“I’m not actually that surprised,” Julie Edwards says of the band’s success so far. “I feel like we’re doing something that we’ve rarely seen any two women do. I think when you do something that’s unusual, you’re probably going to get a little extra attention for that. We like to declare it, you know? Lindsay has such an amazing voice and while I’m not that surprised, I’m really, really grateful.”
The creation of Deap Vally begins with an innocuous and charming tale: the dark vixens of rock met at a needlework class. You couldn’t make that shit up. “We thought it was such a pathetic story; we wanted a better origin that wasn’t so embarrassing and weird,” she says. “I was teaching crochet, Lindsay was at a point in her life where she wanted to start making clothes and selling them so she came in to learn. She learned really fast, which to me is the sign of a really cool person. Then we started talking for hours after class, discussing everything we’ve been working on and how we were both musicians and how we found ourselves in the same place, which was feeling disappointed and burnt out and wondering what was going to happen next. We were brainstorming how she was going to take over the world with her solo stuff, and I suggested we jam. We got together with a friend of mine who plays bass – there was one day where we were a three-piece – and it really felt right.”
Things took off fairly quickly and with an unending touring schedule, Deap Vally are also getting ready to release their debut album Sistrionix, produced by Lars Stalfors of Cold War Kids and The Mars Volta fame. While they get ready for a run of headline tours, Edwards is still thankful for and surprised by the support slots they’ve played. “To have the opportunity to tour with Muse and to play in front of tens of thousands of people in one shot – what an amazing opportunity,” she says. “It’s also been a steep learning curve; that’s where you really test yourself. Can you perform for that many people? Can you get your message across? Can you motivate and energise that many people or are they just ignoring you? There are so many bands that don’t get the opportunity to go through those lessons for years, and we already have.”
No matter how talented the two are as musicians, it’s hard to ignore the heavily stylised image that precedes them. But Edwards explains that it was all their own doing. “I’m not sure what motivated us to go for that look,” she says. “We created the image completely, and it’s us and how we want to express ourselves on stage; it just feels natural to us to be provocative and to be really engrossed in the music. It’s funny because when we started the only thing people noticed was that we were sexy or that we were dressed scantily, but that is only a small part of it all. For me, I wish I could wake up tomorrow and be Jimmy Page but I’m not, I’m me, and so I’m trying to channel the golden age of classic rock with the mystery, the sexuality, the amazing hair. I feel sometimes it’s a lot to live up to though.”
It might seem to outsiders that having a bunch of panting fans gawking at you on stage, and driven to a gig more for sex than rock‘n’roll, wouldn’t be ideal. But for Edwards it’s all about making an impression, and letting the music speak for itself. “I think people are drawn to music for the wrong reasons a lot of the time,” she says. “But I think we’re not leading them astray; we’re not drawing them in and then having them hear insincere, crappy, careerist music. The music is a real expression of ourselves through something that’s as heavy as we can throw down and they’re hearing the product of spontaneous communal jamming and passion. I love messy, raw music. I don’t like music that’s been pitch-corrected or the drums quantified, it gives me the creeps. I do think though, however, we can draw people in to experience something raw and honest. All of our fans who are creepers, the ones that we’ve met, have all been really respectful and really nice actually.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
