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La Roux - red raw emotions

La Roux

THERE are copious elements to discuss about new London electro sensation La Roux.

Like how she channels the heartbreak, frustration, invincibility and fragility she’s experienced in life into perfect off-kilter synthpop.

Or how she cries in between vocal takes in the studio. Or how, along with Little Boots, she’s ushering in a new generation of female Robopop divas. 

But less superficially, it’s all about her fantastic head-topiary. In fact, rumour has it that Mike Score (ask yer mum) has issued her with a cease and desist order demanding his haircut. 

Just been Tango-ed

“I’ve walked down the street and seen some tracksuit girls, and they’ve shouted: ‘Get a haircut and go home and get changed’”, laughs Roux, aka 20-year-old Elly Jackson. 

“I responded: ‘You look awful. Your hair is glued to your head. You look like you’ve just been Tango-ed and you’re telling ME to go home and get changed.

“I think YOU should go home and have a bath and wipe all that disgusting foundation off your face and get out of your mum’s skanky trackies.” 

One-nil to the Roux, we feel. La Roux – it means ‘the red haired one’ en francais – sparked to life at a New Year’s party when she impressed a sound engineer so much with an impromptu acoustic set that he began phoning up his studio friends.

Ditch the six-string

One, Ben Langmaid, was so impressed that he became Jackson’s studio partner, the Dave Stewart to her Annie Lennox. 

After a while penning lovelorn folk music, they decided to ditch the six-string and turn to the Korg.

“After a year, we realised we weren’t enjoying ourselves and it wasn’t the kind of music we wanted to make at all,” she remembers. 

Hence, they set about on a new direction that filtered her love of Warehouse raves, where the DJ would be spinning Chromeo, Cut Copy, Coldcut and various other bands that all probably begin with the letter ‘C’. 

Fornication fan

Her first sonic salvo is the naggingly addictive Quicksand, which comes on like The Knife covering perv-goblin Prince’s When Doves Cry.

“That wasn’t done on purpose at all,” explains Jackson of realising that it bore similarities to the purple fornication fan.

“It was merely a happy accident. Me and Ben would never try to copy an old song that’s already amazing. It’s one of my favourite songs of all time and it must have been such a strong presence in mind that it’s come out in my music.”


Still, as Coldplay (we’re not saying Chris Martin’s a rampant plagiarist but mooted titles for their next album are Oracular Spectacular, Parallel Lines and The Sound of Girls Aloud) would doubtless tell you, it’s easy to be unwittingly influenced by a song.

Freckles, ginger bob

Growing up in Brixton with her freckles, ginger bob and – according to her press blurb – ‘nose that makes you heart turn to a puddle’, Jackson started writing songs when she was a coltish 12-year-old.

“It was about waking up in the middle of the night and the person next to you getting up to go and have a phone conversation with someone they’re having an affair with,” she recalls. 

“I guess that’s just lifelong paranoia of never really feeling like I’m never going to have anyone totally to myself. Which has manifested itself in real life recently, so I was probably right.”

Her upcoming, as-yet-untitled album is lyrically influenced by the highs and lows of a five-year relationship.

“It’s pretty upsetting because we split up yesterday,” she says. “

Heart pulverised

That’s why I sound a bit down. I think it’s going to make it really hard to sing those songs. They’re just so poignant. I’ve got a rehearsal later and I’m dreading it. I’m absolutely dreading it.” 

Aside from having her heart pulverised, life is going remarkably well for La Roux. 

After winning the hipsters’ seal of approval when she graced the Kitsune Maison 6 compilation, Polydor triumphed among a fierce bidding war to sign her. 

“I got 40 phone calls one day,” she says. “Suddenly, I went from nothing to everything in a day, thinking ‘ How do these people have my mobile number? How is it possible?’ 

“I’d put down the phone and say ‘OK, that was EMI’, and it would ring again. I remember going home from the studio that day and having to stop the car, thinking ‘what the **** is going on?’”

Self-confessed Francophile

Plus, the self-confessed Francophile even turned down an opportunity to collaborate with Gallic robots Daft Punk.

“It was all a bit odd,” she says. “They got in touch with us and said ‘let’s do something together’, which I was up for. 

“But then they asked for so much money, it was ridiculous. 

“It’s like, either you want to work with us or you don’t. You approached us. 

“It should be about making something interested and seeing what happens, not about what you’re getting paid. After that, I was like, ‘Right, I’m not doing that’. 

Dramatic situations

Jackson admits she often immerses herself in dramatic situations to write. Take mooted second single, In For The Kill, for example. “It’s about when I decided to go to Paris to tell someone how I felt about them,” she elaborates. 

“I wrote half of it before I went and half it when I came back. It was a massive failure. 

“It’s about putting all your hope and energy into one thing and doing things for the thrill of being alive. Even if you think it might totally **** you up and you’ll be wrecked for months, you’re still feeling something.”

She has the killer pop choruses. She has the tears-in-the-toilets lyrics. She has a nose that makes your heart turn to a puddle. And elbows that could elicit tears from statues (probably).

Androgunous ladies

Androgynous ladies and gentlemen-with-guyliner, meet the woman who’s ready to sculpt 2009 in her own, dressing-up-box image. 

“Quicksand is about being near a person and you yearn for them so much, you crave them, and all you want to do is hold them and you can’t do it because you’re not sure what they want. It’s about someone giving you hope and then taking it away again.

“There’s a bit that says ‘when will you learn?’. Stop doing this to yourself and walk away. It’s taken me two years to do that, but now I’ve just done it.” 

Quicksand is out now. La Roux plays Contort Yourself at the Roadhouse on Saturday, February 7. She also supports Lily Allen at Academy 1 on Sunday, March 15. Call 0161 832 1111. For more information go to myspace/larouxuk.