Making Us Click: The Golden Virgins

Not too long ago everything was rosy in the world of Sunderland’s The Golden Virgins. Signed to XL alongside the heavyweight musical pedigree of The White Stripes and The Prodigy, they released their quite fantastic debut album ‘Songs of Praise’ to almost universal critical acclaim in May last year. Sadly and unjustly, the album was largely ignored by the record buying public, shifting a paltry amount of units. Eventually, the band parted ways with XL and are currently without a label home.

Thankfully, in the face of adversity The Virgins have struck up a one-off deal with Bunker Records to finally release the thumping dancefloor-inducing album track ‘I Am A Camera’. Gigwise caught up with frontman Lucas Renny to get the low-down on it all…

Speaking very fondly of ‘I Am A Camera’, Lucas admits that releasing it was always on the horizon and explains why it’s taken so long to surface “We’ve always wanted to release it… We hadn’t sold too many records and with Leo Silverman (XL A & R man) leaving no one else at XL was prepared to release anything on the rock side, except The White Stripes funnily enough! We just kept asking to release it and we eventually got a deal to release it through Bunker records, courtesy of XL.”

For those who haven’t heard the track, it’s an upbeat gem buoyed by generous synths, catchy verses and trés tongue-in-cheek “You make my shutter click, click, click, click” lyrics. A divergence from other Golden Virgins material, Lucas admits that it was written with one thing in mind, “It’s sort of a song about obsession… obsessive lust and desire. The idea for the song was that we wanted to establish a presence on the dance floor, we have got slower, sadder songs, but this one’s quite upbeat.”

Naturally, the conversation soon shifts to the band’s lack of commercial success and understandably it’s something that baffles Lucas, “(‘Songs of Praise’) is a much underused and undervalued album. Not too many people were interested in writing about us, maybe because we’re the wrong side of 30! I mean we were all totally disappointed by how badly it sold. We got good reviews, and I think if it got bad ones then we’d have understood why it went wrong.”

Despite these woes, ‘I Am A Camera’ has certainly provided a glimmer of hope for the foursome, “We’re a great band and the songs mean a lot to us. I guess we’ve got to stick at it. Luckily we’ve made the BBC 6 Music playlist and I heard Mark Radcliffe played us the other day, so there are little things where people are appreciating us. The Futureheads though have David Bowie going to see them in America; sadly we don’t have anything like that!”

Of course, Ross from fellow city dwellers The Futureheads used to be in The Golden Virgins before leaving for other pastures. Is Lucas a bit jealous of the rip-roaring success The Futureheads have achieved? He jokes: “I wouldn’t say envious. Green-eyed envy and hatred more like. No that’s not true. We still like them. I don’t see too much of Ross any more but I went out with Barry the other night and now they’re back from America they’ve started ringing us again and going out. There has been no outbreak of bitterness or envy.” What a bloody nice bloke.

Speaking just the week after the Arctic Monkeys steamed to the top of the singles charts, the mania around the Sheffield youngsters seems a particularly cruel juxtaposition to the plight of The Golden Virgins, Lucas comments “I think it’s amazing. I think that song’s (‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’) good but it’s not a number 1 record for me, it’s a shock really but good luck to them. How old are they? Nineteen, twenty? It must be down hill from here on in.”

We ask whether The Virgins will ever consider using Guerilla tactics and make their songs freely available on the net to gain more exposure (a là Arctic Monkeys) and it’s something that Lucas hasn’t yet written off “We might have to look at it! We have got a few people interested in us, but no one’s breaking down any doors sadly. We’ve got a deal signed up with Bunker for this single, so who know what happens from here?”

Ever the realist, Lucas knows that the first step on the road to recovery will be getting decent management. He muses, “Firstly we need a manger. Before we were self-managed and cut out a vital element. There were loads of things that were happening and we were thinking – why is this happening? Why is our single three pounds more expensive than The Futureheads one? We need a manger to help us out before we sign to a label.”

Frustratingly, the band have got a whole palette of new material on the shelf ready to be released once a label duly snaps them up, Lucas explains “We’ve got an albums worth of stuff, 12 songs. There’s a song called ‘Spellbound’ which we’ve been playing live – it’s a romantic ballad about a beautiful woman casting a spell over a man. Explaining how their sound has progressed, he adds:  “In terms of lyrics, we’re still concerned with hell and bad times. Musically they’re still in the same vein – slower, late night songs – songs to listen to after you’ve downed a bottle of bourbon and rang an ex-girlfriend. There’s no ‘I Am A Camera’ as yet.’

Looking to future aspirations, and for Lucas his hopes are plain and clear: We nees to get signed again and get enough money together so we can see the world. We’re still in Sunderland and although it’s quite an exciting city in some ways, I’m getting sick of the place. We didn’t even get out the country last year which was pretty upsetting.”

With a bit of luck, fingers crossed The Golden Virgins won’t fall at the somewhat clichéd wayside like many other brilliant bands who just didn’t get the much-needed exposure they so deserved. For this band are truly much better than that.

Photos by: Shirlaine Forrest