Blue Hawaii interview -“Seven days is a very fast turnaround time for a record”
See the video for the ‘My Best’s Friend’s House’ single below
They’ve been around for a hot minute now, but with every new project they put out, it feels like Blue Hawaii are reborn again.
Their new single ‘My Best Friend’s House’’ (see video below) follows up their 2020 album Open Reduction Eternal Fixation and last EP ‘Under 1 House’, and perhaps teases yet another big’un yet to come. It’s part of a new EP from the pair, also titled ‘My Best Friend’s House’, which nails a completely different sound to their last – getting at a much funkier, groovier electronic disco feel than before.
Now a long-distance collaboration between Berlin and Montreal, we caught up with Blue Hawaii (Alexander Kerby aka Ag and Ra Standell Preston) for a catch-up about lockdown music-making, Montreal, love, and everything else in between.
This album feels like the spiritual successor to ‘Under 1 House’, which was much more upbeat compared to your earlier albums. What inspired that change?
Ra: It is the spiritual successor to ‘Under 1 House’! Haha, I like that you said that. We were drawn to creating music that’s more similar to our live show – uplifting & celebratory, very danceable. We would usually do dancier versions of our songs for the live domain, and would also Dj during our live-set, I would improvise vocals over tracks, it was this very exciting, in-the-moment experience. We had such a good time playing live that we naturally gravitated towards emulating this feeling in a studio setting. I’m glad that we had this desire, especially given how sad the pandemic can be, and given that we haven’t been able to tour – we’re able to continue a mini celebration, even if it’s just between Ag and I. I think it makes other people happy too, and we all need a bit of that right now! –
What’s the full story of the ‘haunted cabin escape’ that inspired the making of this record?
Ra: Oh goodness. Ok, so you asked for the ‘full’ story. So I will honour your request. We rented an Air Bnb that had no reviews and that had a fake address (didn’t know this at first). I think this person had maybe been removed from Air Bnb before, hence the fake address that I needed to call the host to find where the hell we were staying. Ag and I like to rent little cabins and bring a small portable recording studio with us. It’s pretty much how we’ve done every record. We travel very light! I would say we are very ‘portable people’.Since the pandemic, everyone is peacing out of the concrete jungle to cabins, so this was honestly the only place available. Montreal at this time was like 40 degrees C so it makes sense that people wanted to escape.
We arrived at the Air Bnb and we got out of the car and the host came to greet us and was like, “I cleaned up the place but I just didn’t do the toilet yet. It’s a little messy in their still.” I was floored and didn’t know what to say and well… that was the start. We went inside and the back window was smashed in, there were no locks on the door, the guy had his house on the property (not great when you’re pumping four on the floor out of speakers), and the place was so messy, not a little messy. I went into panic mode and started cleaning and then was like, wait a second…. this is ridiculous! I gave the guy a kind but firm piece of my mind, that the place needed to be cleaned, the window repaired, locks on the doors, and he kept coming over and talking to us about how this person was a narcissist, and this other person was also a narcissist next door, and that his mother had made him a lamb that was in his freezer… etc etc etc. Then we were like omg we are so thirsty after setting up the studio and semi cleaning the place, and we turned on the water to get a drink and it just ran black. So then we were going back and forth to this guy about the water, and as ag was going back and forth to this guy’s house, he saw in the basement window of this man’s home that there was a Jason mask and an axe.
The basement window was next to an area where this man would actually chop wood. And ag came back into our little cabin and was like “Raph we gotta go.” And I was like “what, what why? I do want to go, but what’s up, I dunno if we can get a refund.” Ag was like “there’s a Jason mask and an axe”. And then the convo about his mom making him lamb in the freezer, how everyone’s apparently a narcissist, how there are no locks on the door, I was like “OMFG” and ag was like “OMFG” and we both turned into 12-year-olds and started scaring each other.
In retrospect, I think it was just a crappy Air Bnb owned by someone who was going through some life shit, but at that moment ag and I were convinced we were going to die. So we packed up with all the lights off (of course right! so our host didn’t know we were leaving), and then the worst rainstorm of the year happened with the gear outside beside the car, we started throwing garbage bags on it while packing in the dark, I was on the phone with Air Bnb… oh man it was such a mess. As we drove away a car started following us, or rather we were convinced it was following us, we were soaking wet in the car driving so fast to ditch this car, and then agor and I stopped being 12-year-olds and took a few days off in Montreal to recover from us freaking each other out. Then we made a record in like 7 days and it was frigging so much work! Really grateful that upon returning to Mtl our friend Edwin de Goeij collaborated with us, he’s on the songs ‘My Bestfriend’s House’ and ‘Danced into My Life’. He also offered us his studio ‘Ed’s Studio’ to work from when we were in a mega pinch and couldn’t rent my studio ‘Toute Garnie’ as it was booked. I think we wrote some fire tracks together and he definitely gave some essential magic juice in a tank that was very depleted after our studio cabin fail!
After spending a year apart and then reuniting for lockdown, did the process of making your music improve, compared to the period in which you exchanged files between Montreal and Berlin?
Ra: Well because of the Studio Cabin fail we ended up needing to do allllloooot of remote work on ‘My Bestfriend’s House’ because what we thought was a finished record, just wasn’t! Seven days is a very fast turnaround time for a record! Agor recently came to Mtl, on Jan 7th and we recorded potentially another EP though 🙂 We tried to do it in full so that we wouldn’t have to work remotely quite as much. Being together is always wayyyyyy better than remote work. I hope that once we figure out ways to deal with the virus we can all be in spaces together more. I think one on one human connection is sooooo essential. Screw ZOOM! I’m thankful it’s been there. But there’s nothing more beautiful and special than people being in each other’s presence. I’ve really come to appreciate that since March 2020. Nothing like it!
Could you name your main disco and pop influences?
Ag: Big Nile Rodgers / CHIC fans. Rodgers’ signature guitar chuck and Edwards’ bass playing is a real special driving force that is very dancey and permeates up to this day, and the way the songs are so studio produced but feel live is also reminiscent of how music is often composed these days. Donna Summer is a huge influence. Cher, Gloria Anne Taylor and Whitney Houston are big singing influences. Modern techno/house/trap also factor into our music in the sense that we always want to have a balance between bass and rhythm and good belted diva singing, and we don’t pay too much attention to what genre we’re supposed to be doing – something which shows when you listen to our releases! – Ag
What are your recording spaces like, and what equipment and software do you use to make your music?
Ag: Lately the UAD system of recording and plugins have been invaluable to teaching us to mix in a softer/less precise analog sort of way. I think the way their plugins are modeled after classic gear has taught us to use our ears more and think about the legacy of all this classic gear in our creative process. We’ve used Ableton Live since day one. We also use lots of vocal layers, guitars, synths, percussion etc as they come naturally into the process, and everything usually happens super fast without much planning. We have studios we work out of in Montreal and Berlin, and our favorite studio monitors are the relatively cheap Yamaha HS8s
Could you tell us a bit more about what the Montreal loft party scene is like, from which you emerged?
Ra: Oh, it was so long ago now. It’s not quite like that anymore. But it was so sketchy and so amazing, and everyone just went to parties together and showed each other music, played on each other’s records, that sort of thing. The internet wasn’t really around, I still had a flip phone! No Instagram. It was a time in my life when people were fully present, and just sharing shit. There were few rules and few worries.
The lead single is questioning and almost quizzical of love – the refrain asks and repeats, “what is this feeling?” Was this sense of apprehension inspired by either of your past experiences of love?
Ag: Hehe, yes, it’s this inquisitive question of, OMG, what is this burning feeling in my chest that I feel so intensely (“what is this feeling”) and then my response “It’s love!” Singing is so fun in this sense, where, I’m asking quite a small, private question:What is this feeling? It’s love. But it’s how you sing it that brings the question to life. I’m like IT’S LOVE IT’S LOVE! Belting it and wavering the note up and down gives the word ‘love’ this huge and powerful feeling, which I feel for my partner.I fell in love with them very hard!
How did you create the animations and tripped-out square patterns in the music video for ‘All That Blue’?
Ag: We shot the video with our friend, the dancer Lili Dobronyi in one of those full covering body morphsuits. It was bright orange so we could screen out her figure later and place it in our own atmosphere. The found footage is really interesting, it’s all super 8 from the 60s, shot in germany and france. It had been sitting undeveloped in an attic in southern germany all these years and comes via our friend, Eddie Rabenberger. It was cool to see this footage for the first time since it was recorded all the way back then. The squares are actually just from creatively automating some parameters in Premiere while editing, nothing fancy, trying to bring together the trippy vibe of the whole thing.
Are you excited to be back on tour again, and what’s your live setup like?
Ra;: Gosh darn! We just had our tour cancelled and rebooked for June. Omicron! It seems like this may be the last iteration of this complex puzzle piece virus. I feel like it’s on its way out and we are all adapting. So fingers crossed we can play for people in June and in September! The setup will be Cd-j’s, vocal processing and a whole lot of diva energy on stage. We will throw down so hard. It’s gonna be so good to get back out and feel people in a room. It’s one of my favourite feelings in the whole world.”
Stream the single here