INTERVIEW: The Noisettes
They're this year's big pop success story, but for the Noisettes fame has been a long time coming.
Formed back in 2003, they seemed poised for big things the following year when when they signed to Mercury Records and started work on their debut album.
Only not everything went to plan.
The great British public didn't take to the punkish attitude of What's The Time, Mr Wolf? and the London-based trio – of Shingai Shoniwa, Dan Smith and Jamie Morrison – found themselves dropped.
Undeterred, the band continued writing and, in a strange turn of events, re-signed to the very label who had shown them the door a year or so earlier.
At the start of 2009 the band were reborn as a pop act and, thanks to heavy exposure via a car advert, their single Don't Upset the Rhythm – with its catchy "Go baby, go baby, go!" chorus – soared to No.2 in the charts. Its parent album Wild Young Hearts reached No.7.
"After five years of working hard it feels like we deserve it," says Jamie, the affable sticksman, of their newfound fame. "It feels like we've earned it. It doesn't feel like it has been thrown at us.
"If it was ever going to happen it had to happen at this point. We are doing the right thing now. We are going to try different things and get to different places. It's a new chapter for the band and it's exciting."
The band certainly has a persistent streak. Their earlier failure, Jamie points out, was not for want of trying. "After that first record we toured for two-and-a-half years." Even when they were no longer sharing a stage with Babyshambles or Muse, they refused to give up. Being label-less was not that bad. "We quite enjoyed no-one telling us what to do."
Despite Wild Young Hearts' commercial sound, Jamie's adamant that the band did not actively set out to court the mainstream. They've never had a template, he says. "We are fans of such diverse kinds of music. It doesn't make sense for use to make one style of album." Their aim is simply "to write the best songs".
On Wild Young Hearts their diverse tastes actually prove a boon. Everything from jazz to blues to soul to disco to rock'n'roll is thrown into the melting pot. "I think it's a reflection of all our experiences on tour and our ever-growing understanding of how a song is written and then accepting what we all do," Jamie explains. "On the first record we got into a studio and jammed and the last thing to go on the record was the vocals. On this one the songs were written on an acoustic guitar and then the main point was the vocals.
"(In the first place] everything happened very quickly," he reflects. "When we got signed we did not find an identity. We went on tour with a lot of hugely successful bands. You see how things go, just from being around, just from learning, not being considered to sell out. We did not even have a label (when the Noisettes wrote these songs) so that does not even come into it. I still think this new record is as eclectic as the first but with different types of styles."
Their earlier globetrotting certainly provided plenty of inspiration. "That's what travelling around the world is, collecting experiences that you can either choose to write about at the end of the album cycle or ignore. We had so many experiences and met some crazy people, they inspired the next record. They definitely took our record to the next level."
As a measure of the Noisettes ambition, they tried to get Prince or David Bowie to produce Wild Young Hearts. "But we did not get any response – surprise, surprise," says Jamie. "One day we will meet them and hopefully get the chance to do something with them."
To promote the album, the band are back out on tour. Their current itinerary includes a mixture of headlining dates at universities and support slots for Newcastle indie heroes Maximo Park. One of those shows is at the O2 Academy Leeds on May 20. Jamie's relishing it: "The whole tour is going to be great. We've had some radio success. Maximo Park have already been quite a successful band. For anyone in that audience it's going to be a really good gig."
After a "bitty" round of TV appearances in Britain and America, he's "looking forward to playing a a sharp 40-minute set". He's not worried that Maximo's Park's fans may not take to the Noisettes. "They've got people who want to see them because they are good. It's the same as we've been doing, just playing and earning fans around the world. They might be different but they are probably just music lovers. That's what we are. I'm not at all frightened."
As for the Noisettes' plans for the rest of the year, Jamie says: "We are going to be playing a lot of festivals. You will see us on TV, hear us on the radio, we are going to be in towns all over the world. Hopefully we will get to collaborate with some bands or some artists, doing something new. I see the next seven or eight months as heavy touring."
The Noisettes' new single, Never Forget You, will be out in June. Wild Young Hearts is available now.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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