When we catch up with Lambrini Girls over Zoom on a Wednesday lunchtime, it’s been just under a couple of weeks since their debut album ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ came out.
To say it’s been a success would be an understatement. It reached No. 16 in the Albums Chart, No. 2 in the Independent Albums Chart, and No. 1 in Rock & Metal, and also received a heavy dose of critical acclaim.
Releasing an album and managing with all the promo surrounding it can be a lot, but it sounds like it’s all been worth it. We asked the duo how it’s all been going and how they found making what’s probably one of the best albums of the year so far.
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You’ve been on the go quite a lot – it must be pretty intense at the moment. How are you doing?
Phoebe: That’s a question! To be brutally honest, obviously very happy, very excited with how everything’s gone. And quite burnt out and overwhelmed by everything!
I haven’t left my house since Sunday, I’ve just been in bed. But that’s also on me for drinking loads of pints when I should be resting. All in all, very happy, just a bit frazzled.
Lilly: Pretty much that! This is the first time we’ve had some downtime in a long time, and I fear it will be the last probably until September. It’s been really exciting – much more exciting than I anticipated with the album. So I guess we have to do as much as possible now and then rest when we die.
How did it feel to see the sort of reception the album got – Number 16 in the charts?
Phoebe: The charts said they were predicting us to be number three. So it meant managing expectations kind of went out the fucking window. 16 is amazing news. We’re very happy, and thanks to everyone who bought the album, we got number one in the Rock Charts, which means we have a trophy. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about the cultural impact or the art, it’s about trophies!
What’s it like creating an album as opposed to, say, an EP?
Lilly: I mean, it’s more songs, innit! [laughs] I think the campaign surrounding the album was also a lot more rigorous than an EP campaign. I suppose albums are the first major stepping stone in any band’s career.
It’s felt like the first big thing we’ve brought out, and it’s something we’d not really experienced before – like, the amount of press and photoshoots we’ve been doing was pretty unexpected. We’re extremely happy about it, because it’s nice that people care about the album and want to know about it. It would be terrible if that wasn’t the case, to be honest!
In terms of the writing and recording process, it’s pretty similar. It’s just that you’re in the studio for longer and there’s a sense of finality about it, because you know that a debut album is so important in the industry and people really look out for it. You feel like it has to be perfect. You’re showcasing yourself more so with an album than with an EP. It’s just very intense.
Phoebe: I think there’s more pressure, because as Lilly said, it’s seen as the first stepping stone. It’s a hallmark of a band’s career – how it’s received, the reception that you get, how many sales it makes, all of that can have a massive impact.
I found it really fucking scary. Luckily, we didn’t have this problem, but my biggest fear was that if it didn’t go well, everything would stay the same as in, us going to the Netherlands for a month and playing 30 shows there, and doing the same thing over and over again, and not being able to get better gig slots.
So it was scary to think that might not end if the album didn’t go well, but it has! And now, I feel very optimistic and excited for what’s going to come of this year.
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You’ve got a lot of live dates coming up, how are you preparing?
Lilly: I’m still recovering, to be honest, from the year that we’ve had, and I’m trying to get in as much ‘me time’ as possible. You don’t lead a very normal life when you’re doing what we do, so I wouldn’t say I’m ready just yet. I need this next month to mentally prepare and regain my strength and my energy a bit, just because it has been really intense and non-stop. I think if we were to go out now, I would have a really bad time.
But nonetheless, I’m excited to play shows consecutively again, because we’ve been doing a lot of one-offs, which meant a lot of travelling for not a lot of playing. We’ve been doing lots of, as I call it, extra-curricular, in the sense that we’re doing loads of press and photo shoots and interviews more so than playing gigs, by far, over the last few months.
I’m definitely still trying to get rest in, trying to mentally prepare, trying to organize things for myself to do to keep me grounded on tour. I’m gonna start a new book series to help me get through and give me something permanent to take with me.
What do you do to unwind?
Phoebe: Um, I’m not very good at unwinding! So when it’s really, really busy, or we’ve been doing loads of shit every day I really struggle to switch off.
So if I come home to an empty, dark room, I’m like, ‘Absolutely not. That’s not happening. I’m going down the pub.’ I’ll do that, and then I’ll burn myself out even more. It gets to a point where I can’t leave my bed, and I’m like, ‘Oh shit, I’ve done it again.’ I have to rot for a few days, and then it gets really busy again, so I do it all over again. When it comes to unwinding, I haven’t really got that figured out, and I don’t know when I will, but that’s what I do.
Lilly: I don’t think I do such a thing as unwind, because I get so burnt out that I’m the complete opposite to Phoebe. As soon as I step through my front door and it’s just quiet and home, I just deflate completely; I’m essentially rendered entirely useless for five to seven business days.
And it takes me time to wind back into normality again, you know? I come home and I can’t do anything. I can’t do laundry, I can’t tidy, I can’t cook food for myself. I just sleep as much as possible and do nothing. And I’ve got nothing going on behind the eyes. So I do that for a few days, and then slowly introduce normal things back into my life, like having breakfast or doing my laundry. It’s not really a case of winding down and more just internally imploding.
It’s interesting what you say about how you’re quite different in that respect – I’m wondering what the dynamics are like when you work together as a duo. Is it different from when you’ve been in bands before?
Lilly: I definitely think it’s different, and to be honest, I much prefer this. Mine and Phoebe’s personalities are very different, but we also balance each other out in some pretty crucial ways.
I think, in most bands, if you have multiple people, there’s a good chance most of you are pretty strong characters and personalities as creatives often are. With more people, I think it can be really difficult to manage, and to agree on a certain direction. There’s a risk of kind of diluting an identity a little bit when there are lots of people involved.
Whereas with the two of us, we agree on things for the most part. I think the most important thing in the band is that our ambitions and our values align, and if they didn’t, we would have a big problem. Obviously, we disagree on some things, but we’re also really good friends, so we tend to make a lot of space for each other. Compromises are made here and there. It’s got to be based on mutual respect and trust for each other.
I think this is part of the reason why we haven’t really wanted to involve a third permanent member – we feel like this dynamic works really well for us. It would be strange at this point to add a third personality to the mix, just because I think me and Phoebe gel quite well.
Phoebe: It’s about communicating and making space for each other, and understanding that you both have very different perspectives on things. You can get on with someone super fucking well when you’re sharing a bed every night, and you see that person more than you see everyone else – your family, loved ones, partners.
I think me and Lilly are a fucking great example of two people who work really well together, but I think that also comes down to the fact that we’re both very understanding people who have a lot of compassion and time for each other. We’ve both been in situations where you work with people in bands who really aren’t that, because a lot of people aren’t. A lot of it’s very ego-driven. People are so set in their fucking ways, and a lot of the time that’s why you see things explode and go to absolute fucking shit. Because I think people aren’t willing to do that – you can learn that, but it has to be something about you.
I feel very lucky to have Lilly and be in a band with her, because I feel like she makes endless space for me, and that’s something I always try to reciprocate as well. That just comes from being kind people as well, and we get on really fucking well. There are certain things, like, me and Lills are super different in the way that she’s very grounded, methodical, and straightforward with her thinking, and I’m the opposite of that. I’m in fucking space all of the time!
I think sometimes I can be encouraging with certain things too. And I think we both put each other out of our comfort zones in different ways. It really helps me grow as a person, not just in even in the band, just having her as a friend, I feel very blessed. [Lilly: Same!]
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In terms of the album, have either of you got a favourite track at the moment?
Lilly: I think for both of us, our favourite track is ‘Special, Different’. Oddly enough, we seem to be the only ones! But I’m not surprised, because I am the type of person to really, really love and be obsessed with the one track from an album that isn’t the popular one. And that’s never on purpose. There just seems to be something about those kinds of tracks where I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I really like that.’
For me it’s both because of the lyrical content and also the the musicality and the musicianship of it. For example, it’s the only song I’ve ever played where I play all four strings of the bass. I’m usually a one note type of type of girl. I think the parts are really interesting, the dynamics are really impactful, and I think it shows off some versatility in our playing.
I find the lyrics especially moving. We have angry songs, we have uplifting songs, we have upbeat songs, but this one feels quite dark, which I think makes the lyrics stand out even more. I’m a very emotional person and I really like very emotional music, also on the sad side. I hear a lot of pain in the lyrics, and I really relate to that pain, and that makes the song very special and very different to me [Phoebe laughs].
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On that note, when you’re making music, do you tend to come up with the music or the lyrics first?
Lilly: I think it’s different for every song, like, sometimes you’ll have a bunch of lyrics in your notes that are ready to go, and sometimes Pheebs will just write on the spot, like, with ‘Bad Apple’ I know that that was an idea that [Phoebe had] already been working on. And when we wrote that, it was me and our drummer, Jack Looker, who wrote and recorded the album with us – we were pissing around together and came up with a rough instrumental.
Phoebe went silent for about 20 minutes, half an hour, and came in like, ‘Right! I’ve got lyrics. Let’s do this.’ So, I think it differs. I’ll let [Phoebe] explain.
Phoebe: I think you’re putting it really well – it does change, like, sometimes I’ll have a bank of lyrics, sometimes we’ll start the songs with Lills coming up with a bass riff and work around that, I’ll fit lyrics to it. Sometimes it’s a guitar riff, which I’ll try and fit lyrics to.
Sometimes, like with ‘Bad Apple’, it’ll be a case where lyrics are written to a track even if there’s already a theme that I’ve got for an idea of a song, but usually it is sort of a cut and paste with lyrics and instrumentals.
It’s just like a kebab. And sometimes it feels like throwing shit at a wall with me and my lyrics, I throw shit at a wall and see what sticks. Sometimes things flourish and come together super easily. But it sometimes just feels like a bit of a mix-and-match, I would say. That’s a good consensus for how we go about it when it comes to marrying the two.
What about ‘Cuntology 101’ and the lyrics there? Where did all your ideas come from?
Phoebe: You’re the first person who’s actually asked about the lyrics! The majority of the words are just ‘cunt’, or ‘cunty’. The idea for it, genuinely, I just thought ‘Cuntology 101’ was a really fucking funny thing to say, being like ‘Yeah, that’s ‘Cuntology 101’, bitch!’
We genuinely wrote it before ‘Brat’ came out [Lilly: We recorded it before ‘Brat’ too!] And then ‘Brat’ came out and we were like, ‘Oh, fuck!’
But just stupid shit, it was genuinely just about, like, how many stupid funny things can someone say in a song and relate it back to, like, self love? That was it. Then I was like, what are stupid iconic things that someone can do and be like, yeah, that’s fucking sick as shit. You go bitch, you go poo behind some bins. I was just like, ‘Let’s write a song about being a messy bitch.’ Party girl, 365 – unrelated to any neon green albums out there!
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‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is out now.
Words: Adam England
Photography: John Gottfried
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Taking Everything In: Lambrini Girls Interviewed – clashmusic.com
