The Raveonettes
Issue #24
The band in black recruits Ronnie Spector and Moe Tucker to flesh out the sounds on their third album
By Kathleen St. John
Published: June 1st, 2005 | 1:55pm
It was a steamy high noon in Austin, Texas, when I met the Raveonettes' Sharin Foo at a restaurant on Sixth Street. Hungover from the previous two days of SXSW 2005 festivities, I was a little worried about my mental state when I arrived for the interview. My worry became straight-up fear when I was introduced to singer-guitarist Foo, who is 6-foot, blonde, and gorgeous. She put me at ease almost immediately, though. "You hungover?" she asked quietly as we sat down at a table. "Yes," I whispered desperately. "How about you?" She chuckled. "Eh ... a little."
As we talked over oil-barrel-sized glasses of water and Coke, she did seem tired — probably from a full morning of interviews. In most of the Raveonettes' press material, Foo looks untouchable. Up close, her face is girlish and smattered with a few tiny freckles. Her voice is soft and low, with a light accent from her native Denmark. In short, Foo wasn't what I had expected, much like Pretty in Black, the duo’s latest album. On Pretty, she and bandmate Sune Rose Wagner made a deliberate departure from their previous releases — 2002’s Whip It On and 2003’s The Chain Gang of Love — which relied on unbreakable rules (B-flat minor only! No songs longer than three minutes!) and plenty of distortion to give the band their distinctive fuzz-toned-'60s sound.
Pretty in Black throws those rules out the window and goes for broke with a wide palette of pop sounds and textures. They brought in studio musicians to flesh out the great love sound they wanted and even borrowed the talents of their heroes. Ronnie Spector contributed her inimitable voice to "Ode to L.A.," Moe Tucker hit the skins on five songs, and Suicide's Martin Rev provided his legendary keyboard skills. The record is a treat to listen to but doesn’t ignore the Raveonettes’ blackhearted, Bonnie-and-Clyde mean streak. They may be ambitious, but the Raveonettes know who they are, and ditching the old conceits only reveals their true rocknroll allegiances even more.
Up until now, the Raveonettes was just you and Sune. Now that there are five of you touring, how’s that working so far?
The core of the band is me and Sune, and we’re the ones that write, make all the decisions, and tell the guys what to do. But the live band is five people now, which happened because of the change in our music. We’ve always been very strict, and kind of minimalistic, and very stubborn. But the new album is quite a different piece. It’s all over the place in regards to keys and chords. There’s really varied instrumentation. It’s more organic. Now we have three guitars — I’m playing guitar now. I was never a proper bass player anyway, but now we have a really good guy. I think the band sounds better than ever, really.
I had no idea what to expect when I got Pretty in Black. I was like, “Oh my gosh! It almost doesn’t sound like the same band.”
You think so?
Well, you do in a certain sense, but it’s so lush and huge. I really like it.
I like it too. And for us it was a very natural kind of development. We’ve had a crazy lifestyle for three years, and we’ve changed and our music is changing with us, obviously. I still think it sounds like the Raveonettes. A very distinct thing about us is always the boy-girl vocals — me and Sune singing together. Sune’s songwriting is very particular. It has that nostalgia about it that we’ve always had. We feel like we’ve opened up the doors for ourselves and now we can really do anything. There’s so many possibilities. It really doesn’t matter about the genre. It’s about the core of it and the soul of it and the songs.
I like your cover of “My Boyfriend’s Back.”
I know, we’re totally schizophrenic. “My Boyfriend’s Back” actually came about because we were asked to do it for a movie. They approached us and said they were creating a soundtrack that was all these contemporary bands doing cover songs of ’50s and ’60s classics. They specifically asked us to do “My Boyfriend’s Back,” which we thought was really funny because our producer is Richard Gottehrer, who actually wrote “My Boyfriend’s Back” and recorded it back in ’63 or ’64 with the Angels. Then we thought it was so charming that we wanted to put it on the album.
When you met Ronnie Spector, did you freak out?
Yeah, we did actually freak out. We were very starstruck. Having Ronnie in the studio, we were just like [makes jaw-dropping face].
Did she have the black hair and ...
… She had long black hair and a little hat and she wore dark sunglasses. She was definitely a star. There’s an aura of protection around her, all these people. Sune wrote “Ode to L.A.,” and we thought that song was just so down her alley. We were a little bit like, “I wonder how her voice sounds and everything. Is it the way she sounded when she started out?” … but we were just blown away. There was no doubt about it — that was Ronnie Spector. Me and Sune, we just had to start drinking in the afternoon [because] we were so nervous. We were like, “Richard, you have to take over. You’re in control now. We cannot tell Ronnie to do another take.”
The Moe Tucker thing’s pretty awesome, too.
I remember we came through, I think maybe Atlanta, and she lives not too far away. Her manager came and he was like, “Hey, Moe sends her regards. Moe Tucker.” We were like, “Oh, my God!” So we knew that she liked us. It’s very inspiring to see the way she works with sound. It’s very simple, it’s not a lot of fuss, but it’s about how she hits the drum in the exact right spot so it’s this “boom!” sort of thing.
How have you enjoyed being a guitarist? Are you feeling good about it?
I am now. I must admit that initially I was a bit confused about my identity at one point, losing the bass. I’d been playing it for three years and I felt so confident. I’ve always been playing guitars, but suddenly having to be onstage in a different kind of role, I had to adjust a little bit. But now I’m totally loving it. I’m so in love with my Gretsch.
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