With a bio that labels them a 'gang of loveable jerks', North London quartet Wolf Alice announced themselves in 2013 with 'Fluffy', a thrashy chapter of melodic rock dipping its toe forcefully in a dirty puddle of punk
Two years later and the Camden Town band fronted by Ellie Rowsell have traversed the globe more than once, playing Glastonbury, Leeds and Reading festivals, all the while honing their song/ stage craft.
Last month, the group unveiled their debut album, 'My Love Is Cool'. “We finished recording it a few days before Christmas last year,” Ellie says.
“We have been waiting for it all to come together this year; we went into a North London studio with about 18 songs and came out with 12; whatever we felt was most exciting to record and our favourite songs that we have written since we've been in a band – some songs are really old and some are quite new, quite varied, got a lot of heavy songs in there and some softish ones, there'll be something for everyone in there.”
With producer Mike Crossey (Foals, Arctic Monkeys) on board, Ellie says the recording process was made a lot easier with his presence. “When we got into the recording studio, all the ideas flowed into our head and we kinda knew what we wanted it to sound like; we weren't sure how to get those sounds, and Mike Crossey has obviously been doing this for years... he knows the science behind achieving these sounds, [so] he helped us to draw the ideas out of our head and into the studio.”
While 'My Love Is Cool' features all new material, a couple of the group's early efforts were added to the album's final playlist – 'Fluffy' and 'Bros'. The latter has a new video clip that'll warm your collective cockles. “It was quite an old song of ours which we worked into the album to make it fit,” Ellie says.
“It's all about childhood friendships and hanging out with the kids, what that entails ... I think one of the reasons we wanted to put that on the album was because the crowd responded so good over the past couple of years, so it'd be a shame not to be playing it.”
If you YouTube Wolf Alice's 2014 Glastonbury performance, you won't be disappointed, particularly if you have a thing for Chris Isaak; and who doesn't have a thing for Chris Isaak? “When we were rehearsing ['Wicked Games'] we always used to play it after 'Blush', because it has the same chord sequence and I don't know, it was always sort of amusing to play it, kinda joking around.
"Then when we were playing festivals last year, we didn't have too much material that people would know, so it was always good at festivals and stuff where people would know it; it's a great song.”
In the middle of the album tour cycle, Ellie says she doesn't have much time for other creative endeavours. “[We] don't have any time for any [other] music projects. But when we go on tour we have such long drives we like to keep ourselves amused [by] watching a new TV series, reading lots of books. I've been reading lots of memoirs of other people who have been in bands, looking back on their experiences: Kim Gordon, Viv Albertine.”
'My Love Is Cool' is available now.
Wolf Alice Tour Dates
Thu 23 Jul - The Corner Hotel (Melbourne)Fri 24 Jul - Oxford Art Factory (Sydney)
Sun 26 Jul - Splendour In The Grass (Byron Bay)
