Michael Cretu "Voyageur" Interviews Part 1


Michael Cretu

Interview Given August 26, 2003
Question: 13 years of grand ENIGMA success: after four studio albums and a greatest hits CD, hasn't there ever popped up the thought of ending the ENIGMA project?
Michael Cretu: Already in 1990, with the first album, I had asked myself that question: if I won't be able anymore to meet the standards I myself have put up, then there'll never be a second one.

Question: So, what made you go on to number 5, now in 2003?
Michael Cretu: There where moments, indeed, when I thought that I'd told it all. But if ENIGMA were to continue it should definitely not be another album in the old style.

Question: Another look back. There had been, once, a master plan for 10 Years of ENIGMA, is that correct?
Michael Cretu: That's right. So this fifth album is actually a new first one. The end of ENIGMA phase 1. And, really, during the last couple of weeks of work on this album, I succeeded in making it a true ENIGMA album! For me this was important: ENIGMA, but different! It's the first ENIGMA album which does not contain any samples. It has a leitmotif, there is no Ethno...

Question: Where does the journey go with "Voyageur"? Is it the beginning of a new cycle?
Michael Cretu: I don't have a new grand plan this time. But, naturally - to put it like a soccer player: after the game is before the game.

Question: The journey goes, to judge according to the song titles, "From East To West", from the sun to the moon ("Sonne zum Mond") and from light to shade ("Aus dem Licht in den Schatten").
Michael Cretu: These are facet's of everyday life, observations of what's going on. Between us humans. Things, too, that ENIGMA has never dealt with before.

Question: It was more radical: it was about sexuality, religion...
Michael Cretu: Yes, it was metaphysical stories. But this is over. The metaphysical taste is still there but it's not in the lyrical foreground.

Question: For ENIGMA, there have always been labeling clichés like that of the conceptual artist creating concept albums.
Michael Cretu: No, when I start working, it's like I'm buying a train ticket for a 10,000 mile ride without knowing the route I'll travel. My only precondition was: I wanted to make a Pop album. I wanted to write songs. Normal songs, put one after the other. Naturally, things aren't as trite as they may sound here...

Question: But hasn't there been a master idea this time?
Michael Cretu: No, and I don't want anyone to presume this. But it did turn out sort of a conceptual album again. The order of the titles, their names and what they're like, all of this has become a conclusive thing. So, "Voyageur" has turned out very round, very harmonic.

Question: An accidental concept, so to speak?
Michael Cretu: Actually, I don't believe in accidents in regards to such complex music, so full of contrasts. Especially, during the last weeks I had an attitude like with ENIGMA "MCMXC a.D.": I do what I want, what I like and how I like it. Supported by this attitude, it got better and better. My fate is this: I'm always especially good when I'm "against all odds". Whenever I try to adapt, it won't work.

Question: You're your own band, your own composer, arranger. Your own orchestra and soloist. How do you manage to find a common denominator writing the songs?
Michael Cretu: It's a process in motion. There are days when I feel: it will be great today. I try to let my mind run free. During the creative process, I have to force myself to NOT think. I am the artist then. Thinking is for producers. All my life I've been used to being soloist, director, critic in one person. It's quite a balancing act.

Question: Sounds complicated. Is this a multiple personality at work?
Michael Cretu: Absolutely. Maybe the origins could be found with my studying to become a conductor. A conductor, too, is a multiple personality. He needs to be an excellent instrumentalist, and a composer…

Question:… but he doesn't need to be able to sing?
Michael Cretu: That's right. I am seven professions in one. I'm even a sound engineer!

Question: But isn't the creating process of music not necessarily characterized by interaction?
Michael Cretu: The interaction here is between all my different professions - I have to come up with it myself.

Question: How do you find the necessary discipline?
Michael Cretu: I've never needed as much willpower, as much stamina as I did with this album. It's been tough, damn tough. That's why I'm so happy with this "achievement" because I really didn't think I had it in me. At times, I was lacking the necessary free space for music. And the fact that the songs sound somewhat naïve inspite of this, that the playfulness hasn't gotten lost, and the child likeness - all this really makes me happy.

Question: A lot of it, indeed, sounds easy, playful, modern, inspiring. Did you make a journey or are you expressing your impressions on this album?
Michael Cretu: That's exactly how it was. I had lost much time because I kept looking for new stuff, trying things out. But the songs themselves I wrote in a very short period of time. Yet, the time till it "clicks" may often be rather long. It's the producer in me who lets the musician flow freely for a while. I've gotten used to this process. All four previous ENIGMA albums were created that way. Always the same game. The question was, too, how to get myself into this state of intoxication I need for my work. The best stuff happens when I'm extremely exhausted, when I'm too tired to think.

Question: But hasn't this creative struggle even become bigger with this 5th ENIGMA album?
Michael Cretu: The struggle had been big for other reasons. It was quite a trip from the end of ENIGMA to the rebirth of ENIGMA. A soul trip inside myself. It's hard for me to answer this because my way of working has become so natural for me that I don't really like to explain it. There's also aggressive criticism of myself. To tell oneself: "Again! You can do it better!" I'm honest with myself. So it's easier, too, to make decisions for the artist in me. But all this is ten times easier for me than working with a band.

Question: Does such long work on one project also mean a better result for you?
Michael Cretu: I don't measure achievement with quantity only with quality. Somebody who makes more through one tiny 3 second flash of inspiration than one who works 17 hours a day all his life, can't be blamed for his genius.

Question: Do you see yourself as a trendsetter?

Michael Cretu: I'm a lateral thinker. Musically, I've always been a pacifistic anarchist. And I need to be different from anybody else, otherwise it's half the fun.

Question: You're looking for the "zeitgeist"?
Michael Cretu: "Voyageur" is contemporary in the sense that it refers to the "zeitgeist" but it doesn't contain sounds you could hear anywhere else at the moment. The album is free from outside inspiration. I've been creating all from within myself this time.

Question: But hasn't the appeal of ENIGMA been all that playing with epochs and cultures?
Michael Cretu: I hadn't heard anything that gave an idea, that flash to pursue something special. This certain sound, this mood I did not see. The novelty is that ENIGMA for the first time only consists of what I am doing. It has much less external influences than before.

Question: How do you decide that a song, an album is "finished"?
Michael Cretu: It's not a logical, explainable moment. I want to realize my ideas, and a song, a CD has to get across what I had in mind. The emotion.

Question: Is it difficult to accept the moment of having finished? Of being happy with oneself?
Michael Cretu: I had to learn this. But I always have a vision that I'm following. I walk my way, crystal clear. I've learned during the years to let go, too. To say: this song is never going to work. Instead of renovate go ahead and build it from new. No matter how much time or money you put into something, you have to have the ability to recognize what's not good. But you have to learn both: live the satisfaction but also the discontent. Only, I don't work regarding the results, even though we live in a society which demands such result orientation.

Question: According to your family, you worked much more intensively during the past weeks of the production?
Michael Cretu: With this album, too, there was this moment when others were happy with it. But I didn't want to release "Voyageur" that way. Three songs which characterize the album now, I came up with only towards the end. At one point, I knew what I still had to change but I had only three more weeks. Thanks to my experience I knew what that meant. I told my wife that from now on I'd be able to sleep a max of 6 hours every two days. That was extreme, even for me.

Question: How were you able to stay clear and creative?
Michael Cretu: I've got an image for that: it's as if I had a spider inside me waiting for prey: a sound, a textual idea, a line… and then it sucks it in.

Question: Aren't genius and madness close together here?

Michael Cretu: It's a balancing act - always! If the listener starts doubting the producer in oneself, one's been dealt a very bad deck.

Question: You're your own audience.
Michael Cretu: If in a monopolistic structure like this record, one of the bricks isn't solid, everything is going to crumble. That's the risk. And, also, fortunately, the chance. I tried to keep neutral and objective toward my own work as much as possible.

Question: Listeners have judged the entirety of the ENIGMA project by buying more than 30 million records. How would you sum that up?
Michael Cretu: Even after 13 years - and that's supposed to mean something when you're as self-critical as I am - I can't see a blame. "MCMXC a.D." is perfect for the time it was recorded and I couldn't make it any better under the same conditions. On the next album, too, I can't find one track of which I would say, skip this. From an artistic point of view, this is the most incredible for me. The biggest motivation to make a good album is: I don't want to blame myself for the next 40 years for working beneath my level.

Question: There is a basic sentiment on the first four albums, supported by the choirs, the monks and the flutes. Sounds which are missing this time.
Michael Cretu: The obvious elements are missing. But I wanted and needed to end this because I myself didn't like hearing them anymore. The flute needs a different mood, a different music.

Question: Weren't the sounds some kind of ballast, too?
Michael Cretu: If there's something I hate, it's copying myself. And I don't only arrange and compose it myself. I play it, too. Should I use the same instruments after 10 years? I'd be bored with myself.

Question: You think musical notes, do you hear inside your mind what you then write down?
Michael Cretu: No, I don't. I just use my classical know-how a lot. With certain changes of key, I just know what's wrong and what's right. This is no accident but calculated. I do "hear" that this is right. There are things on the album, for instance, when my son came into the studio and I scared him. It creates a set of noises in the background which I left on because it's perfect.

Question: Human interaction on tape is a novelty…
Michael Cretu: This is no accident but courage. I don't leave things on because they're a freaky idea but because they sound good. I don't make fun of music, I take it much too seriously for that. For me, it's a dead serious matter because it's my life.

Question: On "Voyageur", you speak and sing more than on the previous ENIGMA albums.
Michael Cretu: Originally, it was even more. I asked myself, what should I bet on? I have no samples, I've only got myself. So I had to create an instrument from myself which supports the album.

Question: The musical "Me Company"?
Michael Cretu: If you want to call it that, yes. The criteria, how if why and what I do are my judgment in regard to musicality. And I'm a highly musical person. If I like something, that's the only decisive criteria.

Question: The voice something most intimate for a human being. At the same time, here on "Voyageur", it's being destroyed, brutally distorted almost unrecognizably mutilated.
Michael Cretu: Yes, because I don't want to hear only one singer on ENIGMA. The voice is used as an instrument, like a sample: it is supposed to sound like an extra terrestrial.

Question: But Ruth-Ann was allowed to sing recognizably on the album twice.
Michael Cretu: I've rarely found a voice which matched ENIGMA so perfectly well. When I hear her, I hear an elf. She sings as if floating. This is exactly what I needed for ENIGMA. She has a gigantic potential. I've seldom experienced a voice so tender and commercial and yet perfect for experimental music.

Question: It sounds as if you talked about living instruments.
Michael Cretu: On ENIGMA, it must never be personified. No matter if it's the monks, the flute or Ruth-Ann. Who is who doesn't matter. All these are the ingredients for the respective dish.

Question: You said once that the most important thing was to respect your own work. But do you respect the work of others?
Michael Cretu: Definitely. I'm happy about any wild record becoming a hit somewhere. Since it's great and important if a song or album manages to pass conservative and encrusted structures. I keep my fingers crossed as hard for them to chart, as if I'd make money myself. Unfortunately, such examples are rare.

Question: But after hundreds of gold and platinum awards you should keep your fingers crossed for yourself!
Michael Cretu: Surely, success creates a moral responsibility toward people I don't even know. I've had this responsibility and I accepted it. And then I said: I have to go my own way. And went back in time mentally to when I did the first ENIGMA album. The highest maxim then was: I have to like it, everything else comes after that!

Question: Now, there are standards of comparison: the first album has sold 14 million units up to now.
Michael Cretu: I have to forget about such comparisons. I consider "Voyageur" quite beyond competition because there's no-one around the world who makes such music. It's risky if people don't like it… But among 6 billion people there should be a few who'll like it.

Question: There is no well known face behind ENIGMA. You probably don't go round giving autographs. But doesn't this make it more difficult for ENIGMA?
Michael Cretu: On the contrary! It's great that it is like that. I do want to stay unknown. I've never been into a personality cult.

Question: How strong is the pressure of being successful you have put yourself under?
Michael Cretu: Naturally, I do expect that the album sells well. I've proven this not only with "MCMXC a.D." that it is possible. I don't care if I'm number 1 or number 5. But sales are the only measure of knowing if you worked well or not so well. And it's been like this so far: if I've been happy with it myself, I sold well. But I do need support by the media.

Question: You've been living on Ibiza since 1988. Does the place have anything to do with the "Sound of ENIGMA" or could it have grown just anywhere?
Michael Cretu: I'm sure, ENIGMA would never have been created at a place where I'd be surrounded by people. Never in a city. Maybe, I could have created it at the North pole. It has to be a place without too many visual impulses. I see pine trees and the ocean. So I have the possibility to mentally create my own world. My music grows on this base.

Question: You only work at night. Also, because you don't have to "see" so much then?
Michael Cretu: For me, night is not darkness or gloom. I love the atmosphere very much. And when the full moon shines above the ocean and makes it shine like snow… You see a lot then. Even though, I did work during the day on this album, but mainly because the night would already be over.

Question: Does ENIGMA relate to the night?
Michael Cretu: It's the type of music where you have to close your eyes. So you can simply take the night as well. It's no music you listen to while ironing. You can, though, but then you miss out on a big part. But it's really only good music if you can ALSO listen to it while ironing.

Question: Do you have dreams made of music?
Michael Cretu: When I sleep, I sleep so tight that I don't know what I dream. I sleep from exhaustion and less for pleasure.

Question: But your video clips seem like dreams.
Michael Cretu: Of course, because the music is like a dream. Directors line up to shoot videos for ENIGMA because it's one of the few acts where they can live their own dreams.

Question: A state of exhaustion at the end of an ENIGMA production is the normal thing for you.
Michael Cretu: And I need exhaustion and insomnia like a sedative. But it's also the excitement and the pleasure in my work which keeps me awake. The night is my working time.

Question: Isn't this a lonely style of work?
Michael Cretu: Why? I'm a loner and I'll die as one. The loner is not happy among others. He finds his happiness alone, in his own room. That's how I am.