Music > Interviews

Interview with 2:54

29/03/12

Sisters can do anything. It’s a pretty much unwavering fact known to all those girls who share the mystic bond, irrevocable up to ‘til the age of about 13. At that age, identity rears its ugly head, blackheads and dark moods, and the fate is uncertain until adulthood. Hannah and Colette Thurlow were one pair who showed the fortitude of the sisterhood, both sashaying stylishly through a geeky ascent to mature as talented, good looking girls with a predilection for fantastic music, with the ability to make it too. Putting bellows to the flames of their favourite bands growing up, like Queens of the Stone Age and Distillers, they make music that has rapidly earnt them support slots with Warpaint, Wild Beasts and more – and now, they take the roads alone…

Sorry to wake you at this ungodly hour for the interview…Oh God, no problem – we’re early risers anyway.

And have you adjusted yet to the US time difference, because you’ve been over there a little while now, haven’t you?Yeah, it’s been two weeks now and we’re pretty much in the swing of it, although we seem to keep crossing time zones as we go across America, but we’re managing alright! 

We’re rapidly approaching Friday night here in Norwich, and I was just wondering what your favourite way to welcome in the weekend is?Erm, I’m not sure what our perfect way is, but it’s either playing a show, which is always a great way to start a weekend, or just hanging out – me and Collette are always just hanging out and making songs and playing our guitars, so that’s our usual weekend off situation. It’s kind of a very big hobby!

You’ve just been doing all your SXSW appearances – has that finished now?Yeah, that finished on Sunday, just gone and we were there for six days. It was incredible, a really amazing experience.

From someone who’s never been but would love to, can you tell us a little about the atmosphere there?Well it’s concentrated around the centre of Austin and it’s literally every single bar along the road has a band playing, so there’s a constant buzz of activity. There’s bands everywhere, and bands trawling the streets with their gear and it’s just a really good vibe between all the bands who are playing. It’s a very supportive kinda vibe, so it’s a great place to be, especially if you’re a new band. It was very exciting for us.

And how were your shows? Was your schedule quite rigorous?It was kind of rigorous; we just played four shows in total, just a few during the day and a few at night, and it was just great to get the chance to play. People came out to watch them and there was a good vibe, a responsive crowd, so we loved it. Playing during the daytime was something we were trying to get used to.

Did you get to see many bands?We saw a few; we saw Chelsea Wolfe play and she was brilliant. We spent a lot of time at the Thrasher stage and saw a few bands there, saw a bit of Cro-Mags! Yeah, and just caught a load of different bands in passing.

I put you girls at about the same age as me, and I was thinking about the era that I was introduced to music, and I was wondering what helped you develop your own taste when you were younger?Erm, my introduction started off with a bit of everything; I went straight into quite heavy music, and that was my kinda introduction, but it was across the board for both of us. We were listening to everything from System of a Down and Slayer to TLC!

Yeah, you can’t be our age and escape TLC…!Yeah, they were some of the first records we bought and it just stemmed from there. We always had different tastes, but then started to grow together in our teens and now we very much share the same taste, but it’s quite eclectic still.

I think it’s very exciting when you’re a kid and you’re throwing yourself between different genres and you haven’t narrowed your taste down; you’re quite open minded and it’s quite fun…Yeah, absolutely and I don’t think that’s changed for us either! We’re still into a lot of different stuff.

You’re coming to Norwich very soon, which is the first date on your headline tour – how does it differ having the headline slot, rather than being a support band?Well this is only really our second run at doing a headline tour, so it’s just going to be really exciting to play a bit longer and kinda show the full range of songs, and get the chance to show them as a whole for the proper duration of a set. It’ll be exciting to get there and meet people who are into the band – it’s really exciting to see fans of the band.

How’s your summer shaping up? I’ve seen a couple of festivals confirmed…Yeah, there’s been a couple confirmed and fingers crossed we’ll have a jam packed summer because there’s some great festivals about. We’re booked in for a few already like Bestival – the line-up for that just looks incredible – so yeah, a fun summer ahead with hopefully a lot of touring.

Did you find that last year’s appearances on the festival circuit expanded your fanbase? Did you see the numbers trickling in after that?Yeah, definitely; any shows we play always help us, but with the festival shows you’re playing to audiences who, most of the time, don’t know who you are, so it was great. All the shows we played like Field Day and Summer Sundae, it was incredible to have people come and watch and it definitely felt like it was a great thing to do for the band, for us to play to as many people as possible. Yeah, it’s definitely something we want to do again – it’s such a great environment, playing festivals. Fingers crossed we’ll get to do some more!

How far away are we from the release of the album?Well it’s going to be coming out in May, so we’re ready to get it out there!

You’re in that waiting period then, where it’s all been polished and you’re in a period of anticipation waiting to get your debut out – how does that feel?It’s very exciting, and slightly scary at the same time to have it ready to go out in to the world, but it feels like it’s the right time for it to come out. We can’t wait for people to hear it; it’s a very exciting time, so we can’t wait.

I read in an interview that you said, “Scarlet’ will be on it, but probably won’t define the sound generally”, so at its lengths and breadths, how does it change throughout the album?Erm, well with all the songs we wrote, they all very much have their own world, they’re very much in their own little space, but there’s definitely something cohesive between them; they definitely feel like they’re from the same family of songs. ‘Scarlet’s just like a branch of that, and ‘You’re Early’ is like another branch, yet they all sit, on the album, very much together. So yeah, that’s the album!

The video for ‘Scarlet’ sees you in an isolated Danish forest – do you have a lot of input into the design for visuals, and videos?Oh yes, very much; it’s very much a collaborative thing. We worked closely with Jeppe Kolstrup, who directed it and we just had a very open dialogue with him about ideas. The forest itself was absolutely freezing and we were there from the crack of dawn to the evening, and It was just an incredible experience to be playing in the middle of this wonderful Danish forest, very surreal! It was an incredible day and we were really pleased with how it turned out.

You had some heavyweight production names on the EP – have they followed through to the album too?Yes, we had Rob Ellis for the majority of the production, then Adam Moulder mixed the record and yeah, it was a great treat to work with both of them. They’re so steeped in history of wonderful bands they’ve worked with, so it was great to have the opportunity to have a bit of an insight into that whilst working on it.

I imagine that was quite a self-affirming moment, when you knew that those guys were going to be involved in the production of your debut.Yeah, I mean when Collette and I make the songs, we’re very much in our little world, and to take those songs and have people work on those songs who’ve made albums that you’ve grown up listening to, and who have such a history, is just very exciting, to share our songs. It was just a very wonderful experience to share our music.

Your path into people’s awareness has been a relatively quick one, but was there a point when you could just feel that momentum shift, that you knew the band really had legs?It’s been over two years now since we came together and we’ve been touring pretty much from the beginning, just learning how to be a live a band, and learning how the four of us work on stage, really bringing the songs to life. It’s been great; it’s really felt like we have had the time to become a live band without too much pressure on us. We’ve just been ploughing on through and becoming the band we are, and we knew we were. It’s been an amazing adventure for the last couple of years.

Now Hannah, you’re coming to Norwich next month, and we’re certain you’ll bring us an amazing show, so what can we do for you?Bring yourselves! I’m not sure… I think any audience that takes the time to watch a new band and sticks around and enjoys it and has a bit of a boogie is always good! I hope Norwich can bring it, that’d be amazing! 

Emma Garwood

2:54 play upstairs at The Waterfront in the Studio on April 2nd. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk. 

How’s your summer shaping up? I’ve seen a couple of festivals confirmed…Yeah, there’s been a couple confirmed and fingers crossed we’ll have a jam packed summer because there’s some great festivals about. We’re booked in for a few already like Bestival – the line-up for that just looks incredible – so yeah, a fun summer ahead with hopefully a lot of touring.

Did you find that last year’s appearances on the festival circuit expanded your fanbase? Did you see the numbers trickling in after that?Yeah, definitely; any shows we play always help us, but with the festival shows you’re playing to audiences who, most of the time, don’t know who you are, so it was great. All the shows we played like Field Day and Summer Sundae, it was incredible to have people come and watch and it definitely felt like it was a great thing to do for the band, for us to play to as many people as possible. Yeah, it’s definitely something we want to do again – it’s such a great environment, playing festivals. Fingers crossed we’ll get to do some more!

How far away are we from the release of the album?Well it’s going to be coming out in May, so we’re ready to get it out there!

You’re in that waiting period then, where it’s all been polished and you’re in a period of anticipation waiting to get your debut out – how does that feel?It’s very exciting, and slightly scary at the same time to have it ready to go out in to the world, but it feels like it’s the right time for it to come out. We can’t wait for people to hear it; it’s a very exciting time, so we can’t wait.

I read in an interview that you said, “Scarlet’ will be on it, but probably won’t define the sound generally”, so at its lengths and breadths, how does it change throughout the album?Erm, well with all the songs we wrote, they all very much have their own world, they’re very much in their own little space, but there’s definitely something cohesive between them; they definitely feel like they’re from the same family of songs. ‘Scarlet’s just like a branch of that, and ‘You’re Early’ is like another branch, yet they all sit, on the album, very much together. So yeah, that’s the album!

The video for ‘Scarlet’ sees you in an isolated Danish forest – do you have a lot of input into the design for visuals, and videos?Oh yes, very much; it’s very much a collaborative thing. We worked closely with Jeppe Kolstrup, who directed it and we just had a very open dialogue with him about ideas. The forest itself was absolutely freezing and we were there from the crack of dawn to the evening, and It was just an incredible experience to be playing in the middle of this wonderful Danish forest, very surreal! It was an incredible day and we were really pleased with how it turned out.

You had some heavyweight production names on the EP – have they followed through to the album too?Yes, we had Rob Ellis for the majority of the production, then Adam Moulder mixed the record and yeah, it was a great treat to work with both of them. They’re so steeped in history of wonderful bands they’ve worked with, so it was great to have the opportunity to have a bit of an insight into that whilst working on it.

I imagine that was quite a self-affirming moment, when you knew that those guys were going to be involved in the production of your debut.Yeah, I mean when Collette and I make the songs, we’re very much in our little world, and to take those songs and have people work on those songs who’ve made albums that you’ve grown up listening to, and who have such a history, is just very exciting, to share our songs. It was just a very wonderful experience to share our music.

Your path into people’s awareness has been a relatively quick one, but was there a point when you could just feel that momentum shift, that you knew the band really had legs?It’s been over two years now since we came together and we’ve been touring pretty much from the beginning, just learning how to be a live a band, and learning how the four of us work on stage, really bringing the songs to life. It’s been great; it’s really felt like we have had the time to become a live band without too much pressure on us. We’ve just been ploughing on through and becoming the band we are, and we knew we were. It’s been an amazing adventure for the last couple of years.

Now Hannah, you’re coming to Norwich next month, and we’re certain you’ll bring us an amazing show, so what can we do for you?Bring yourselves! I’m not sure… I think any audience that takes the time to watch a new band and sticks around and enjoys it and has a bit of a boogie is always good! I hope Norwich can bring it, that’d be amazing! 

Emma Garwood

2:54 play upstairs at The Waterfront in the Studio on April 2nd. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk.