The Stool Pigeon

No one could possibly have predicted the success of La Roux’s second single, ‘In For The Kill’ - not her, or her record label, or the British public. Her debut, ‘Quicksand’, released on French dance music indie Kitsuné before major Polydor took control, didn’t even dent the top 100 and La Roux says here that she was only hoping to crack the top 50 with its successor. Instead, the song spent four weeks at number 2, just like Ultravox’s ‘Vienna’ did in 1981, and at the time of press has sold almost half a million copies. That puts her up in Lily Allen and Lady Gaga land, and clinically leaves in a trail of smoke from the back of a Toyota MR2 MK1 the other electro gals that she was tipped for the top with.

How did this happen? A masterful Skream remix certainly helped to push things along, especially in clubland, but there must be something else going on here. Much has already been written about the death of landfill indie and how, in a time of recession, we look to flamboyant and visual pop as a means of escapism. If there is something in that, it’s too early to tell. We do know, though, that it’s a banging song created by exactly the kind of atypical pop star that we Brits have a history of loving. She seems a bit Alison Moyet, a bit David Bowie, and a lot Annie Lennox. Interestingly, in a recent TV programme called Queens of British Pop, Dave Stewart said of Annie: “Multi-faceted, incredibly sensitive, massive bouts of loneliness... she was a whole roller-coaster.” You imagine that La Roux’s musical partner might say the same of her.

La Roux is a duo. A bit like Goldfrapp or Spank Rock, frontlady Elly Jackson, 21, goes by the band’s moniker but there’s a producer in the background. His name is Ben Langmaid, they were signed together, and he stays largely out the picture. He doesn’t appear in photoshoots or perform in the live set-up or do interviews. Of course that makes him seem more mysterious than he actually is. A quick Google search reveals some kind of association with nineties dance music horrors, Faithless, and, even worse, recently forgotten sappy indie boys Kubb. Ouch.

With Elly, who Ben was told about after a friend saw her performing acoustically in a pub on New Year’s Eve four-and-a-half years ago, he’s clearly found his muse. The songs are about her life but they write together and, judging by their debut album, it’s a dynamite combination. Far older then her, he brings a boffin’s knowledge of robotic eighties dance music to the table that she meets with the sensational sensitivity of her lyric writing and acute ear for melody. The album is not a straight-up pop assault. All the big songs are up-front, then it mellows with mostly astonishing results. Singing about adolescent love and, ultimately, self-preservation in the face of anguish, she often sounds more comfortable slipping into a ballad.

Elly, a south Londoner born to two actors (her mum is Trudie Goodwin from The Bill), doesn’t arrive fully-formed. Her voice, which can be shrill, will get better, as indeed will her live show. It needs to. Despite what she says, she took some stick on a recent jaunt round the country headlining an NME tour and there was much talk after the final date at London’s Koko about how a couple of synth players and her just isn’t a big enough set-up for a venue that size. That’s due to change.

With her insane quiff, death grip on the microphone and closed-shoulder, almost masculine way of performing, she makes for an intriguing spectacle on-stage. She doesn’t dance much - live or in videos - and still seems shy of really engaging with her audience. A fault? Not yet, and it’s easy to forget she only played her first gig four months ago. The zeitgeist has propelled her into outer space far quicker than she could ever have imagined. Talking to her, she seems a bit bewildered, but she reckons she’s got the spine and clearly La Roux is designed to be in it for the long-term.

Stool Pigeon: So here we are in Portsmouth and you’re headlining an NME tour. Tell us about how you’re doing the songs live.

La Roux: At the moment it’s lots of lights, two synth players and me. We’re auditioning electronic drummers now and aiming to turn it into something bigger and bigger. It’s not going to stay Yazoo-size - that’s just temporary, while we play small clubs. I don’t actually want it to be that close to eighties stuff. I’d love to have some backing singers at some point and, next album, I’d like to get a bit more guitar and sax going on to make it more like Tears For Fears or Heaven 17 - a bit more epic and spacey. Bring on the massive stage props! I want it to be really, really, really pop.

SP: For the last few years, we hacks have heard nothing but flimsy indie bands says things like, ‘We just make music for ourselves and if people like it, that’s a bonus.’ Yet you’re talking about massive stage props and your second album before the first one’s even out. Is it just you or is something changing in the world of music?

LR: There definitely seems to be a lot more songwriters out there who are writing about things other than their everyday lives, or rather who are turning their everyday lives into something a more fantastical and special. All my favourite music and all my favourite lyricists exaggerate things and make you feel like you’re in some parallel universe. That’s what it’s all about - turning love and feelings you have every day into some epic, massive story.

SP: You told this newspaper last year that you judge your own songs on whether they can stand up to being played stripped down on an acoustic guitar. Do you still think that?

LR: Absolutely. All the best songs can be played in any way and any style.

SP: How old are the songs on your album?

LR: Some of them are four or five years old and some of them I wrote last year.

SP: ‘In For The Kill’?

LR: Old song. ‘I’m Not Your Toy’ and ‘Cover My Eyes’ are new, but most of the others are old.

SP: Have you got a load of even newer songs finished already?

LR: Nothing for the next album yet. I wish! No time, unfortunately. I wish, I wish.

SP: Going back to the live thing: you only played live for the first time earlier this year.

LR: February.

SP: Were you bricking yourself?

LR: In the right way. I remember the day before my first gig in Exeter I was a bit nervous, but it’s so funny: know when you look back to when you were 16 and you think, ‘Fucking hell, I’ve changed so much’? It feels like February was years ago. I was nervous, but it felt good. Then after the first five or six shows, I was really into it - you get the healthy nerves before you go on, like, ‘I don’t want to do it! But I really do.”

SP: How’s the reaction been on this tour?

LR: Amazing. We’ve only had one bum night and I think it was because people had been standing around for ages in an unbelievably hot club. If I was them, I would also have been, like, ‘Hurry up!’ I think four bands is too much for a tour like this. It starts a bit early, which just doesn’t give [openers] The Chapman family much of chance. Every night they’ve been playing to a maximum of 30 people, and that’s not really fair of the NME to do that. And they’ve just slagged everyone off in the latest issue. It’s your tour! What are you doing? They said it should be called the ‘Rewind Tour’ instead of the ‘Radar Tour’, because they think it’s all just an eighties throwback. You can call it whatever you want, you’re the NME. Call it the ‘Rewind Tour’ if you fucking want! It’s like they haven’t even listened to the music, and they’ve just gone, ‘Everyone’s talking about these bands, let’s put them on.’ It’s really bad.

SP: You sound jaded. Is it already a sweat even doing interviews?

LR: Depends on the interviewer! I hate phone interviews, because you can’t get any rapport and there’s always a delay on the line. But I quite like doing them. The only problem is that I get a bit too conversational and say something I shouldn’t say.

SP: Like now.

LR: [laughs] I’m getting used to them and learning to shut up.

SP: Are they are a performance for you? Do you do them as La Roux or Elly Jackson?

LR: It crosses over. La Roux is not that different to Elly - just a little bit more dressed up. I don’t know - I feel like a different person every hour sometimes.

SP: You seem to have a low boredom threshold.

LR: Mate, I could sit and do nothing for seven hours and not get bored - just have a nap. I’m not really bothered. Sleep! We haven’t even been going out much on this tour. We’ve had a couple of nights when we’ve gone for it, but my voice has suffered afterwards and I’m not a big drinker anyway. It’s not really worth it. I’d rather wait till I get home and go out with some mates.

SP: You’d better get used to this touring lark - you’re going to be on the road for years.

LR: I like it - it’s just that it can get a bit lonely at times. But you do get used to it. At first it was really weird and I didn’t enjoy it at all. I loved playing live, but not all the rest of it - jumping from place to place and driving for ages. Now it flies by - you get really used to travelling. I knew exactly what I was signing up for, but you can’t experience it till you experience it. It’s not like I regret it. Really, it’s only moments. Then you just do the clichéd ‘crying in your hotel room’ and you feel like a bit of a knob.

SP: Have you got the backbone for this?

LR: Yeah, I do. No one can completely ignore criticism - it’s virtually impossible - but you get tougher; you get thicker-skinned.

SP: What kind of support do you have behind you? Are you close to your parents?

LR: Very much so. I have a very good family and very good friends.

SP: Your sister is like your PA, right? She travels with you.

LR: Not all the time, but a lot of the time.

SP: Your parents are both actors. What was it like growing up with them?

LR: Really lovely, really easy-going, liberal... I’m not like a lot of songwriters who write about their pain in their past. It’s not like that for me - it’s the pain in my present! It’s nothing to do with my home-life and I’m kidding - I’m not in pain in any way right now. I just have one or two days of pain here and there, but it’s not related in any way to my upbringing. I’ve got absolutely nothing to complain about in that sense. I’m very lucky.

SP: School was good, too?

LR: I hated school! But I don’t think it would have mattered what my upbringing was like - I just wanted to go out and do music.

SP: Did you go to school in Brixton?

LR: No. My primary school was in Herne Hill, and then I went to a private school in the suburbs for a bit and I didn’t like it at all.

SP: Were you a boarder?

LR: No, no, a day student, but I hated it. It was quite religious and my family aren’t religious at all. It wasn’t a Christian school, but it had a chapel and stuff and they used to try and make you go, even if you were a Muslim or a Buddhist or whatever. You can’t teach people who practise other religions Christianity. It’s not fair. And there were other things wrong there - a lot of the teachers were kind of Nazis, for want of a better word. I found it really odd. I thought I’d really connected with the people there, but I really didn’t. I got to the age of 16 and realised that all of the people who surrounded me, apart from one or two, were nothing like me. They weren’t my kind of people, so I left straight away and went back to a state school in Pimlico, which I loved.

SP: Were you a wild or introverted teenager?

LR: I didn’t really get crazy till I was about 17. Then I started going out with my sister - going raving and stuff. And then it all went horribly wrong! Or right! I think it all went horribly right. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

SP: The seeds of La Roux were built when you were 16. Is that right?

LR: We weren’t called La Roux until last year - I was just Elly Jackson - but I met Ben five years ago.

SP: How old is Ben?

LR: Good question!

SP: Is that a secret?

LR: Um.

SP: He’s obviously much older than you.

LR: He is a bit older than me, yeah. He’s somewhere between my age and 85.

SP: Thanks. Does he come on tour with you?

LR: Sometimes.

SP: Is he here tonight?

LR: Um.

SP: So he’s kept out the picture...

LR: I don’t want to keep him out the picture! He wants that.

SP: But that makes him seem more mysterious than he probably is.

LR: I know, I know.

SP: I bet he likes it that way.

LR: He loves it! He’s not really shy or anything, it’s just that the songs are about me and my life.

SP: People are going to get more and more interested in who he is and your relationship as your profile rises.

LR: I know. It’s great! I love it [laughs].

SP: Is he a real tosser then, or one of the good guys?

LR: He’s an absolutely lovely bloke. He’s got a great sense of humour and we get on like a house on fire. He like a little... [laughs] I was about to say he was like a little brother, and he is! I know it’s ridiculous, but that’s how it is. He’s like my little brother and I’m like a little sister to him. We protect each other and we love each other and it’s a great relationship. We tell each other everything and we’re very close.

SP: How did it work out in the early days?

LR: I used to go round his house, chill out, eat some food, talk shit for ages, write a song, talk shit for ages...

SP: Do you think you’ll always work with him?

LR: I hope so. I mean, he’ll do other things... What’s he going to do when I’m out touring? He’ll get intensely bored and, of course, he’s got a living to make. Whether he’ll do it under another name or not, who knows? I’ll do other things and write for other people under other names, just because I love writing songs, and I’m sure he will as well. And why not?

SP: When you signed with Polydor, was there pressure to fix you up with other producers?

LR: Not with Polydor, but a bit before that. That’s why we decided to be a band and call ourselves La Roux - to get signed together, so no one could split us up. It’s what we have together that’s special and we didn’t want anyone to try and split us up. It really wouldn’t matter who anyone turned me onto, whether it was Jay-Z or fucking Timbaland, I wouldn’t do it. I was with Lady Gaga the other week and she was like, [adopts whiney New York accent] ‘Don’t you want to work with, like, other producers and, you know, like, get all these connections?’ And I said, ‘No, trust me, no.’ And she was like, ‘But you will, right?’ ‘No!’ And she just didn’t get it. It’s what we have together that counts. If I didn’t have this connection with Ben, I’d probably be working with loads of people as well. I realise how important is to work with a single person who understands you, and you can tell everything to. If you can’t tell the person you’re writing with exactly what’s going on in your head, that song is not going to sound like it came from anywhere. It won’t be honest enough to be convincing; it’ll sound half-hearted.

SP: Are you happy with the record?

LR: Very. I love it.

SP: It’s front-loaded with your big songs, but you’ve obviously also thought about making it an album in a more traditional sense.

LR: There are other things on there - it’s not all dance tracks. We didn’t want that at all. I’d hate it if it was all big songs. Hopefully there’s stuff on there for people who don’t like the faster tracks. Tracks like ‘Armour Love’ and ‘Cover My Eyes’ and ‘Growing Pains’ are there for those people to get their teeth into. I think that’s what a good record should do and that’s what Ben and me have tried to achieve. Hopefully we have.

SP: People have been picking up on the combination of toughness and sensitivity in the record, but ultimately it seems like your sensitivity comes through the strongest. Are you worried about laying so much on the line in your songs?

LR: No. I think that’s what’s missing from so much music at the moment, especially electronic music. Everyone’s trying so hard to be cool and actually they’re not being cool at all. But I think the coolest people are the ones who can say exactly how they feel and not be scared of it. People who are scared of being emotional, or scared of being vulnerable, or scared of being sensitive, end up looking like wankers. They’re not in touch with themselves and they don’t know themselves and they’re actually really insecure. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be bothered about telling people how they actually felt about things. I’m not saying it was easy, because it wasn’t easy for me to just put those feelings down and sing them, especially live. But that’s half the fun of it - you get an adrenaline rush from being so honest.

SP: Is it like you’re having the last laugh?

LR: It’s like you’re telling everyone everything without telling them anything. I love it. All my secrets are on the record, but no one will ever know where they come from or what they really mean. I think that’s really cool.

SP: They don’t need to know, right? It’s more about whether they can relate to the experience.

LR: Yeah, and I like the constant intrigue, too.

SP: Are you a bit sick of people talking about an eighties revival? I mean, everyone knows the eighties started again in 2002.

LR: [laughs] Don’t even get me started, mate. The eighties never ended - they just got interrupted by shit nineties music.

SP: What about the whole ‘women are taking over pop’ thing?

LR: This is the most annoying question I get: ‘Why do you think there are so many women in pop this year?’ There have always been strong women in pop, and especially for the last four years! From Lily Allen, to Amy Winehouse, to Kate Nash, to Duffy, to Adele... it’s not just this year. It’s like everyone is trying to get a new angle on it the whole time. How can anyone even remotely say that it’s just happened this year? It’s been going on for fucking ages.

SP: What seems more interesting is quite how many copies of ‘In For The Kill’ you’ve sold. Regardless of the fact that it’s a great song, do you think it’s a sign that people are desperate to hear proper pop again?

LR: I’m not sure, but I do know that no one thought anyone wanted to hear a song like ‘In For The Kill’ as little as three months ago - no one in the industry, or in radio. We weren’t sure either and, looking back on it, I think that’s maybe because everyone was telling us it wouldn’t work.

SP: Did ‘Quicksand’ chart?

LR: No, not at all. But it wasn’t really meant to be like that. I didn’t do much press and it was never meant to be a mainstream radio hit. It was meant to be a nice underground bubbler to start things off. We kind of expected ‘In For The Kill’ to do a similar thing, but maybe get to 60 or 50 in the charts - top 100 or whatever. But it was number two for four weeks.

SP: That’ll keep you hungry.

LR: I know! And I think the next single [‘Bulletproof’] is coming out on the same day as a couple of other songs that will definitely go to number one. But, you know, ‘Vienna’ never got to number one and [Joe Dolce’s] ‘Shaddap You Face’ did. You never know what you’re going to get beaten by, or whether you’ll beat them.

SP: With your look and your videos, plus the music, do you think you’re providing a bit of escapism for people?

LR: I definitely try and make the whole thing visually stimulating as well as musically stimulating, and hopefully that sets off people’s imagination a bit.

SP: You play the gig tonight, it goes well, you step out onto the street after and a 16-year-old girl approaches you. What will she say?

LR: They’re usually a bit shaky - a bit nervous - and then they say, ‘Oh my god, I love that ‘In For The Kill’ tune!’ Or they say, ‘I love that remix! And then I got the original and I like that as well!’ Or sometimes they say they still like the remix more [laughs]. Mostly, though, they say, ‘How did you get your hair like that?’

SP: You must be excited for the record to come out so that your fans get to know more of your songs.

LR: I can’t wait, because there must be people who are looking forward to the album but might not expect those other vibes. I’m hoping it will get them more excited about La Roux. I hate albums that you buy for one or two singles and it’s all one thing - records need more than one flavour.

SP: Tell us a bit about your designer friend, Nova Dando, who you work with on your look.

LR: Nova’s cool. She has a couple of her own collections out and is up-and-coming in the fashion industry. She’s also a DJ and stylist who does videos, like the new Gossip one, and she’s worked with M.I.A. We’re mates. It’s like that with all the people around me - my sister and so on. My dad even turns up on the album, on ‘Tigerlily.’ Ben was like, ‘Let’s get your dad to do a Vincent Price kind of thing!’ I wasn’t sure, but he had a lot of fun doing it and he sounds great.

SP: Your dad likes his Neil Young, Dylan, Bo Diddley, Hank Williams and so on. Did you enjoy hearing that old stuff when you were growing up?

LR: I loved it. Me and my dad used to do whole rock’n’roll dance routines when I was a kid - the whole under-the-leg thing. Really great.

SP: Most people reject their parents’ taste in music.

LR: I didn’t at all. I wanted to be Buddy Holly when I was seven. I thought I was Buddy Holly when I was seven! I think that’s where my quiff comes from - it’s more fifties-inspired than eighties-inspired.

SP: Okay, a few final questions. Polydor. Nice people? Ever tell you what you should wear and things like that?

LR: Lovely people and, no way, no one would ever tell me what to wear. I’d break my contract in a second. I made that very clear in any meeting I ever had with an A&R man. And the same applies to the music. It’s not to be messed with. I have to explain that a lot, because people are cynical. But I have total freedom and I couldn’t have it any other way.

SP: How far do you think this will go? As big as someone like Lily Allen?

LR: I hope so. I think we’ve got the tunes to do it. We’ve only been to the States once, but we’re going back soon, and we’ve been to Germany, Paris... I’m told we’re going down really well in South America, too, and we’re going to Japan and Australia. We’re definitely looking at this on a world-wide scale.

SP: Basically, you want to be the biggest pop star in the world.

LR: Yeah. But it’s not like I’m doing it for that reason, or to be famous. I want to be successful. Fuck, it doesn’t matter how you say it, you always sound like a money-grabbing fame-seeker. It’s hard. If you write really great songs, which is what I hope we’ve done, you need it to be proved to you by having an enormous amount of record sales. It’s not about the money and it’s not about the fame, it’s about making music that speaks to millions of people. All my favourite music does that.

SP: Are you scared?

LR: No.

SP: Not at all?

LR: A little bit [laughs]. But not like ‘scared scared’. It’s too late now.

SP: But what if you have the paparazzi sitting outside your house and going through your bins and all that.

LR: I’ll just move to Greece or something. I don’t have any choice and there isn’t really any time to get scared. I don’t want to be an underground artist and sell 20,000 records.

SP: Because life is too short?

LR: No. Some people want to be underground and they don’t want to be pop stars - they want to make music how they want to make it, and if it sells it sells, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I want to make this kind of music - pop music - and the definition of pop music is that it’s popular and lots of people like it. And if you’re going to do that, do it properly and not half-heartedly. If I gave up now, I’d be stupid. I’ve thought about it for a long time and I know what I’m getting myself into. And if I hadn’t thought about it, I’d feel like a right twat.

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