Gloss
British guitar music needs a bit of glamour and sparkle in its life. With numerous bland acoustic guitar bands in our mist it makes perfect sense that Gloss are the anti-dote. They take us back to the mid 90s when female fronted bands inherited the earth and Echobelly, Sleeper and Elastica were the names on everyone's lips. Heidrun and co look set to achieve a similar degree of success if not outgrowing the term indie and turning into fully fledged pop. Read on about the band trying to put a little soul back into pop music.
Q: So why did you move from Iceland
to the UK. Surely Iceland can't be that bad?
Heidrun: I love Iceland,
but for what I wanted to do I had to be in England. In Iceland you can't
just play music, you have to do another job also. When I was in Iceland
I was in a band that had two Top 10 singles and I had to do another 2 jobs
just to live, whereas over here you can go on the dole and write music.
I thought England was quite a good option.
I went to the LIPA college for one year and then I decided
to stop. Then I met up with Paul about two and half years ago and we just
decided to write. We all sort of knew each other from the Liverpool music
scene and we just decided to form the band together.
Q: You call yourself a pop group
as opposed to an indie group. Who are your idols?
Heidrun: You mean 60s French
erotic punk. Blondie, Serge Gainsbourg, Carol King, Burt Bacharach, Television,
Air and lots of other people. But we feel like when its pop it's pop as
in the old days...
Paul (Drums): ...Its pop for ourselves rather than what people are telling us is pop. We've all got pretty varied tastes. Myself I'm into Bowie, a bit of Jazz and some Latin stuff. And the keyboard player is pure hip hop.
Paul (Gtr): I think people
are getting a little sick of the boy and girl bands. Things opened up a
little with the acoustic scene but people have got a little bit bored of
it because its not really that sexy and exciting. Its like Coldplay are
Eastenders to our Brookside - were just a little more exciting!!!
Q: You've just released the debut
single "Lonely In Paris". Do you write from personal experience?
Heidrun: Yes and no. Sometimes
its just stories and sometimes its a little bit of how I have maybe felt
and I can put it in stories. I just felt really romantic that day when
I was thinking about "Lonely In Paris". Sad but romantic and Lonely in
Liverpool doesn't have the same ring to it.
Paul (Gtr): We are kind of
a European band. Heidrun's from Iceland, our keyboard players from Norway
and I'm from Birkenhead - how more cosmopolitan can you get!!!
Q: So is it proper rock &
roll mayhem on the road?
Paul (Drums): I just love
life and the pleasures of the world. I've done the office jobs in the past
and that's why everyday feels as if I'm bunking off school.
Q: Heidrun. Are you ready to
be the next indie babe then?
Heidrun: I don't want to
be an indie babe. Can't I just be a babe? Do you think were indie? When
I was younger I did musicals and modelling. You have to do all these things
to be who you are - all these films will come out when I'm on TOTP.
Paul (Gtr): We don't think of ourselves as indie at all. We want to be checking everyone.
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"Lonely In Paris" is out
now
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