The Raveonettes

Stephen M. Deusner
, February 5, 2008

The Raveonettes

In the early 2000s, when nearly every band around seemed to be looking to the 1960s for inspiration, the Raveonettes-- Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo, two Danes who relocated to New York City-- looked a decade further back. On their debut EP, Whip It On, and first full-length, The Chain Gang of Love, the duo turned 50s rock'n'roll into post-millennial sex music, caking on the distortion and bringing out the lewd and the lurid that we always knew lurked in the songs of Buddy Holly (whose perfect "Rave On" gave the band their name) and Gene Vincent. With 2005's Pretty in Black, they made tentative forays into girl-group sounds, aping Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and even corralling Ronnie Spector to sing lead on "Ode to L.A." The band's latest full-length, the aptly titled Lust Lust Lust, returns to the muddy, sordid sound the Raveonettes do best. Prior to embarking on their North American tour, Wagner talked with us about switching record labels, boycotting remakes of classic films, writing songs in bed, and, of course, lust lust lust.

Pitchfork: The new album is dirtier and more distortion heavy than the last one.

Sune Rose Wagner: Yeah. I think you go through different phases when you do albums, and I think that they change according to where you are in your life and what you're inspired by at the moment. It's not really a conscious decision to do a quiet album or a noisier album. It's just something that happens, I guess. And I guess my life was in a pretty disorderly fashion, so I think the music came out that way a little bit on this album.

Pitchfork: It sounds more straightforward, highlighting a few sounds in a lot of different ways.

SRW: Yeah, I wanted to do an album that was very simple and very minimal in the context of instrumentation and stuff. I wanted to use as few means as possible to create a very powerful and interesting sound that would breathe. I think we really accomplished that.

Pitchfork: Who all played on the album?

SRW: It was just me. I did everything.

Pitchfork: What sort of restrictions did you place on this album?

SRW: I always put a little bit of restrictions on myself, and I only do it for my creativity. And I do it sometimes because I want the music to stand out a little bit more than many other bands do. I still have some stuff where I don't use the high hat, and I don't use any crash cymbals. It just makes for an interesting sound because you don't really notice it when it's not there, but if it was there, you would definitely hear it. It would be different. I kind of like it without it. Kind of like a dark sound, and not a lot of high-end action going on. The high-end action that goes on is more interesting than the normal stuff, because it'll be bells and chimes and stuff like that. It's an interesting sound. Yeah, I sometimes impose rules on my creativity.

Pitchfork: It's a very dark album thematically. Can you talk about the notions of lust on this album?

SRW: All the songs are about lust. All the songs are written from the perspective of a person, being me, who had trouble with some of the big questions in life, like, are we meant to be together with the same person for the rest of our lives? Or, is it frowned upon if a man goes through many women at all times? What is the meaning of love versus sex? And what do people gain from love and what do people gain from sex, whether it's having sex in a relationship or having sex outside a relationship. It's just a lot of big questions, I guess, that are really difficult to answer. People see it very differently, and unfortunately people sometimes suppress their lust. And it's not only sex. It could be lusting for anything really, anything that's supposedly very bad for you but can be good for you, too. But usually it's considered very negative-lust for sex or lust for adultery or lust for drinks or drugs. So that's why I think it came out a little bit dark, because I certainly don't have the answers to any of those questions, that's for sure.

Pitchfork: They're very inquisitive songs, then.

SRW: Yes. Exactly.

Pitchfork: Do they evolve lyrically or philosophically at all?

SRW: No. It was actually the easiest album to write. I've always written stuff based on personal experience, but I've always disguised it by the use of characters. And I wanted to do something that was straight and just myself. That was very, very easy. Once I had written one or two songs, I realized what they were about and thought this was so simple to write about because it's what I see everyday. This is the life I live, and this is the stuff I experience. And like any good writer, I should just write about what goes in my life and what goes on around me. So that's what I chose to do.

Pitchfork: I read that you wrote hundreds of songs for this album and continue to write three or four a day. Can you tell me about your writing process?

SRW: I usually start very early in the morning. I get up around 7 or 8 or so, and Ill usually lie in bed for a while. And I'll think about songs and various chord progressions that I would use. Or instrumentations. Or beats or something like that. And once I have something that I think I can work with, then I'll go in and make it on the computer. I'll try to recapture the sound that I had in my head when I was thinking about it. That's usually how I do it. I very rarely sit down with a guitar and try to write a song. I usually think about it a lot and then I'll try to re-create what was in my head at the time. And I don't work at night. I'm not very good about working at night. I get tired during the day and I usually like to save my nights to try things out recording. I like to get everything done during the early morning hours and the early part of the day.

Pitchfork: On previous albums, you've presented yourselves very cinematically, even so far as the packaging. What role do movies play in your creative process?

SRW: I probably watch movies more than I actually listen to music, I think. Photography and movies are a much bigger influence on me than music is itself. I like to think that the music is a mixture of personal experiences mixed with photography and movies. I always saw us as very cinematic.

Pitchfork: Who are some visual artists that you like?

SRW: It would be something like Robert Frank, who is a great photographer. And I always liked William Eggleston a lot. Henri Besson I felt was really good. And Brassaï. I like [Wolfgang] Tillmans' work a lot and Nan Goldin's work a lot. I used to like Sally Mann a lot, too. Those would be some of the photographers out there.

In regards to movies, I guess it would be stuff like Hitchcock and Kubrick and David Lynch and stuff like that. I used to watch a lot of film noir, but I don't much anymore because I've seen it all so many times. But every once in a while I'll just go back to it.

Pitchfork: I guess I've always identified the Raveonettes with juvenile delinquent movies like Daddy-O or Rebel Without a Cause.

SRW: Those movies are okay, but I'm not really a big fan, you know. If it had to deal with juvenile delinquency, I would probably have to go with something a little bit more modern. I would go with The Wanderers, which I guess was made in the 1970s but is about a 60s gang in the Bronx. I think that it has a little bit of a kitschy feel to it that I think is maybe appropriate. I'm sure there wasn't anything fun about being in a gang in the Bronx in the 60s, but the way they present it is kind of cool. They made it a little funny, I guess.

I'm also a big fan of John Waters.

Pitchfork: Really? What did you think of the new Hairspray?

SRW: I haven't seen that.

Pitchfork: I'm afraid to.

SRW: I decided not to, actually. I like the original. I think it's very, very good, and I don't really need to see a remake of it. I don't really watch too many remakes. I saw Scorsese's version of Cape Fear, which was good. That was a good remake.

Pitchfork: But then you've got something like Psycho.

SRW: I decided not to watch that, too. They even did a remake of Rear Window, too. I think actually Christopher Reeve did that. I would never watch something like that, because for me, those are some of my favorite movies of all time. Rear Window is probably my favorite movie of all time. That and Vertigo and To Catch a Thief and Dial M for Murder. That would be a tough one to do again.

Pitchfork: I think they're remaking The Birds now, which sounds like a disaster.

SRW: Yeah, I know. 'Cause it has no appeal anymore. It's like if you want to do something like that... It's like when people were watching science fiction movies in the 50s and 60s, they genuinely believed that Martians could come and take over the Earth. And people were afraid of it. It was the Atomic Age, you know. If you want to do a movie about aliens coming down to Earth nowadays, you need to do it with a smile. Do you know what I mean? When Tim Burton did Mars Attacks, he tried to make it a little bit kitschy, because it's not scary for people anymore. It's not scary that birds will attack you anymore, but I'm sure it was when Alfred Hitchcock made it. And it still is when you watch it.

Pitchfork: Getting way off that subject, I wanted to ask about the change in labels, going from Columbia to Vice.

SRW: Very simple. Our deal with Columbia was over. We had a three-album deal for Whip It On, Chain Gang of Love, and Pretty in Black. And that was the end of it.

Pitchfork: You didn't want to resign?

SRW: For various reasons. First off, the people that signed us back in 2002 and the people that we worked with were no longer working at the label, so it was sort of like a brand-new label with a lot of layoffs and a lot of new people coming in. The company had just changed so much that I think it had lost its identity a little bit and certainly we didn't feel like we were part of it all anymore, so that was basically the main reason for us wanting to do a new thing. And also, we just wanted to be more in control of what we do. At one point I think Columbia tried to hype us as sort of a mainstream band that would be just as popular as Christina Aguilera and stuff like that. And we never fit the bill. We were always a little puzzled by the fact that there were trying to promote us in such a way. We belong somewhere else. So now it's a lot better for us to be in control and to find a place where we truly belong. And right now we think the Vice people are the closest that we can get to a place where we're really at home. It was very good decision for us. I'm extremely psyched about it.

Pitchfork: Are you touring as a three-piece now?

SRW: Yeah. For the time being we're a three piece. We've been everything from two to five people, so right now we're at three. It seems to be working out really well for us. I think we're going to do this at least for a little while, then we'll talk about it and see if we want to continue with that or add more people or what we want to do. But right now we're very happy with this constellation, that's for sure.

Pitchfork: Who's the third person?

SRW: Various people, really. When we tour in America, we use a Danish drummer named Leah [Shapiro], who actually lives in New York. It's easy, and she's a great drummer and a really great girl to tour with. And when we do stuff in Europe, we usually use our original drummer, Jakob [Hoyer], who lives in Copenhagen. So that makes it easy too. He's obviously a perfect drummer and a great fucking guy. We're very, very blessed that we can choose different people-- they're both very cool musicians and great to hang out with. We have a really good chemistry within the whole group there.

Pitchfork: Have you toured this new material very extensively?

SRW: Well, we started touring it last year. We did a couple of tours last year when we started playing new stuff. The album came out last year in England-- well, in Europe actually. So we did a European tour and promoted the album over there. We've played this stuff live already, so we're very good at it.

Pitchfork: What can people expect from this tour?

SRW: I don't know if people come to our shows with any certain expectations. I think that we have fans who know that we're not... hugely entertaining in any way. We don't put on a show, so to speak. We basically just play the music the way it's supposed to be heard-- very loud, in a packed club, and in a good setting. People can stand still with their eyes closed, or they can dance. They can do whatever they want. We don't care. We just love playing the music, and we have very, very loyal fans that come to the shows to listen to us. And I like to think that we gain new fans every time we play, too, because we get a lot of positive response. Our shows are just very straight. They're not very complicated. Just like the music. It's big and powerful and it sounds amazing, and it's a very good vibe in the room, but it's very simple. There's not a whole lot of stuff going on except for some great, great songs and some tremendous sounds in the room.

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