The Pipettes singer RiotBecki

I know you missed Good Prattle over the holidays, but we are back now in all our glory... and first up we have an interview with RiotBecki Pipette (leftmost in the picture) of British girl group the Pipettes. To discover anything about the Pipettes is to be transported back to the 1960s, when girl groups dressed in matching outfits and sang fun and brilliant harmonies. The biggest difference between the Pipettes and the girl groups that came first? The Pipettes are a lot sassier. RiotBecki answered some questions for us.

How exactly did the Pipettes form?

The Pipettes formed through our guitarist Monster Bobby and previous member Julia. Bobby had been dreaming of creating a girl band influenced by Phil Spector and Joe Meek and Julia had been reading The Manual by the KLF. Julia was interested in the idea of exploitation and creating a 'hit'. Together The Pipettes concept grew and they recruited the rest of us. We had all known each other for years in Brighton and were able to use our friends studio for free rehearsals, which certainly helped us cement our ideas and start songwriting.

When the Pipettes were formed they were Rosay, RiotBecki and one Julia; when Julia left the Pipettes Gwenno joined shortly after. How did that happen?
Julia decided to leave when the band was just starting, so we all thought there was still so much we needed to do, replacing her was a joint decision and Julia stayed in the band until we had a replacement, which was great. We met Gwen when we were supporting the Go! Team in Cardiff. We got talking to her after the gig and she was interested in auditioning. The rest is history.

When you were starting out did you have any mentor-type figures?

Not really. Julia and Bobby did such a good job at cementing the ideas and influences for us that, actually, it became quite a fluid and orgainc process. We never needed any guidance as we're all our biggest critics. If we all think something's working well then we go with it.

How did you initially garner support for the band?

We're very lucky regarding where we come from. We all met each other through gigs in Brighton, a lot of our friends were all in bands and everyone is really supportive of one another. Once we started doing gigs our friends all let us support them, I believe our second gig was in London supporting British Sea Power, so in that respect it was fairly easy. When you're trying to create something new or slightly left of centre, people notice you more for either negative or positive reasons. The funny thing is that that mentality still maintains itself - you either love or hate The Pipettes.

Many of your songs are essentially blueprints for Brill Building-era girl group type songs but then the lyrics are usually far more risqué, how do you write your songs? (Do you come up with a theme first, or a melody, or a little bit of lyrics?)

The theme and concept was already there, so the songwriting wasn't particularly difficult. We didn't follow any set ideas in the classical sense of those girl bands. Our songs are much shorter because we wanted to remove anything that could be deemed superfluous, no lead breaks or unneccessary instrumentals, and that definitely is an occurring theme. Regarding the lyrics, again there was no set ruling instead an inherent understanding, we're writing songs in a time where the lyrics can be more brash. It's not that the songs are pointedly written in that way, they're more conversational than contrived.

Who have been the Pipettes' major musical influences (regarding both the 1960s girl-group sound and music outside of that)?

Phil Spector, Joe Meek, Stock Aitken and Waterman, The KLF to name a few. There are individual girl bands like The Shangri-La's or Banarama and then individual artists like Cyndi Lauper. Our influences are constantly changing. One minute we'll be obssessed with Hot Gossip and Laurie Anderson. The next it'll be Raymond Scott, Selda Bagcan and Brazillian post punk.

As far as modern artists go the Pipettes are completely unique and a group like you really hasn't been seen so prominently since the early 1960s, what have been some reactions to your look and sound?

There are certain contrivances that I think mislead people into reactions, however when you create anything and that product is entered into the public domain you lose a level of control over it. We have had both negative and positive reactions and that's very important to us. Creating an apathetic response would have been terrible.

How do you approach the creation of music videos? Your 'Pull Shapes' video has a very 1960s feel and reminded me a great deal of a lot of the Monkees' videos; then you have your animated 'Judy' music video which is completely modern and different; how do you approach the idea of your music videos and what you want of them?

It changes with every song. With Judy we wanted a Grange Hill style, quite comic book, video. With Pull Shapes (which is an almost shot by shot copy of Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), we worked with a slightly more kitsch and studied concept. There's a certain level of The Pipettes that wants to be chameleon like, ever changing. We wouldn't want to repeat anything, so it's nice that all our videos have been able to be quite different.

When it comes to your fan-base, where do you think yours is based? What do you do mostly to reach out to new members and where do you look for them? The internet…? Concerts…? Do you ever do little impromptu gigs such as agreeing to play in front of the library on a day's notice?

Our fan base is ever changing and so it's hard to say where we have more fans than anywhere else. We've toured this record pretty extensively, which has been fantastic. We've managed to spread ourselves thinly over most of the world. Hopefully that will change with the next record. It's always hard to see how you'll be viewed until you return somewhere. We don't do impromptu gigs, which is a huge shame. The Pipettes performing outside a library sounds fun!

What is your favorite song of yours, and why?

I don't have one as it's ever-changing. There are certain songs that work better live than on record and vice versa, for example.

What other bands are you into (aside from yours of course!)?

We've been so busy that it's hard to keep up to date with current bands. Operator Please are fantastic, The Nouvellas are new and something to look out for, Lucky Soul do Sixties sounds brillaintly. We all mainly raid record stores on tour, so it's not really contemporary music that we listen to.

What do you think of your contemporaries—Lily Allen, Kate Nash, the Puppini Sisters…?

They're all very valid in their own way. It's very important that female artists get recognised and the above are all very talented individuals. However, I wouldn't say that we could be put in a bracket with any of them, we all do very different things, which is one of the strengths regarding women in contemporary pop music.

What do you think of modern pop music? There's pop-pop, and then there's other music that's popular but yet is different from the pop-pop… music is so diversified these days, what do you think about that?

Pop music is hugely underrated as a genre of music. It's so infuriating that people still see 'indie' as a more respectful genre or a more 'real' genre of music making. Most 'indie' bands that are successful are on major labels, styled to within an inch of their lives, may or may not even write their own material and yet are deemed more credible. It's toally non-sensical. Pop music covers so much more diversity than any other genre because it doesn't just mean popular anymore, it has become a sound, style or spirit. It's a very exciting genre to work within as the boundaries are limitless.

And lastly—what is coming up, what is planned, for the Pipettes?

The second record. We have been talking about the approaches we want to take with the next album. We certainly don't want to be one of those bands who recreate their first album for the second. It's always been important for us to push ourselves in a new direction. We're much older than we were and we have a wealth of new knowledge and experience. Hopefully we'll do ourselves justice.

Want more of the Pipettes? Feel free to check out their website, where you can read about news and upcoming concerts as well as listen to their music.