PALE WAVES continued from page 26
Grande rafters . But mostly , it ’ s got the comfortable , neighborly familiarity of a missing-John-Hughes-movie soundtrack . Call it “ The Brunch Club ,” as they once described brunch on The Simpsons – “ It ’ s not quite breakfast , not quite lunch . But it comes with a slice of cantaloupe .”
Baron-Gracie is happy to stretch out on the therapeutic couch and chew the notereviewing cantaloupe . “ In the past three years , I ’ ve traveled around the world , I ’ ve met so many people , and I ’ ve had so many experiences and moments that evolved me into who I am right now ,” she sighs . “ And there were times when we were just on tour , every single night , and it felt like my whole life was touring . And as amazing as playing shows are , when you ’ re playing a show every single night , and you ’ re constantly traveling somewhere , it can get really , really tiring . So there were a lot of recurring moments where I had to take myself aside and be , like , ‘ Wow . This is a LOT . And I don ’ t think I can deal with it .’ So I needed space , and I needed some time away from that environment , to really work on myself and become a better version of myself .” Gig after desensitizing gig , getting trashed after shows — and sometimes before , just to muster Victoriaunleashing courage . She had had enough of such aberrant behavior , a truth underscored by a chilling tour bus accident she narrowly dodged last March in Europe , where Pale Waves was opening a soon-tobe-canceled-by COVID-19 tour with Halsey . She and Luck flew ahead to Berlin while her bandmates chose to make the theoretically scenic winter drive . “ But traveling through bad conditions in Sweden , the bus slipped on black ice and flipped over , and they were all involved in a really serious accident . It was really brutal , and it messed them up mentally , but they ’ ve come out of it really strong . And I felt really awful that I wasn ’ t involved , that I wasn ’ t on that bus . But , as they would say , the fewer people on that bus , the better .”
Hence the united front Pale Waves presents on its Who album cover , where they resemble a New York subway gang from Walter Hill ’ s The Warriors , even down to Baron-Gracie ’ s less-theatrical , streetsmart new look . And when Wood and Silvani jetted back to England as the coronavirus coiled tighter last year , and she had the opportunity to remain in L . A . with her galpal , mid-Costey-session — as Doran did with her America-based significant other — she grabbed it . And the mindexpanding consciousness she drifted into is certainly New-Age-Californian , by definition . It had been a long time since the vocalist had a few days off in a row , let alone the weeks , then months that the pandemic lockdown extended this downtime into . “ Looking back at myself only a year ago , I was a bit of a mess ,” she says . “ Mentally very unstable , emotionally all over the place , very cynical and negative . And I realized that I had to change that around , so having time to breathe , away from the pressure of being on tour , I wound up in a steady routine , and that gave me the sense of living a normal life . I didn ’ t have to go do interviews ; I didn ’ t have to go onstage — I could just devote the day to working on me , Heather . And it really changed my outlook on myself and as a person . I started to read a lot , and I found comfort in doing new things , like yoga and meditation and eating healthy , and really looking after my body , physically and mentally . And now I feel like a totally different person .”
Luck and Baron-Gracie resided in a cottage in Venice Beach , and their daily routine kept them sane and centered during the lockdown . Each morning began the same way , with good coffee at 9 AM , followed by a half-hour of yoga , a half-hour of meditation , then a home-gym workout or a neighborhood run , then , at last , a much-deserved breakfast . Next : writing new music , perhaps reading a book ( she swears by all the zen-like , transformational tips she ’ s soaked up from Swiss-born British philosopher Alain de Botton ), then perhaps a relaxing nature walk or a drive through sunny Malibu . “ Then we ’ d come back , cook a good meal , and then just watch a movie or play a game of chess ,” she says . “ It was such a good time in my life , and I really needed that break .”
Now Baron-Gracie can casually allude to lofty de Botton treatises like Art as Therapy , The Architecture of Happiness , and Pleasures and Sorrows of Work , and how they can apply to everyday situations , even those of a Grimaldi-somber Goth-pop star . “ He really educated me on emotional intelligence , and his words really impacted my life drastically — he really changed my perspective on myself as a human being . So I feel like I ’ ve got a much more spiritual outlook on life , and that ’ s really helped me .”
Now that she ' s worked through her problems , this self-starter -- like any good mathematician -- was happy to show her work on every equation for Who Am I ? " Tomorrow " was the first track she penned for the record , she explains , and it was bristling with gritty guitar . And that set the spunky tone for the proceedings . So as much as she still loves the synth-rippling pop music from " My Mind ," she says , " On this album , I really wanted to switch it up . I really wanted it to be authentic to the childhood Me , the childhood dream that I had . So this time the music is very guitardriven -- it ' s not really dressed up in a lot of production or a load of synths . You can take any of these tracks and just play them on acoustic guitar and it would sound amazing . And I knew that that would change the Pale Waves sound , but that ' s what I wanted ."
There ’ s only one thing Baron-Gracie has yet to figure out . Folks around here will know when Victoria is on the prowl , she says , because havoc will follow in her vengeful wake . “ And I think sometimes I make my crosses too brutal to bear , but that ’ s just who I am as a person — I don ’ t want to talk nonsense , I just want to get straight to the point . But if it ’ s in a text , I have to admit that it comes across as quite rude — sometimes , someone will suggest things to do or offer me help , but in a text , I can just shut them down completely , and they can get really upset , just like any human being .” So she ’ s working on her delivery , she ’ s working on it . But after all , it ’ s Pale Waves that she ’ s always fighting for , she adds . “ And I do want the best things for us , so I will always be the first one to say , ‘ No , that ’ s not good enough !’”
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Hen Ogledd
Catling , a sci-fi trilogy of environmentally extreme horror . It has lots of interesting ideas . One of them is these angels coming back from the jungle to save the world , but saving humanity itself isn ’ t necessarily very high on their priority list . So that was definitely in my thoughts — we are the priority to us , but actually , in the greater scheme of things , that ’ s where a lot of the problems have arisen – from us not seeing ourselves as part of a bigger system or organism , not seeing ourselves as custodians of it .
IE : What is the Hen Ogledd belief system , then ? DAVIES : I think the manifesto is in the record . It ’ s hidden in the record somewhere . It ’ s an attempt to have an openness , an openness to different voices , to different ways of looking at things , and openness to making music differently and in different ways together . That ’ s what I think is running through it , and some of the songs overtly point to it , as well . There ’ s so much hatred out there at the moment , so we thought , “ How can we counter that with positive thinking on different levels , without some dumbing down kind of thing ?” I don ’ t know if that ’ s a philosophy , but it ’ s a unique viewpoint . And that ’ s our attempt to cope with what ’ s happening at the moment .
IE : This is interesting because pop music doesn ’ t traditionally ask listeners to think . DAWSON : Yeah . And I ’ ve always really enjoyed listening to pop music . And I ’ ve not really analyzed it so much . But since we ’ ve been doing these experimental pop albums , I ’ ve been looking at things a bit differently in the pop realm . And sometimes in pop , things did get past people , things could be secreted in , in a way . There ’ s a nice interview with the comedian Stewart Lee , and he was saying , “ Standup is great because you can pretend that you ’ re doing something really trivial and you ’ re just doing these humorous things . But then you can hide these larger themes that you couldn ’ t otherwise talk about .” And I think you can do that with pop music , too — you can kind of sneak things in , themes that aren ’ t being discussed elsewhere or are being passed over by dominant Capitalist music tropes . But personally , I ’ m quite resistant to pinning anything down to one philosophy because I think if we could do that and express the idea more succinctly , then that ’ s how we would do it . But I think Free Humans is the most succinct way that we can express how we feel and respond to that . And to dial it down any further would be to dilute the message . PILKINGTON : If we have some kind of philosophy , it might be about uniting the people in some way or trying to overcome the divisions . But the media fuels divisions , and politics fuels divisions in a way that ’ s really unhelpful . And I think music can be something that unites . Although I ’ m sure people have divided opinions on our music , the idea , in general , is that we could all be working together much better , with more understanding and more empathy , instead of fighting . DAVIES : And I think Sally and Richard came up with a very beautiful response during lockdown with their duo Bulbils . They recorded over 40 albums together , and they were a real tonic at the beginning of lockdown for me . I found them really helpful .
IE : Forty ? Really ? DAWSON : Yeah . When lockdown happened here in Newcastle , we made this lockdown pact — we were trying to record an album a day , but we slowed down quite quickly . We only made 49 albums . And they ’ re short albums , and quite simple , as well — very simple music , with a lot of drone stuff and very synthy and kind of rough . But we slowed down in June , July , and now we ’ re gonna make one more , so we ’ ll round out at 50 . We were meant to be touring my 2020 album , but we suddenly found ourselves with a lot of time on our hands . But this whole lockdown situation has forced people to confront and reassess the value systems in their lives . And I think we identify with — or make our identities through — our work a lot of times , and that ’ s quite a tenuous thing for any artist . And I was thinking about that and watching a lot of David Lynch movies , and you get to a certain age , and you start to ask yourself , “ How can it be worthwhile to still stay in this fight ? Because it really feels like a losing battle at the moment .” But then you realize that maybe the losing battles are the only ones worth fighting . But we wanted to make music that was very practical and useful to people , music to relax them . We started with very simple long drones that were quite mellow , and there four or five albums like that . Then we just started exploring more — we made some purely acoustic albums with just gongs , and some with beats that sound like Kraftwerk . With each one , we tried to change up something about the arrangement of instruments or the way that we did it , just to keep it fresh for us . And sometimes we had vocals , but wordless ones — Sally would do a lot of ‘ Ah-woo-oohs .’ But it was mainly instrumental stuff , and it was more about trying to maintain contact with people and offer some sort of solidarity in these really scary times .
IE : There ’ s a hint of the extraterrestrial in Hen Ogledd ’ s work . Do you think — as some do — that aliens have periodically tried to help steer mankind away from its own destruction ? DAWSON : Well , the idea that aliens would be a threat to us just doesn ’ t seem very likely to me . Because if they had the technology to get here , they must have somehow solved the problem of fighting amongst themselves to get that far . So they ’ ve realized the folly of violence . So aliens don ’ t worry me , and they ’ re probably already here among us . They might even be in our band !
IE : Does Hen Ogledd have hope for humanity ? Or are you providing a quirky , lovable soundtrack for the end ? DAWSON : I guess it goes back to that thing I said before , where — even if it ’ s a losing battle — then that ’ s all the more reason to fight it . But I do have hope . And if we didn ’ t have hope , we wouldn ’ t have made the record . So I hope the record can offer some optimism . We don ’ t want to get too lofty , and at the same time , we don ’ t have to talk about things just using political language . So this is our way of saying how we feel . And a lot of it is filled with hope and is about not giving up .
28 illinoisentertainer . com february 2021