I first learned about Sofie Royer’s music after I posted about my decades-long obsession with Pierrot the clown and someone told me I had to check her out. Royer’s work is high concept but never terribly serious— lots of clowning around, true to character. Her music is deceptively fun and easy to listen to, and it was only on further listen that I realized how complex it is.
Royer’s videos star her as a clown, waitress, tourist, wandering around New York, Vienna, and Las Vegas. She barely smiles, but the videos are never particularly sad or gloomy, a strong sense of irony pervasive throughout.
Seeing Royer live in Paris at La Nouvelle Eve fully convinced me of her genius. The show was at an old cabaret venue and everyone in the audience sat at small tables in front of a stage with an ancient velvet curtain. Painted cherubs and stars adorned the ceiling. She told me the show was entirely unrehearsed, featuring costume changes, dance routines, and rhythmic gymnastics.
During costume breaks, a clown cracked jokes and threw big red foam noses into the crowd. Sofie would sometimes run off stage immediately after a song, the bass player shrugging in confusion at the audience, as we wondered—why did she leave? Was she coming back? It was difficult to know what was staged, what was real, what was a joke, what was a mistake.
If Royer was any less skilled, it would have come off as desperate and insecure, but instead the effect was incredibly charming. By the end, everyone was out of their chairs, dancing, climbing up on stage with her, singing along, smiling broad.
Liara Roux: You’ve spent so much time playing and producing other people’s music, how does it feel to be writing and performing your own?
Sofie Royer: I feel so new to it. The same goes for playing shows. I haven’t played that many yet. I’m excited to grow into it.
LR: Your music is very enjoyable from the first listen, but is really very unique and complicated on a technical level. Your chord progressions are crazy! You spoke about studying violin when you were young—what other influences and sources do you draw from?
SR: I learned violin with the Suzuki method, which is focused on learning by ear. Of course as I progressed with the instrument I ended up learning notes, but my initial approach to music was always more sensory, if that’s the right word for it. And the same goes for how I access chord progressions I’m interested in. Sometimes what I can hear is definitely above what my skill level on the piano allows initially, but it will drive me wild not to get it down the way I hear it in my head, so it’s an exciting way to teach myself things on different instruments. Specific influences are artists like Jonathan Meese, Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin, Douglas Coupland, Yushio Mishima, Tinto Brass, Todd Rundgren. I’ve been watching a lot of Fassbinder interviews these past few days when I haven’t been able to sleep and need the TV on. Sometimes I don’t really have much free will over what influences me, because almost anything I consume will have the ability to evoke a reaction in me. At the supermarket, a stock music song playing over the intercom. I also don’t really enjoy being reactive and feel like I get sensory overload kind of quickly, so I have to be careful about what I expose myself to!
LR: It seems you’re constantly traveling. Are there any cities with music scenes that are particularly inspiring to you right now?
SR: I do enjoy the reception I’ve found in Paris.
LR: The visual component of your “brand” feels very much in dialogue with the music—it enhances it, sometimes interrogates it. Do you think of the music videos, photos, etc, as extensions of your album, almost like Sofie Royer is an art project?
SR: Yes! Gesamtkunstwerk!
LR: Speaking of Gesamtkunstwerk, I’d be really curious to see a Sofie Royer installation! What would a fully immersive Sofie Royer exhibition look like?
SR: I just had my largest show of paintings to date in Vienna this October. The exhibition consisted of 25 works I’d completed over the past year. I almost wish I could find a way to marry these disciplines closer, like in a physical space. My dream is to do a real cabaret, or an opera! I think perhaps what you saw at La Nouvelle Eve was very close to the beginning of that.
LR: A Sofie Royer opera would totally make sense, as your work is so theatrical. Speaking of theater— I’m totally in love with your use of Pierrot, my favorite clown. It seems like commedia dell’arte is really having a moment right now. What drew you to Pierrot?
SR: Pierrot is really fascinating to me, because I feel like ever since Jean-Gaspard Deburau gave Pierrot his first Parisian triumph in 1820 this figure has been moving and spreading through persons throughout history— from painters, to writers, to actors. Marcel Marceau teaching Michael Jackson the moonwalk being a good example for that. My boyfriend recently showed me Klaus Nomi, too. Arthur Schnitzler’s Liebelei play is pretty much your classic Harlequin- Pierrot-Columbine story. Schnitzler’s character Lieutenant Gustl, in his tragicomedy of the same name, is a definite Pierrot figure himself. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, too, or Seymour Glass, maybe Franny Glass, too. I would have given anything to see Picasso’s “Harlequin” and “Pierrot” paintings exhibited. Also fin-de-siecle Vienna, which is a great source of inspiration for me, was one of the first times Pierrot carried over from being portrayed predominantly by male actors to also female ones. Variations of Pierrot exist in Japanese mask theater—both Hakushikijô and Onna masks are white—or even in Persia during the antiquity in their enemy humiliation plays, long before this reached the West.
LR: Oh wow! I had no idea. A lot of your songs feel like sad girl anthems, and it feels like you’re really embodying the spirit of Pierrot, this satirization of a type of sad girl. But it’s deeply relatable, because you’re sort of roasting yourself too, aren’t you?
SR: Yes, there’s hopefully a little duality in my songs, whether humor or satire, but hopefully in a Kantian way. We want so very badly to understand everything, when it is precisely at the point of that which we can not fathom that things start to become interesting.
Interview with Sofie Royer
Originally published in PRINT
Interview by Liara Roux
Photos by Kyle Kleese
I first learned about Sofie Royer’s music after I posted about my decades-long obsession with Pierrot the clown and someone told me I had to check her out. Royer’s work is high concept but never terribly serious— lots of clowning around, true to character. Her music is deceptively fun and easy to listen to, and it was only on further listen that I realized how complex it is.
Royer’s videos star her as a clown, waitress, tourist, wandering around New York, Vienna, and Las Vegas. She barely smiles, but the videos are never particularly sad or gloomy, a strong sense of irony pervasive throughout.
Seeing Royer live in Paris at La Nouvelle Eve fully convinced me of her genius. The show was at an old cabaret venue and everyone in the audience sat at small tables in front of a stage with an ancient velvet curtain. Painted cherubs and stars adorned the ceiling. She told me the show was entirely unrehearsed, featuring costume changes, dance routines, and rhythmic gymnastics.
During costume breaks, a clown cracked jokes and threw big red foam noses into the crowd. Sofie would sometimes run off stage immediately after a song, the bass player shrugging in confusion at the audience, as we wondered—why did she leave? Was she coming back? It was difficult to know what was staged, what was real, what was a joke, what was a mistake.
If Royer was any less skilled, it would have come off as desperate and insecure, but instead the effect was incredibly charming. By the end, everyone was out of their chairs, dancing, climbing up on stage with her, singing along, smiling broad.
Liara Roux: You’ve spent so much time playing and producing other people’s music, how does it feel to be writing and performing your own?
Sofie Royer: I feel so new to it. The same goes for playing shows. I haven’t played that many yet. I’m excited to grow into it.
LR: Your music is very enjoyable from the first listen, but is really very unique and complicated on a technical level. Your chord progressions are crazy! You spoke about studying violin when you were young—what other influences and sources do you draw from?
SR: I learned violin with the Suzuki method, which is focused on learning by ear. Of course as I progressed with the instrument I ended up learning notes, but my initial approach to music was always more sensory, if that’s the right word for it. And the same goes for how I access chord progressions I’m interested in. Sometimes what I can hear is definitely above what my skill level on the piano allows initially, but it will drive me wild not to get it down the way I hear it in my head, so it’s an exciting way to teach myself things on different instruments. Specific influences are artists like Jonathan Meese, Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin, Douglas Coupland, Yushio Mishima, Tinto Brass, Todd Rundgren. I’ve been watching a lot of Fassbinder interviews these past few days when I haven’t been able to sleep and need the TV on. Sometimes I don’t really have much free will over what influences me, because almost anything I consume will have the ability to evoke a reaction in me. At the supermarket, a stock music song playing over the intercom. I also don’t really enjoy being reactive and feel like I get sensory overload kind of quickly, so I have to be careful about what I expose myself to!
LR: It seems you’re constantly traveling. Are there any cities with music scenes that are particularly inspiring to you right now?
SR: I do enjoy the reception I’ve found in Paris.
LR: The visual component of your “brand” feels very much in dialogue with the music—it enhances it, sometimes interrogates it. Do you think of the music videos, photos, etc, as extensions of your album, almost like Sofie Royer is an art project?
SR: Yes! Gesamtkunstwerk!
LR: Speaking of Gesamtkunstwerk, I’d be really curious to see a Sofie Royer installation! What would a fully immersive Sofie Royer exhibition look like?
SR: I just had my largest show of paintings to date in Vienna this October. The exhibition consisted of 25 works I’d completed over the past year. I almost wish I could find a way to marry these disciplines closer, like in a physical space. My dream is to do a real cabaret, or an opera! I think perhaps what you saw at La Nouvelle Eve was very close to the beginning of that.
LR: A Sofie Royer opera would totally make sense, as your work is so theatrical. Speaking of theater— I’m totally in love with your use of Pierrot, my favorite clown. It seems like commedia dell’arte is really having a moment right now. What drew you to Pierrot?
SR: Pierrot is really fascinating to me, because I feel like ever since Jean-Gaspard Deburau gave Pierrot his first Parisian triumph in 1820 this figure has been moving and spreading through persons throughout history— from painters, to writers, to actors. Marcel Marceau teaching Michael Jackson the moonwalk being a good example for that. My boyfriend recently showed me Klaus Nomi, too. Arthur Schnitzler’s Liebelei play is pretty much your classic Harlequin- Pierrot-Columbine story. Schnitzler’s character Lieutenant Gustl, in his tragicomedy of the same name, is a definite Pierrot figure himself. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, too, or Seymour Glass, maybe Franny Glass, too. I would have given anything to see Picasso’s “Harlequin” and “Pierrot” paintings exhibited. Also fin-de-siecle Vienna, which is a great source of inspiration for me, was one of the first times Pierrot carried over from being portrayed predominantly by male actors to also female ones. Variations of Pierrot exist in Japanese mask theater—both Hakushikijô and Onna masks are white—or even in Persia during the antiquity in their enemy humiliation plays, long before this reached the West.
LR: Oh wow! I had no idea. A lot of your songs feel like sad girl anthems, and it feels like you’re really embodying the spirit of Pierrot, this satirization of a type of sad girl. But it’s deeply relatable, because you’re sort of roasting yourself too, aren’t you?
SR: Yes, there’s hopefully a little duality in my songs, whether humor or satire, but hopefully in a Kantian way. We want so very badly to understand everything, when it is precisely at the point of that which we can not fathom that things start to become interesting.