Now Screening: The Raveonettes

In a former life, Sune Rose Wagner was probably a film director. Judging by the scope of his new album, ‘Pretty In Black’, he’d have bagged more than a few Golden Globes in the process. The cinematically obsessed frontman of The Raveonettes has led his band to great things since the brilliant ‘Chain Gang Of Love’ was released in 2003.

The Raveonettes played an astonishing 260 live dates last year. In between, they’ve found time to record ‘Pretty In Black’ - an album that’s sure to please current fans and win over plenty of new ones. Featuring Ronnie Spector and The Velvet Underground's Mo Tucker, the album is a road trip album uniting Sune and guitarist/vocalist Sharin Foo’s unique musical vision, jangly new single ‘Love In A Trashcan’, for example, is a taster of the album’s formidable invention. The ghost of Buddy Holly seeps through ‘Here Comes Mary’, The Mamas & The Papas are resurrected on ‘Somewhere In Texas’, but for hipsters everywhere the alarming news is that Cliff Richard’s sometime backing band, The Shadows, is a mighty influence on album highlight ‘Uncertain Times’. Eyebrows will definitely be raised in certain quarters of the music industry…

Gigwise: How much of a departure is ‘Pretty In Black’ from ‘Chain Gang Of Love’?
Sune: “It doesn’t have any noise, it’s more mellow.”

G: But ‘The Heavens’ sounds like Elvis. It’s very different to anything you’ve done before.
S: “Yeah, but we won’t be playing it live though. There are some songs that really aren’t meant to be played live. It sounds real nice with the vinyl scratches on the record and the guitar sound, but you can’t recreate that live. It wouldn’t be very intimate for us to do that, so we play the other songs off the record instead.”

G: There’s many 50s influences on the record – Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, The Shadows – was that a conscious thing or something that just occurred?
S: “There’s always been that, ‘Chain Gang Of Love’ is exactly the same, but it’s just because it had noise that people thought it was different. The songs are basically the same, the same chord progressions, the same influences. I haven’t really found any new influences this time round. It’s the same kind of music we’ve always liked – 50s and 60s stuff.”

G: What was it like working with Ronnie Spector and Mo Tucker?
S: “It was great, we just called them, that was just basically it. Ronnie sang on ‘Ode To LA’, she liked the song a lot. Mo Tucker is a fan of the band, but we hadn’t heard from her in a while so we called her up. It was simple - very simple in fact. We thought it would be harder than that. Let that be a wake-call to everybody who wants to work with somebody, just call them!”

G: Where’s home at the moment?
S: “I live in New York, Sharin lives in London, but we’ve basically been touring since we came to Britain earlier in the year. Right after that we did two months in the States, then did a lot of shows in Italy with Beck. It’s fun playing with Beck, we’ve played with him before in London. He’s a really cool guy and makes sure everyone in his team treats us with respect. He’s always available to talk to.”

G: When you started the band you were disillusioned with the LA music scene, do you still feel that way?
S: “At the time I just didn’t think there was any interesting music coming out. It kinda bummed me out as I like to see shows. I was there for a month and didn’t see one show I liked. I was like, **** this shit, I’ll do my own music with my own band and play music that I like. I think the LA music scene has got better since then definitely. It was probably good back then too but I didn’t really have the ways and means to seek out the good shit.”

G: Why is your sound different on this release?
S: “It wasn’t something we planned. It happened and we ended up liking it. We didn’t put all the fuzz on this time, we did that on ‘Chain Gang Of Love’. Maybe people expected us to do that again, which is why everybody is asking about it I guess. But we thought we don’t need that. Chain Gang Of Love is such a good noise album that there’s no way we could do another one right now. I’m sure the next one will be a lot more aggressive as we don’t want to stay the same. It’s just periods of your life when you want to change things and do different stuff.”

G: B-movies are a big influence on your sound, would you consider doing a film score if the right opportunity came around?
S: “Oh absolutely, probably my biggest goal in life is to become a film composer. I’ve basically always wanted that, it’s how I got into music. I like a lot of film composers and I love film so it makes sense to mix those two things together. Also, the way I write songs is very cinematic as I see a lot of images when I write the songs.”

G: The people in your songs are like characters with a story to tell…
S: “Yeah, I’m always imagining certain scenarios and scenes in my head. The characters are based on personal experience, but sometimes in my mind I like to fictionalise things a little bit because I see it more as a movie than a documentary. We were just invited to play the Twin Peaks festival, but unfortunately we can’t do it because of our schedule. That would have been perfect for us I think.”

G: Which directors would you like to work with?
S: “David Lynch would be one, but I don’t think he’ll use anyone other than his film composer. I do like a lot of the Tim Burton stuff. A lot of people say our music would be good in a Quentin Tarantino movie, which it probably would. He dives into a lot of 50s and 60s music which would work well for us. John Waters would probably be my favourite though.”

G: Is it hard to find time to write when you’re touring?
S: “The question is how long do we want to keep touring for? How many backstage rooms do we want to sit and get drunk in? If we can find a loose touring schedule I think we could do this for many years. If we keep pushing ourselves like we are at the moment I don’t think we’ll last very long (laughs). Last year we did 260 shows, to do two months of straight touring in the States is a very hard thing. To fly from San Diego – the last date of our US tour – to Italy, which is an 18 hour ride and then play that same night, jet lagged and everything is tough. You can’t keep doing that. We toured Chain Gang Of Love for two years straight. I didn’t get time to write a single line, it’s very frustrating. If we find a healthy touring schedule, and a label willing to put out the record I don’t see any problem being around for a while.”

G: What other current bands do you admire?
S: “I really like The Arcade Fire a lot. We, as a band, like The Warlocks and Interpol, they’re great to hang out with.”

G: Anyone you can’t stand?
S: “Probably a lot! I wouldn’t necessarily say I can’t stand them, but there’s just a lot of bands that I don’t care about. It’s just not the music I’m interested in, not because they’re a bad band or write terrible songs, it’s just the style. There are a lot of bands I feel that way about.”

G: Do The Raveonettes have plans to jump on any political band wagon?
S: “I don’t know, if the right thing comes along and you want to support a good cause, why not. Our music, from the beginning, was meant for people to escape into when things were getting tough. Our music has a very fictionalised form because it’s so cinematic, it’s almost like watching a movie. Watching a movie is always a good way to clear your mind of bad things and concentrate on something else. At the same time it gives people a personal story which they can relate to.”