HOWL: Tell us about the new album. ‘I Want You’ sounds like the stalker song of 2011. What’s the inspiration for the new album?
Elizabeth: Someone tweeted us recently, saying are there going to be any songs on the new album that don’t have the word ‘You’ in the title. There’s ‘I Want You’, ‘Better Off Without You’ and ‘Nobody Knows You’…
Jeremy: I guess the album is a bit darker, it is a bit more mature. The Young EP we wrote within the first 2 months of being a band, where as the album we wrote within the first 2 years of being a band. I think when you first start writing songs together, you are very enthusiastic and excited. Everything is new.
E: When we write, we make up a context around whatever we’re writing. We’ll talk about the context more when the album is closer to coming out. There are much more upbeat songs on the album as well.
J: I think ‘Better Off Without You’ is actually one of the more upbeat songs, at least musically any way.
E: I think we really like writing about relationships, people, you know, intense emotions. I think ‘Better Off Without You’ is actually quite a funny song. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I actually went out with you!’
And ‘I Want You’, I know people think it’s like a stalker song. But when we wrote that, I kind of felt like it was one of the more true ways I have felt about someone that I really love. Not in terms of wanting to hurt them, but just like loving them, and wanting them so much, you want to physically express it. Even though you never actually want to do those things, just that intensity.
I think especially when it’s your first love, or when it’s like the first time you’ve properly been in love. There’s this film ‘Punch Drunk Love’, which I would suggest watching as a kind of explainer for that song. When they’re having sex they’re like: ‘I wanna beat you up, I wanna make you bleed’. But it’s really sweet and emotional and beautiful.
J: That songs supposed to be about unrequited love, is the funny thing about it. I think people might not get that which means it isn’t actually, they take what they take from it.
H: In reference to your lyric, I remember when me and my sister were little, we would kiss each other so hard on the cheek our faces actually would bruise.
E: Yeah, like I think you want to mark someone. You want to rip them apart and see their insides.
J: It’s like Lenny from the Simpsons with his mouse, that he cuddles so hard it dies.
E: You know that’s Lenny from Mice and Men. I think that’s something different, he doesn’t understand love so he loves the mouse too much. And he doesn’t understand his own strength. ‘I Want You’ is about having the intention to do those things because you love them so much.
H: So for the album, people can pledge to help get it out on the shelves. Tell us about some of the exciting gifts people can get by pledging.
J: I think something that’s been really nice is people pledging for someone else. Like today it was someone getting their girlfriend a present. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but there’s been quite a few pledges that are presents for people!
I just really like the idea that it lets you get more involved with your fanbase, cuz we never could have guessed that there are people out there into our band enough to want to do that. It was a nice shock, it really made us feel like it was all worth it. That was the nicest part, as well as we can actually now afford to release the album!
H: I know that one of your pledge gifts is one of your batches of brownies Elizabeth, your guitar Jeremy and even a dinner party. What do you think might be on the menu?
E: Oh, I don’t know. Nobody’s gone for that one yet.
J: Maybe luckily actually…
E: I really am very into cooking. I made lamb meatballs yesterday, they were pretty good.
J: Another thing for me, personally, I always think it’s nice to do different versions of songs, acoustic versions, and make little videos, and be able to share that with them. Before the pledge thing, I always felt like if we put it up there, it would look a bit like we expect people to go and look at it. If The Horrors put up a blog about their brownie recipe, I’d be like ‘Yeah, whatever Horrors. I like music but I don’t really care about your brownies’.
If someone likes us enough to pledge money towards us finishing our album, then they probably will be interested. Especially as Elizabeth is really funny.
H: Yeah, I like that bit in your first pledge video where you’re like ‘Something beginning with F… Focaccia?’
J: Haha yeah. It means like we can put the demo versions out there which we worked really hard on. It’s nice that people get to hear those in a way that doesn’t feel too self indulgent. Ya know, cuz people have said they wanna hear that stuff, which is nice.
E: Yeah, it’s made me realise how crap a fan I am, if anything. Before I would have seen these kinds of things and people like: ‘Oh yeah, good’ but I wouldn’t actually go to the extent of clicking on a link and looking.
Like, personally I love Twitter because I love being able to talk to people. It sounds really lame, but I’ve made so many friends through that. People that have come to gigs and I genuinely count as friends now and love speaking to. It’s just really nice to have that *weird voice* connection? It’s why you do it, I guess.
H: Elizabeth, you are British and Jeremy, you are half French. How come you draw upon so much American 80′s pop culture in your music?
E: Growing up my family used to go to America a lot. My dad basically had a job so that we could afford to go to America as much a possible. I love the culture, and I love it as a culture. I love the fact that some people hate it, and there are things about it that are like ‘What are you doing?!’ It’s flawed as well as being fascinating.
The kind of pop culture is just incredible, the films and the cult of teenagers. Teenagers have always looked to America to get ideas and culture and fashion. It’s a time that I imbibed anything I did creatively. That’s a time in my life I feel really strongly about. I don’t think we necessarily write songs for that age group, but when you are that age, everything feels so serious and so rich. The 80′s thing is because I think growing up watching John Hughes’ films, he was so articulate writing about being a teenager.
J: A lot of our songs are about the teenage experience, what it’s like to be a teenager. I dunno about you guys, but when I was a teenager I lived my life through American movies, American TV shows. In this country, most teenagers get a lot of their music from America, like The Beatles got all their music from America. Teenagers in this country have always been a bit naff.
E: I don’t think teenagers in this country are naff!
J: A little bit.
H: Yeah, everyone just gets pregnant over here
E: I dunno if I agree with that…
J: But you know what I mean, there’s something really amazing about teenagers in America. Not necessarily in real life but in film. Like Quadraphenia, that’s one of the few glamorous, Brit Pop teenager films.
E: The incredible thing about America is that it pushes things from one extreme to the other and then it trickles down. So like, I think, in England we take things away and make our own but there are elements of Americana in it. I think that’s why we’re so proud of Brit Pop, it’s our own.
H: So are you going to re-live being a teenager for the next couple of albums then?
E: The things that you feel as a teenager, it’s just you’ve felt them for the first time. You’ll feel them over and over again in your life, but your first break up is the hardest to get over. I assume…
That’s why it’s so intense. It’s quite a lonely time too. You’re suddenly aware of yourself for the first time.
J: Yeah, being a teenager, huh. It’s like trying to roller skate on an oil slick.
H: So I tried Googling this, but to no avail. Where do you get all of the soundbites for your songs from? I am fascinated by them! Is it a secret ingredient?
What we like about that is that one day, you might come across it in another context, and then it’s gonna be a big moment for you. I think it would spoil it for you if we revealed that.
H: So the album is out on Moshi Moshi, but in conjunction with your own Apricot Recordings. What made you start up Apricot Recordings? Why ‘Apricot’?
J: We just like apricots, and it means we can have a bum as the logo and nobody notices.
E: Haha! We were designing the logo this past week. We have been trying to find a logo that doesn’t look like a bum. We didn’t think about it, or the band name. I just think you can’t think about it too much. It’s the right name for us though. The name changes with you.
H: Who have you been listening to this summer?
E: I found it quite hard to listen to music this summer. I’ve mostly been listening to our own music.
J: Mostly old music though.
E: I really want Kate Bush’s album to come out!
H: Do you find that you listen to more music when you’re writing, or you sort of close yourselves off?
J: When we’re on tour we listen to a lot of music.
E: I never planned on being in a band, music was my refuge. I guess this year I lost it. This year, I dunno. I still have that. It was weird, I just feel much closer to it.
H: If you could play any where, where would it be?
J: Really want to play in Italy, really like the food. Japan, the moon.
E: Hawaii! I’d really like to play somewhere meaningful and worthy. Great Ormond Street?
J: We did a charity gig for Shelter From The Storm recently. They’re the only place in London that’s a 24 hour, non-government funded homeless shelter.
E: We met the person that was putting on the gig, and the way that she talked about it, it’s really lame in a way, but how important it was to her, it was really moving.
MASSIVE THANK YOU TO SUMMER CAMP FOR YOUR TIME
Interview by Shaun Mooney. Photography by 2SquareImage.com
