The Raveonettes
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The Raveonettes are a Danish rock and roll duo consisting of Sune Rose Wagner (on guitar, instruments, vocals) and Sharin Foo (on bass and vocals).
They are described as having "begun building a brand-new rock 'n' roll sound for the rest of the world."
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Biography
Growing up in a small Danish town near the German border, Sune's first exposure to pop music was a copy of Bob Dylan's Before The Flood purchased by his mom, who "thought it was an acoustic album. Then I bought all the Bob Dylan records." Early on, Sune's restless musical ambition led him to "extremely good library" where he began checking out the roots and tributaries of rock from classic girl groups and Buddy Holly (whose "Every Day" has been worked into a psychotic wall of noise staple of the Raveonettes live shows) to Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, which led Sune into "more dissonant music."
Sharin had her own peripatetic upbringing. Her father, a rock guitarist, had exposed her to a wide range of pop music influences, ranging from the Beatles to the Velvet Underground. Her wandering musical spirit led her on a series of adventures including six months in India making a serious study of dhrupad, the most ancient style of Hindustani classical music still surviving, and qawwali music. While growing up, Sharin (who's six feet tall, a natural blonde, and a quarter Chinese) often visited her grandfather's native China. When Sharin and Sune finally began their musical explorations together, everything fell into place.
"It felt right. And that was it," says Sharin of about finally connecting musically with Sune. "Singing together came so easy for us, it was pretty magical. If you remove one or the other it's definitely not the same. We add up to more as a whole."
Sune's developing musical ambitions had dovetailed nicely with Sharin's early passion for the Velvet Underground and ancient timeless sound and, after a "quick studio crash course," the duo began recording Whip It On at Once Was & Sauna Recording Studio (a former Sony Studios facility in Copenhagen), booking the studio during non-session down time over a three-week period circa Christmas 2001 and handling all production chores by themselves. Working on ProTools with sampled drums, guitars, and bass, the Raveonettes deployed "no overdubs.... everything was done in one take." Not necessarily the first take, but the best take of each individual song was laid down in one continuous groove.
Adding guitarist Manoj Ramdas and jazz drummer Jakob Hoyer -- "We wanted a jazz drummer. We wanted that subtlety" -- to the group for their live shows, the Raveonettes booked one of their first gigs at The Spot Festival in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark. Rolling Stone's David Fricke was attending the two-day festival and happened into the Raveonettes show, essentially "...falling head over heels for a new band at first sight." The senior rock crit wrote that "Wagner and Foo sing together in a compressed, modal boy-girl bland that, against hurricane feedback and booming trebled bass guitar, sounds like the Jesus and Mary Chain with Blondie's Debbie Harry at the mike. Or the Ramones fronted by a Gregorian Shangri-Las."
Coming to New York in July 2002, the Raveonettes booked themselves into the punk Mecca CBGB's, where they debuted three new songs they'd just finished recording with Richard Gottehrer. "When I first heard the Raveonettes, it took me back to the great days of the punk revolution of New York City," exclaimed Gottehrer, who's currently working on the first full-length Raveonettes album. "The energy and excitement of that time is captured in their music with all the added power of today's sound. This is a great record and this band is going to be huge."
Chain Gang Of Love
With the release of Chain Gang Of Love, the group's avidly-anticipated full-length debut album, the Raveonettes ignite the full potential of the fiery promise revealed on Whip It On, the group's critically-acclaimed inaugural EP. Whip It On was named "Best Rock Album" of the Year at the Danish Music Awards (Denmark's Grammy equivalent) on March 1, 2003 while the Raveonettes were picked by Rolling Stone and Q Magazine as among the harbingers of the "Next Wave" of contemporary music.
Chain Gang Of Love is a glorious Technicolor expansion of the gritty black & white pulp noir garage rock sensibility first unleashed on Whip It On. Where the music on Whip It On was written and recorded according to a set of prescribed rules -- e.g. a) all the songs were recorded in Bb minor; b) no more than three chords were allowed per song; c) each song was under three minutes -- Chain Gang Of Love adds whole new dimensions of sonic range and color to the Raveonettes' great roaring musical mix.
Chain Gang Of Love is produced by the legendary Richard Gottehrer -- the author of bona rock classics like "My Boyfriend's Back" and "I Want Candy" as well as the producer for hit albums by Blondie, the Go-Go's, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, and many more -- and the Raveonettes' own Sune Rose Wagner. The album was recorded in Denmark and New York on October 9-17, November 6-12, and December 4-10, 2002 and mixed in London in early 2003. The thirteen songs on Chain Gang Of Love are written by Sune Rose Wagner with the exception of "That Great Love Sound," which Sune co-wrote with Gottehrer.
The Raveonettes sound is, according to Sune, "a tribute to a lot of the great music," that has come before them: "...the primal single beat of the Cramps, the noisiness and dark feeling of the 80s, the Jesus & Mary Chain, the girl groups of the 60s, the drone thing of Suicide, Buddy Holly and the simplicity of the 50s...." "The vocals," adds Sharin, "are very Everly Brothers."
On Chain Gang Of Love, the Raveonettes draw from the pop music's purest essences for inspiration, from the lusty thromping drum patterns of "Little Animal" and "Heartbreak Stroll" to the Beach Boys-like harmonic simplicity of "Noisy Summer" to the plaintive Hank Williams-twang embedded in the neo-doo-wop chord patterns of "Love Can Destroy Everything."
But mostly, Chain Gang Of Love is about the grand whooshing transformative power of unbridled electricity: the right chords in the right order backed by unstoppable rhythms and irresistible harmonic hooks that'll tear your heart out.
Discography
- Whip It On (2002)
- Chain Gang Of Love (2003)
- Pretty In Black (2005)
External links
- The Raveonettes' website (http://www.raveonettes.com/)
- The Raveonettes' entry (http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=raveonettes) at Trouser Press
- The Raveonettes' entry (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&searchlink=RAVEONETTES&uid=MIW020503290158&sql=11:qdua6j5271e0~T0) at Allmusic