what holds you back (love) and what allows you to move forward (throwing kebab).
S: I was smoking a joint at home and it was like a bolt of lightning struck me “I can't release this music video. This is not me, I cannot stand for this.” So I messaged my friend Lukas: "What should I do, I just wasted a video". By chance, we were both going to Paris, so he replied: "I’ll bring my camera, we'll work it out".
The interview with Stella takes place on Zoom. I'm sitting in a friend's apartment in Paris, with huge headphones and my screen as the only source of light. Stella is lying on a sofa at Soho-house in Stockholm. An old church converted into a creative center for artists. Initially, the idea was to meet up and eat oysters, now the vibe is more LAN.*
* Local Area Network. Basically, twelve year olds gaming together round-the-clock.
T: What was it about your own video that felt better?
S: What didn't work with their video was that this was supposed to be an early presentation of my music. Their video was very nice but it wasn't my video. They did a great job, I just hadn’t thought through what I wanted. Even though I take all the blame, being a creator means that you can and should control the image of yourself. Many don't understand the importance of that. Unfortunately, this time it came with a big sacrifice.
T: Do you feel in control of your own brand now? What kind of image do you want to present? S: I think it's really about it not being someone else's story. I don't think they understood what the song was about. The video that we made is much more in line with the song's theme.
Goldrush is written as a sequel to her single Kill it before it dies. Both were inspired by the fate of Annika Östberg, a Swedish woman who grew up in the United States. When Annika ran away from home at the age of 16, she met an older guy on a motorcycle and fell in love. The story ends with him pleading guilty to killing someone and them both sentenced to life in prison; Annika for being an accessory to the murder since she happened to sit next to him in the car.
T: What was it about Annika that you found inspiring?
S: I became obsessed with love and what it does to you. I feel that if I fall in love I lose all control. And many with me, but there are some who don’t. There is this sane form of love that I can't relate to. It’s always fascinated me, the power it has. I was very sick and started reading about Annika, she became such a good example of... where you can end up.
T: Do you easily fall in love? Or is it rather that it takes over when it happens?
S: It totally takes over. I can't control myself at all. I have a hard time keeping two things in my head at the same time. I can screw up a lot of things that I really want to do, that I have to do. I don't want it that way. I feel like I have to be careful, which isn't so much fun.
An alarm goes off at Soho-house.
T: Maybe you should get out of the building? That's not a good sign.
S: Okay, wait.
Stella puts on her jacket and heads out into the hallway. There is a fire in the old church, people flock to the exit. Eventually, she gets out and heads towards Old Town. Snow is falling in the background.
S: Goldrush is not about love, although I would like it to be. The theme is men's power over women. I wanted to illustrate… I wanted to be angry. In the music video, I take some guy’s kebab and throw it on the ground-
T: It was so funny, I’m sorry, I thought it was fun.
S: But it's fun! We had a lot of fun. And we were very very high.
T: It usually turns out well when you are?
S: I wanted to take back power. Lukas and I went into a random hotel and met a guy in the elevator in the middle of the night. We were stoned and said to each other that we loved his energy.
T: That's how you met the guy you play against in the video?
S: Yeah haha. We had discussed a lot of different ideas and then we met him and agreed that he had to be in it. He is so fucking beautiful. He had said what room he was staying in, and to message him on Instagram. He answered: “Come to Gare du Nord tonight.”
T: So fucking funny, haha.
S: So we just drove around in his car all night.
T: It's something completely different from the expensive video you blew haha…
S: For sure. And that was a little cleansing. I needed to let go of my ideas about what my label might have expected from me. I felt like I was taking back control.
The record label Stella refers to is YEAR0001, where artists such as Yung Lean and Viagra Boys are signed. A collaboration that emerged from Stella realizing that she and her former band Brödet didn’t share the same visions for the future. Back then, she gave herself a year to learn how to write choruses, short songs and to finish projects. If she didn't succeed, she made a vow to never forgive herself. However, by the end of the year, she had made the demo to Goldrush and sent it to several labels. But just when she had taken the first step towards a solo career, her hard drive crashed. None of what she had created could be saved.
S: I lost everything. But that same week, YEAR0001 got in touch. I saw it as a sign that I was going to do it all over again and I was going to do it well.
On my screen, I see my hometown pass by behind Stella's face. She is on her way to Södermalm where she is going to meet a friend, the vibe of the interview is a follow me around vlog. It somehow fits, in Stella's music there is always Movement. In her videos: people riding in cars, dogs running etc. It does something to the listener. With her music in my ears I have been running forward in life: through steep alleys in Italy, over mountains in the Arctic, along Götgatan in Stockholm. But it’s a movement with no return. And without faith in the future.
T: I think of a line in Kill it before it dies: “I don't think about the future and I don't believe in crystals.”
S: The whole text is literally a movement. Point A to point B.
While Stella finished writing the song, she was at an exhibition by Marina Abramovic. Stella tells me how inspired she got by the piece The Lovers. She’s referring to Marina's breakup performance where she and her ex-husband Ulay walked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China. After 90 days they met in the middle, which marked the end of their 12-year relationship.
S: How powerful is that? They just move until they stop and then it's over.
T: I think it shows a lack of belief in the future?
Stella's phone is dying and she goes into a hotel lobby to charge it. I pour myself some Sprite from my friend's fridge, Stella orders a half-pint.
S: Did I sound rude to the waiter?
T: No. But he seemed a little confused.
S: Okay, good. Sometimes I think I sound too harsh.
As the name suggests, Stella Explorer has always been moving towards something. Not always with music as the goal, but sometimes seemingly straight into nothingness. I’m referring to outer space and university. Although Stella comes from a family of musicians they forbid her from studying it, as a way to protect her.
S: I tried to do other things. I took lots of jobs, in one year I had eleven. I tried studying Aesthetics-
T: Haha, I did an Aesthetics course and had five different jobs last year.
In some ways, Stella's story is a relatable one about being young, in other ways, she’s drawn to the extreme. Back in 2015, she applied for an open call to leave for good to a Mars settlement built by NASA. Luckily for planet Earth she didn’t make the cut, but she keeps seeking remote places.
Time and time again, Stella chooses detours. Everything to avoid being controlled by parents, record labels or love. Like a never-ending paraphrase of walking the Great Wall of China, she hard-handedly steers herself away from the path she feels is expected of her to follow. The stakes are high: it costs a music video and if she doesn't reach her goals, she has no mercy for herself. Maybe that's why there is determination and care in what she does and how she expresses herself, as if she’s watching her every step.
S: I have stolen my motto in life from Flea in Red Hot Chili Peppers: "I'm very serious about having fun".
Eventually, the road led her to reach what she deep down always wanted, to be able to make a living off her music. More concretely put: Goldrush got her a label, recognition, and a Swedish grammy nomination. I ask her if the song also changed things on a personal level.
S: Hm, not really. I'm still sitting in my living room writing music. Or I’m lying on my floor because my back hurts, with the computer upside down, programming the drums. I listen to the same music. Everything is as usual. I still have doubts about whether I can write music. But then you do it anyway and it's just as much fun.
Right now, Stella is in the process of releasing her second album.
T: Tell me about it, you’ve said that there is a concept?
S: It wasn't the idea from the beginning but with time a theme emerged. I noticed that I talk about water in every song. All the songs feel blue. I've imagined that if I was underwater listening to music, at a party under water or something, this could be played there. I don't know why I've imagined that but I've read a lot about Atlantis. When I finished writing the songs, I was in the middle of a breakup where I felt that I was completely stuck in my own head. I couldn't communicate, I didn't have access to my emotions. It felt like I was stuck under the water’s surface. Then, I found a girl who I wanted to make the album cover and she made a drawing of me standing on water. Everything got a common thread as time went by.
Stella has reached her destination for tonight, she is in front of the bar where she’s meeting her friend. This marks the end of the interview/vlog on life and death. It’s been fun to follow her journey. Stella navigates through life as she navigates through Stockholm: like a force of nature.
T: In what headspace are you now, mentally and creatively?
S: Mentally, unclear. I need an injection of something. I know this feeling, it’s familiar. I need to get away and see new things.
I’m about to say that I hope she finds what she’s looking for, but then again I would never wish for her to refrain from movement.
