Lusting After The Raveonettes: Q & A with Sune Rose Wagner

Interviewed by Lisa Haviland (via email)
Text by Less Lee Moore

If you thought you had The Raveonettes pegged as just another Jesus and Mary Chain ripoff, their new album Lust Lust Lust (Vice Records) may change your mind.

Their minimalist aesthetic—all fuzzy guitars and detached yet seductive vocals—owes a greater debt to ’50s legends like The Everly Brothers and ’60s girl groups like The Ronettes than the JAMC’s Reid brothers.

Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner
Photo © Søren Solkær Starbird

At times the vocals of Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner have the same sultry qualities as Nico and The Velvet Underground, whose deadpan decadence is another obvious influence on the band.

Yet the Raveonettes do not give only aural pleasure, but also visual, with a look heavily influenced by ’50s Beat poets and icons like Marlon Brando. Many of Wagner’s non-musical influences all seem to share the idea of intense realism, be it beautiful or horrible.

Lust Lust Lust ruptures the constraints of their previous albums (recorded in B-flat major and minor, respectively) and bleeds emotion all over the place. It’s still minimalist, but more powerful than before.

The glacial beauty of album opener “Aly, Walk With Me” soon gives way to the brooding “Lust” with its heavy, erotic bassline.

“Dead Sound” and “You Want The Candy” are sweet and addictive—catchy pop for postmodernists—while “Sad Transmission” sounds like Dion’s “Runaround Sue” filtered through the feedback of early Sonic Youth.

The unexpected treasures of this album are heartbreakers like “Blush,” “With My Eyes Closed,” and the gorgeous finale, “The Beat Dies,” where the beat of the heart seems to be the one being referenced.

The Raveonettes sing love songs, and like The Ramones, they’re not sappy or forced. They remind us that love—and lust—aren’t always pretty; even if they sound that way.

Cookie in Tin Pan Alley, New York City
© 1993 by Nan Goldin

How would you describe the new album, Lust Lust Lust?
Intense, dark, vivid, and real.

I read something about how the band was established based on dissatisfaction with Copenhagen’s music scene. Having no direct experience with or in Copenhagen, my first question would be: what was the music scene there when the Raveonettes began collaborating? Do you feel it’s changed since then?
It wasn’t the Copenhagen music scene; I wasn’t even living in Copenhagen at the time I started writing for the Raveonettes. I was in Los Angeles and thought everything was crap and no one introduced me to any music of interest. I was really discouraged and sad.

Marlon Brando in
The Wild One

Obviously, once I started making friends—many years later—with bands like the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Warlocks, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, etc., I realized L.A. had much to offer. . .

Outside of other musicians (though feel free to include them in your answer), what other mediums have influenced you as artists and how so?
A lot of photographers like William Eggleston, Nan Goldin, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï , Tillman, Sally Mann, etc. And also directors like David Lynch, Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Hitchcock, John Sturges, The Coen Brothers, Elia Kazan, etc.

I’m curious as to what the New York music scene was like back in the late ’90s, when Sune Rose Wagner moved here—I know Hell’s Kitchen has certainly changed over the years. Was the city what you expected? Both New York and Los Angeles are such magnets for musicians and artists yet often thwart or defy their expectations.
Unlike L.A., I didn’t really have any expectations of NYC ’cause I had already been here before and knew the city well. What I found a little disturbing was how difficult it was to find great people to start a band with. After 50 auditions through an ad in the Village Voice, I had to pack up and leave the country and head on home to find Sharin waiting for something to happen.

Being a Velvet Underground woman (and someone who adheres to the notion that they were the first true punk band), I’m wondering what it was like to work with Maureen Tucker, and how that came about.
Maureen was a beautiful person to work with: truly inspiring and real.

It’s very rare you meet people in this rotten business who are genuinely true and real and she’s definitely one of them.

I can’t remember exactly how that came about, but somehow we managed to send her the unfinished album and she really liked what she heard. Originally we had her come in for just one song but she ended up playing on five, I think. It was her 60th birthday, too. . . that day in Atlanta, Georgia, where she lives.

The Raveonettes play in Dublin, Ireland at The Village on April 10. Check their MySpace page for more tour dates.