Lady Gaga on New Album and Dive Bar Tour: "'Joanne' Is Lady Gaga If You Erase All the Fame"

Lady Gaga details the writing process of 'Joanne' and her Bud Light x Lady Gaga Dive Bar Tour in this exclusive sit down.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Earlier this month, Lady Gaga kicked off her Dive Bar Tour presented by Bud Light at Nashville in support of her forthcoming album, Joanne, and Complex has the exclusive sit down with the singer songwriter where she discusses everything from the inspiration and writing process of her new project to the new tour.

"What was great is I really got to return to my roots, which is just being in a live room, with musicians, with your buddies, you know drinking beer...writing music and having a great time and just playing instruments, writing lyrics, and talking about life," Gaga explains of writing the new album where she collaborated with Mark Ronson, BloodPop, experienced country singer songwriter Hillary Lindsey, Florence Welch, Tame Impala's Kevin Parker, Father John Misty, Beck, and more. 

"I mean working with beck was amazing," says Gaga says the song they collaborated on together sounds the most like her earlier dance records. "I think people will be really surprised to hear the song that we did together because it's almost one of the songs that is most like my earlier dance records." Mark Ronson told Rolling Stone, calls this particular track "classic Gaga, like 'Alejandro' and some of the stuff from Fame Monster."

It's clear Gaga pulls from a widespread amount of music genres. According to her, there is country, funk, rock, pop, dance, electronic, and R&B/soul that shows up across the record. "It's kind of fearless in that way. It's really a reflection of everyone that worked on it," but she is clear that it's still "pop music. But it's my brand of pop music." 

The main message of Joanne and the Bud Light x Lady Gaga Dive Bar Tour seems to be about reconnecting with people. As Gaga puts it, "I wanted to write songs that would speak to a woman or man that thought they could never relate to someone like me because that's what i think i miss the most in life is human connection." The Dive Bar Tour then gives her the perfect opportunity to "really look my fans in the eye when I'm singing to them and really try to have a more natural human experience instead of having this giant wall or space between me and people in an arena." This all makes perfect sense when Gaga notes that "Joanne is Lady Gaga if you erase all the fame."

Watch the exclusive interview above and look out for Lady Gaga to bring Joanne to more dive bars with two shows on Oct. 20 and Oct. 27. The album is set to drop this Friday, Oct. 21, but you can already check out her previously released tracks "Perfect Illusion,""Million Reasons," and recently released "A-YO." Also be sure to check out Gaga's next Dive Bar performance on Thursday night at 10 pm EST on Bud Light's Facebook page right here

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