Jeffree Star – 20-04-2010

Interview with: Jeffree Star
By: Nina Mende

Today I was to interview Jeffree Star, the “Queen Of The Internet”. I had a feeling that this would be a very interesting meeting, and it definitely was. As we met Jeffree he was totally nice and kind, without any star allures or issues he took the time for us and chatted with us very calm and patient. Other than you might expect, he was very introverted, shy and quiet. With perfect makeup, turquoise contact lenses and gorgeous hair, all dressed in casual and without high heels, Jeff and I sat across from each other on the couch in the backstage and chatted. Behind this “Myspace Phenomenon” Jeffree was a very down to earth person, and very smart. I found it hard to find any questions in advance that would not offend him by any means, I wasn’t sure how he would react and definitely did not want to get him annoyed or pissed of. But all these worries were of no earthly use. It seemed like I could have asked him anything without him getting offended…. Since I didn’t know that in advance though, and just learned that throughout the evening, I was still very careful. The interview of course suffered from my worries and I am terribly sorry about that, but maybe we get a second chance. Anyway, the time we talked together was full of valuable information as well, just not the kind of interview I somehow got used to by now. It was a challenge and I think I coped with it quite well. Against this for me important background I definitely wanted to share with you, here is our interview:

Even though Jeffree already played some shows in Europe during this tour I still welcomed him to Europe. By saying that Jeff told me that this is his first time in Europe. He has never been here before, but, his grandmother is from Germany. Jeff apologized and called himself ignorant by not knowing more about it though. Speaking of all that he also mentioned that he just got his name changed. Somehow from talking about that we continued talking about Jeffree Star touring with BrokenCyde. He thought it is a very good match and the shows with BrokenCyde are fun. All UK shows were sold out and it was a real blast to play in front of the audience that was going wild. He didn’t remember how many shows they played there though. It all becomes a big blur when you’re on the road. We call it “The Tour Bubble”. But Jeff mentioned again that it has been a great time.

Now we talked about the album Beauty Killer. It was released on iTunes worldwide in September last year, by now you can get the physical CD almost everywhere as well. Before the album he had already released some songs, but Jeffree said that he was just messing around and not really taking it serious. With “Beauty Killer” he did though and is proud of the outcome. He took his time with it and put a lot of effort into it. Jeffree himself loves the new album and has a lot of fun performing it live. The feedback to it was pretty good as well. People seem to like it a lot. Jeffree is already working on new stuff, as a matter of fact he has four songs done already. After six US shows in June he’ll be doing with BrokenCyde after getting back from Europe, he will head back to the studio to work on more. The time seems to be racing by, because June is almost there.

Then we continued talking about Jeffree’s new live band. He released a big sigh and told me that there was a lot of drama with the band members already, he has gone through seven already. The ones he is with right now seem to be great, but it is hard to tell in the beginning. People change on the road and when playing live, drinking and partying. People turn out to be alcoholics, drawn to drugs or start stealing from you. You come to see sides of people you would have never expected. Jeffree does not drink any alcohol or smoke.

Now I was curious about Jeffree being around metal bands a lot, I wanted to know how that comes. Jeffree told me that he sometimes feel like he gravitates towards these kind of people. Many of his friends are rock musicians or people from TV. It’s just something about being in this business: After a while all the friends you have are somehow in the business because that’s the people you’re always hanging around with. Even though his music is more dancy, metal people seem to like him. I still wondered why he doesn’t tour with electro or industrial bands like Julien-K and such. He admitted that he would love to and maybe someday it will work out. Also did he say here that he likes Julien-K but loved Orgy a lot too, especially during Highschool. I told him that I like Orgy too but the Julien-K stuff is not too far away from that, so slowly we might get over Orgy, and even if not, we can still listen to the old music. Jeffree did not hear the Julien-K album “Death To Analog” yet, but said that already the name of it still sounds a lot like Orgy.

Jeffree doesn’t really know how he actually ended up in this business and got to know all these people. It was probably because he was going to the clubs at a younger age and people started talking to him because he looked interesting or something like that.

Sitting across from him I couldn’t stop noticing his perfect make-up. I wondered how long it takes and Jeffree told me that it only takes like 30 minutes. He doesn’t give make-up classes though. He was thinking of doing an internet tutorial but then people began copying his exact make up and that was not exactly what he wanted it to end up like. Who would want clones of oneself standing in front of you? As a matter of fact it might be a little annoying when you have a badly done lookalike make up job in front of you during an entire show. So Jeffree quit doing that.

Somehow we began talking about a Jeffree Star clothing line. Jeff told me here that his cloths are sold in many big malls and stores all over the USA already, like Virgin megastore, Spencers, Hot Topic and such. I remember Spencers from my High School time, Jeff told me that he used to go there all the time after school as well. We found it very amazing that people still go there.

Another thing you notice and can’t stop looking at when sitting across from Jeffree is his tattoos. He has over 60 now, the latest is on his right side of the neck. It is an old picture of his grandmother, done by Kat Von D just like most of his tattoos. He just had to get something before he came.

I had heard that Jeffree had studied Psychology before he got so busy with doing music and everything. Psychology has always interested Jeffree, especially analyzing people, trying to figure them out before they can figure you out. He thinks it also helps a lot in the music business. Jeffree likes mind games. He had to quit as life got too busy. Besides he likes making music and travelling too much rather than sitting in school and listen to somebody. He always hated school because it is so boring to sit around in class and the stuff is easy. He had straight A’s in High School because it was so easy…. I told him about the possibility to study psychology online. Since Jeffree would still love to study Psychology he said he’d check that out.

If Jeffree didn’t do music today, he’d still be doing make up for everybody, so basically still sort of in the same business. He used to do makeup for music videos or porn videos and such. It was a lot of fun, he said.

It was a very interesting interview with Jeffree and I thank him very much for the time.

Links:
Jeffree Star MySpace