K's Choice.de

I’m ready for the rest of my life"

Brussels: She’s beaming. When we meet Sarah Bettens in a hotel in Brussels, she’s back to her exuberant and lively self. She talks about ‘Go’, the mini album with which she starts her musical life after K’s choice. A cd on which she looks back to a difficult time in her life: the end of a marriage, finding a new relationship with a woman, and the all to often faulted press.

The last K’s choice album was entitled ‘Almost happy’, a logical title in a, for Sarah Bettens, not so easy period. On ‘Go’ the new single is entitled ‘Fine’ and not ‘Great’.
“This record is about a transitional period. On ‘Go’, you can still hear some doubt. ‘Fine’ is more a celebration: you can hear I’m feeling OK again. These songs are very personal of course. Even more intimate and direct than with K’s choice. And yet, in ‘Follow me’, I’m singing: “I’m a poor example of a carefree human being”. This song is about that transitional period, but you can also take it as a general description of who I am. But today I feel happy.”

She got married when she was twenty, taking on her parents example. A small decade later Sarah had to see it wasn’t working. She found a new life with an American woman with two children. For ever? In ‘grey’ she sings: “I can’t tell you that everything I feel for you will never go away”.
“I’ve refused to see for a very long time. I believed in the absolute love I saw at home. And I still believe in love, but the believe in that absolute is gone.
The funny thing is: ‘till it went really wrong, I thought I was very aware of everything. I thought I had everything in control; my relationship won’t get stuck… I saw myself as a melancholic artist, and that had to explain everything. I really believed that, but it wasn’t true of course. And I’ve learned that lesson now.”

Her fist solo cd should’ve been release last summer, but her record company, sony, kept disagreeing with the offered material. At last they let Sarah free to do her thing. On June 7th her first mini album will be released, only five songs, but she wouldn’t wait any longer.
“I still don’t understand what was wrong with those songs. It made me insecure, even though I didn’t have that feeling when I was working on the record without Gert. Now I miss him again, with the upcoming concerts. It will be stressful in the AB, ‘cause Gert will be in the audience. But I know he’ll be there with the right intentions: he wants it to be good. It’s not like he’ll be standing there waiting for me to fail. My confidence is all right. I’m ready for everything: for this record, for the rest of my life (laughing).

When two years ago, a magazine spread the news Sara had left her husband for a woman, it caused speculation. Today Sarah doesn’t hide her relationship with a woman anymore, but she doesn’t necessarily want to discuss it either. Neither does she want to become the leading example of the holibi movement.
It’s a bit funny, she doesn’t ask to reread interviews, but she does want to pick the pictures beforehand.
“I’m not bitter about the sometimes false messages that have been published, but I’ve become less naïve. People will always write what they want. Not as dramatic as in English tabloids, or anything, but still not very pleasant. I’ve been asking to look at the pictures, after a few really ugly ones of me had been on the covers. Maybe this entire period has made me a bit more suspicious. There are many forms of suspicion. I’ve always been aware of the Flemish cynicism, that is just waiting for you to fail. That way, America is different: there you can be successful without losing your credibility. Someone like Eminem is popular, but can still be a bit underground.

(ok Österreich auch noch )