"Krone" interview

Lisa Schmid: Songs from an “own Vienna”

Life is much more than black or white: Lisa Schmid from the Danube city knows how to sing many songs about it.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Zwölf/Zwanzig Records, Fabian Orner)

Alongside Nino from Vienna, Ernst Molden and co, there is also plenty of room for a female singer-songwriter scene. Lisa Schmid is currently releasing her second album "Bittersweet", on which she processes memories, family tragedies and experiences into songs with a light-footed sound. In the big "Krone" interview, the artist gave us a deeper insight into what she does.

Although Lisa Schmid is just 40 years young, death is her constant companion. The morbid approach really got rolling in 2019 with the solo cabaret program "Ehrengrab" at the Theater in der Drachengasse. Schmid secured the title of "Kabarett Talent 2020" and later performed it at Vienna's Central Cemetery in front of the mortuary. Parallel to her cabaret approach, she also tries her hand at music. Her debut album 2022 is called "Nachtschwarz", a year later she followed it up with the EP "Asche", and a few weeks ago she even curated the musical program for the 150th anniversary of Vienna's Central Cemetery. Schmid is aware that death and darkness are good selling points, especially in Vienna. However, the fact that her second album "Bittersweet", which is being released these days, surprisingly deviates from this is something that has happened.

Album full of ambivalences
"I generally have a sense of humor that is strongly linked to a morbid approach to death," Schmid explains in an interview with Krone, "but when death comes knocking at your own family's door, your feelings inevitably change. You can have written 100 cabaret programs and songs about it and still feel sad." This is one of the reasons why the new work is called "Bittersweet". It is about crises, dramas and the end, but also about moving on, new beginnings and hope. "Wistfulness and melancholy are somehow connected and there are many ambivalences on the album. When I write songs, there's never a plan behind them. I just do it and see what comes out in the end. We then tried to give all these songs a title and ended up with 'Bittersweet' because it fits best."

When Schmid talks about "we", she means herself and guitarist David Poglin. While she herself is responsible for the lyrics, they write the music together. "I had a few guitar lessons with David at the beginning, but this quickly developed into a friendship and musical partnership. I always want everything immediately and am demanding, David is usually very relaxed. Sometimes the sound in the studio can get pretty bad, but that's the way it is when you don't always agree 100 percent." The rustic but always fair approach to each other can sometimes be traced back to their home country. Poglin is at home in Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, while Schmid has lived in Vienna-Donaustadt since birth. The district to which she has also dedicated an anthem of the same name on this album.

Happy to use clichés
"Transdanubia is a Vienna of its own, but I like to use these clichés," says Schmid, "I've looked at a lot of apartments, but I never really want to leave here. I've tried to move away from here, but I've never succeeded." In the city on the Danube, she was steeled by her grandfather, to whom the song "Liebe Grüße aus Lignano" is dedicated. "We went there so often on family vacations. Grandpa had a huge influence on me, I could always look up to him. While other girls were playing with Barbie dolls, we were at the fishing pond in summer, shooting muskrats and gutting fish. Unfortunately, he was always an authoritarian macho to my grandma, but a great grandfather to me. He always said that as a girl, I had to assert myself and not put up with anything from any guy."

Family is Schmid's top priority. A beloved grandmother paved her way to cabaret, and she wrote the album closer "Steh ned wannand on mein Grob" to the other on her deathbed. "I commuted back and forth between Vienna and Burgenland for her, she was in 24-hour care at the end. I played her the song at her bedside and I still can't believe she still listened to it." Her death in August 2023 had a strong influence on the new album - but in a different way than expected. "In the darkest time of my life, the music that came out was, on the whole, kind of the opposite." Although many of the themes have a certain heaviness to them, the singer-songwriter's sound is sometimes lighter and more upbeat than we were used to. "I've learned that people are everywhere. A good year later, it feels to me as if she hasn't died, but is still here. There's just a different form of communication between us."

Values are important
"Bittersweet" is also another chapter in asserting herself as a singer-songwriter in a competitive market. "I was often criticized for not being able to understand my vocals so well on the first album. I can understand that and we worked on it. But I had to listen to a lot of people. Sayings like 'the Joni Mitchell days are over' or 'you'd better put on something nice and take your songs with you' are not unknown to me. Whether in cabaret or music, there are always older men who want to explain their world to you. Since I've been doing this job, the values that my grandpa passed on to me have been particularly important to me. I'm glad that I always listen to my gut feeling and not to others." On "Bittersweet", Schmid processes her experiences and makes them accessible to others. "You always live in your own universe. When you then see that others can also identify with your songs, it knocks me off my chair every time."

Album release show in Vienna
Tomorrow, October 25, Lisa Schmid and David Poglin will present their album "Bittersüß" live at Spielraum Gasometer B in Vienna's Guglgasse. Tickets for the album release show are still available at www.kupfticket.com.