Whip it OnChain Gang of LoveWhip it On</>, B-flat major on Chain Gang of Love
The Daily Cardinal: You limit yourself with a number of rules, like just one key per album. Why do you think listeners are drawn to that kind of restrictiveness?
Sharin Foo: It's really not a restriction. For us it's like guidelines, a tool for becoming more creative in the writing process. For a lot of artistic processes it's the best thing you can do to go beyond what you would traditionally do. It's like a challenge, like a writer who will write in a stream of consciousness. For us, for instance that we didn't have any high hat or ride cymbal, it challenged us to find a higher sound from somewhere else. It's really just a tool to help us make a more original sound.
: So have you decided on what key the next album is going to be in?
: We actually are going to go completely crazy and use whatever key we want for whatever song. It was a great thing for us to do on the first two, now we just want to write songs in various keys. I think that's the plan. We still haven't finished all the material for the new album. It will still sound like The Raveonettes. There's a certain sound that came from having those guidelines applied to the music. The simple, basic songs, the great harmonies, dissonant noisy music, the same references will still be there, you'll be able to hear Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, and all the girl groups. All that stuff will be there.
: I guess you're one of the few bands who can mention distortion and Buddy Holly in the
same sentence.
: Sune always says it sounds like Shangri La's being fucked in the ass by Suicide.
But that's not me, that's Sune who said that. You can't quote me on that.
: How did you both start playing together?
: I wish I could come up with some interesting story, but I can't. Sune came back from traveling in the States. He was living in L.A. and New York. He wrote a bunch of songs, put them in the suitcase and called me and asked me if I wanted to hook up. And I had just started to pick up the bass, which was good, because then I could play bass in the band. He was kind of looking for the twin harmonies, the boy/girl vocals and our vocals immediately blended really well. We knew each other through mutual friends. I also knew him from his band The Pianists which was kind of successful up from the '90s. Back in Denmark, we were always the little noisy kids playing music.
: What was the music scene like in Denmark back then?
: Back in the day when we started out there wasn't really much happening in Denmark. I think that's changed. Now there's exciting things like Junior Senior-they're pretty original and they really have their own thing going. There's a band called Mew I think is really great. I think that bands in Denmark are becoming more original, and they are becoming more ambitious. It used to be that Denmark, since it was such a small country, was just this giant copy of whatever was successful in the States or the U.K. But I think there's a new spirit and creativity.
: Where did your name come from? You've got to be sick of people asking about Raisinets by now.
: We didn't even know there was a candy in the U.S. called Raisinets until the day we signed with Columbia, and they gave us a box. And we were just staring at this chocolate-raisin thing, saying 'Oh no, that's horrible.' But the name came from a girls name, Raveonelle, which we thought sounded really pretty. And we changed it around so it sounds like the music we're inspired by, 'Rave On,' which was by Buddy Holly and is a rock 'n' roll expression, and the -ettes is all the girl groups in the early sixties. That's really what it is, 'Rave-on-ette.'
: Were you listening to a lot of '50s girl groups and Buddy Holly?
: Well, I was listening to things from the '60s and '70s, like the Stones and Velvet Underground, and regular stuff like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. Sune introduced me to all the '50s stuff, like the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. He's a bit of a walking encyclopedia on music.
: Do you think you captured the feeling of Buddy Holly?
: We didn't want to capture his sound. I think we were just inspired by the simple way of writing songs, which is something you just go back to again and again, like timeless songs you'll listen to forever. I think we managed to have all those inspirations in the music. You can hear all the references. And it's something we're very proud of because it's something that is part of our musical history and culture. But I think that we are still able to have a very original sound, which is the way we blend all these ingredients. Its very modern and at the same time very old fashioned.
