Rave On With The Raveonettes.It's a Crazy Feeling

Tue 14th Feb, 2006 in Features

With a name derived from Buddy Holly’s Rave On, combined with gun-happy Phil Spector’s favourite girl group The Ronnettes, it’s no surprise the Danish “Next big thing” TM duo The Raveonettes produce and inspire all manner of retro sounds and fans alike. On the eve of their debut Australian tour, blonde bombshell Sharin Foo explained their world to FasterLouder.

“We’ve always wanted to translate American culture into new sounds, but retain an old school vintage flavour”, purrs Ms Foo in describing the Raveonettes distinctive flavour. With a sound that can easily be described as the missing link between Scottish sonic astronauts The Jesus and Mary Chain, and the modern day cosmic psychos (now entering a country honk period all their own) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club; you’d be forgiven in thinking this Danish pairing were cashing in on a certain sound. Not true.

“I think we ended up sounding like them [Jesus and Mary Chain] because they too were inspired by writing a simple and classic pop song like Buddy Holly could – but also responding to the fact that we’re not living in the ‘50s anymore,” she laughs. “So hence we have more distortion and feedback and sound very modern, but also retrospective. To be fair we never really had them as an inspiration in any way – I feel we both just had a coincidence of inspiration and attacked it in a similar fashion.”

Sharin and her musical partner in crime, Sune Rose Wagner (pronounced “Soon”) have been bending the strings on their Fenders since 2001. Wagner had been hopping around in various musical guises after hearing Little Richard’s The Girl Can’t Help It  and discovering American music. A self-confessed ignoramus on musical artists, his mind was immediately blown and thus his world expanded even more after hearing ‘50s legends such as Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Eddie Cochran. But it was borrowing Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland from his local library that caused the response, “What the fuck is this kind of music!?” and the rest is history. Shacking up in New York’s Hells Kitchen in 1998, Sune passionately immersed himself into Americana while writing songs and desperately trying to find like-minded folk to play with. But it wasn’t until he returned to Denmark, and with old acquaintance Sharin, decided to cut a four-track EP with a drum machine that would see them fast become the darlings of the UK press. The EP was called Whip It On and had a strict formula of three chords, all played in B Major and lasting no more than three minutes (Ramones, anyone?). The formula worked and the music press were fighting each other off to proclaim the duo as manna from heaven. An album proper was popped out for Columbia entitled Chain Gang Of Love and The Raveonettes were on their way to save the ears of many teens corrupted by Top 40 banality. Yet somehow Australia weren’t invited to the party, nor did the local radio stations give much airtime to this exciting aesthetic one would compare to Phil Spector being the member of a bikie gang and designing a soundtrack to scare the squares away forever.

After the hype dies (and it always does) it’s only talent that can prevail – and with the new album, Pretty In Black, the band have thrown away the black and white rule book in favour of a technicolour rebirth. “It was really a specific moment in time,” Foo insists. “Had we made that album a month earlier or later, it would have been completely different. We didn’t want to repeat ourselves and keep playing the same three chords or be in the same key or any or that – we broke our own guidelines and started recording far more lavishly than our minimalist earlier offerings. Pretty in Black is a huge leap away from the first two albums – and that’s how we work. We do whatever we feel like doing really.”

The result is a triumphant blending of the American West with a late night back-room jam at CBGBs. Starting with the “I wrote it as though it were for Elvis”, opener The Heavens, through to a cover of My Boyfriend’s Back and even having special guests Mo Tucker (The Velvet Underground) and Phil’s ex-wife, Ronnie Spector lending a hand.

“In many ways she’s a faded star and isn’t being recognised the way she should,” Foo explains of the lead singer of their band’s own namesake. “It’s great to pay tribute to these artists that have inspired us to create music by creating music with them – it’s truly an honour.”

So what of the future, where can these well-dressed culture sponges of b-movies and drag strip hauteur go from here as they embark on recording a new album in New York this year?

“God, you know I’m listening to a lot of electronic music like Primal Scream as well as classical and jazz at the moment – and my favourite film of the moment is Antonioni’s Eclipse... I’m just absorbing everything at the moment. We’ll have to see, I’m the light and Sune’s the dark, but sometimes we can just flip on each other; it’s going to be exciting.” We can’t wait.

The Raveonettes play:

Melbourne, Wednesday 1st March – Hi-Fi Bar
Brisbane, Thursday 2nd March – The Tivoli
Perth, Saturday 4th March – Beck’s Verandah Perth Concert Hall (The UWA Perth International Arts Festival)
Sydney, Sunday 5th March – Laneway Festival

FasterLouder has a special two-for-one ticket offer for particular shows, to check it out head to our online ticket shop.