Music Press Issue five - March '98 Aqua Aquatic As the hottest Australian summer in our living memory starts to show the first signs of a slow and graveful fade, it's appropriate to cast our minds back over the last few months. With some shock comes the realisation that this will be remembered as the Summer of Aqua. Love them or hate them, the Danish supergroup have not only proven that Barbie Girl was more than a one-hit wonder, they've become a certified pop phenomenon of Abba-esque proportions. Triple platinum and beyond, writes Rachel Charm. Lene Nystrom, lead singer for the squeaky-clean Scandinavian supergroup Aqua is cute, vivacious, charming and quirky. And on the street, she's dead from a heroin overdose. Like the Beatles' Paul McCartney 30 years ago, the rumours that Nystrom is dead just won't go away. It probably didn't help the death-rumour mill when she collapsed from exhaustion in New York in September - but predicably the real culprit is the Internet, which plays host to thousands of weird people who think stupid stuff up. "I'm alive!," says Nystrom. "I don't know how rumours like this start. At the end of the day you just have to laugh at it but sometimes when things like that are said, people you know or have worked with in the past, don't know if it's true or not and that could be a problem. I mean, it's so ridiculous to say that I'm dead or even that I'm on drugs. I don't do drugs. I think someone came up with it because it ties in with that whole rock & roll image that some bands like to have. But for me, I think drugs are stupid." Because she's young and under tremendous pressure, the rumors made life harder for Nystrom. "At the moment it feels like the world is closing on me," she observed recently. For a group that has an unwritten law that the band's public statements have to be as positive as their music, that's quite a statement. Questions about dealing with the pressures of new-found fame are usually dealt with by stock answers like 'We don't feel any pressure because we're doing what we've always dreamt of.' But recently the press have been circling around Aqua, looking not for positive vibes but for scandal. It's all a bit reminiscent of The Spice Girls, as if our pop stars are now only allowed 5 minutes in the spotlight before they're torn back down to earth. Aqua Nystrom, her co-singer Rene Dif and band member's Soren Rasted and Claus Norreen have been public property since the sugary Barbie Girl slipped into the charts and into the hearts of teenyboppers everywhere in September. The song went straight to No 1 in Denmark, Holland, Norway, Russia, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zeland, the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and Australia. Now Doctor Jones has followed suit, in fact the song has spent so long at No. 1 in Austrlia that it's already headed for sales of a quarter of a million units. "There isn't really a chance for us to escape the fame," says Nystrom sullenly. "Everywhere we go, everybody seems to know us. It takes a long time to get used to this kind fo fame. The press are always looking for something. Of course, you have the music journalists but then you have the ones that are looking for some kind of scandal. You have to be careful". Love them or hate them Aqua have to be considered in any Band of the Year polls. And the best thing about this quartet is that they are making it easier for fans to respect pop. Unlike the majority of pure pop bands, Aqua write their own music, play their own instruments and aren't afraid to front up for live gigs. "Groups like the Spice Girls have been very successful and done a lot for the pop industry but we don't want to be like them," says Nystrom. "They are manufactured. They show up and sing other poeople's songs. We play pop music but we are somewhere between a pop group and a rock band. In Aqua we write our own songs and we play our own music. We have a rule : if you can't play it on the guitar or piano then we won't use it." "We're always thinking about the future," she continues. "The biggest difference between us and the Spice Girls is that we have control over everything. We're not sitting back waiting for some producer or hotshot manager to do something for us. We know what we want to do and we know we can do it." "Anyway, the Spice Girls are digging their own grave. They're focusing on too many things outside of music. You're either a band or a star. We're going to stay focused on the music. That's why we're going to stay around for a while". ** special thanx to Rachel for this article! ** Copyright © 1997/8 by Serena Lee (ezee@rocketmail.com). All Rights Reserved. If you're interested in using materials from this page, please notify the author first.