We have all gone a little bit gaga for Lady GaGa, No.1 catches up with the star to find out about love, fame and why she keeps her friends close and enemies closer...

Lady GaGa become one of the biggest selling artists of 2009, releasing a run of hits from her debut album The Fame. The 23-year-old singer, aka Stefani Gabriella Germanotta, talks about fame, love and what’s in a name.

Your latest song is Paparazzi. What is your opinion of them now that you’ve experienced fame?
My opinion about the paparazzi? It’s fascinating. I love it. It’s frenzy over an idea. I mean, how f**king powerful is that. It’s like a billion dollar industry with the magazines, and the TV shows on the eNetwork and MTV. I mean, even major stations now have hours devoted to the paparazzo, right?

So, for me, instead of viewing the paparazzi in a way that is clichéd and ‘oh take my picture, I’m fabulous’ – that’s not at all what that song is about. That song is about letting me inspire you. It is about how do I inspire you to frenzy over me. It’s really not about the hair, it’s not about who you are, it’s about what you’re contributing to culture that will inspire. I need her picture. I need to feel, I must have it.

And the story in the song Paparazzi?
The love song comes in where I, for the first time, had met a guy that I wanted to turn the camera around on. For the first time, I said, ‘You’re a star’ and I felt the frenzy. So it’s sort of a metaphor for how you feel when you fall in love with somebody. And also that same struggle.

What would you be willing to do for love?
For love? I don’t know, I’ve never really had it I don’t think. I’m not sure, but I think I will have found love when I’ve realised that.
I think it will be somebody that I want to create with. I would never give up music for another human being. I would never give up my dreams or my art for another person, whoever it is, and nobody should. I don’t believe that love is something that you die for. I believe it’s a choice and it exists in your life in a romantic way, but in a way that makes you an even better person.

Is it the most vulnerable song on the album?
No, I think the whole record is very vulnerable to me. I used to date a rockstar who had a girlfriend, so for me, it’s a very vulnerable personal record on the album. And it’s something everyone can relate to. We’ve all at some point lost or loved somebody with brown eyes.

What do you find sexy about a person? What things do you find attractive when you see somebody for the first time?
Visually?
To be honest, I don’t. I’m almost never attracted to people purely on a physical level. And if I am, I’m sensing – I’m picking up something artistic about them that I’m drawn to. I like good thinkers. I’m really, really attracted to people that have crazy minds, a little psychotic, a little twisted.

How about vanity? Being in this business, how important are good looks to you?
Vanity was important to me always, before I was in the business as much as I am now. For me, it’s self expression. And it’s also important to me to always be giving the world a visual to my work. Sometimes, when I’m deep in the throttle of going to meetings about secret stage show things, I might be in some baggier latex but for the most part, vanity is just a self choice. And to me, it’s not a negative thing. Everybody is vain, even if you don’t have a ton of make-up on and you’re just wearing a sweatshirt. That’s the sweatshirt that you like. That’s the one that you chose.

Who designed today’s outfit and where do you usually shop for your stuff?
I have custom-made gloves, smoking gloves so that I can smoke without burning the leather. These are Burberry and these are latex pants, and I made the bra. This is a Haus of GaGa design.

So you have your own fashion line then?
We’re planning to eventually mass produce and sell everything. But for now, it’s more like piece by piece – me adding things into the show. And incorporating the disco ball into fashion, as opposed to using just the actual prop.

And beside pop culture and fashion, what other kind of things or issues are very important for you?
Issues? The environment is a very huge issue to me. Every day we’re wasting away more and more with the amount of gas that we’re using. I know that we have the technology to have a safer and more green-savvy world. And for whatever reason, we’re still stuck – almost like and old world. So I think that’s probably the biggest issue. And also, I have become very politically aware. I watch the news. I read the newspaper. Just because I sing about underwear and pop culture, doesn’t mean that I’m not thinking about the world. I’m just contributing in a different way.

So in the first place, do you still remember why you wanted to be a musician?
No.

Well, can you remember your first musical experience?
My earliest experiences were with my father. He would play old records at our house on 80th and West End Avenue in New York. And he would spin me around on our coppertone flesh carpet. We used to listen to Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd. I grew up in a dramatic household. I’m Italian. Just all those things came together, Frank Sinatra being played while my mother and my father made fresh gravy and meatballs on Sundays.

What would you be if you were not a musician or entertainer?
What would I be? Dead.

How do you relax? Do you have any hobbies?
No, I work all the time. If I’m not in a meeting, in an interview, or in the studio, I’m online researching new technology that I can incorporate into the show. It’s my whole life. Relaxation for me is a beer at a dive bar with my smart friends.

What did you do with your first big pay cheque, invest or spend?
Well, actually I just got my first big pay cheque. And I’m putting the money into my live show. A few close people in my life know that I just signed this deal with Sony and they’re like, ‘Are you going to buy a house? What are you going to do?’. Nothing means more to me than putting something on stage that says something powerful about what I’m doing. That is infinitely more important to me than a Mercedes. So, the money’s going towards, and will always go towards my work. And if that makes me a bad businesswoman, I don’t know – we’ll find out.

Your album is a party album, for sure. So are you a party girl?
Not as much as I used to be. That’s sort of where the nexus of my inspiration began. But now I’m working so much that I don’t really have time to party.

And how do you party? What is a good party for you?
A good party for me? Well, it’s funny, because the video for Just Dance is a bit of an interpretation of the lifestyle and the party that I’m used to. It’s a few friends – we all know each other – getting together, hanging out, drinking, watching cool movies, listening to old records. Good time.

Do you still live New York, or did you move to LA?
I’m sort of back and forth. I’m out in LA a lot, not just because of business. I write for other artists as well. So I’m closer to the producers and can work in  more of a collaborative environment than via email.

So in what ways do you find LA different from New York?
It’s very different. The pace is a bit slower, it’s very shiny and sunny all the time. I’m not as inspired by the street fashion here as there really isn’t any. Whereas in New York, especially where I live on Stanton, every day I walk down the street, I’m like, ‘I want to try that.’ I think that’s probably what I miss the most about New York is the street culture and the way that lifestyle influences my work.

Where does your name Lady GaGa came from?
My producer Rob Fusari was the first to really bring out both my theatrical and pop elements. I was in theatre for many years, but I was also a pop vocalist. So when I auditioned for pop, record labels, they would say I was too theatre. And when I auditioned for theatre they’d say I was are too pop.
So when I met Rob, I discovered David Bowie and Queen, and the more theatrical Beatles records. So I started to kind of bring all of these things together. And one day, I performed for him. We were just hanging out and I played a song called Again Again, which I believe is the B-side. And he said, “God that's so Queen!” He said, “You're so Radio GaGa!” Very theatrical.’ And he started to call me that when I’d come in the studio. He’d say, “GaGa’s here”. So one day I just said what about GaGa? What if it was like Lady GaGa, because GaGa is sort of crazy and love and wrong, and Lady has such a connotation.
I went to a private school, but now I’m living in this real kind of trash glitter environment. So for me, it was like the perfect description of who I had become and finding myself.

You have a song called Love Games. So are you a player or stayer?
I work so much, I’m kind of both. Love Game is not really about being a player. It’s about the chase, the gamble. I think that there’s like a beautiful complicatedness about being on a dance floor with somebody that you’ve never kissed, and all of the things that go into it: ‘Well if I touch him this way, does he think I want to be his girlfriend…’

Your song Eh Eh is about breaking up. What is a good way to finish a relationship?
The good way? There is no good way. I don’t know. I think it’s different for every person that you’re with. But you know that record is about when there is nothing else I can say. The record feels sweet, but I’m saying goodbye to somebody. What I love about it is it’s what we should do when we break up with somebody. We beat it to death. We can go around in circles. We can analyse the who-ha out of it, but at the end of the day, I have met somebody else. Sorry.

So do you say it face to face, or text message, or email?
This is more of a social question. I think over the phone is okay. I think it depends how close you are with the person. Everybody’s different.

Has there ever been a situation where you are speechless?
Well, yeah. I mean, I think if a man or woman is unfaithful, there’s a real cut off speechless point. But this song is really about like why do we talk about this stuff.
It’s like if me and somebody break up, sometimes people spend weeks or months getting over it, and it’s this long drawn out experience. The record is really just about what it really is, which is, ‘Hey, sorry.’ It is what it is. It’s just simple.

You have a song on the album called Beautiful Dirty Rich – do those words describe you or who do they describe?
That’s a great question. Beautiful Dirty Rich is about no matter who you are, where you live, how much money you have, where you came from, you can feel beautiful and dirty rich. No matter what. Whether you have got any money in your pocket or you don’t.
That’s the lifestyle element. It’s about expressing yourself. And I experienced a time in my life where I didn’t have a lot of money, and all I really had was the music and the art and the party.
And I was able to, with the texture of my pants and the colour of my nails, and the style of my hair, feel valuable and important to the world, feel that I could contribute something artistically. I felt beautiful and dirty rich. Right?
That song is also about drugs and revealing that. On the Lower East Side there’s a perception of poverty, of artistic poverty. And really it’s a lot of rich kids who do a lot of drugs and are trying to figure it out. So it was also a little bit of a social commentary on things that I was picking up about the Lower East Side.

What is your relationship with drugs nowadays; what do you want to say to people who use drugs?
I really wouldn’t discuss it at all, honestly.

Is there one piece of advice your parents gave you?
Is there one piece of advice? They have given me so much advice. Probably to always use my head, use my gut and my street Italian instincts. Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer, my father always said to me. So it’s just a real gut. I’ve got very good intuition about people and about life. And they always just taught me to always follow my inner gut. It hurt me, and it helped me because the same things that I was following in my life that would make my parents say, “Oh my God, what are you doing?” are the same things that now are making me a star.

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