UK electropop rockers AlunaGeorge are coming to Australia to play at Phillip Island New Year’s Eve festival Beyond the Valley December 30 2014- January 1 2015. The duo AlunaGeorge combines the distinctive, almost childlike vocals of Aluna Francis with George Reid and his talent for arranging and mixing music. Reid is responsible for the popular remixes of hits Spectrum by Florence and the Machine and Born to Die by Lana Del Ray. AlunaGeorge’s collaboration with Disclosure, White Noise was one of the biggest songs of 2013 and they’ve had other hits such as You Know You Like It and Your Drums Your Love from their debut album released last year Body Music. PEARL’s Jessica Mills spoke to AlunaGeorge about their upcoming trip to Australia, new single and upcoming album.
PEARL: Aluna you’re coming to Australia and escaping the London winter to play at Beyond the Valley. What have you got planned for the performance?
FRANCIS: I’m hoping that people bring a pet sea turtle and we can get them all up on the stage during Your Drums Your Love, I think that would be amazing. If that doesn’t happen obviously I’ll cry (laughs). I do know that you Australians know how to bring the party to festivals so I’m counting on you guys to bring the special elements to the show! We just do what we do, we have fun! It’s all about meeting the people who listen to our music.
PEARL: You came to Australia to play at the Listen Out festival last year and you also recently played at Coachella. How did playing in Australia compare to Coachella?
FRANCIS: It was similar to Coachella, in that you’re combing a quality experience with madness, which makes for a very exciting festival. You have great incredible, artists so you’re always running around trying to catch as many as you can. I’m looking forward to hearing some more Australian, electronic, future music.
PEARL: I know you worked together on a previous project before you formed AlunaGeorge, what made you decide to form a duo?
REID: I don’t know, we just had this bunch of tunes that we had done together and then we were kind of like what do we do now? I guess we could be a band or something and that was kind of it (laughs).
PEARL: For readers who may not have heard your music before how would you describe your sound and what are your main influences?
FRANCIS: Our sound comes out of an intent to create an unusual element, harness it and beat it into submission with songwriting to get that balance between something that’s new and something that’s something else.
REID: I think its [our sound] because of the world of eccentric music, recognisable songwriting form, things we’ve grown up listening to, new stuff we’re listening to at the moment.
PEARL: How does the creative process work together when you’re making music?
REID: There’s a few ways to go about it, generally one person has an idea, takes it to the other person and if they enjoy the idea then we take it forward. I might have a drum beat or a baseline and I’ll play it to Aluna and get her all wide eyed and excited. Then Aluna might have an idea. It’s kind of a show and tell. We go from there, write music together from that point and most of the time we end up with a song at the end of the day.
PEARL: You’ve recently released your new single Supernatural, what is it about?
FRANCIS: It was kind of about that idea of trying to revive a situation- the first line is ‘Is it dead or is it alive, resuscitate human kind’.It’s about a friend of mine trying to revive this relationship because that person makes her feel kind of supernatural. It’s not about space or intergalatic love, it’s about how someone can make you feel that way even though they’re just a human being and the pull to make that work.
PEARL: Your collaboration with Disclosure White Noise was a massive hit and you’ve recently released a song with Baauer, whats it like working with other musicians to put these songs together?
FRANCIS: It’s really interesting seeing how other people work- people have really different ways of thinking.
PEARL: You’re currently working on a new album to be released next year, how is that going?
REID: We basically came off tour and went straight to the studio. We’re most of the way through album two, we still have a couple more months of writing. We have a fantastic bunch of tunes together that we’re really excited for people to hear.
FRANCIS: What we’ve done is got George back on the guitar and we’ve experimented with some other instruments we haven’t used before like trumpets.
REID: The main theme is the sonic background to the songs. Aluna has such a recognisable voice that it holds it all together and has allowed us to branch out more with the style of music. We haven’t got a country- rock album though (laughs) but there is a bit more variation.
FRANCIS: We want our fans to be open to the new sound, but we still sound like us!
AlunaGeorge will play alongside Allday, Bag Raiders, Ball Park Music, Hermitude, Midnight Juggernauts, Nina Las Vegas, Rufus, The Preachers and many more at Beyond the Valley, Philip Island 30 December 2014- 1 January 2015.
Tickets are now available via www.beyondthevalley.com.au/tickets. For more about AlunaGeorge, head towww.facebook.com/alunageorge
JESSICA MILLS
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