With Lady Gaga, you will always have something to say. If you’re looking to be surprised, she won’t disappoint you with her choice of clothes which range from plain weird to extreme. Photographers definitely love her for her radical getups and reporters for any inflammatory comment. And her Little Monsters, her fans, are always waiting for any new song to be released.
Without a doubt, Lady Gaga is currently the most famous musical performer. But her fame and success did not happen overnight. It involved dropping out of college and taking the risk to make it on her own. It required her to work as a waitress by day and a go-go dancer by night and to join bands and perform in front of people. It involved not giving up on her dream, even if it meant cavorting about in skimpy clothing as a burlesque dancer. And it meant sticking to her beliefs and resolving to take charge of her own life.
So many artists have gone on stage ahead of Lady Gaga, and they have made a name for themselves and left their mark in the music industry. But none of them were quite like Lady Gaga, whose fame has gone beyond the 15 minutes of a one-shot deal. Lady Gaga is a product of influences by great musicians and artists before her such as David Bowie, Queen and Madonna. But she is a work of her own individuality, of her desire to not conform to what is usually accepted. She wants to be her own, to be different. And in a world that’s full of talents, being different means a lot to a performer.
Lady Gaga is a complex person. Having been described in print and electronic media as “bizarre, a drag queen, fierce, a hermaphrodite, a gay man trapped in a woman’s body, a self-parody, outlandish, hardcore, trashy, genius, futuristic, grotesque”, she is the world’s biggest pop star. Jimmy Iovine, head of Lady Gaga’s record label, Interscope, stated that never had there been such a phenomenon since Eminem in terms of making an impact.
What makes Lady Gaga different, among other things, is her stage presence and way of entertaining. She wanted everything perfect right down to the tiniest detail. She would go as far as creating a set to evoke New York City and would have her beloved piano designed to match the mood. At her concerts, her fans do not just sit back and enjoy the show, they resonate with it.
Lady Gaga writes songs that are mostly about sex, fame and ambition, but she doesn’t forget about giving sermons about positive thinking and embracing who you are. She will talk about the virtues of love and unity, but also deliver a speech of rage to those who undermine her and her abilities.
Indeed, Lady Gaga has differentiated herself from any other young artist in the industry. She writes her own songs, plays the piano, and doesn’t lip-synch her live concerts. She doesn’t hold back when it comes to delivering an extraordinary live performance. Lady Gaga has come a long way since and she’s determined to take the world stage once again.
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In contrast to her stage name, Lady Gaga’s real name is far from memorable. Her parents, Joseph and Cynthia of Italian-American descent named their firstborn Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, born on March 28, 1986, in Yonkers, New York City. Cynthia and Joseph were internet entrepreneurs.
The 1980s was a time when so much opportunity abounded. It was the time that when you worked hard, you’d go places. And so Joseph Germanotta and his business partner-slash-wife Cynthia took advantage of the fast-moving times. During this time, the internet was still in its early stages, and it was only in the 1990s that the world wide web really took off.
Young Stefani Germanotta
The Germanottas were determined to succeed in their chosen career. They wanted to start a family soon and wanted their children to grow up in an affluent and comfortable environment. Cynthia, in particular, had dreamed of a good life for herself and for her future family. She had escaped to the city where she met Joe and there built a life for her own family.
Despite growing up in an affluent environment in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Lady Gaga has insisted that she did not come from a wealthy background. She stated that her parents “both came from lower-class families, so we’ve worked for everything – my mother worked eight to eight out of the house, in telecommunications, and so did my father.”
Stefani, as she was known to her family, is the eldest of two children. Her younger sister, Natali, was born a few years later. Stefani was an energetic child. Though nobody could tell what the future had in store for her, early on there were tell-tale signs of a different life for her. During one interview, she said that when she was in kindergarten, she had a part in the Three Billy Goats Gruff as the big Billy goat. She designed her own Billy-goat horns using tinfoil and a hanger.
Mom and Dad’s Influence
Stefani never lacked support when she was young. At only four years old, she was encouraged by her mother to take piano lessons. She did, and before long, she could play by ear, meaning after listening to a song she could play it in the piano without a sheet music. Although she hated the lessons, she had a strong desire to perform. She would practice piano longer than the scheduled time.
Cynthia and Joseph Germanotta were supportive of their daughter’s musical endeavors
Stefani penned her first song entitled “Dollar Bills,” inspired by Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’. She would recall, “I still remember the first song I heard. My dad was listening to what I now know was Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’, and understanding only the sounds of the cash register in the intro, I wrote a song called ‘Dollar Bills’ on my Mickey Mouse staff paper.”
At a young age, she was exposed to the hits of Michael Jackson-then at the height of his popularity- and Cindy Lauper, whose songs she would listen to on her mini plastic tape recorder. She also recalled being “twirled in the air in daddy’s arms” to The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Not only that. When she and her parents were in restaurants, Stefani would use the breadsticks as drum batons. No doubt about it. Music was in her blood.
And that’s thanks to her father, Joseph, who had introduced her to various types of music from an early age. Before Joseph turned his attention to earning serious money as an internet entrepreneur, he had once played in a band and wanted more than anything to pass this love of music to his little girl.
And so he would play Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Billy Joel and Elton John on the record player in the living room of their house. Over dinner, they would listen to Andrea Bocelli and Frank Sinatra. Joseph also played in a bar band and would play Bruce Springsteen. Lady Gaga later said that, “Theatre became a huge part of my life because of that.”
For young Stefani, clothes also mattered as much just as they do now. Her mother was the sole influence when it came to fashion. The family’s success meant that Cynthia could now afford to have an outstanding wardrobe, full of designer labels. Lady Gaga would say of her mother, “She was always very well-kept and beautiful. She wore Ferragamo, Valentino, Paloma Picasso… Her taste is absolutely classic Italian.”
Lady Gaga’s own taste was anything but classic, but her mother’s influence stayed with her into adulthood. She remembered watching her mother dress, and this was what sparked an interest that she would take through childhood and teenage years. She said, “She always looked so much more pristine than all the other mothers. I have a lot of her in me: I went through periods where I was very sexy, then I became a hippie girl with ripped jeans, and then went into a leopard-tights-and-leotards phase, which I’m still in. Fashion saved my life! When I was young, I was laughed at in school because I dressed dramatically.”
Now that’s coming from someone who, innocently, would greet a new babysitter stark naked. These were the early signs of the flamboyant and exhibitionist person that we would recognize as Lady Gaga. She attested that, “I was always an entertainer….I was a ham as a little girl, and I am a ham today.”
Convent of the Sacred Heart
As Stefani grew up, her parents’ business took off and they were reaping the rewards. When Stefani was seven, they moved to an apartment in the Pythian Condominiums. It was the up-market residence for the successful business elite.
When she was 11, her parents thought that the prestigious arts and entertainment-based Juilliard School in Manhattan was the best place for their daughter. Juilliard was in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and one of the world’s best-known academies for dance, music and drama.
But at the last minute, the Germanottas had a change of heart and instead sent Stefani to the Convent of the Sacred Heart. It was a very exclusive and expensive school whose alumni included Paris and Nicky Hilton. But the school wasn’t just for the ultra-rich. Stefani later recounted,
“Sacred Heart may have been prestigious, but there were lots of different kinds of girls. Some had extreme wealth, others were on welfare and scholarship, and some were in the middle, which was my family. All our money went into education and the house.”
Of her high school life, Stefani claimed that she found it hard to fit in with other students and that many times, she felt like a freak while in school. She saw herself as an artsy person and unable to fit in with other students. She recalled some students calling her the Germ, a play on her last name.
“For a little while, I thought girls were just jealous [of me]. But I think I genuinely used to rub people in the wrong way. I’d talk about things and do things that were very…over the top, and very vain.”
Perhaps she did, but some of her classmates were saying another thing. Many said that Stefani was well liked and that she fit in with the others. One of her classmates claimed that she had always been popular, adding, “I don’t remember her experiencing any social problems or awkwardness.”
Stefani as a high school student
But what everybody would agree on is that Stefani loved to perform. She took acting classes and starred in class productions including the musicals Guys and Dolls and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Although Sacred Hearts monitored the length of girls’ skirts with a yardstick, it encouraged ambition and provided its pupils a solid grounding to succeed. Stefani was a diligent student and behaved herself, at least in the first couple of years, but would roll up her school skirt to make herself look sexier.
She claimed to be an average schoolgirl, but also insisted that the school gave her room to hone her creative side while at the same time instilling in her the values of 3 Ds: drive, determination and discipline. In 2009, she told Laura Barton of The Guardian, “I went to a lovely school and I got an incredible education. And I actually think that my education is what sets me apart, cos I’m very smart.” In referring to the nuns who were her teachers, “They taught me how to think. I really know how to think.”
And that was partly due to Stefani’s determination to get good grades while at the same time express herself musically. She would take part in school plays and coral concerts and musicals. One of her classmates stated that Stefani liked boys a lot, but her priorities were her singing and her passion for the arts. Many assumed that she would be a star.
Stefani wasn’t very popular, but she had begun to stand out. She described herself as “artsy, musical-theatre, nerdy girl who got good grades” and “a bit too sexy and a bit strange”. She also found herself being the center of attention due to her intelligence and charisma. These, and her desire to shock, were what pushed her to the spotlight.
The whole time she was in high school, Stefani pursued her interests alongside her academic studies. She was “focused and determined.”
The other side of Stefani – that is, an experimental and naughtier side – came out when she was a teenager. When she turned 13, she got into fashion and discovered a different kind of joy in composition and pleasure in public performing. She wrote her first song, a ballad called ‘To Love Again” and experimented with her approach to style.
She would wear acid wash jeans, tank tops and sneakers, the works. It was “kind of Fifties, kind of clubby,” she said. “But I’d mix it up: some days I’d be in fishnets with bright red lips.” Her girlfriends used to say that even if she was zipped up to her neck in parka, she still looked naked.
While Stefani got good grades, she wasn’t entirely an angel. At one time, she bought a fake ID so she could get into nightclubs. She even dated a man ten years her senior. And oh, there’s the tattoo she got, and she would wear low-cut shirts in school. Her desire to be different was what gave her troubles in high school. She felt that some girls resented her style and her sense of individualism.
Chapter 2 – Molding The Future Performer
Stefani loved acting, but soon it became apparent that her main passion and her goal in life was music. By the time she was 15, Stefani had already taken the first steps toward the stage. She was already a regular at open-mike nights at Greenwich Village clubs such as the Bitter End, chaperoned by her supportive mother.
The young performer
Stefani clarified that “these were jazz bars not sex clubs”. She told Fiona Sturges of The Independent,
“They would have open-mic nights, so my mother would take me along and say to the manager, ‘Listen, I know she’s too young to be in here, and I’m too old to be in here, but she’s incredibly talented and she’s a singer-songwriter, so can she sign up on your open-mic list, and I’ll sit with her as she plays?’ So we just sat and waited round for them to call my name.”
Stefani was indeed lucky to have supportive parents. Joseph and Cynthia had taken an interest in their daughter’s career, and a mother who accompanied her to adult nightclubs was an indication of Cynthia’s unstinting faith in Stefani’s talents. Later on, Stefani said of her mother,
“My mum was supercool. She’d help me sign up and perform, and then when I got to college, I started gigging. I would ride my bike around, or walk to different clubs in New York on the Lower East Side and in the East Village. You’ve got to play clubs, you’ve got to do amazing, you’ve got to fail, you’ve got to get standing ovations and you need to be booed off the stage.”
More than anything, the Germanottas were delighted to see that their eldest daughter was showing such drive. As self-made entrepreneurs, they also wanted their children to succeed. And for Stefani to be doing such things at an early age was an indication of something greater to come.
Their support and interest in their daughter’s career was appreciated in return by Stefani despite taking a path different from her parents’. It was clear that she desired for a career in show-business rather than a more conventional path. Nevertheless, Joseph and Cynthia were still delighted.
In Stefani’s own words, her parents were very supportive of anything she wanted to do, whether it was playing piano or taking method acting classes. They were thrilled that young Stefani was motivated.
At the same time that she joined open-mike nights, Stefani had started her own rock cover band. The band would perform cover versions of classic tracks by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, Beatles and U2. Although joining a band allowed to improve her musical side, she had an ulterior motive for joining the group. She said,
“I met some good-looking guys with guitars and I wanted to have sex with really hot older men – they were seniors.”
But joining bands and musicals at school was what helped the “artsy, nerdy girl” make more friends. On the other hand, her being driven and gregarious earned her enemies. She said that she didn’t fit in but she had friends because aside from being a nice girl, she was fun to party with. Others would make fun of her because she was either too provocative or too eccentric. And so she tried to tone it down.
Her classmates would also describe her as “dramatic” because she always joined plays at school. There were so many opportunities to perform at the tip of her fingers, and her mother was always there to give support. According to Stefani, it was her mother who taught her to dress like a lady. She would always have big hair and red lips.
In recalling her schooldays, she told The London Paper:
“I was a wild one. I was pretty bad in high school. I used to get in trouble for wearing raunchy clothes with my uniform. My father really thought
I had a screw loose in my brain.”
Some girls at school were hostile toward her because of her flamboyance and didn’t like her “crazy socks and shoes” and “crazy hair”. Stefani recalled that the girls would go, “What are you, a dyke? It’s only women here, why are you dressed up?” During one of her interviews after becoming Lady Gaga, Stefani said, “I dressed in this super-sexualized way. Miniskirts, hooker boots… But because I got straight As, the teachers couldn’t do anything.”
One of the reasons why Stefani dressed and acted the way she did was because she didn’t want to be like everyone else. And since the school didn’t have many students like Stefani, the nuns didn’t know what to do with her. And as she grew up, she became more determined to make something of herself. And whatever it was, it was clear that she was not about to follow a conventional path.
And then to make matters worse, Stefani became involved with a growing obsession - death. Later on, the theme has appeared on numerous occasions in her adult career, and this stemmed back from her early years. While it’s not unusual for teenagers to become preoccupied with thoughts of death, in Stefani’s case, she became engrossed in the subject. That fascination continued into adult life.
When Stefani turned 16, she gave her friends a copy of her demo that featured her singing love songs that she’d composed.
Meanwhile, Stefani continued composing original music. She was motivated to do so after a chance encounter with the nephew of a famous voice coach when she was 13. She was in a boutique in downtown New York singing ‘I Want It That Way’ by The Backstreet Boys. As it happened, the owner of the store, a musician by the name of Evan, heard her singing and was impressed by her voice. He pulled her aside and gave her a phone number.
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