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ON THE COUCH WITH: La Roux

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: This is the second time you’ve visited Australia in the last 6 months, what is it about Australia that keeps you coming back?
La Roux: The crowd. Everyone at our Parklife shows were amazing, we were completely overwhelmed by the response we got at both Parklife and our sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne.

Access All Areas.net.au: The BACARDI EXPRESS train features a jamming carriage, dining carriage, chill out lounge, gaming room and sleeper carriages – where onboard do you reckon you’ll spend most of your time?
La Roux: Knowing my band, probably the dining carriage and the chill out lounge. I wouldn’t say I’m that much of a jamming person, I like to play piano when nobody’s watching….but who knows??

Access All Areas.net.au: What do you plan to get up to in Coffs Harbour (home of the Big Banana)?
La Roux: Qu’est que c’est the Big Banana? Sounds interesting…. I’ll check it out….

Access All Areas.net.au: How about the coastal town of Newcastle?
La Roux: I was there yesterday! Newcastle in the north of England though. It was very cold and rainy, I hope the Australian Newcastle is a bit sunnier!

Access All Areas.net.au: There has been an increase of illegal downloads of La Roux music in Australia since your recent visit. How do you feel about online music and the Peer2Peer sharing mechanics? Good or bad for the creators of music?
La Roux: Illegal downloading has become a joke. I have a section on my MySpace that is connected to a downloading debate with Lily Allen and other artists on this very matter. It’s a difficult time for emerging artists.

Access All Areas.net.au: For those who missed out on seeing you at Parklife, what can they expect from your live show?
La Roux: Flying monkeys and unicycling, what’s in your live show?

Access All Areas.net.au: There has been some controversy surrounding Britney Spear’s Australian tour and lip-syncing? Do you think it’s OK for some artists to lip-sync depending on their onstage performance, or should all performers be able to deliver everything they can live?
La Roux: Yes, I think you should be able to do your set live. People have come to see you sing live, not mime. There are certain TV promo things where you’ll mime for technical reasons but it’s rare. If the reason behind miming is because of intense dance routines then essentially you’re going to see a dancer not a singer aren’t you? I think they should lessen the dancing and let the dancers do it and they should focus on delivering a song. The problem is that some people can’t sing that well live and so they cover it with dancing, let’s be honest! I’d want my money back, or at least a warning when I bought my ticket.

Access All Areas.net.au: There’s some varying electro sounds in your music, what are La Roux’s influences?
La Roux: Heaven 17, Depeche Mode, The Knife, Michael Jackson, Prince, David Bowie, Eurthymics.

Access All Areas.net.au: How do Australian fans differ from your UK fans?
La Roux: I’ve only done one Australian tour so it’s difficult to tell, but the response we had here was brilliant.

Access All Areas.net.au: How would you describe your music style / genre in one sentence?
La Roux: Synth pop apparently?

Access All Areas.net.au: How do songs come about? Is there a sole songwriter or is it a team effort?
La Roux: With me and Ben, it’s definitely a team effort, we talk extensively about all the lyrics and sounds and care very much about the songs.

Access All Areas.net.au: Where do you draw inspiration for your songs?
La Roux: Personal experiences.

Access All Areas.net.au: It is said that songwriters write about personal experiences, is this true in your case?
La Roux: Yes, the whole album is based on personal experience. AS ABOVE

Access All Areas.net.au: Do you write songs about any person in particular? (A jaded ex or unyielding parents, etc?)
La Roux: Yes, the songs are about certain individuals.

Access All Areas.net.au: If you could collaborate with any artist (past or present) who would you collaborate with and why?
La Roux: We’re doing a collaboration with Heaven 17 which I think will be really interesting, Ben and I are massive fans. My fantasy collaboration has got to be Bowie though.

Access All Areas.net.au: Is there anyone you wouldn’t want to collaborate with?
La Roux: I’m definitely not answering that! I’ll get myself in to all sorts of trouble.

Access All Areas.net.au: Your video clips are quite popular (Bulletproof receiving over 2 million plays on YouTube), what has been your favourite video clip to make? Why?
La Roux: I’m Not Your Toy. We spent the day in a footballer’s wives type mansion with a pool and loads of tropical plants. Loads of my mates were in the video too, it was the most fun video I’ve made I think.

Access All Areas.net.au: What were some of the challenges you faced when making the clips?
La Roux: A very long day, getting very very hot!

Access All Areas.net.au: You’ve got an iconic look, particularly your hair. Do you have a routine to maintaining your quiff? What does this image mean to you?
La Roux: The quiff came about kind of by mistake, it was a gradual development. It requires a lot of hairspray but I’ve got the routine down to about 15 minutes.

Access All Areas.net.au: You said in another interview that you co-design your clothes with a friend, what is the name of your clothing brand and how did that come about?
La Roux: We don't have a brand or anything like that, it's just me and my designer friend Nova. We’ll pick material out and make things, or we’ll go shopping for vintage or vintage designer clothes together. And we have just started to collaborate with designers like Basso and Brooke, Gucci, and Otswald Helgason.

Access All Areas.net.au: What has been your favourite music experience to date?
La Roux: Seeing Prince live at the O2 in London.

Access All Areas.net.au: What has been the most surreal music experience to date?
La Roux: The Top Shop launch in New York earlier this year. It was in this TINY old prohibition type venue called the box and Kevin Spacey was doing a cabaret act, Jennifer Lopez got her knickers in a twist about a handkerchief falling on her head and I met Debbie Harry. The MC was a half naked transvestite dressed as a devil. It was amazing and terrifying at the same time.

Access All Areas.net.au: You’re the daughter of a well-known English actor [Trudie Goodwin AKA June Ackland from The Bill], was there anyone in your family that was into music (either a music lover or musician themselves) and influenced you in your music?
La Roux: Yes, my mum and dad both have great taste in music. My dad plays blues guitar and boogie woogie on the piano. He taught me the guitar and introduced me to stuff like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake.

Access All Areas.net.au: What do your parents/family think of your music career now?
La Roux: They are very proud and very supportive.

Access All Areas.net.au: What’s next for La Roux after BACARDI EXPRESS?
La Roux: Um… I think we go to America… again…..

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

La Roux, aka Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid, are the electro-pop duo responsible for UK and ARIA chart topping singles “In For The Kill” and “Bulletproof”. Taking inspiration from such music royalty as Depeche Mode and Prince, La Roux have been dazzling audiences and winning hearts with a unique sound that also tips a hat to new school heroes such as The Knife and Chromeo.

www.myspace.com/larouxuk

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

Cut Copy
We played an amazing festival called T in the Park in Scotland, which was a year and a half ago now, but that was really amazing in terms of being, by far, the biggest crowd we've played infront of, I think it was- we played in the dance tent, and it was the middle of the day, so it wasn't night time craziness, but they packed like 20,000 people into this tent, and it was totally round, it was just the best kind of crowd to be playing infront of, we were really suprised and weren't expecting to get such a big reception, particually in Scotland. We only really had played a handful of shows in Glasgow and hadn't really played anywhere else, so yeah, that's definitely up there.

Ideal Lineup?
We kind of actually had this discussion when we first started playing together, before we even did any shows as Cut Copy, we made up these phoney band names and played a few shows at this pub, sort of on the wrong side of the tracks and a bit run down, you could ring up like the night before and get a gig the next day, so it wasn't really like, you know.. anything amazing. But we booked in, I think a couple of times under false names, just to make sure we could actually play our instruments and do everything before we actually put Cut Copy up on the stage, and I think in that year we sort of had this imaginary- it wasn't like a festival it was kind of the idea of billing this gig where it was us headlining with Sonic Youth, and then Daft Punk would be like the warm up DJs, and that was like our ultimate show, ever! And then we've actually played with Daft Punk at the end of last year so we just feel like we've maybe partly lived that dream a little bit, even though they obviously weren't the warm up DJs for us, but yeah, we've ticked off one of those things at least. All we've got to do now is play with Sonic Youth!