Harper's Bazaar: April 2015

Swissssssssssshhhhhhhhh. An airplane takes off right over my head as I order a latte to drink. I am sitting at a nice Los Angeles cafe along the street waiting for her to arrive. I pop in an earbud and turn on "Waves", the title track from October's latest album, released December of last year. The sunny and bright weather fits perfectly with the water-themed escape the song contains. I am very excited to meet the woman who created it.

She arrives in a black limousine and looks around as I wave her to my table. We both exchange hello's and hug. She is wearing a stunning white dress and her nails are painted ocean blue. We begin to talk about her history. With eleven studio albums and many other projects and releases under her belt, how is she able to produce material so quickly and with such energy? "A lot of love for what I do. This is my entire life. Creating music is what I was put on this Earth to do. And the fans I have gathered over the years deserve my full attention. They are my family." It's almost incredible how she describes her fans as being her family. "Family is important to me, it always has been. I come from a very rough childhood in which I was living half the time with a woman who wasn't mentally fit and didn't value the meaning of family. That's why today I am here to spread love and the meaning of it." I ask her if there is a distinct inspiration of family, or the lack of, in her music. "I definitely touch on it a lot in my music. I am a very positive person but there is a lot of darkness inside of me that I express through my music. Not necessarily to let listeners linger in it, but recognize it and be able to battle through it. There are definitely a lot of warrior songs I have put out." Her first two albums, under the name Aurora, come to mind. We get to her latest album, Waves, that has a four piece film, directed by film director Joseph Kosinski, behind it. "The album represents a fantasy I wanted to deliver. A world of perfection and brightness." The photo shoot taken for the album displays her in various black and white outfits posing in front of a white wall, behind her a body of water. "We designed the photo shoot and films to be very similar in terms of visual detail. I wanted a simple look." She has almost completed a month of her new tour. I wonder how the album tracks translate live and what is different about this tour than her previous. "This tour has a basic concept of brightness and elegance. I make one outfit change from a white jumpsuit to white flowy dress. We separated it into two parts: the bouncy fun tracks, you know, the crowd pleasers, and the elegant, more complex tracks. I think it's a great balance. And touring with Purity Ring and Royksopp is just fantastic. They are the two biggest duos in electronic music right now. Of course I needed them to make this show." She laughs and stares into the sky.

I ask her if there is anything that went unexpected with this album or if she would do anything differently. I recall her last album, Olivia, did not go exactly as she planned. She thinks to herself for a moment. "I think my fans didn't find too much depth in this album. And I feel some were even more disappointed because my last album had a character and feel this album was characterized as well. You know, I chose not to sing "Doubts" on the tour and I got a lot of backlash from people, saying that was the only 'real' song on the album. It kind of hurt my feelings, but people need to remember, I am not only a musician but an artist, and each project I present to the table has characteristics that are its own. I cannot repeat myself nor make something only to please others." I distinctly notice she uses the word 'people' rather than 'fans'. "I absolutely am not saying you are only a fan if you love everything I do. I am saying there are people who only seem to take. If you get to know my artistic vision but don't like the music, I can 100% understand. But the people who just judge everything I give, not care to understand or not care about my artistic vision, I don't consider these people fans."

I shift subjects to talk about where she lives. She explains she switched from living in Los Angeles to New York. "It's so funny because I, and a lot of fans, would consider myself to be a very inner person, that I like to be by myself and create in isolation, which is true. But actually, I love being around people just as much as I love being by myself. I love hanging out with people, shopping, and just exploring new territories. I get a lot of inspiration from it. I love touring and I love seeing my fans all around the world as well. Even if it may get tiring." Tabloids two years ago were misinterpreting October's words and spreading rumors around that October was exhausted from touring and didn't want to do it anymore. "It was annoying because they didn't let me complain!" She and I both laugh. "Let me complain! I do a lot and the one time I make a small complaint it gets blown up and suddenly I hate touring and I hate my fans. I will never get tired of seeing and performing for my fans. I just get tired doing everything else. A lot of work goes into what I do." Knowing how fast her process is with new projects, I ask her if she is working on anything at the moment. "Well, I have sort of planned out my next album. It's going to be a sequel of Waves. Transitioning from the fantasy into reality. A lot of emotion is going to go into it and I am pretty excited about it. The writing and recording process will go very quickly, I have a feeling. I am in the middle of figuring out what kind of sound should go into it, but I have a pretty good idea." Whatever it may be, her fans are always hungry for new material. I ask if she ever feels her eras go too quickly and if she ever misses out on something. "They do go very quickly. It's kind of a beautiful mess, we plan things ahead but also do things in the moment so it's a very thrilling ride. But I never regret. I just move forward. You never know what will happen next."