Interview With Blue Violet

I was lucky enough to have a chat with Sarah and Sam from Blue Violet this week, their new album 'Faux Animaux' has recently been released and is well worth a listen.

Thank you for taking the time this afternoon. I really appreciate it. First of all, you have a new album out. How are you feeling about it?

Sarah: Yeah. Good. Really good. It's been quite a long time coming, so we're very happy that it's out in the world and yeah, it's been...

Sam: It's been nice.

Sarah: Yeah, it's been nice too. I guess it's when you've only got one album out before, it's nice to kind of add to the to the repertoire. And I think we worked a long time on it, so.

Sam: So it's nice to have it out there. It's been quite well received, so yeah.

It has. I mean it's quite eclectic. There's a lot of different sounds on there. Is that a deliberate choice?

Sarah: Yeah, definitely. I think when we were kind of first starting out with this album, one of our main goals with it was really to kind of formulate something that was representative of how we wanted the live show to be. And so we wanted to kind of bring more energy.

Sam: Like, bring a little bit more energy. And I guess lean into more of our Influences and just play around a little bit more with synths. Yeah. So we've kind of been a little bit more experimental, I think with this album than we were with the first one. And always with the live the live show in mind, I think.

OK. And obviously you did the launch tour recently? How did that go?

Sarah: Yeah, it was. It was great. We did a show in London. That was so much fun, because that was just after the record came out, a day after. Oh, actually, we did a show in Nottingham on the day of the release, which was really lovely. And that was kind of more stripped back and then we headed up to Scotland. And I mean, you know, the Scottish crowds are always the best ones. So good fun. And we we just, we love playing up in Scotland. It was very fun.

Good. Then you seem to have a connection with Scotland. I mean obviously Radio Scotland picked you up first and were playing you quite early on. Is there a reason for that? The music goes down well in Scotland.

Sarah: I'm actually Scottish. I just don't have the accent.

Are you? I honestly didn't think you were. You definitely don’t have Scottish accent.

Sarah: My dad is from the West Coast. And I kind of grew up in between England and living with my mum, and my dad was in Scotland. So I've grown up in between England and Scotland.

Right.

Sarah: That's why I don't have the accent.

Right. OK. Where about on the West Coast? Just out of curiosity?

Sarah: Argyll.

My family, originally from Appin. So towards Fort William Way, not that far from Argyll.

Sarah: Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah we're, like kind of near Oban.

Oh lovely. Very nice, lovely part of the world.

Sarah: Yeah, it's amazing. I love whenever I get the opportunity to go home. It's nice for me as well to be honest because like our management is Scottish as well, so there's, there's that connection too and just basically means that we get to drive around Scotland, which is funny when you go on tours.

Sam: Everywhere in between the cities is beautiful.Then, like the further that you come down into England, not that I don't love England, but it's just much more. The population's much bigger. So it's like it's worse traffic, yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I I know I've got a Scottish accent, but I actually live in England, so yeah, I live in Yorkshire so I know..

Sam: Yeah. Also a lovely part of the world.

So what's the next thing? Because obviously you had the Echo belly tour. How did that go?

Sarah: That was great. It was amazing. They were really fun people to tour with and the shows. The reception was incredible and to be honest, it was exactly what we needed just before the album was going to be released because it was just like that extra boost to kind of getting everything moving and connecting with a whole load of new fans. So it was it was great. We really, really enjoyed it. And then now we we've got a lot of things kind of coming up, but it's all sort of in the pipeline and not been announced yet.

Right. OK.

Sam: So it's one of those kind of slightly limbo moments where we've got lots, but nothing that we can share.

OK, that might have taken away a few of my questions then and I was going to ask you if you were doing any festivals this year, but I'm guessing you can't tell me anything about that.

Sam: We do.We can say that we do, but yeah, we have. We haven't got all of the details to be to be announced shortly, basically, yeah.

I did interview a band once who accidentally told me something they weren't supposed to do in their management were very unhappy about it, so I'm not going to ask any anymore. So going back to the album, obviously there's some really different influences on as I've said, but some really different sounds the way you do it as well. I mean things like the 'Librarian' are completely different to 'Barefoot on the SeineIs' there any consciousness behind that. Or is it just, as you said, you were experimenting?

Sam: I think, like from a writing point of view, I think we stumbled upon a kind of a sound that was a bit collective with songs like 'Boogie Shoes'. Sweet success that were maybe the more kind of energetic, upbeat ones that the kind of would be singles, they are singles. And then you think like, Oh well, that's what the album's going to sound like. It's going to be like this. But then you write a song like the 'Librarian', which is, I guess, what you call like a ‘ballad’. And you think, well, that's just a good song. I'm really like not going to not put it on there because it's not in keeping with the other sounds.You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Sarah: So it's, I don't know, I guess we've always written with a kind of varied approach I guess. And I think that we always kind of try and like connect it with the sort of the vocal tone. Thinking about the harmonies and we often use like 2-3, four part harmonies and things. So we kind of bring elements throughout all of the songs that are there, connecting all of them. But at the same time, kind of thinking of a way that you can take people through a bit of a, you know, on a bit of a journey throughout the album. And I think, you know, you've always got that thing in the back of your mind of like how you're going to keep people's attention. Keep people sort of travelling through a body of work like that. So when we were creating this album, we wanted it to be varied, we were very conscious of how it sort of ebbed and flowed and as much as we really wanted these, like big sort of high up energetic moments, we also love sad slow music too. And so we wanted to kind of like incorporate that into the album sort of as a whole, I think as well. Sorry, just going back to, because you brought up the librarian, and there's another song called Teeth out on there which is more acoustic and piano driven. And I think it's easy with because we did focus on sound a lot. It's easy with the kind of louder songs if you like to think like, ok "Well put like a bit of synth there. I'll put some fuzz guitar there". And because it's loud and energetic, so you just keep piling things on. So it's actually quite a fun thing when you've got a song that's really stripped down, thinking well, how do I add like a few little flourishes here and there? Sound wise, that might make that fit in with those other songs. So with the librarian, it was I used a specific kind of reverb pedal that had a tape delay on it.

Sam: In teeth out, there's the baritone with the kind of Twin Peaks Esque chorus effect on it and I think that's how we bought those songs into the scope of the of the rest of the songs as well. And you mentioned barefoot, and I think that is it's kind of in little bit in a world of its own that one because it's kind of got elements of both. And the point of when we were making that one was that we wanted it to sort of lull you into a sort of sense of calm and low energy. And sort of quite peaceful. And then when the chorus comes in, it's big and kind of in your face and quite gritty. So I think because of the point and the message within the song, that was kind of we we thought about that one quite sort of on its own a little bit as like not so much about how it was sort of comparable to to the other songs.

Yeah, I think you definitely succeeded with bear fruit because it is very much a change in tempo from between the you know the start and the chorus, it morphs and challenges anyone listening to it.

Sam: Hmm.

I mean, I first time I heard that was about thrown by the sudden change in it, but that's good.

Sam: Yes.

That's really good that you can vary it that much within one song.

Sarah: And I think the thing with that is it because it's quite emotional. We wanted that feeling of like, oh, you know, that sort of gut wrenching feeling. So I think that was, yeah, that was the point, I guess.

And is some of this at the back of your mind, thinking about the live shows. Well, I mean, most of the best live shows I've ever been to are not just one type of music all the way through.

Sam: None. Yeah.

It was something of that in the back of your mind.

Sarah: Yeah, definitely. And I think like the way that we did this show recently we sort of opened with some of the really energetic ones, just like bring everybody in and kind of get everyone going and then had kind of maybe almost separated it into 3 sections. So there was like one song that sort of brought down the tempo a little bit, probably librarian and then took it back up again and then brought it back down. And then we actually finished with the kind of really, really intimate bit which Sam does on his own.You know, we all left the stage and it was just the keys player Dan and Sam on stage left and that kind of like that really sort of created an atmosphere that was a good contrast to like the really energetic songs .And that was kind of that was the thought behind that I guess.

I’m now sorry I didn't see the show!

Sam: Maybe another time.

Yeah, well, apparently there may be some options, but you can't tell me about them.

Sam: Yeah.

So yeah, that would be good. I mean it's a very good album. I've really enjoyed listening to it. What are you hoping for from it in terms of are you looking that maybe you get back into Steve Lamacq or something like that?

Sam: That would be great, yes, and I think. Like I said, with the live show like we are really focused on growing our live audience this year and just touring this album as much as we possibly can and playing it live as much as we possibly can. That's something that we just love doing. You know, radio is always a bit of a shot in the dark, so we can only hope for the best with it and hope that people connect with it. But we know with the live show that that's how we can kind of like get it out there ourselves.

Yeah.

Sarah: And I think you go around the country and you start to, you know, each time you go back, there's more people than there was before. And that's quite nice to see because we do a lot of support tours that we've lucky enough to support some really amazing bands over the last couple of years. So when you go out and do your own headline show, it's nice to see some of those, like the kind of like an amalgamation of different fan bases at your show. As well as the people that have discovered you on their own, and I think that's something that we're trying to see, which is really nice.

You played sneaky Pete's. I love that as a venue. Did you enjoy that there?

Sarah: Yeah, it was great. It was the second time we played there and I just love all of those venues where you know they're like, really grassroots venues where you walk in and you're basically standing in the audience and you just as a performer, get such a different experience in those types of venues because you feel so connected to the audience because basically you're standing, you know there with them.

Yeah, you're very, very close.

Sarah: And we did have some technical difficulties at Sneaky Pete's because we had an issue with the bass which was quite interesting because there's no dressing room at Sneaky Pete's.

Oh, OK.

Sam: So we were having to solder the bass in the audience.

I've never heard of that before. That's different.

Sarah: It was. It was a very immersive experience.

I can imagine that the audience offered to help.

Sarah: They were very sweet. They were mostly offering tequila, but it was all good.

Tequila and soldering is maybe not a good mix.

Sam: I know yeah!

Great. And how was the rest of the gigs in the tour?I mean, you mentioned you played London.

Sam: Yeah. Good.

There's a couple of other gigs in Scotland.

Sarah: Yeah, there were. They were great. We played King Tuts again, which we just love every time we play there, it's such an incredible venue. That was our first show in Dundee, wasn't it? Yeah, it was Beat Generator.

Sam: You know that was our first show in Dundee and it was great, really, really good turn out. They all went really well. We couldn't have really asked for a better tour, so we were very happy about that.

Brilliant. Well, I'm not going to keep you much longer because I'm conscious that's about 20 minutes and you guys all have stuff to do, but I know you're not going to be able to share anything about what's coming next, but should we be keeping an eye out on your social media to see what's happening?

Sam: Yeah, definitely. We always send everything out on our mailing list and on our socials too. We'll hopefully be putting stuff out very soon.

Good, good. I'll make sure I'm on the mailing list then. Listen, thank you for your time.

Sam: No problem.

I really appreciate it, as I said I absolutely love the album.

Sam: Thank you.

I was the one that reviewed it for the site and I really enjoyed it, so thank you. Think it's a really great album and I think you're going to do well with it. So I look forward to seeing you live. Hopefully.

Sam: Thanks very much. Lovely to meet you

Thank you.

Sam and Sarah: Thank you. Bye.

Interview - Iain McClay