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miércoles, 27 de febrero de 2013

New interview with the writer of "Forbidden floor" Caroline Sauvageot

@Caroline's peronal blog
Fist of all, thank you so much for giving us this interview. And congratulations for the publication of your novel.  I would like to start with some external aspects of the book. As a first look we can see in the cover an amazing piece of art which has a lot of Allegator's style on it? She made it, right?

Caroline: Yes, the cover is made by Allegator. 

You asked her to participate on you book project or did she contacted you some way? 

Caroline: I contacted her because I loved her drawings and I wanted this book to be a project with the fans of Tokio Hotel. I don't want someone who work for the money but because they support Tokio Hotel. Inside the book, you can also see illustrations by Lykan BTK. I met her on BTK Application and she offered to make more illustrations for me. 

And now, speaking about the novel's content. A lot of writers make a very profound ethnographic research in order to understand better the people and situations that they want to describe. You did that type of research, how was it? What did you do? 

Caroline: Yes I did that. Writing the Forbidden Floor took some time because I needed a lot of research to describe well the characters, the feelings, the situations... First, I talked a lot with the Aliens since 2007 and I they took me into their world. They explained me their passions for the band and why they loved them so much. Then I talked to some professional people from the music industry, record companies, singers or bands from Germany, and I visit them in Hamburg and Berlin. I read a lot of books, listened to a lot of music and watched a lot of movies to really know the german culture. 


Also I read archives of the european actuality since 2003/2004 to remember the major events, the climate, etc. And with all that I was able to make an interesting work with some details that makes the book sound real. You can check an event and discover it really happened. I think now the characters of the rock band and the fans are the closest to the real members of Tokio Hotel and to you, all the Aliens. But of course I will need many books to make the portrait of each fan, because all the Aliens got the same passion but thy are also very different. They all got a special story with the band. 

L'etage interdit (the forbidden floor) is a very enigmatic title, how do you come with it? 

Caroline: I was at my first "Tokio Hotel immersion report" inside their hotel in Paris. Some fans invited me to share a room and in this hotel, the 5th floor, where the band stayed, was forbidden. In this Royal Monceau Hotel, each floor got a lounge/salon and, as the fans were talking and watching the brand new Zimmer 483 Tour DVD in the room, I stayed outside to write and see how this weekend could inspire me for the book. At first the book was only about the band and their friend Anais - the girl on the cover. The fans were just mentioned. But it was obvious that the fans were too much important to be just mentioned. They needed to be characters too. The readers had to follow their life at the same time as the band's life. 

There, the ideas turned in my head and took place. The story had to be in the hotel, and we'll follow the 3 days of promo of the band, as well as the adventure of the fans inside and outside the hotel. And then, the hotel itself would be a kind of character.The hotel where the band stayed is important. The fans all want to know the hotel in order to wait in front and have a chance to see them, the luckiest can take a room or just enter and have a drink. THEN, if I'm writing about the hotel I need to visit it from ground floor to the last floor and that's how, in the night, I went to the 5th floor to see what occurred in this mysterious forbidden floor ! And I acttualy keep this tittle, and the publisher too. ^^   

As a final question, our blog is called "Official Groupies Tokio Hotel" so I cannot stop asking you what's you impression of the groupies and the sometimes dispective way this term is used? You have your own definition? How do you place it in your novel? 

Caroline: Oh, I'm 34 so I still got in mind the old definition of the term "groupies". In the 60/70, the groupies were the girlfriends of the rockstars or some girls who were their muse, their friends... We know some famous "super groupies" like Pamela DesBarres, Bebe Buell or Amanda Lear is because they dated young rockers that they are legends now, like the Beatles, the Stones, David Bowie, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin... They inspired the movie "Almost Famous" and these girls also inspired me to write about a rock band. Sadly now we are used to say that groupies doesn't exist anymore. The groupies loved music, they played music, sing or they loved art and could be artists, models or painters. So it was natural that they hang out with other artists, but now we see them more like "star fuckers" who just want to be with a musician in order to appear on a magazine and be famous. But I'm sure there are still some real groupies out there, in love with music and art. I'm a kind of groupie and I know some bands who are not super famous yet. 

 In the story,that I started in 2007,you can meet in the pages the band Blackrain, Danger, Sister, Jan Sievers or the triplet Landeberg. Jan is a german singer. Sister are a swedish band and turn into "horror rock band" I think it's called like that. Blackrain are french and started to be famous in France. They should be at the Paris' book fair in march, supporting me. In 2011, for the 1rst TH Day, they invited the Aliens to their show. It was great. And then, you can see the triplet in the video from 2009 of Lady Gaga, "Paparazzi". We are all following our way and I'm writing about it. We all help each other, no matter if our friends are famous or not. It's all about music and art ^^ 

So to answer to the last question, in this novel I don't talk a lot about the groupies yet, because there was already too much to say and I got to settle the story and the characters. The second book will be about the european tour of 2008 so I will talk about the groupies for sure. I will mention the use people make now of the world, and what it was in the 60/70. And now that I know very well the universe of Tokio Hotel and the Aliens, I'm sure this second book won't take so long to write ^^   

Something more you would like to say to our readers? 

 Caroline: Hello to the Mexican fans ! You'll find a bit of your culture and Mayan legends inside my story, and maybe you'll be surprise to see it as a part of Tokio Hotel music too, in a way.   

We want to thank Caroline for this interview (the first of many to come I hope) If you have some questions fell free to leave us a comment or contact her directly via twitter at @CarrieFrance 

You can purchase the english version of this book as a Kindle edition (ebook) at Amazon

©Official Groupies TH México

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