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The Pipettes
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Article
written by Ged M
Jun 26, 2005.
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The Pipettes are, foremost, Becki, Rose and Gwenno (the latter replacing Julia), a band that splice the 60s girl group sound - echoing the hit factories of Spector, Meek, Gordy, etc - and C-86 indiepop; the result is smart bursts of pristine pop, shot through with a spirit of fun. They’ve released two 7” singles to date: ‘School Uniform’ on Unpopular Records and ‘ABC’ on Transgressive Records and both sold out. They’re now signed to Memphis Industries so you should be able to get your hands on their material more easily. We spoke to the Pipettes in June 2005.
SXP: With seemingly so many bands, is Brighton the new (fill in the name of latest buzz city)…?
Rose: I think that Brighton has always had a very diverse music scene, and it is hard to meet people who aren't involved in bands a lot of the time. It has definitely had a big influence on the way our band has turned out, and we were lucky to have friends in bands that could help us when we were starting out. I wouldn't really like to call it a buzz city, partly because I still think of it as a town, and because I think that attracts the wrong kind of attention and can create this kind of branding, and overshadow the actual music. It certainly is a very vibrant, creative place.
Becki: I don't consider Brighton to have a sound concerned with a "buzz city", definitely not in the way that Liverpool or Manchester has a very seemingly designated sound. I don't think you can listen to a Brighton band and determine that the band is from Brighton. The music produced here is almost too diverse. Maybe that's the point, I still think it cannot be compared, but that's why it's so exciting.
SXP: As members of your "backing band" the Cassettes are also in Electric Soft Parade, Brakes and Tenderfoot, is it hard for everyone to find time to concentrate on the Pipettes?
Rose: We haven't actually had any of them play with us for over six months now, mainly because, as you said, it was very hard for everyone to find the time, especially as all of those bands have had a lot of their own stuff to concentrate on which is great. They know they are always welcome, but it is a bit of a military operation just to get the seven of us in the same place at the same time, let alone people from other busy bands!!
Becki: Yeah, they mainly helped us find our feet and we're very grateful for all the support they've given us.
SXP: How did you all find each other?
Rose: It was Bobby, our guitarist, that brought us together but we were all friends of friends. He was the one who came up with the concept and when he posed it to us all we were all very excited about the idea!
Becki: Brighton's very incestuous. It didn't take him long to find some willing guinea pigs!!
SXP: From the pictures, it looks like you lost and gained a Pipette fairly recently. How did you find your new Pipette and what's involved in inducting a Pipette?
Rose: Very strangely she approached us around the time that Julia left, so it must have been fate!
Gwenno: I'd actually bought tickets weeks in advance to watch The Pipettes supporting the Go! Team at the Barfly in Cardiff (which is where I'm from). Me and my mates were all very excited to see them and as soon as they appeared on stage we all agreed that we'd love to be a Pipette. I got talking to the girls after the show and we arranged an audition down in Brighton as Julia was leaving and after much frantic learning of the songs and the moves it all kinda fell into place.
Becki: We weren't incredibly organised regarding auditioning. I'm surprised Gwen didn't just run away when she saw the shambolic nature in which we work. But it's great that we found someone who's as excited about what we're trying to do as we are.
SXP: Who's responsible for the girl group look of the girls and the preppy look of the boys?
Rose: Well that was always an integral part to the idea to have polka dot dresses etc, but they have gone through a number of phases. The last ones were made by Gwenno's sister, and the tank tops the boys wear were made by Mamma Falcone, who is very accomplished with the knitting needles!!
Gwenno: That's another thing that I absolutely loved about The Pipettes before I joined, the fact that it was a show and it was girls just being girls.
Becki: After we got our dresses it didn't seem right that the boys wore their ordinary clothes, we kind of coerced them into dressing up too, only to discover they love it more than we do! I didn't think that would be possible!
SXP: How much work do you put into your choreography/look?
Rose: Obviously the performance element is very important to our band, and we have spent a lot of afternoons in our front rooms working out dances. Its great because we feel like we're ten again!
Gwenno: It's great, the moves match the lyrics in the songs so well that you almost never forget them! It made it so much easier for me, coming in and having to learn sixteen songs at once, though I did get them mixed up at the begining...
Becki: Yeah it could get more complicated and slick, but it's supposed to embody a more innocent era of music. We never set out to be Girls Aloud or anything, twirling around or doing the splits. However, eventually we'd love to incorporate dress changes etc. . Sadly it's just a dream at the moment, but watch this space.
SXP: Who writes your songs? And does that Shangri-La sound come naturally or is there a stock of different sounding songs somewhere, waiting to be aired?
Rose: We all write songs and are involved in the way the music sounds, which is what makes this band so exciting, because we are never short of ideas with seven heads thinking all the time. Obviously the sound of our band was part of the original idea, but it has evolved very naturally and I think we're all still trying to work out exactly what we want to do. There is so much scope, so anything could happen really. There are a few songs that were written at the very early stages that don't really work for whatever reason, but we haven't abandoned them completely, maybe they'll see the light of day sometime in the future!
Becki: I think most of our songs sound different. If you listen carefully you can hear who wrote what, but we've all altered the way in which we write songs to make them blend from songwriter to songwriter.
SXP: How do you avoid pastiche or sounding too retro?
Rose: I think that this lies with all of the different influences we all have in the band, from hip hop to folk to punk or whatever, so we aren't only taking ideas from one source, which I hope keeps the music sounding fresh and contemporary.
Gwenno: I don't think it's that difficult not to sound retro, we do all have very different influences, it's almost the other way round, having to cram all our influences into one song!
Becki: It's hard avoiding the term 'pastiche', but the style of songwriting and certain elements of what we do is so unlike any one influence of ours. We haven't gone out of our way to avoid sounding retro it just happened that way.
SXP: You play with the 60s look but your lyrics suggest that you're tougher and more empowered than the groups then. Is that right and is there a touch of riot grrrl in you?
Rose:Yeah definitely. I don't think we could really compare our music, but we definitely want to be perceived as in control. Because we're female we have come up against quite a lot of sexism and objectification, which I think has only strengthened our resolve not to let this get in the way of the music we're trying to make.
Gwenno: We obviously live in a very different time now, but I think it's still very important that female empowerment comes through in our music. Things haven't changed that much for women and it's important that it's expressed, through pop songs!
Becki: I think anyone who's interested in Riot Grrrl would agree that we don't embody the politics or point of what those bands conveyed. Not to undermine what we do as women in music, but we're not trying to make a stand rather make music that we think is fun and hope people can connect to. It's very important to us that there are women in the audience who would love to do what we're doing.
SXP: On your site you talk about the fascination with Spector, Joe Meek, Motown, the Brill Building, etc. What is it about that particular historical line that draws you in? And do you not find it slightly oppressive that those producers/labels groomed their artists to produce such a defined sound?
Rose: I suppose but when such amazing music came out of it... I think the defined sound is what we're so attracted to, you can't compare it to anything else. I think the thing about Spector, Motown etc is that during that time real pop songs with depth and musical integrity were being made, before everything became dominated by men and guitars...
Becki: It's also important to note that we won't be groomed into doing anything. We have a much stronger position that women did back then; we write our own music, we create the look, we act how we want to and we'd never do anything that we thought perceived us in a negative way.
SXP: Is it important to have a song named for yourselves (like the Monkees, Madness and Motorhead)?
Rose: I think you're referring to our theme tune "We Are The Pipettes". This was written when we first started out and it was a good way of making people remember who we were, and now we're further down the line it’s a great live song that kind of brings us set to a conclusion and lets everyone know where we're coming from a little. And it’s just a bit cheeky!
Becki: Yeah, it's really important!! It's harking back to the fun and frolics of pop music. Next on our agenda, an aptly named TV series!
SXP: You've had two sell-out singles, admittedly in limited runs, but is the plan to release something more accessible?
Rose: We've actually very recently signed a record deal with an independent label called Memphis Industries, so we are currently thinking about recording an album late summer with plans to release early next year. we'd like to have another single out by the end of the year and hopefully this will be a bit easier to get hold of. We're just as frustrated as people that didn't manage to get one; I don't even have a copy of the first single! I think the seven inches were a really good way of testing the water a bit, and I'm sure we'd like to release some more in the future.
Becki: It's great for us to continue building a fanbase in a way that gigging can't always do. Although we love performing and would do it forever if we were allowed, we also want to be proud of our recorded sound. Through these two releases we've discovered different ways of recording and also what people really think away from the dresses and dance moves. Hopefully it'll make our album a lot stronger.
SXP: How was touring with the Magic Numbers?
Rose: It was great fun. Any experience we can get on tour is really valuable to us, especially as we love it so much! The Magic Numbers and the other support band Absentee were really nice to us and really great to tour with.
Becki: It was amazing. The crowd's reception for The Numbers was overwhelming and it was so nice to do our bit and then become enveloped in an aura of joyousness. It was especially memorable on the last night of the tour when all the bands joined forces on stage for their encore, if a little bewildering.
SXP: What's next for the Pipettes?
Rose: Well obviously an album is the next step, and recording is something we are quite inexperienced in, having played live so much, so we're really excited about that. After that I s’pose it’s world domination!!
Becki: Yep, recording, recording, recording, and of course a few gigs to tide us over! Expect a headline tour very soon...
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