After their raucous pre-album launch at Black Iris Brewery last month, YOU WANT FOX’S debut ‘You Can’t Sit With Us’ is out now. We catch up with Natalie and Colette to talk about their journey from band to duo, what the album is all about and slapping David Cameron with a wet fish (…nice).
You guys formed in January 2015 and here we are May 2016 and the album is out! Does someone take the lead when it comes to songwriting or is it very much a collaborative process?
Natalie: We both write and bring ideas to the table. Sometimes we help each other out when we get stuck, for instance on both ‘Wingin It’ and ‘Throw Down Your Weapons’ I had writers block on the last verse, I asked Colette to take it off my hands before I went bonkers and she came up with the final verse for each. I believe I helped her with ‘Queen Bee’ and ‘Supernova Superfake’ in places too. It’s nice because we are quite similar in our writing styles.
Colette: It’s very much a collaborative process. We each bring ideas to practises-riffs, lyrics, beats and then we each put our own spin onto it. We tend to finish writing songs together to get the structure down and the harmonies sorted.
You were both in previous band THE SMEARS that were pretty successful touring in LA and Europe, why did you decide to start YWF? What’s the story behind “When predictive text goes wrong, bands are formed”?
Natalie: We’ve both wanted to do something more mainstream for a long time. I am so happy with YWF, it’s novel and we’ve hit a totally different scene which is quite refreshing and exciting.
Colette: We’ve both always wanted to write music like this and we’d always talked about doing it so we decided to go for it. The band name came about when I sent a text to someone and good old iPhone autocorrect stepped in…
What’s it like being an all female Grunge-Rock power duo in the year 2016, do you feel the media pay too much attention to this fact and not enough to the music?
Natalie: I don’t feel like I am treated any differently at all. I think female musicians just get on with it… I know I do. It only becomes an issue if you draw attention to it.
Colette: Inevitably, the female musician thing gets brought up a lot but that’s what we are so I’m okay with that! We’ve had so much amazing feedback from the media and our fans regarding our album and the gigs we’ve played so I think the music is speaking for itself.
Is there a theme behind ‘Don’t Sit With Us’? It sounds like a call from the school-yard…
Natalie: Haha! It does seem that way. We love to write chants and harmonies so it always ends up being part of the song. The title of the album is a quote from one of our favourite chick flicks. We have wrote some friendly songs though! ‘Take Me Home’ and ‘Shades of Grey’ are about love.
Colette: It is partly inspired by one of our favourite films ‘Mean Girls‘.The title fits well with the theme of the album and the style of the songs.
Your album launch at Black Iris Brewery in April was great fun! How do you hope this album will be received?
Natalie: The Black Iris Brewery launch party was amazing. It sold out. There were a lot of bad hangovers the next day. I am over the moon with how well it’s going so far. We’ve had some lovely offers, and we’ve played some amazing gigs.
Colette: I just want the album to be catchy and for the songs to get stuck in people’s heads. Obviously we want people to love it!
Do you guys have any weird and wonderful musical differences?
Natalie: We are so similar, we both like classical music and we both have a secret love of pop music (ok it’s not so secret, we went to watch Little Mix together and knew and sang every lyrics haha!) I don’t think we have any differences.
Colette: We tend to have really similar taste in music so there aren’t any musical differences as such. We both listen to classical and thrash metal and everything in between.
Who in Notts are you listening to at the mo?
Natalie: I am currently into HECK (Baby Godzilla) they did a music video that totally blew Beyonce’s ‘Ring On It‘ out the water. I also like CROSA ROSA, DEF GOLDBLUM and a girl called BUD who has an amazingly unique voice.
Colette: I’m really liking ENDLESS GRINNING SKULLS at the moment and also HAGGARD CAT BOTHDAY PRESENT, MEGALODOOM and BRIANBLESSED.
What are YWF’s plans for the summer?
Natalie: I think the plan is to keep pushing the album, play gigs and write a few more tracks to release as singles, all whilst going on holiday as much as possible!
Colette: We both have holidays planned so us foxes can sun ourselves. We have a few gigs coming up and we will be continuing to write new stuff. I will be off to Download Festival to rock out to Deftones, Skindred and Sabbath.
Finally a little cheeky question, if you were invisible for the day, what would be the one thing you would do?
Natalie: I would probably get on a train to London (for free because I am invisible) head to number 10 and slap David Cameron with a wet fish – really freak the guy out with a floating carp. Then I would go find a posh restaurant to eat and drink and people watch. Oooh does David Tennant still live in London? I might nip to his house and see if he is bathing.
Colette: I like being nosey so I’d probably just spy on loads of people.
We’d like to thank YWF for taking the time to answer these questions!
You can buy the epic debut album HERE, and check the review HERE.
Yours in Love of New Music,
Anna Butler x
