Made of one-part Sune Rose Wagner and one-part Sharin Foo, Danish rock band The Raveonettes has been harmonizing its way to an ever-growing audience for a decade now, using Motown-surfy fuzzed-out rock beats and churning guitars for a sound that is now finding plenty of imitators (see Best Coast and Dum Dum Girls).
But just as The Raveonettes sees its distinctive style coming into its own, it has decided to move into another direction. The release of its fifth album Raven in the Grave (and a U.S. tour stopping in Atlanta in mid-April) shows a band playing with dreamy synths and forming a sound which could never be described as beachy.
Sharin Foo took time out of her pre-tour schedule from her Los Angeles home to talk a little about how her band is a bit out of fashion.
I got a chance to listen to the new album and it seems to be a bit of a departure from previous albums, what was the thinking going into this album?
It’s not really a certain thinking we had, in retrospect, we don’t do that much thinking when we go into making records, it’s a very intuitive process and we just kind of go for what stays with us at that moment. I think it was just what we were drawn toward, more of an ambient and echoey and shadowy kind of intimate vibe.
I read somewhere that you said it was a wintry album, and if I remember my Los Angeles weather correctly, it’s not very wintry in Los Angeles. Did you miss the winter?
(Laughs) Well I spent a month in Denmark in December, so I was there when we’re doing some of the album. But it’s very typical to romanticize what you don’t have and you miss something that becomes a nice place to escape to. There’s a fondness for it. We are deep down from the North in Scandinavia and there’s always a part of that that shines through on this album. There’s really not a lot of beachy sun vibe, palm trees on this record.
Yeah, I guess you move to where the beach is and you’re no longer playing the surf music you were making in the past.
Yeah. I love it when I go out to the beach and it’s really overcast and it’s dramatic and it’s misty in the air. I really love that, it’s one of my favorite beach moments.
Tell me about the writing process between the two of you, I know he’s in New York and you’re in L.A., how does that work?
Sune will email me fragments, or in this case we spent a week in New York together we were in a studio in Williamsburg and just going through a ton of material, little ideas, little pieces, guitar idea, beats. It was a lot of involved demo ideas and then we kind of agree upon which ones we should try to develop. Then we email back and forth and try to steer in the right direction. Sune is the main song writer he comes of the main ideas and then I come in as more of a navigator. We talk a lot about arrangement and the harmonies and the sound. The creative process for this album in particular was very intimate, were as in the previous record we went into the studio and had a producer and it was more formal than just me and Sune.
Do you prefer it that way? Does it take you back to when you started?
I would say right now that’s what I prefer, we had one of our best creative conversations of our career. We get very focused when it’s just the two of us.
You’ve been a band for a decade now, did you think a decade ago you’d still be making records 10 years later?
I don’t even know if I thought about that then, or even had time to think about that. Now I think a lot about it, I say “Gosh am I still going to be making records a decade from now and I’m going to be touring and I’m still going to be in a rock band a decade from now?” It’s a crazy notion but I didn’t think about it that much a decade ago, I was just going with the flow, it was such a whirlwind and we were completely immersed in an almost too consuming way. But I would love to keep making records.
What have you learned in the past decade that makes you say “I wouldn’t do that again.”
I think I’ve learned a lot; I don’t even know where to begin. The main thing we really learned is to stay extremely focused on the music and the creativity and make sure that’s thriving. Be very true to your instincts. There was one point in our career where there were so many people involved on so many levels and it was all a distraction and I feel that we learned to be very focused and not compromise. I think a lot of people don’t understand how much other stuff there is to deal with, there’s a lot of business things. You need to find a balance where you’re in control but at the same time you stay focused on why you started to make music in the first place.
What’s your take on the music business today? It’s changed plenty in the decade since you started.
I sort of go back and forth. One day I’ll be extremely excited about it and I feel there’s endless opportunities and possibilities of being creative and accessible and being in control of career. But some days I’ll be overwhelmed with that, that there is so many distractions, that you have to be so creative, that you have to come up with ideas all of the time, that it’s all about marketing and how to get your music out there. For me I feel like we’re in a good place, just in terms of what we’ve learned and where we’re at, I’m happy at this spot.
And there’s a tour coming up. Is there anything you do to get ready for the tour?
I’ve actually been practicing bass because I have to play bass which I haven’t done for four or five years, it’s like picking up an old friend.
Have to remember those songs you wrote.
Yeah reacquaint myself with them. But we’re also thinking about the visual side aspect of the shows and also we’re doing a new setup that we haven’t done before, it’s me and Sune, I play bass. he plays guitar we sing and we have two drummers, so it’s the technical aspect of things and trying to get them up and running but that’s all exciting.
There have been several mentions that the Raveonettes are the band that sparked a pop music revival in the U.S. with bands such as Best Coast. What are your thoughts about that?
That’s a flattering to read but I don’t know if we’re really the ones who started a pop revival. I think it might be more of a cultural wave and maybe we were a little early on that curve. Me and Sune were always really good at being out of fashion, so we were making the Motown beats 10 years too early. But now we’re moving to something else. We’ll be completely out of fashion again.
