Swedish-Australian twins Say Lou Lou have barely been at it a year and yet they’re as well-travelled as any established musician. The daughters of The Church frontman Steve Kilbey, they spent their childhood jetting between Australia and Sweden where their mother lived. Now at 23, Miranda and Elektra Kilbey are a hot commodity, booked to play festivals all across Europe this summer.
In just under a year, the dream-pop duo have released four singles, been remixed by countless big names and started their own record label, A Deux. Chatting to Music Feeds during their first visit to Australia in 18 months they admit, “We’ve had to learn on the job. It’s all happened very quickly but at the same time it feels like we’ve been working on this for a while.”
Their first single, Maybe You, was released in August 2013 on French label Kitsune before they started A Deux to release their second single, Julian. “It seemed like a natural progression,” they say, “We felt like we wanted to have a little more control before we moved to a major label. We’re both control freaks.”
Although they’ve now singed to Sony/Columbia for the release of their latest single, Everything We Touch, the girls have not lost any control. “We’re too bossy,” they say, “but being on a major label has been great. When we get to a completely different country we have an office to go to, everything set up.”
Listen: Say Lou Lou feat. Chet Faker – Fool Of Me
While the pair have been away from Australia for a while, they have a number of connections here besides family. “We love Chet!” they scream, in reference to Melbourne producer Chet Faker, who provided vocals on Fool of Me, and according to the girls, has since become “a third member” of Say Lou Lou.
“We wrote this song with a male vocal and we couldn’t think of anyone… We were like,
‘Shit, who’s gonna sing this?’, and then we heard Chet. We actually didn’t meet him when he recorded it but we have now and we’re friends,” they explain.
Chet, real name Nick Murphy, is one of a growing list of friends the Kilbey twins have made. “We were in the car this morning and we heard London Grammar, Foals and then Chet in a row and we were like, ‘Oh my god, we know these people,'” they say excitedly.
Yannis Philippakis, frontman of Oxford indie outfit Foals, remixed the girls’ latest single, Everything We Touch. They identify the track as a live favourite, saying, “It’s the song we play when everything is not going so well because it’s got a big chorus.” The track comes off their forthcoming debut album, which has long been teased, though it still lacks an official release date.
“It’s tempting with the internet to release songs as soon as we make them… we think the album is finished and then we wake up in the morning and change our minds,” they say. “Sometimes we just want to do an Angel Haze,” referring to the rapper, who infamously leaked her debut album at the end of 2013.
Watch: Say Lou Lou – Maybe You
Say Lou Lou were recently photographed in the studio with Guy Chambers, a heavyweight pop producer who’s worked with Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue, however the twins believe status counts for little in the studio.
“You’ve gotta connect with the producer. Sometimes you can have the biggest producer in the world and it just doesn’t work.” Miranda and Elektra are ambitious when it comes to their producer wish list, vying for Damon Albarn, Johnny Jewel and James Murphy since, as far as they’re concerned, they are “the ultimate.”
And the twins’ influences extend past producers. They consider Kate Bush and David Bowie to be “visual influences,” while Miranda and Elektra’s style has been compared to Frida and Agnetha of Swedish pop sensations ABBA. However, the girls note that this wasn’t intentional. “Originally, we thought, ‘Shit, what are we gonna look like?’ and then we thought Maybe You sounded black and white so we went with that… it’s stupid to say image isn’t important in pop music.”
While the two are not in the country for a tour, they suspect they’re likely to be back in November or December, following their overseas festival dates this summer. So far they’ve been announced to play the UK’s Great Escape alongside Little Dragon and Wild Beasts, and will also head to Germany in July for Melt!, to be headlined by Portishead, Robyn, and Royksopp.
Check out Say Lou Lou’s latest single, ‘Everything We Touch’, below.
Listen: Say Lou Lou – Everything We Touch
