As Andy Warhol once observed: there's only one good thing about a small town… it makes you want to get out.
This was certainly true for Cherryade. The two-piece felt constrained within their environment, burrowing into themselves and focussing on making music.
Moving to London, the pair began to blossom. Gigs followed, with their punk-edged synth pop swiftly causing a stir online.
With new cut 'The Crown' making its way onto the net, Clash caught up with Cherryade to get the full story.
How did Cherryade start? What prompted the project?
Ella: We’ve actually been friends for years since meeting at school. We used to make drunken songs on Garageband before nights out when we were like 17 and it all started from there really.
Alex: That’s where the Cherryade name came from – we used to drink it with vodka… classy! We’d always made songs together for fun, and gradually taught ourselves how to produce our own tracks, and then got a bit more serious in the last year or so. We got in the studio with Neil Comber, M.I.A.’s engineer, to work on a few tracks, and then from there found an amazing manager, new producers, etc. and things started moving.
You started in a small town, is that correct? What mark do you think growing up in a small town left?
Ella: It left us broken and bitter! I’m joking… sort of… I think it made us a lot more ambitious, we wanted a lot more than what was available.
You moved to London – was this to pursue music? Was there always a desire to escape, to move somewhere bigger?
Alex: I actually moved closer to London for Uni, but there was definitely an escape motive in that. Where we lived before everyone knew everyone else’s business and when you’re young, and creative, going to a religious school where people were closed-minded and ignorant wasn’t exactly liberating…
Ella: I think music’s definitely been a good way for us to vent about stuff like that – you probably won’t hear a happy song for a while though, the songs are our therapy sessions!
Cherryade settled into a synth-heavy style early on – what drew you to that?
Ella: I think it came to us quite naturally. We bonded a lot over artists like Peaches, Amanda Blank, M.I.A., and Little Boots, so they’ve all been quite big influences for us.
You’ve been described as ‘pop’s latest punks’ – happy with that? Do you put labels on your music?
Ella: I’m happy with that, I guess we’re punk in the sense that we’re DIY and quite outspoken. I’m not sure everyone will agree with that though… my dad is a big punk fan so I grew up listening to X Ray Specs and I’d say they’ve definitely been an influence on me. That and Lil’ Kim… I still remember stealing a copy of her album from my dad when I was a kid, which probably explains a lot…
Alex: It really does… I don’t think we really label our music that much, I can see why we get compared to other artists, etc. but it’s not like we’ve sat down and deliberately tried to sound like them. We’re just making music we like and saying the things we want to say.
‘The Crown’ has a real sense of ambition – under the noise, there’s a tautly defined pop song. Can you remember writing it? What sparked it?
Ella: We actually wrote both Fractured Fairytales and The Crown two or three years ago now. We just sort of sat on them for a while as we couldn’t get the production how we wanted it, and then Dimitri Tikovoi (an amazing producer who’s worked with Charli XCX, Nicola Roberts, and tons of people we love), put us in touch with his engineer Andy and a new producer Shaun from Atom Tree who both did an incredible job.
Alex: Those two songs really kick started everything and made us sort our shit out to be honest. They were a bit of a turning point writing wise as well as they’re a lot more pop structured than what we made before that, and at the end of the day we love pop music. We just wanted to make sure the lyrics were witty and tongue in cheek, and honest, really.
Ella: I don’t want us to end up writing and performing songs that we can’t relate to. With 'The Crown', it’s about how people always gossip and fight over stupid shit that doesn’t really matter, but then you move away and grow up, and eventually you still end up getting dragged back into it. I think we wrote it after one of our old school friends asked if Alex had a proper job yet… we’re both quite creative and a lot of people we know still don’t really get that. We don’t want to work for an insurance company, or in retail – and there’s nothing wrong with people who do want that, but that’s not us. We’d rather be making weird pop music, and planning our own artwork, videos and shows etc.
There’s a sense with Cherryade that you’d be comfortable both in a basement venue and an arena – what’s the end point for the band? How far do you want to take it?
Ella: We’re both really really ambitious, and if something great happens then we’ll be happy for about 10 minutes and then left wanting even more.
Alex: I remember you saying the other day that you didn’t want to play a gig in a small bar in front of like five people; you wanted to start off by headlining somewhere like the O2… that sort of answers it perfectly! It’s like yeah, we’re making weird pop music, but at the end of the day anything is possible. M.I.A. is now a massive name, you’ve got Danny L Hearle and PC Music all over Radio 1; you’ve got Charli XCX constantly pushing what people expect from a pop star – that’s inspiring for us.
Ella: Definitely. We want it all, and we’re determined to work hard until we get it.
Finally, what are your upcoming plans? Have you begun to focus on album yet?
Ella: I think in our heads we know exactly what we want the album to sound like, but at the minute the focus is just finishing off more music and starting to plan the live shows.
Alex: We’re in talks about putting out another track shortly to then maybe lead into the EP but I think we’re just playing it by ear at the moment. We don’t have anyone really breathing down our necks and expecting massive results as its still early days so we can sort of just do our own thing for now.
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