Friday, 6 March 2009

 KWICK! Interview: Sandra Cretu
She isn't Herbert Groenemeyer, where one has to ''look after the lyrics'', and she doesn't want to be that way. Sandra simply wants to entertain her audience and describes herself as the ''voice of the 80's''. Absolutely right. The ex-wife of hit producer Michael Cretu has already freed herself from her husband with her comeback album ''The Art Of Love'' back in 2007, and she ''puked her soul out of her body'' with that album, she told KWICK! in the interview. Now the next album ''Back To Life'' is ready to be launched by the mother of two kids. And the album title seems to be meant word by word.

Sandra is "Back to life"
Source: Virgin Records
''I was a bird in a golden cage''

The talking voice of the 80's icon sounds surprisingly "crispy", like Sandra describes it herself during our meeting. "Meanwhile I have to train it to sing the high tones the same way I did in earlier times. But you can work that out, that is no problem", she smiles. The 46 year old woman is surprisingly calm and happy. "My whole feeling in life has changed", she describes the realisation and production of her new album. "By the time of the last album I just seperated from Michael and I wrote the lyrics for it all by myself. He always told me to leave that to other people, but at that point I was in a mood, where I put my heart into the lyrics and spit out my soul that way. This album was some sort of psychic therapy for me. I was at home all the time back then and worked 24 hours a day just to get on. 'Back To Life' was a real fun album compared to this!" she admits. "Michael always held me back a little too much. I was a bird in a golden cage. But now my way leads away from solitude!"
''I don't want to put the German people under my thumb''

And this is meant musically and privately alike. Her new friend Olaf Menges seems to give her the freedom she never had with her ex-husband, producer and Enigma creator Michael Cretu. "Michael always demanded me to stay at home with the children. Olaf supports me now, to do more live shows. I plan a real world tour this time, Asia, South America, the Arabian Emirates, the people there ask so often and want to see me. In Germany it is different, sometimes I get the feeling, they do not want it so much. In Japan I fill concert halls with 40.000 people, in Germany I am sure that I don't get such an audience together", she laughs. What could be the reason for this? Shouldn't the German people be proud of having such a successful singer on her side? "In Germany the people always do the math and count the sales, you have to be at least in the top five of the charts. In Asia the people come in masses, simply because I am there! Because they know me! But I don't want to set the Germans under pressure, maybe in part they don't even know, that they have any good entertainers."
Coincidental teamwork with Thomas Anders

And Sandra doesn't just mean herself with that. On her new album there is a special surprise for all the 80's lovers: For the duet "The Night Is Still Young" she teamed up with ex-Modern Talking star Thomas Anders, whom she describes as "the leading male vocalist of the 80's". "The teamwork with Thomas was pure coincidence", Sandra remembers. "He has a house on Ibiza like me, and we met at the beach. The idea of the song came from Olaf. Thomas thought about it and said 'I never did that before, but with you... at once!'. So we went in the studio, I gave him the text, he took a ten minute break, sang it and it was perfect right away!", Sandra laughs. "This will also be the second single from the new album", she adds.

She's full of energy and self-assured
Source: Virgin Records
''I don't get my boys to make a band!''

Sandra has more than 30 years of music experience. Her career began at the age of 16 in the girlband Arabesque, together with them she became a superstar in Japan. And she remembers her very first appearance in Asia. "We stood on stage, with our backs towards the audience. As we turned around it almost hit me like a stroke. Suddenly you look into the faces of more than 70.000 people, that's crazy. You don't have such big concert halls here in Germany, just football stadiums can hold such a crowd." Meanwhile she has two sons, her twins Nikita and Sebastian are 13 years old. "They begin to look after the girls", Sandra smiles. And what about music? Is it necessary for the kids of music stars to follow the steps of their moms and dads? "Nikita plays drums very well and Sebastian plays bass and electric guitar", she tells. "But I don't get them to create a band. They visit an English private school and the teachers tell them there that you can only play music as a hobby, and that you cannot earn money with it - that's nonsense", she says and puts her long curly hair out of her face. She isn't a forcing mother anyway: "We didn't force our children to become musicians, instead we thought that if they want to do it they come up with it themselves."

Her first single "In a Heartbeat" will
be released on 6 March 2009
Source: Virgin Records
''There is power and energy behind it again''

For Sandra herself, this never was a question bothering her. She always wanted to be on stage. "Maybe I had played in a theater, because this also was a small dream of me, but I always wanted to be on stage somehow. That I became a singer was coincidence. Because some day I simply entered a stage and began to sing, I was discovered. Thinking about that after so many years I have to say I was very keen then!" But it was this courage that made Sandra to one of the best known and most successful female voices of our times. And her unique voice comes to full force on the new album, although the music style has changed a little this time. "It is a very happy album, some latin pop, some New York pop, all mixed up well and of course you can hear my new feeling of life in every song. There is power and energy behind the album again and that's why the album is called "Back To Life", she smiles.
From pop starlet to a showbiz icon

Professional behaviour or not - at the end of the interview we couldn't resist to tell Sandra that our rooms were filled with posters of her to more than 80 percent as we were kids. That made her very proud. "How sweet", she smiles. And although she has evolved from a pop starlet to a showbiz icon in all those years, and although she is a successful business woman meanwhile, she still remains our sweet tiny Sandra somehow.

Source: avo
Translation to English by Harry                                                                                                               Source: KWICK.de