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Girls in Hawaii
Second album, Plan Your Escape
Paris
20/02/2008 -
RFI Musique: You really decided to make your new album off the beaten track, recording in a house in a tiny village in the middle of the Ardennes countryside. Was that a deliberate move to isolate yourselves after a whirlwind tour and the buzz around your debut album?
Denis Wielemans: Yes, absolutely. We definitely felt the need to get centered and focus on ourselves again. After all the tour dates and an extremely busy period fielding demands from all sides, we felt like we needed to sit down and think about exactly why we were making music and where we were going with it. We practically stopped playing concerts altogether for about a year, preferring to concentrate all our time and energy on writing material and recording the new album. One thing we knew we wanted to avoid doing at all costs was working in a conventional studio with rigid timetables. So we took all our equipment and went off to work in this house in the middle of nowhere. We spent several weeks there in the end. It was great because the atmosphere was really laidback and relaxed and we were able to work on songs at any time of the day or night. We also got to experiment with recording in unusual places - like the attic or the garden!
Why did you choose to work with Jean Lamoot, a producer who is associated with the French ‘chanson’ world (Dominique A, Bashung) rather than the indie rock scene?
Lionel Vancauwenberghe: Why Jean Lamoot? Because we loved what he did with Noir Désir’s album Des Visages des figures. We’ve all been Noir Désir fans for a long time! What happened was Jean came over to Brussels to meet us and he was particularly excited about the idea of breaking with convention and going off to record in a house in the countryside.
Denis: Paradoxically, Jean seemed to be pretty self-effacing when we first started working together. He didn’t talk much to begin with. He just sat back and let us get on with things. He concentrated on the sound recording while we were buzzing around excitedly with all these ideas for arrangements. But as things moved on we realised that he was actually taking our songs in new and unexpected directions. He really encouraged us to experiment. There were days when he’d spend hours recording sixty different bell sounds and inventing all other sorts of bizarre noises. Jean played an essential role as a catalyst in our creative process.
There are some pretty non-rock instruments on your new album like the Jew’s harp and the zither, not to mention a lot of weird background noises…
Denis: We’re very fond of the home-made ‘DIY’ approach, that mass of little details. You know, you can even come to love the sound defects on a record because they add a timeless element to things somehow. Fields of Gold is a perfect example of that. It’s a simple acoustic ballad, but we tried to give the track a bit of an extra dimension and make it more atmospheric. You’ve got the sound of the rain falling outside the house, bells ringing in the distance and electronic sounds added in over the top. In this respect, we feel pretty close to a band like Blonde Redhead. They fill their music with all kinds of experimental stuff, including instrumental segments and hypnotic sounds. There’s a sort of ‘dirty’, haphazard edge to their sound.
Do you place a lot of importance on your lyrics?
Lionel: We generally write our lyrics just before we record the vocals, scribbling them down really quickly. The whole process takes about half-an-hour, an hour maximum! The lyrics are essentially there as a hook for the vocals.
But there is a certain coherence to the album, a general theme running throughout the tracks. On songs like Bored or Couples on TV there’s an almost tangible feeling of frustration, a flight towards escapism…
Lionel: Couples on TV was written by Daniel [Ed.: the group’s bassist and percussionist]. But I’d agree that there’s a kind of recurrent theme going on there, a certain melancholy feel. I think that’s very much linked to what’s been happening in our personal lives. All the members of the group have given up their studies and their day jobs since (the group’s first album) From Here to There - and I have to admit we’ve been a bit destabilised by the ups and downs of a musician’s life when we’re not out there on the road. Sometimes you spend entire days waiting for inspiration to come and there’s a certain emptiness to things while you wait… The process of coming up with material for the new album wasn’t always easy you know!
There are certain things about Girls in Hawaii - like the plaintive vocal style and your particular English pronunciation - that tap into the same vibe as other Belgian bands like Sharko. Do you feel part of the ‘Belgian rock scene’?
Denis: Well, to be honest, we’ve never been aware of any vocal similarities with Sharko before! But I have to say we’re all big Sharko fans. We particularly like the album Sharko III and we feel close to the home-made, DIY aspect of their sound. Generally speaking, I think if there’s maybe one thing that links bands like Sharko, Ghinzu and Girls in Hawaii, it’s the absolute sincerity we bring to our work. When you hear David Bartholomé [Ed.: Sharko’s singer and bass-player] singing, for instance, there’s something very moving about his vocals. They’re a bit innocent, a bit naive…
Aren’t you apprehensive about playing songs from such a meticulously produced album live in concert?
Lionel: No, not at all. We’ve spent weeks working on the live versions of these songs, making them more vibrant and energetic. And the truth is we can’t wait to get out there and play them live on stage!
Girls in Hawaii Plan Your Escape (62TV Records/Naïve) 2008
Girls in Hawaii kick off their European tour in February 2008. The tour includes a concert at the Olympia, in Paris, on 7 May 2008.
Jérôme Pichon
28/04/2008 -
29/01/2007 -
16/10/2007 -
