Veronica Falls is a band formed in London with members from Scotland and France. After their 2011 self-titled debut, they released their second album in February this year, called ‘Waiting for Something to Happen’.

I met Patrick (drums) and Marion (bass) right before their concert in Paradiso. [far right on the picture above]

An interview by Daan Rombaut on learning to play bass in two weeks and going on a rollercoaster right before a show.

How did you meet and when did you decide to start making music together?

Patrick: At the end of 2008, early 2009 Roxanne and me just moved to London. We met James through friends and then we started messing around with no real plans. And then we got Marion to learn to play bass.

Marion: In two weeks. (laughs) I knew these guys from Glasgow from when I used to live there.

P: We started playing late Spring 2009 and got in the studio. Or it might have been later, I can’t exactly remember. (laughs) It seems like a long time ago.

 

Marion, was it hard to learn to play bass?

M: It was hard in that I didn’t have much time: we had quite a big gig in two weeks, supporting The Pains of Being Pure at Heart in a big venue in London. I was like ‘shit, I’ve just learned to play these songs’. And I couldn’t play anything but these songs, but it was enough to get started. It was scary but it was good. Sometimes it’s great to have a deadline.

 

How important is a band aesthetic for Veronica Falls?

P: It’s not something that we sit down for and discuss who wears what. We all dress ourselves. (laughs)

M: My mom dresses me. (general hilarity ensues)

P: We kind of just do whatever. But we know it’s quite important to have a certain aesthetic.

M: We are in charge of the artwork and everything. We design everything ourselves, so we got a lot of say in our image.

P: But we don’t have a uniform.

 

Who did the artwork for the albums?

P: Roxanne did both of the albums.

M: The first album artwork was a found picture, from Amsterdam actually.

P: She found a postcard here. The second one is a photo from San Francisco.

M: From Santa Cruz actually. It’s a picture she took herself.

P: We spend a lot of time on things like that. It’s nice to have consistency in your artwork and to have uniformity to some extent.

 

Why did you decide to shoot the music video for ‘Teenage’ on 8mm?

P: It’s quite hard to recreate digitally, I think we proved that with the next video. This one was shot digitally and then we tried to make it look like 8mm, but it doesn’t look as good.

M: There’s nothing that comes close to the real thing. Also, the girl that did the video is a really talented artist and she knew what she was doing. The colours are nicer and it’s just something you can’t recreate digitally.

P: It’s also quite unpredictable because you can’t watch it back. With a digital camera, you can just cut things out.

M: It’s faster as well.

P: It means that we don’t have to keep sending things back. It’s quite nice to not go back and forth with the editing.

M: If there is too much choice, it can take forever.

P: For example, if you take press shots with a digital camera, you have like 500 shots to choose from. Whereas when you do it on film you’ve got 12 or 13, so you’re like ‘it’s got to be one of these’. (laughs) It’s quite nice to push yourself.

 

Does vinyl tie in with this? I’ve heard you love vinyl.

P: We love vinyl, yeah!

M: I think our public buys a lot of vinyl as well, maybe more than CDs.

P: It’s nice when you design a record around the big format. And when you do a track listing, you try to make sense of it with A and B sides. When you put a record on, it feels more like live music. It just sounds prettier.

 

Am I wrong to think the album contains songs about the struggles of a twenty-something? ‘Everybody’s Changing’, for instance, reminds me of the TV-series ’Girls’ in a way.

 

P: I love that show. It’s amazing.

M: I know you like that one.

P: I’m obsessed with it. I think it’s something everyone goes through; feeling a bit lost or unsure whether or not everything will come together at some point. So I guess that’s probably true.

 

Also about the fear or refusal to go back to your hometown after having lived in a major city?

P: Kind of the fear of the unknown, yeah.

 

The record also sounds less dark than your debut, was this intentional or did it just came about?

P: I think it’s easy to pretend it wasn’t intentional, but when the reviews for the first album came out and they all say the same thing (dark, depressing), you subconsciously put in the effort to maybe not make the new record like that.

M: It was never a conscious decision for the first album to be that dark. And we’re not dark and sad individuals either. It wasn’t predicted and then everyone started using that darkness as an angle I guess. Maybe we were more aware of that during the recording of the new album.

P: On the first record you don’t think too much about what you’re doing at all. You just write and most of it was tongue-in-cheek. When you start reading things, you’re like ‘hmm that sounds wrong’. (laughs) You can’t help it: it’s an unconscious effect.

 

I think ‘Broken Toy’ is very funny because it’s so poppy it’s making fun of itself.

P: Yeah, it’s quite tongue-in-cheek.

 

The new album also sounds more diverse than the previous one.

P: There are more different dynamics, that’s true.

 

When did you decide to sing with three?

P: For the first song we wrote together in the studio, we all sang different parts. It was just experimenting with the choice of being able to do that. It was nice to play around with that and with harmonies. Sometimes we would all sing the same thing at the same time, which gives it a different energy. That’s something we have done since the start. And we all wanted to be able to sing all the time. Sometimes it can be a bit two-dimensional when there is just one person who sings. But sometimes obviously it works. I think it’s nice to have layers or little bits coming in and out. It’s more interesting to me to listen to something where there is more going on. You can of course go the other way and have too much and then it just sounds crazy. You have to know when to stop. Sometimes we take bits out when it’s too much.

 

What genre would you say Veronica Falls belongs to?

M: I don’t know. (laughs)

P: Whenever people ask what kind of music we play, I say indie rock, although that’s a really big thing to say. That’s kind of vague, but it’s hard to say because there are so many little pockets, trends and fashions to it.

M: I don’t think we fit in any of them.

P: Yeah, it’s too impossible to say when you are in the middle of it, because it’s hard to look at your music objectively and say ‘yeah that’s metal ballad’. (laughs) I think it’s a bit weird if you do know what trend you belong to because then you have obviously made a conscious decision to be part of it. We just take every song as it comes and treat every single one differently. So I guess it doesn’t really fit. But I’m sure other people will think it does. Luckily that’s not our job. (laughs)

 

What do you like the most: touring or recording?

P: I think both have their ups and downs. Recording can be really stressful and intense, because you’re in one room for sometimes a month at a time. And then you want to get out on the road. But as soon as you get on the road, it’s tiring and it seems as if you’re spending so much time with the same people.

M: Both are sort of the opposite of each other as well.

P: Yeah, they’re opposite but kind of the same.

M: I think touring is instant gratification: you play your songs and you immediately see the crowd react. When you’re recording, you don’t really know how it’s going to come out and how people are going to receive it. So it’s kind of the opposite. However, if you go to a place you never played before, you don’t know if people are going to like it and big crowds can be really silent. It’s a bit of a gamble.

P: Your favourite song on the record might not come across live for whatever reason. Sometimes that can be a bit hard. So it’s two different states of mind. I like the travelling aspect, but then again it’s been so long now since we’ve been in the studio so you kind of have forgotten what it’s like. (laughs)

M: It can be pretty hard to be honest.

P: It’s quite hard work, yeah. (laughs)

 

So you haven’t started on a new album yet?

P: We haven’t had the time, because we went on tour straight after the first album and we were in the studio in between trying to get the second one done. And as soon as that one was finished, we started touring the new one. So we had a bit of a cross over. We haven’t had the time to write.

M: We’re not really good at writing on the road.

P: Yeah, it’s too much. The last thing you want to do when you’re in the van is to sit and write; you just want to relax.

M: Sometimes there is just no space anyway and the conditions aren’t right.

P: You need to be in a different mindset to write. It will probably take a while until we write another album. We’ll see how the rest of the year goes.

 

So Veronica Falls is your day job now?

M: It’s been for the last year or so.

P: We worked bits and pieces around London when we had time off. Working in a bar during the week or something like that. The band now takes up all the time and then when you’re at home, you just want to relax.

M: Like after a holiday. (laughs)

P: It’s a nice way to work.

 

What’s your songwriting process like?

P: We all come to the studio with ideas, such as a chord sequence or vocal melody. Then we all work on it and a couple of months later we have a song, or sometimes a year for some. Of course, some of them will come more finished than others. So some take less work. We usually get the music sounding good and then work on vocals in a separate environment. Each song takes different forms. Sometimes one of us will come to the studio and be like ‘I’ve got this song’ and then the other person will be like ‘I’ve got this one line’.

M: Sometimes it comes from a jam, like the opening song on the second album, ‘Tell Me’. That was something we were doing in between songs, when someone was tuning on stage. When we went recording in the studio, we put that one down quickly and it’s actually one of my favourites now. Some things are just surprising.

P: That was one of the first times we did that and it came out beautifully.

M: Much to our surprise. (laughs)

 

You all write lyrics then?

M: I don’t.

P: Roxanne writes the majority. I have written portions for the first and second album, but sometimes it’s strange writing lyrics with other people. It’s hard to write entirely personal when you know it’s going to be in a band environment. It can be a bit more abstract than usual. (laughs)

 

Are you playing any Summer festivals?

M: We’re doing a few UK festivals and we’re playing in Poland for the first time at OFF Festival. It’s good to go out there! We’re playing a few Italian festivals as well.

 

But not in Belgium or the Netherlands?

P: No, but we have played a lot of Dutch festivals in the past, like Lowlands.

M: It was so hot then! There was an amusement park next door so we went into a rollercoaster just before we played and then we were feeling a bit sick. (laughs)

P: It’s a great way to warm up for a show! (laughs)

M: Your voice must have been sore from screaming that much. (laughs)

P: And then you’re like ‘nothing can be as scary as that’. (hilarity ensues)