|
|
 |
Little Birdy.
 "It
was glorious!" exclaims Little Birdy frontwoman Katy Steele
when I ask her about having litres of multicoloured paint hurled
at her in the filmclip to the band's latest single, Beautiful
To Me. "I wanted something like that but I wanted a French,
European setting. We didn't have the money, so we went into
the studio with paint, that was the next best thing! We had
to have something that was kind of ironic, because the song
is so obvious, we needed something to counteract that. We wanted
to steer away from anything like, er, Pete Murray..."
The song actually first appeared as the b-side to their debut 7" Relapse. "That song's always been around, and it has always been a single, because it's so catchy and to-the-point. We've been saving it for the right time - and the right time is now, baby!"
Both songs appear in new form on the new, debut full-length, 'BigBigLove.' Steele explains the choice to re-record. "It's simply because the quality would be so out-of-whack. You'd have this old song that would just sound shit compared to the rest of [the album]. That was just a sign of the times when we didn't have any money. That first recording was done in a shed, man! I agree it's got a vibe to it, definitely, but if we're going to go overseas, we can't really release stuff that's just done in a shed. I love that first EP, and the way Relapse was recorded was really special - but the first EP's still there, so it's exciting in a way, you can go and listen to it, put the album on and then go back to it."
Having released one dark, introspective EP, followed by 'This Is A Love Song', a more raucous and in some ways unsubtle EP, I ponder if there was any resolve to do something quite different on the first album. "We just did what we felt was right. This album's obviously really important to us. I think the first two EPs, they've been a growth period for us. I mean, we're such a new band. 'This Is A Love Song,' that was a period when we were trying to work out what we really loved about music, and I was really into PJ Harvey at that point, really into rockin' out in my fishnets - you go through stages! What we wanted from this album is really what we've always wanted, which was to make a complete piece. If you put something into an art gallery, you want to have it as finished as it can possibly be. We wanted to show as many angles as we possibly can. We're not a rock band, we're not a pop band, we're not some fucking emotive power machine - we're like everything combined!"
After they conquer our shores, the Perth-based quartet is preparing to head overseas. "With our deal, we've actually got the opportunity to sign with anyone we want over there, so we're going to be searching around, having a look - we're in a pretty flexible position at the moment!"
And what does that mean we can expect, musically, from Little Birdy's future? "I really want to go - I mean, Excited, the first track on the album, it excites me in a lot of different ways because I really want to go down that Queens Of The Stone Age, PJ Harvey... I want to go down that really heavy path. Just really push it! I never want to be one of those bands that just go for riffs, I mean there's always going to be a structure in songs that I'm going to put on any album, and the guys are always going to be putting in what they do so well. But I just love PJ Harvey's old stuff! I want to draw inspiration from that - obviously not do what she does, do it my way, but... Then I really want to go down a country, like a Jayhawks, Beatles path as well, write really good pop songs. The one thing I always wanted to do, since I was seventeen and really getting into music, was to do an album that sounds like Burt Bacharach, and I want to record it in an old studio and use all the old microphones, do an old Motown record. A whole soul record. And we will, believe me we will!"
Ben Revi
 |
'BigBigLove' is out now through Eleven/EMI and Little Birdy play at the Governor Hindmarsh on Sun 10 Oct.
|
|
|
The latest issue
available now!
|
