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Interview by Constant Gardner
You're just finishing up your European headline tour, how's the tour been so far?
Lizzy: It's been great! It's been really, really nice. We were just over in Europe a few months ago getting our feet wet, I think we're just much more confident now, in terms of being able to enjoy these shows a little bit more, and we've played in some incredible rooms. It's just been really, really wonderful.
When you guys came out, there wasn't much information surrounding you. Most people didn't even seem to know if you were a duo, where you were from, or any of the basics. Was this intentional?
Max: Yeah it was absolutely intentional, but it wasn't really a marketing shtick or anything like that, it was for a couple of reasons actually. First were very aware of the fact that we're pop musicians, that we're making pop music, and I think that when you're working in that genre, a lot of the time the music can be overwhelmed by personality and image. So we were really conscious of that and wanted to be sure that the music lived on its own before we revealed our faces, so people would approach the music for the right reasons. Also Lizzy ran a record label called Neon Gold and we just wanted to be sure that this was a totally separate project and it wasn't Neon Gold related and that people knew that it was a duo.
Lizzy, you were born in London and Max, you're from Seattle. How did you two meet and decide to form a group?
Lizzy: Yeah I was born and raised in the UK until I was 18 although you wouldn't believe it from my accent!
Max: Well first I'm not from Seattle, that was in a press release that went out! I'm from Idaho. We actually met at university...
Lizzy: We both went to school together, and we actually didn't really connect until after school. Max had been producing music for a dance company that he was part of, and I started a record label at school, and we started an email exchange afterwards when Max was looking for a new artists to work with. He reached out to me and I had been writing a little on the side but had been too embarrassed or shy to share it with anyone, but since he had gone out on a limb to email me I felt more comfortable sharing what I was working on with him. It really just evolved from there, that was the beginning of us trusting one another. We got together later that year to start working together and seeing how it felt, and we started with the Patrick Wolf cover which was a nice way to feel out what it would be like to be in the studio together, which was a really positive experience. It was our first time really ever working with someone else and we were both just really happy with how easy it was to work together and what the music ended up sounding like.
A lot of pop, especially in indie, seems to be moving in a darker direction, both musically and lyrically do you think this is reflection of the times or the mindset of new artists, or maybe just a reaction to things getting a little too upbeat in pop music over the past years?
Lizzy: I dont know, I dont know if I think that things are getting darker than before. I think just in general we've always been drawn to darker music. It's just something about being an emotional outlet and a way to...
Max: For us at least, we're pretty upbeat and happy people, and the music really becomes an outlet for us to express a more dramatic side of our personality. And more generally, I don't know, I'm not totally sure that pop is becoming darker than it ever has been.
When you have a song like "Hurricane," do you know right away that you have something big, or does it kind of grow and develop into what we as the listener end up hearing?
Max: (laughs) That's a good question. I think that... Well we've had a lot of different experiences that have run the gamut there. We've had songs that we thought would be huge songs and we were really excited when we first recorded them and then after we mixed them and listen back we were sort of like "No that doesn't work at all, this is stupid!" With songs like "Dark Duo," for example, we'd never really experimented with Lizzy singing softly, so that was a whole range of emotion that we hadn't really experimented with. So when we finished recording it we didn't know what is was going to be like, if it might be shit and it was only after mixing that we listeened back and realised this is a pretty cool song and really, really loved it.
Lizzy: I don't think you know during the musical process how a track is going to end up sounding. With "Hurricane" it's funny, we both really really loved it as soon as it was done but I played it for a few people and they liked it but it didn't get the quick reaction that we thought it would. So we were like okay maybe this is a song that we're really going to love and maybe it wont be anything. Then when we submitted it to the label and our managers they were blown away and wanted to release it and I think it's really positive that it's been a song that people have connected to so well because it's one that Max and I really loved and we didn't know that it was going to be the song.
You’re avid Tumblr users, and there seems to be a clear aesthetic running through the Tumblr as well as the video for Hurricane, with the bright colours and bits of found footage, where does this come from, and how important is the visual side of things for you?
Lizzy: The music comes first, but we've always definitely interested in how we're going to surround the music visually. The Tumblr's just been such a wonderful outlet for both of us, because it's basically become this ongoing mood-board of things we're drawn to. We try not to over think it and just put things up that we feel connected to for whatever reason. Even though it might seem like quite random to someone else, there is an underlying common thread throughout the posting process, and it's wonderful because it means when we need to start getting artwork together or video ideas we can dive back into this collection of material that we've already processed and been through. So it's been an incredible source for us to have access to.
And it's a way to engage with fans, to connect on another level from the music.
Lizzy: Absolutely, we had the idea for the Tumblr before we even knew that we were a band, and that stemmed from us just using Tumblr and really just enjoying that experience and way of communicating with people. I think that's always going to be an important element to who we are.
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Your debut comes out in May of 2013. What kind of sounds are influencing the album?
Max: We both listen to lots of different types of music from every genre, we're big music fans. I think on a song by song basis we're definitely thinking about capturing a certain vibe of certain songs, and trying to combine different sonic environments into a new unexpected sound. It really is an agglomeration of our musical histories; we draw on everything from pure pop to country to opera to indie-pop, and I think the general aesthetic doesn't become totally apparent until you listen to the whole album.
Lizzy: I think whatever you're listening to you absorb, and that we internalize all the music we listen to our whole lives. This is the first time I'm the one who's making music, so I'm sure that that's all played it's hand subconsciously.
Max: It's just exciting to see how those different subconscious musical histories emerge in the music.
Your first EP was called Candy Bar Creep Show. What does that mean?
Lizzy: Well it's one of the lyrics from "Bones." Generally we're interested in mixed media and collage and juxtaposing items so Candy Bar Creep Show is a sort of sickeningly sweet sort of grotesque you know? In the music we're sort of forcing the light and dark elements to combine and that's reflected in the visuals, the pastel cover with the bloody hand, and it's interesting how these forces that are seemingly separate sort of combine to create something new.
