MUSIC INTERVIEW: LA ROUX

London-Based Electro-Poppers with an Edge Are Going In For The Kill

By: Kelly Wiles

April 16, 2009

Hey, remember when everyone in the '90s was obsessed with the '70s? Remember the bellbottoms, That 70s Show, the Sounds of the '70s CD infomercials and the resurgence of drippy folk rock? …Yeah. It was lame.

The new millennium’s obsession with the '80s is way cooler. Too cool, actually -- the kind of cool that has inspired countless Moog-owning hipsters to start bands. A lot of these bands end up as vapid one-album wonders; while they get the style part right, they don’t do quite as well with the substance. Not so for brand new British electro-pop sensation La Roux. Although their music and sharp neon aesthetic are quite obviously influenced by the me decade, La Roux members Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid exude none of the aloof affectedness that artists with cultural nostalgia usually do. This is due largely in part to the fact that Jackson’s lyrics (and Jackson herself) are infused with genuine emotion.

Though she’s new to live performance, Jackson is a natural, and on stage she oozes born-to-do-it charisma. La Roux is barely a year old, and their album isn’t even out until the end of Summer, but they’ve already gained a fervent fan-base, skyrocketed to the top of the UK music charts, and been voted one of the BBC’s “Sounds of 2009.” When any new band gets real big real fast, it’s always interesting to see what happens in the next chapter of their careers. Will the new band be able to sustain their brilliance once they’re not new anymore? It seems likely that the answer to this question for La Roux will be yes; they have way enough talent to qualify as more than just a hipster '80s novelty act. But let’s not think about that now. Let’s think about the fact that La Roux lived up to its 'Next Big Thing' reputation at The Roxy in Hollywood, CA on Sunday night, and let's focus in on Buzzine's chat with Elly about her newfound fame (and band) right before the show:

Kelly Wiles: You played the White Party in Palm Springs yesterday: Was it your first time there?

Elly Jackson: No, actually. I’d been there as a kid. We went to Twenty-Nine Palms when I was eight or something. We did a three-week tour of America –- we did stuff like Yosemite, Disneyland -- me and my sister arguing and driving our parents insane. In Twenty-Nine Palms, we were going on a walk, and my Dad nearly had an encounter with a rattlesnake. So I’d been to Palm Springs, but this is my first time being in L.A. properly.

KW: This is your first show in Los Angeles, and as far as touring goes, you haven’t played that many shows.

EJ: No. I don’t remember what number we’re on, but it’s only in the twenties or so.

KW: You just started performing live. Do you enjoy it, or did you get stage-fright initially?

EJ: I don’t know because there are so many degrees of stage-fright. I know people who’ll be sick before they go onstage. I know the guy from Faithless - Maxi Jazz - he can get so nervous before he gets on stage. I think you’re more nervous when people don’t know who you are. It’s not like that here, and it certainly wasn’t like that in Brooklyn -- places where you’ve got these music scenes of people who are up on the MySpace tips and know a bit more about European music -- but we have done certain gigs where it’s like going straight back to the beginning again.

KW: ...Which wasn’t that long ago.

EJ: Yeah, the beginning was only a couple of months ago, but a lot has happened in three months for us.

In February, we did our first shows in small venues around the U.K., and people knew who we were there. Everyone knew who we were there, which is different to here. So in certain places, it’s like going back to that beginning part, like in Montreal –- and it was weird because Montreal’s got a massive music scene and there weren’t many people there. It was a weird night, though. It was Sunday and it was raining. 

So on the nervous thing, it’s like you feel so far away from home and it’s...I wouldn’t say nervous -- unfortunately, it feels like you just can’t really be bothered [laughs], like you just want to go back to the hotel and go to sleep. You just have to override it. We did Popscene in San Francisco and it was amazing. It was like playing a show in London. They all knew who we were, they knew the lyrics, they were all dancing...

KW: La Roux is actually a band name, not just your stage moniker. It’s both you and Ben, so is calling you 'La Roux' like calling Debbie Harry 'Blondie'?

EJ: It’s actually more like Goldfrapp, in terms of the set-up, project-wise. That’s the best way of explaining it. I am La Roux, my stage persona is La Roux, and it’s referring to me -- it’s "the red-haired one" in French. But La Roux is also me and Ben, because when we’re in the studio, we’re a band, just like Goldfrapp is her and her stage persona, but they are Goldfrapp as well.

KW: How long have you and Ben been writing music together?

EJ: Five years. [Before La Roux], we were just sort of writing together, having some fun, but it wasn’t necessarily going anywhere. Ben was always helping me write my songs, and then, as that progressed and the sound progressed, it started to become more clear [to us] what the project was. It was still just going to be Elly Jackson up until about a year and a half ago.

KW: What made you change it to La Roux?

EJ: Basically, Ben felt – and I was starting to feel it as well - that the project was never like a singer-producer relationship. Ben doesn’t really want to work with other people. He gets offers all the time because of La Roux, and he’s not really interested. It’s hard to find someone you really click with.

I think what a lot of people in the music industry don’t understand is that just because you’re a good writer with one person doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same with everyone else. It doesn’t work like that. I wouldn’t write these songs on my own, and Ben wouldn’t write songs like this on his own -- it’s what we do together. It’s weird -- when we first came out and the music industry first started knowing us and we weren’t signed, people would say, “Great! We love your demos -- amazing! We love what you’ve done together… Now let’s split you up.”

And it was only a couple of people, but we did start to feel pressure from them, like "Okay well, maybe Ben can go do this, and Ben won’t be signed." "You’ll be signed, you’re the artist," and Ben was like, "Hang on, I’ve worked on this for five years. I’m not being pushed out now." We’re best friends and I didn’t want him to be [pushed out] either, and I definitely want to write the next album with him. They tried to get me to write with, like, Ed White and Paul Epworth, and I was like, "No f***ing way. I don’t want to. You’ve just said you like our music -- what Ben and I had done together -- and now you just want to ruin it." So we wanted a project name that meant we had to be signed together. We didn’t want to give the labels any choice. We were like, if we call it a band, then they can’t split us up. It was a business move.

KW: Your voice is striking. You sing in this high falsetto, which is a difficult vocal range to sustain. Have you had any formal training?

EJ: I’ve always sung really high naturally. It’s funny because when I first got played on Radio 1 (the biggest radio station in the UK) and the DJ was like, "Aw, f***in’ hell, even dogs can hear that -– she must be cringing to get up there," I kind of felt like saying, "Come and see me sing it, because it’s not cringing at all." I’ve got a song in this set which is a low-register vocal, and that’s my challenge area. That’s where I’m like, "F***, I’ve really gotta work on this." Singing way up there, I can go, like, miles up. I’ve had the odd vocal coach, just to help me warm up just a few times -- to help me warm up the lower ranges. “In For The Kill” used to be seven semi-tones down from where it is, and then Ben was like, "It doesn’t feel open and free, and it feels like you’re trying really hard" I can’t get any volume really low...

KW: Do you get asked a lot about the fact that your sound and aesthetic have a definite '80s flavor to them?

EJ: I get asked it a lot, like, "Are you making '80s music because it’s kind of cool at the moment?" And I’m like, "No, because it wasn’t cool when we were doing it -- we just f***ing love that kind of music." I always thought that it was just being with Ben that sparked off this '80s obsession, and it was him that sparked the obsession because he lived through it and he’s always been obsessed with the '80s, even when he was there.

He still dreams about the '80s. I suppose it’s like the '60s was for our parents, as in some people were there and just hated the decade. I mean, obviously, politically, in England it wasn’t great - it was very conservative and there were lots of problems. I think unless you were rich in the '80s, it wasn’t great. Kind of like right now. But then again, the music was free and open. It was really fun and it was really upbeat. So much music now is like…it’s not just I don’t like it, it’s like, f***ing turn it off right now -- it’s offensive.

I’m sure you guys are getting it over here too, right now. There’s so much American Rock, sort of singer-songwriter, and some of it just makes me feel like, "Oh my God, someone stab me in the neck right now." The music just isn’t fun -- it just doesn’t make you feel good.

KW: What about growing up? You didn’t exactly grow up in the '80s, but was the music present in your life back then?

EJ: I always thought my childhood was just totally about rock ‘n' roll, which it was a bit -- it came from my Dad. He taught me the guitar when I was six. It was very much rock and blues, and folk and Joni Mitchell, and a lot of west coast stuff -- Laurel Canyon and things like that.

But when I actually look back on it, and as I’ve been talking about it in interviews, I realize there was a lot more '80s stuff in there that I thought, like '80s Stevie Wonder “Happy Birthday,” or “You Can Call Me Al” by Paul Simon, and the Eurythmics. And I remember, as a child, when those songs came on, how I used to feel. I think some of the lyrics I have come from folk and rock ‘n' roll, as they’re quite emotive.

KW: So you do come from a musical family.

EJ: Well, I come from an acting family, actually. My Mum’s an actress. Actually, my Dad’s an actor as well, but he had to give up his career a bit to be a house-dad, take care of us. My Mum has been in a TV series for 23 years.

KW: What series?

EJ: It’s called The Bill –- you don’t have it over here. I’ve kept very quiet about it in London. It’s just coming out now, but [in America] it doesn’t really matter so much because it doesn’t mean anything to people here. So she was in a long-running series, and my Dad gave up his career to look after us and take us to school. He taught me the guitar, so I’m glad he was at home. [Laughs] So I do come from an acting family, but my Dad’s very musical and he’s so heavily into blues, plays a lot of boogie-woogie piano.

KW: What does he have to say about your tunes?

EJ: Oh, they’re very proud. I just talked to them, and my Mum was like, “I just listened to the charts! You’re at number four!”

KW: What are you hoping for this year?

EJ: A lot more live stuff. I’d like to really develop the live show. As you’ll see tonight, it’s unfortunately even more basic here than it would be in London, as one of our synth players couldn’t get a visa in time. So she’s not here, and unfortunately it’s just me and Mike, which obviously makes it look unhelpfully like Yazoo.

We’re gonna get an electronic percussionist as well, and in the next tour we do, we’ve got lights made up. But right now, tonight, this show is basic. But that’s okay because it’s still early for us here, so it doesn’t matter. I think people want to see a raw show at the beginning of a [career]. You don’t want to see something that’s really polished and looks like it’s been overdone by the label. I hate that because you never get to see the real band.

La Roux's eponymous debut album will be released on Cherrytree/Interscope Records in September 2009.