The singer-songwriter on ditching her sad girl persona to rock out.

When singer-songwriter Soko realized she'd rather stay in bed and dream the day away, she knew she had to make a change. Instead of taking it slow, however, she made-over her entire life. She cut her hair, dyed it blonde, ditched her folk roots, and enlisted producer Ross Robinson to help her write some party-ready goth-pop. If she was going to gravitate towards morbid topics, at least she was having fun singing about them. The French alt-pop star recently stopped by BuzzFeed’s New York offices to talk about having a rich fantasy life, being inspired by Robin Williams, and making her new album My Dreams Dictate My Reality.

David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed

David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed

What's the strangest dream you've ever had?

S: The record is called My Dreams Dictate My Reality because I was very depressed, my reality was an absolute nightmare and my dreams were very beautiful and all I wanted to do was sleep forever, take sleeping pills, and never wake-up. From this horrible thing and my dark mood came another realization: I can just snap out of it. It's up to me to make my reality as good as my dreams. I started feeling better and making my everyday life as good as I wished it would be. I take every single day as if it were my last and make it the best I can.

Once I dreamt that I was in a submarine that was flying in the air and it was driving so fast. Everything looked like it was straight out of Castle In The Sky. It was beautiful — I was back in the era of dinosaurs, there were ruins, and lots of wild, unkept land. Completely mind-blowing. In the dream, I was like, I need to take a photo so I remember this when I wake up. So, in my dream, I'm looking for my iPhone and then a submarine landed in the studio. At the time, I was recording with this producer, Ross Robinson, in Venice on the beach, and the walls in the studio — which I had never acknowledged because he has so much stuff — are blue. The dream submarine suddenly became the studio where I was making my record. The consul was everywhere. The blue wall became the ocean and I could see whales and dolphins and fishes. When I woke up I was like, oh my god!

I was having crazy dreams while I was recording the album.

David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed

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