Red Alert
Words | Chris Cottingham Meet La Roux: this year’s folk-pop-electro duo IF LA ROUX aren’t stars by the end of the year, something will have gone seriously wrong. In January, the synth pop duo were tipped for success by the influential BBC Sound Of 2009 poll of music industry taste-makers (last year they backed Duffy, [...]
Words | Chris Cottingham
Meet La Roux: this year’s folk-pop-electro duo
IF LA ROUX aren’t stars by the end of the year, something will have gone seriously wrong. In January, the synth pop duo were tipped for success by the influential BBC Sound Of 2009 poll of music industry taste-makers (last year they backed Duffy, Adele and The Ting Tings). As far as La Roux’s frontwoman Eleanor Jackson is concerned, it’s the best thing ever. “I’m having the time of my life,” says the chatty 20-year-old South Londoner sitting on a speaker at her rehearsal studio.
The retro synths and typewriter beats on the band’s recent second single, In For The Kill, sound like an episode of Top of the Pops from 1984, while the video is based on 1980s TV show Knight Rider. However, as a teenager Jackson was into folk. It wasn’t until four years ago when she met the other half of the band, producer Ben Langmaid, that she became interested in electronic music. She fell in love with ’80s pop such as the Eurythmics, Wham! and The Human League. “My mum used to play all those bands around the house when I was growing up,” she says. “I guess I picked it up without realising it.”
Her look comes from the same era. She wears a gaudy vintage jacket and brightly coloured leggings. The name, meanwhile, is French for “red-headed one”, a reference to her hair, styled into an outrageous quiff, which she pulls at constantly.
“The ’80s was the last time that mainstream pop acts wrote and produced their own records,” continues Jackson. “George Michael, for example. He wrote, arranged and produced everything on [his 1987 album] Faith. That’s our aim, to be that kind of artist, to be successful and do it all ourselves.”
Killer pop songs, an eye-catching singer and the critical vote: they’re most of the way there already. www.laroux.co.uk
