Playtime with LadyTron

Posted on 01. Jun, 2008 by Administrator in Film/TV, Profiles

words by Devoe Yates, photo by Staphane Gallois

At long last the lasses (and chaps) from Liverpool are back with a new album, Velocifero. A moody and emotion-tinged electronic journey, Velocifero is a good gem from start to finish boasting their trademark new wave ethereal Krautrock evolution of sound. And I would say it’s more mature and easy on the soul than their past endeavors. Helen Marnie, one quarter of Ladytron, is as cute and shy as the day is long, with her unmistakable Beatles / Liverpool accent. She shares lead vocal duties with Mira Aroyo (a Bulgarian by birth), and as strange as it sounds, Ladytron is a foursome rounded out by two dudes, Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu, who share writing and instrumentation duties. Let’s delve into what the angelic lady-voiced Helen has to say for herself.

h: Was there a new plan of attack on this album?

Helen: I think we wanted to move things forward from Witching Hour. You struggle to experiment a bit more with different sounds and synthesizers and stuff. We literally toured for two years. We’d already had it in demo form and we took them to a certain level. We worked with Vicarous Bliss (Justice) in Paris for a little bit, and our friend Alessandro Cortini from Nine Inch Nails whom we met on the NIN tour. He added some nice atmospheric sounds, weird synth sounds and guitars. I think the difference is more layering.

h: How did you guys decide to cover “Cletva” ?

Helen: Mira heard it watching a film and decided to cover it not knowing that it was actually this really famous song in Bulgaria. So we did it without knowing (laughs). It’s very different to the original obviously. It’s a really fun thing for us to do, when we did it in the studio it was just drunken craziness, just being silly and everyone shouting and having fun.

h: How did you first get into making music?

Helen: I guess before Ladytron I had never made music before. I had just finished a degree in cultural music, but it wasn’t practical, more kind of theory driven.

h: Had you been singing before that?

Helen: Kind of. At University I was in the band society. I joined a group and the guys in the band would make me sing really crappy covers of girl bands and it was really bad (laughs).

h: Is it true that Ladyton began in a bar?

Helen: Oh, yeah (laughs). Danny used to run a club night. I met him there because I used to be there all the time. We bumped into each other and it was a classic line. He said, “So, what do you want to do?” and I said, “I want to be a singer” and he was like, “Oh, really? Well, I can help you there.” That was it (laughs)…pretty bad.

h: Did he take you back to his studio and like played you some of his music?

Helen: That sounds a bit dodgy (laughs). He told me they were looking for a singer, he was like, “Alright, cool, you can come and sing for us.” I was really nervous and shy and I kept putting him off. After about a month or two, we kept bumping into each other and he said “Okay, what’s going on? When are we gonna do this?” Eventually I got the guts up to do it and it all happened from there.

h: Was he kind of blown away by your vocals when you first sang for him?

Helen: No (laughs). I don’t think so. I was so nervous and it wasn’t really natural, but I think with time it got better (laughs).

h: What was the first concert you guys ever performed?

Helen: One of the first ones I know of was in a bowling alley in Paris. We actually played on the lanes which was very surreal because people were bowling at the same time as we were playing. That was unusual, quite fun though! At that gig the guys from Air came so we were quite excited because we’re quite big fans.

h: How is it to hear your music out in public?

Helen: The strangest thing is when you’re in a shop and it comes on. Also, I’ll go into a club and one of our songs will come on and I’ll just freeze. I can’t dance and I get really embarrassed. The other day Danny and I had gone into this cool shop (a nice boutique girls shop) and we were chatting with the girls in the shop. After we left we realized that we couldn’t get a taxi on the street, so we went back in to ask them to ring us a cab and they were playing Witching Hour at full blast and I was like, “Oh my god,” and they were embarrassed (laughs).

h: What kind of music were you guys listening to when you were writing this new album?

Helen: For me, and I know for a couple of other guys in the band, it’s really difficult when you’re on tour and trying to write an album — it’s really difficult to listen to other stuff because you don’t want that creeping into your subconscious. You want to be doing things that you think are fresh. But there are times when you just want to go to your bunk and chill out and listen to country music. That’s the kind of thing that I like to listen to, just to keep me calm, it has a calming effect. Fairport Convention and Johnny Cash.

h: Is it weird being thought of as a fashion icon?

Helen: Yeah, because way back when we formed the band, it was just this really easy thing, the futuristic costumes you know? But it all kind of became a bit boring. Now I’m like, “I want to wear a dress and look like a girl again.”

h: Do you watch movies a lot?

Helen: Well, we watched some Curb Your Enthusiasm on the bus. Mira and Danny have been into it for ages but I’ve kind of resisted and now I’m caught by it. I’m trapped.

h: You guys don’t have any acoustic songs, do you?

Helen: Ehhh…No! (laughs)….We can play some things acoustic (laughs)…but we don’t.

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