CHAINS OF LUST
Of the 3000 plus fans packed into New York’s sold out Terminal 5 venue, no one is more excited to see The Raveonettes than Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke. The man credited for discovering the Danish duo towers over the VIP ledge which overlooks the stage. As the band – dark featured leader Sune Rose Wagner and harmonizing vixen Sharin Foo, both on guitar and vocals, accompanied by a lone drummer whose sparse drum kit affords her the ability to stand– take the stage, Fricke explodes with a bout of hooting and hollering one would usually expect from a devout fan. With little fan fair the band blast into their set. Transfixed, Fricke is like a wide eyed kid in a candy store. While his awkward frame and mannered sensibilities keep him firmly in his place, in Fricke’s eyes theirs is an emotion that yearns to explode and pogo to the pounding rhythm, fuzzed out guitar, and soft, melodic harmonies that have become the band’s signature. He doesn’t simply like them, he lusts for them. That, in and of itself, is what Sune Rose Wagner is hoping to capture on the band’s new album, Lust Lust Lust.
“The album is about Lust: drinking, drugging, and having no girlfriend. We all have Lust. It’s something that’s very close to you” Wagner explains the following day. “Some people try to suppress the fact their lusting about either someone else or something else and I feel that is a natural feeling to have. I also think there’s a lot of suppression and that’s not healthy. Specifically, I think religion is one of the main reasons people suppress a lot of their inner wants and needs and that is dangerous because I think it’s very natural for humans to lust for something.”
Sitting in his cramped Manhattan apartment, Wagner shows no signs of wear from the previous day. As he splits his attention back and forth between his laptop and the interview, he recalls how the duo settled on the theme.
“After trying several different methods to find the sound for this album, I hit on a song called “Lust” and I sent it to Sharin and she loved it. After that I just decided to write the whole album about lust because it’s such an easy subject to write about.”
While previous albums often flirted with the idea of sexuality through the characters that inhabit their songs (note the line "My girl is a little animal / She always wants to fuck.” From “Little Animal” off the band’s first LP Chain Gang Of Love), Lust Lust Lust is the first time Wagner has written an entire album based on his own adventures. “It’s really a period I went through.” He admits “It’s the most dark, introverted and personal album we’ve ever done. It’s always been very personal but I’ve always disguised it using characters in the third person. This one is mostly first person, it’s me, it’s ‘I’.”
On the phone from LA a week later, Foo concurs, “To me the other albums were more like a documentary of other people, where as this one is more personal and darker. I know what Sune was going through at the time, trying to find peace in that type of lifestyle we’re in. Being in a toxic induced world and trying to find the reality in that. I tried to encourage him to write more personally because I believe that the more personal a song gets, the more universal it is.”
Interestingly, Wagner is still insistent that great rock music doesn’t have to be lived to be great. To him, the most important thing is to be true to yourself. “I’m not the kind of guy that says you have to be a heroin addict in order for me to believe you. I think that’s bullshit. I mean look at Buddy Holy, he was 22 when he died and look at the legacy he left behind. He wasn’t no drug addict, he wasn’t no drunk. I just think you need to be true to yourself and people will believe you.”
Musically, the album doesn’t stray too far from the Raveonettes formula of the past. It still seethes with Ronettes style harmonies, punctuated by Buddy Holly style rock and roll and all brought together with a menacing fuzz overload and pounding drums. Yet, where the last albums were the sound of a band trying to find their place in a maze of influences, Lust Lust Lust beams with self-confidence. From the opening backbeat of “Aly, Walk With Me” to the reverb drenched nostalgia of “The Beat Dies” it takes the basic formula and esthetic of the band and modernizes it to glorious effect. “We still have a very nostalgic vibe to us, but I think this album has another dimension to it.” Foo coos “There’s still a love of great songwriting from the 50s and 60s. We still feel very much like the same band, but we’re developing as people and the music is changing with it. It has this great feel of being The Raveonettes but yet entirely different then anything you’ve done before.”
While the music has changed slightly, the most obvious amendment from their previous albums is the omission of the band’s film-noir, biker gang image that dominated their previous artwork, replaced by modern, clean 3D cover art. According to Wagner, the whole concept was something that the fans and the media perpetrated, “I think people put a lot more emphasis on it then it was actually meant to have.” he explains, looking a bit agitated. “We don’t really have much film noir in our songs; it was just because we have a couple of photos which were done in that style. We like the aesthetics of some of the pictures, but it has nothing to do with our music. Our music is basically just sex, drugs and rock and roll. People just thought we were this band that was obsessed with the 50s and 60s, which we are not. Otherwise I wouldn’t have a laptop and record everything on computers and use samples and beats.”
To further prove his point, Wagner insists he doesn’t even listen to music that much anymore, “I watch mostly movies and read books and stuff. I’ve listened to music for so many years and I rarely find something I haven’t heard.” He’d prefer if you’d just refer to his music as “timeless. It’s music that lives.”
“The album is about Lust: drinking, drugging, and having no girlfriend. We all have Lust. It’s something that’s very close to you” Wagner explains the following day. “Some people try to suppress the fact their lusting about either someone else or something else and I feel that is a natural feeling to have. I also think there’s a lot of suppression and that’s not healthy. Specifically, I think religion is one of the main reasons people suppress a lot of their inner wants and needs and that is dangerous because I think it’s very natural for humans to lust for something.”
Sitting in his cramped Manhattan apartment, Wagner shows no signs of wear from the previous day. As he splits his attention back and forth between his laptop and the interview, he recalls how the duo settled on the theme.
“After trying several different methods to find the sound for this album, I hit on a song called “Lust” and I sent it to Sharin and she loved it. After that I just decided to write the whole album about lust because it’s such an easy subject to write about.”
While previous albums often flirted with the idea of sexuality through the characters that inhabit their songs (note the line "My girl is a little animal / She always wants to fuck.” From “Little Animal” off the band’s first LP Chain Gang Of Love), Lust Lust Lust is the first time Wagner has written an entire album based on his own adventures. “It’s really a period I went through.” He admits “It’s the most dark, introverted and personal album we’ve ever done. It’s always been very personal but I’ve always disguised it using characters in the third person. This one is mostly first person, it’s me, it’s ‘I’.”
On the phone from LA a week later, Foo concurs, “To me the other albums were more like a documentary of other people, where as this one is more personal and darker. I know what Sune was going through at the time, trying to find peace in that type of lifestyle we’re in. Being in a toxic induced world and trying to find the reality in that. I tried to encourage him to write more personally because I believe that the more personal a song gets, the more universal it is.”
Interestingly, Wagner is still insistent that great rock music doesn’t have to be lived to be great. To him, the most important thing is to be true to yourself. “I’m not the kind of guy that says you have to be a heroin addict in order for me to believe you. I think that’s bullshit. I mean look at Buddy Holy, he was 22 when he died and look at the legacy he left behind. He wasn’t no drug addict, he wasn’t no drunk. I just think you need to be true to yourself and people will believe you.”
Musically, the album doesn’t stray too far from the Raveonettes formula of the past. It still seethes with Ronettes style harmonies, punctuated by Buddy Holly style rock and roll and all brought together with a menacing fuzz overload and pounding drums. Yet, where the last albums were the sound of a band trying to find their place in a maze of influences, Lust Lust Lust beams with self-confidence. From the opening backbeat of “Aly, Walk With Me” to the reverb drenched nostalgia of “The Beat Dies” it takes the basic formula and esthetic of the band and modernizes it to glorious effect. “We still have a very nostalgic vibe to us, but I think this album has another dimension to it.” Foo coos “There’s still a love of great songwriting from the 50s and 60s. We still feel very much like the same band, but we’re developing as people and the music is changing with it. It has this great feel of being The Raveonettes but yet entirely different then anything you’ve done before.”
While the music has changed slightly, the most obvious amendment from their previous albums is the omission of the band’s film-noir, biker gang image that dominated their previous artwork, replaced by modern, clean 3D cover art. According to Wagner, the whole concept was something that the fans and the media perpetrated, “I think people put a lot more emphasis on it then it was actually meant to have.” he explains, looking a bit agitated. “We don’t really have much film noir in our songs; it was just because we have a couple of photos which were done in that style. We like the aesthetics of some of the pictures, but it has nothing to do with our music. Our music is basically just sex, drugs and rock and roll. People just thought we were this band that was obsessed with the 50s and 60s, which we are not. Otherwise I wouldn’t have a laptop and record everything on computers and use samples and beats.”
To further prove his point, Wagner insists he doesn’t even listen to music that much anymore, “I watch mostly movies and read books and stuff. I’ve listened to music for so many years and I rarely find something I haven’t heard.” He’d prefer if you’d just refer to his music as “timeless. It’s music that lives.”
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