La Roux

Elly Jackson shakes her famously coiffed red shock of hair, loosening fragments of white detritus which float down to the table of the Sheperd's Bush pub we are sat at.

“I had a show last night and I sprayed my hair with that really hard spray but I didn't get all of it out so if you see little bits coming off, it's not dandruff,” she explains.

The unabashed singer of pop sensation La Roux is in a talkative mood as we discuss the debut album which is rapidly ascending her and production partner Ben Langmaid up the ranks of hot British talent. Having met Ben through a friend some five years previous, the two hit it off and started working on music immediately, though their first efforts were a long way from the polished, chrome plated synth pop that proliferates the resulting La Roux album.

“It was very different when it started and we both got bored of it very quickly,” she says of the music they created together. “It was very acoustic guitar driven, very beats-y pop music but it wasn't great, it really wasn't. I mean the songs were there, we've used the same songs as we had then but we just didn't had a sound. We thought it was a bit passé and a bit shit.”

The breakthrough came when Jackson and Langmaid were working on the music for “Quicksand”. Jackson was toying with a guitar riff, which Langmaid said sounded like a synth sound so they decided to double track both elements, the result sparking a creative catalyst which gave shape to the rest of the album.
“Quicksand” was also the first single from the album though it didn't make much of a dent in the charts upon its release. Success came bursting through the door with a shotgun when second single “In For The Kill” was unleashed. Peaking at number two on the British charts, its crossover success was assured by a Skream remix which has become a staple by DJ's across the country.

“We didn't expect that much success with that tune,” admits Jackson, “but there is no question that without that remix it wouldn't be a number two. There are so many tracks throughout history that would have done better if they had reached people and that's what the Skream remix has done for us.”

Something else that helped La Roux reach a much larger audience was playing support for Lily Allen on her March 2009 tour, but it wasn't just the crowds that gave Jackson a wealth of experience.

“I think it helped me find my stage persona a bit more. The first show I did at Glasgow academy to about two thousand people, I looked out and just absolutely loved it, it wasn't scary at all.”

Was there anything to be learnt from Miss Allen personally?

“Yeah shut your mouth, don't say what you want to say. She basically said to me that she had made the mistake of slagging people off, and it's not the same for me of slagging people off, it's more being honest about how I feel about certain kinds of music or the industry about certain hands that you need to help you on your way to where you're going. Everyone has these same opinions but you just have to learn to pretend that you don't and that's what I find really hard.”

Jackson goes on to explain to me the strength needed to steer your career through the music industry, being strong minded enough to be absolute about what you want for your music, your image, your brand. It is after a while of talking about current music that we hit a snag.

“What really gets me is bands that completely sample a whole chorus from an old track,” she gushes animatedly. “There are some around at the moment like Madcon sampling Frankie Valli. How can they do that? Kids will grow up thinking they did the original. It's like the guys who have just done the remake of Elton John's “Tiny Dancer”. They just go on for 8 bars speaking shit before they hit the chorus. I mean of course it's going to be a hit, it's fucking Elton John you stupid twats.”

Jackson pauses for a moment before brushing the long, starchy wash of red hair to one side and concedes with a grin: “see, this is the kind of shit I get in trouble for but I can't help it.”