Mystery Blonde

Photo by Frida Klingberg

Sometimes you just can’t do without shimmery synths, plastic drums and easy melodies that snuggle up in your ear and just won’t let go. That’s right, the world needs Italo, and everything that comes with it, ie. neon dancefloors, dry ice, puffy sleeves, red nails and big spiky hair. Enter Sally Shapiro, who not only looks like the total opposite of all that, she and her musical partner Johan Agebjörn hail from Gothenburg, not Italy. Here’s to nothing being what it seems. Vice: Sally Shapiro is not your real name, right? Sally: No, in a way it’s a character. I enhance certain aspects of my personality and leave a lot behind. As Sally Shapiro I dance all night long in small disco clubs and walk in the moonshine thinking about my love affairs. As myself I’m also free to do other stuff. In your photos you come across as this unassuming, shy girl. Is that just part of an image, designed to lure the rest of us in? I AM shy and reserved, so everything that comes with that—no photographing by unknown people, no live performances—is really true. However I understand that this becomes a pretty clichéd image of a typical shy girl. But on the other hand Italo disco is a lot about those types of clichés. But as far as the fans go I would also like to emphasize that judging from MySpace they seem to be equally divided into males and females. Johan produces and writes the songs. Are you part of the creative process or are you, in true Italo fashion, a figurehead and interpreter? I do not contribute to the actual song writing, however I have told Johan about themes that he has written about, and I have criticized productions and mixes and demanded that Johan does remakes. The original of “Hold Me So Tight” was a lot more house, and I wanted it to sound more disco. I refuse to sing to productions I don’t like, especially now when I know a lot of people will listen to them. You know, as this success-thing gets bigger, at one point somebody’s going to throw a lot of money in your face to see you play live… Really, I don’t know. Just now, it feels like I really don’t want to play live. But I can’t tell if that will change or not, it’s not set in stone. Maybe if I got some nice male dancers to steal the attention… ARIEN RASMIJN
Sally Shapiro’s Disco Romance is out now on Diskokaine.