Brooding three-piece Pearls have built a reputation in their hometown of Melbourne for their fuzzed guitar lines and noise pop. Dark but stylish, almost Lynchian, if you were to compare the sound of their debut EP to a fabric you could do worse than say blue velvet.So it’s a little surprising to hear them go all glitter on the big glam stomp of “Big Shot”, the first track from their upcoming LP Pretend You’re Mine. Of course it’s still very much a Pearls song with the call and response vocals betwen guitarist Ryan Caesar and drummer Ellice Blakeney.We had a chat to drummer Cassandra Kiely to find out more.Noisey: The new song has a big glam sound.
Cassandra Kiely: I guess we all are pretty crazy over T Rex. We were listening to a lot of glam stuff when writing this song.Who in the band is the biggest glam fan? Who are your favourite artists?
Again T Rex. We all love Bowie, Eno, Big Star, Anita Lane, Townes Van Zandt. We are all a bit different but like heaps of the same stuff too. I'm more into post punky/no wave stuff, Ryan loves hip hop and Ellice is into a lot of psych too.You can tell a lot about a band by their promo shots. It seems yours have a lighter/brighter look. Is there a change in sound to reflect this?
The photos weren't really a conscious thing. We had an idea with colour and wanted them to have a sort of light, 70s feel. We were lucky to have Michelle Tran shoot it for us, she's a great photographer. I guess the music is a lot lighter than our old stuff, part of that is recording with Haima Marriott but we definitely decided to go for a cleaner sound.What are your upcoming plans?
We'd love to get over to the US next year and for the summer here we will be launching the single and then playing as much as we can!
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Cassandra Kiely: I guess we all are pretty crazy over T Rex. We were listening to a lot of glam stuff when writing this song.Who in the band is the biggest glam fan? Who are your favourite artists?
Again T Rex. We all love Bowie, Eno, Big Star, Anita Lane, Townes Van Zandt. We are all a bit different but like heaps of the same stuff too. I'm more into post punky/no wave stuff, Ryan loves hip hop and Ellice is into a lot of psych too.You can tell a lot about a band by their promo shots. It seems yours have a lighter/brighter look. Is there a change in sound to reflect this?
The photos weren't really a conscious thing. We had an idea with colour and wanted them to have a sort of light, 70s feel. We were lucky to have Michelle Tran shoot it for us, she's a great photographer. I guess the music is a lot lighter than our old stuff, part of that is recording with Haima Marriott but we definitely decided to go for a cleaner sound.What are your upcoming plans?
We'd love to get over to the US next year and for the summer here we will be launching the single and then playing as much as we can!
Pearls launch “Big Shot” in Melbourne at Hugs and Kisses on November 29. "Pretend You’re Mine" is out early 2015 on Remote Control/Dot Dash Records.