It’s been a good three years since we last heard from Howling Bells, an Australian band who now call London home. But they’re back, stronger than ever with a new album, Radio Wars. Lead singer Juanita Stein describes this new long player as being a lot more present than their debut release, even though it still has the grand dark overtones that the band is known – and loved – for.
Stein took some time out to chat with OUTinPerth about the new opus, the madness that is London plus the impact the global economic downturn is having on the state of music.
How would you best describe the band?
I always like the term ‘noir’. I think it’s really a clever way to encapsulate the band. There’s definitely something very atmospheric about the band, something very ‘twilighty’.
What would you say are some of the bands major musical influences?
It’s always so different to everybody else’s interpretation. For us we were listening to a lot more ’60s and ’70s psychedelic music and I was listening to a lot of electronic music. I think we were really inspired by the progressive nature of all those bands and we wanted to create something as colourful.
How have you found living in London?
Great, now. I’m from Sydney but we’ve been living in London for about five years.
I think every bold move is a challenge at first. If you can manage to overcome it then you start to see the rewards. It’s made it a lot bolder. And a lot more adventurous.
What can you tell us about your new album Radio Wars?
We recorded it in LA and it was at a time when there was a lot going on politically and socially and I think that that had a big bearing on the record. There was a huge political movement when Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton had just come to heads, and there was the writers’ strike and all these things that were going on [that] I think in a strange way seemed to impact the band. Content-wise it shifted a lot from the first record to being a lot more nostalgic and romantic. It’s a lot more ‘present’ I’d say.
How’s the album being received?
Great! It’s the first record that we’re releasing outside of England and Australia so we’re getting some really good reactions from places we’ve never been before in like Europe and Japan and places like that. We’re really pleased.
Has London changed at all in recent times?
I think it’s changed in the last five years we’ve been there. I’ve noticed a lot of changes. It’s become a lot more open culturally. When we first got there it was almost impossible to find an all night kind of venue. Most of them used to close at midnight but now most of them close at three and four. There’s a million more places to get really good food and drinks. It seems to have exploded as a cultural city I think. It’s very exciting.
Has it showed any signs of slowing down?
No. I think it’s kind of peaking. I’ve had a lot of friends who have spent some time in different cities like New York and Tokyo and they all agree that London is kind of it right now. I could be biased but I kind of feel the same.
What impact do you think the global recession will have on touring?
I think it’s impacted greatly already. There are a lot of stadium bands for example that just aren’t selling out stadiums. There are a lot of smaller bands who are feeling the pinch. We did a show recently for NME and we know that they put out 15 bands on this little tour and there were only two or three bands – we were one of three bands that sold out for the whole tour. And I remember the same tour last year – every single band was sold out. And that’s not to say that people’s relationship with music has changed. People will always adore music just as they will film and art but I think access to that has slowed down a little.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Some of Juanita Stein’s highlights from Radio Wars….
City’s Burning Down
That’s definitely one of the most atmospheric, grand tracks on the record which we wrote together as a four piece. It came together really effortlessly. It’s actually the oldest song on the record. We played that before even before we were playing the first track. It’s a very important track to us because it’s one of the first ones we ever played together.
Let’s Be Kids
That was a really beautiful moment with me and Joel (Stein, lead guitar) where he came knocking on my door and he told me about a really great conversation he’d had with his brother about how nostalgic they were for the past and they were talking about all the things they used to do together as kids. And it had made him really sentimental and he started writing this song around it. He played me the chords and then we wrote the song in about five or six minutes.
Into The Chaos
It’s another one that’s larger than life. It’s a track me and Brendan [Picchio, bass] wrote and it’s a very basic dance track that he’d put together on his laptop. It was a really good example of taking a song to the band and watching it kind of blossom into this grand pop song.
