Noisettes interview: 'We're not expecting success of last album'
Noisettes broke through into mainstream music's consciousness back in 2009 with their chart hit 'Don't Upset The Rhythm (Go Baby Go)'.
Since then, singer Shingai Shoniwa and guitarist Dan Smith have trekked the globe performing at festivals and writing new material for their third studio record Contact.
Digital Spy caught up with the duo to chat about their new music, mainstream remixes and whether Nicki Minaj should be allowed to wear what she wants.
How have you found the initial reaction to 'That Girl'
Shingai: "The reaction to the new music on a whole has been amazing. I don't want to pick and choose or favor a particular song anymore, I just want to be able to play the whole album!"
Why did you choose it to release as a single?
Shingai: "We didn't choose it! You never know which songs are going to be embraced by radio during a campaign, so when they want something, you've just got to give it to them!"
Dan: "It wasn't planned at all. We found out about it when we were doing a soundcheck for a radio awards show and we hadn't included it in our set. We got a text saying, 'The single's changed, can you play it tonight?'"
Are 'That Girl' and 'Winner' a good indication of what we can expect from the new album?
Shingai: "Those songs sound very different from each other, so they're a good indication of the variety on the album. The fact that we've had those two songs with different tempos to kickstart the album campaign, shows how diverse it will be."
How would you describe the album?
Dan: "It's kind of like a film. If you were asked to pick scenes out of a film, would you be able to judge the movie as a whole? If you picked a love scene and a fight scene, would that make it that kind of film? It could be a comedy! Our album has so many elements in it - it has moments of gravity and moments of lightness."
Does that mean there's a storyline that runs through it?
Shingai: "I wouldn't say there's a narrative, but there are common themes in the lyrics that relate to the album title. That was accidental as well - that a lot of our songs seem to involve making contact. Whether that's making contact with people, making contact with the night or going traveling. You only realize that after when you try to work out the tracklisting."
You traveled far and wide to make this album. Has there been a particular place that has inspired your music?
Dan: "You kind of immediately switch off a bit when you hear a band singing songs about traveling and being on the road, so it's not about that. It's more to do with our friendship and has the backdrop of us making places our homes. We could make a bench in a park our home easily by thinking positively about it and I think that's because the place is here [places hand on heart]."
How important do you think it is for an artist to write their own material?
Shingai: "I think it's really great for your development. But there are also a lot of amazing singers who have had a career of interpreting a lyric - like Whitney Houston or blues and gospel singers. Their originality is putting their own character into that song. I think that's a beautiful art in itself. I wouldn't mind if half the songs on our album were written by somebody because we just really loved those songs."
Considering your previous success, are you nervous about the release of your new album?
Shingai: "I don't think the success of our last album was a fluke, but I definitely wasn't expecting it. I was expecting to just enjoy the ride and get some recognition of our contribution to the bandscape. It was nice to get that, so it would be a bit ungrateful to say, 'I won't accept anything less than that'."
If a big DJ like Calvin Harris approached you to remix one of your tracks for a single, would you be up for it?
Shingai: "We love remixes - bring it on! You can't really close any doors. Music evolves and there are lots of different hybrid ways it does that. We're not ones to turn our noses up at collaborating or doing things in a different way. If it's just to get the number one single and you don't really like the remix, then that's a shame because it's then about an end goal and not about the musical process. But I suppose that's some people's goal, isn't it? To be famous."
Image is a big part of your act, but other artists like Lady GaGa and Nicki Minaj get criticized over their style for seeking publicity. What are your views on popstar costumes?
Shingai: "I think it's only fair Nicki Minaj gets to express herself! There are two camps: the music and fashion critics and the actual fans. If the fans get the image and concept first and the music second, it must feel hard for them to get close to that artist.
"I'm sure if we had more money we'd have bigger concepts and I think if people can do that, then it's great. If you look at Kate Bush and Bowie, they looked like they were genuinely having a lot of fun. But I do think there are some artists who are doing that too hard now and are not having fun."
Noisettes' new single 'That Girl' is available to download now, while new album Contact follows on August 27.
Shingai Shoniwa Talks Us Through The Noisettes' New Album, Contact
Next week sees the release of the Noisettes third album, Contact - and you lucky lot get to hear it first, before anyone else. We’re streaming the entire thing right here on Grazia Daily. Yes! The duo – singer Shingai Shoniwa and guitarist Dan Smith - were behind 2009’s massive smash hit Don’t Upset The Rhythm and have travelled the world for this new album, recording in LA, New York, London, Brighton and Ireland. We caught up with Shingai to talk music, festivals and vintage cars…
Grazia Daily: You’ve worked with some amazing people on this new album…
Shingai Shoniwa: Yeah. I flew out to LA to work with Ne-Yo which was quite amazing. He was quite the gentleman. It was really fun. It was a bit like a dream. In New York we worked with a guy called Jean Baptiste Kouame who works with Will-i.am, who was really cool. We did a session with a producer/writer called Chuck Harmony who has worked with a lot of R’n’B singers like Toni Braxton. I love all the drama of some of those over the top singers.
Grazia Daily: Do you have any favourite tracks on the new album?
Shingai Shoniwa: I’d probably say Contact. It’s one of the most enjoyable vocal performances I’ve delivered and it’s my kind of a love song. It’s about how we’re always emailing, texting, bbm-ing, and tweeting each other but nothing beats human contact – the embrace of a lover or a friend. You can’t really high-five someone through a computer screen. That’s definitely the ballad that I’d definitely go for.
Grazia Daily: You’ve played loads of festivals…what’s your favourite festival memory?
Shingai Shoniwa: Probably when we played Glastonbury for first time in 2007. I’d just bought this old vintage Mercedes. We managed to put the drum kit, all the guitars, all the amps, the band and a mate of ours inside. It was really muddy but those old Mercs are really powerful and I had to tow someone else out who got stuck. That was the year I met Rosario Dawson, too. She had lost her mates and we had a really good night then made a fry up on the gas stove outside our tent in the morning. It was her first UK festival, and we’ve been friends ever since.
Grazia Daily: What’s on your iPod at the moment?
Shingai Shoniwa: I’m listening to a lot of African music at the moment, and I really like the Pnau Vs Elton Jon album. I love the Phenomenal Handclap band too. I drive around a lot in my vintage Merc so I have to listen to fun, weird and wonderful stuff. I can’t put Capital Radio on in that car…the speakers aren’t built for it. They need lots of bass and really warm old school sounds. But when I’m in an Addison Lee I’ll listen to whatever the driver puts on which is usually some kind of bubblegum pop.
Grazia Daily: What new artists are you excited about?
Shingai Shoniwa: I really love Jospehine Oniyama. She’s fantastic. She’s from Liberia but she grew up in Manchester and we did quite a lot of shows with her. She’s got this amazing pop-folk sound. It’s really, really nice.
Grazia Daily: If you could have written one song, what would it be?
Shingai Shoniwa: Probably something like What’s Love Got To Do With It by Tina Turner. She’s someone I would absolutely love to meet. She amazing, absolutely incredible. She’s definitely one of my musical heroes. I love people like Billie Holiday and Kate Bush too, just people will real personality and energy - people who are unique and bring their own unique spin to pop music.
Grazia Daily: What do you like to read?
Shingai Shoniwa: I love anything by Ben Okri, who’s a Nigerian writer. I like classic stuff like Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell. I like reading things like the Orange prize which introduces you to a lot of new writers. I like Anais Nin if you fancy something cheekier. I’m a really open minded reader.
Grazia Daily: And what about films?
Shingai Shoniwa: One of my favourite films of all time is Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. It’s got Dionne Warwick cast as the drummer of this amazing, psychedelic soul rock ‘n’ roll girl band in the late 60s and they go to LA from their small town in search of making it. The music is great too. I love that film.
Shingai Shoniwa: 'The Noisettes have always been a rainbow tribe'
The singer on collaborating with Africa Express, which features 80 musicians on one train as it makes a string of stops across the UK
When did you first get involved with Africa Express?
First by being a fan and going to shows. The Noisettes did our first collaboration with them last year – a gig in La Coruña in Spain. On the first night there was a big jam session, loads of instruments on stage. I remember jamming with John Paul Jones and Fatoumata [Diawara]. On the second day those who had bonded, or had people that they wanted to work with, worked up material for a show on the third night. Nick Zinner was with Rokia Traoré; Damon was at one point with Amadou and Mariam. We had Afrikan Boy get up with us. It was an amazing musical rainbow.
Has it opened you up to lots of new music?
To be honest, I've always grown up in an environment when I've had a lot of musicians coming in and out of my living room. My mum and my uncle used to put on events at the Africa Centre. So before the whole renaissance, Peter Gabriel-endorsed vibe of what people called "world music" in the early 2000s my mum had being doing that since the late 80s. So it was normal for me to come in from school and someone would chuck a shaker in my hand. Someone would ask me: "What's your favourite song?" and I'd say Whitney Houston and they'd say: "Well this is how you play it, zimba style!"
You're well equipped for the collaborative, genre-fusing of Africa Express then…
The Noisettes have always been a bit of a rainbow tribe. For us, [the collaboration] feels easy, exciting – natural, not forced.
The train aspect is fascinating. How do you imagine it will work?
You'll often find that musicians traveling together will end up jamming and singing and getting out a drum anyway. If I get the last train from Victoria to Brixton, or from London Bridge to Deptford, and there's a few musicians on, that's what they'll end up doing anyway. Or say we bumped into Damon on the Eurostar and there was another musician in that carriage, I'm sure within a couple of seconds we'd start jamming. Put that in a context where the whole train is full of musicians, with instruments; where we're not gonna be told, "Keep the noise down"; where it's properly organised, and we've got gigs at every stop… It's what we already do, but multiplying it, doing it on a national scale.
Sources: 1, 2, 3
Who has it? Thoughts?
I just got home from work so I haven't listened to it yet smh