CityLife

Interview: Ou Est Le Swimming Pool

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool

PITY the nascent band; forever doomed in interviews to be asked repeatedly ‘where did you get your name from?’.

Some outfits roll their eyes contemptuously like marbles and earnestly explain how, well... they just randomly picked it while others – such as rising Camden trio Ou Est Le Swimming Pool – amuse themselves by simply concocting a different, elaborate story for each publication. 

“There was one where we said we met in the Ou Est Mountains in Kenya, hiking up at different angles and we just bumped into each other at the top,” laughs chaunteur (excuse our French – after all, you’ve already pardoned theirs) Charles Haddon, before their Ruby Lounge gig at In The City. “We invented a region of the world for our own purposes.”

That’s not to mention the amusing tale they propagated to an incredulous Australian press about how Jay Z had spotted the trio and phoned them to suggest a name.

If Jay Z had really caught a glimpse of Ou Est Le Swimming Pool with their assortment of peroxide hair and porn star moustaches, chances are he wouldn’t have been ringing anyone except 911.

Yet what the outfit – cruelly once described as resembling a pudgy Simon Le Bon, a Blazin’ Squad member and a forgotten 70s German tennis ace – lack in sartorial sass, they make up for with their music.

The male counterpoints to La Roux (whom they’re supporting on the duo’s November tour), they take their synth squiggles and squeaks to fashion pop songs with big choruses.

Oh, and they were signed to Stiff Records/ZTT, under the aegis of Trevor Horn, the go-to producer for epic, bombastic Eighties electro-pop.

“Originally, Nick Huggett [head of A&R at Sony and the man who signed Dizzee Rascal to XL] wanted us – but he said he wouldn’t sign us unless we changed our name,” remembers Korg-tamperer Joe Hutchinson. “Which we didn’t want to do.”

Instead, they ended up in Notting Hill’s legendary SARM Studios recording their as-yet-untitled debut album with Horn and Stephen Hague (surely the only way the group could make the LP more redolent of the Eighties is if Jet Set Willy is listed as providing ‘additional production’.).

Calling card single

“You kind of think ‘if he likes it, we’re doing something right’,” beams Hutchinson.

“SARM’s an amazing studio. You meet so many people.

“Robbie Williams was recording there. Take That as well.

“One day, there was a vintage Ferrari parked outside and Jay Kay strode out. We met 10cc as well. You remember Mark Morrison? [Someone has to – Faded ‘Sleb Editor] Return of the Mack!

“He came in with a massive gold chain. I have no idea how he could afford it.”

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool rose out of the dying embers of landfill indie, as Haddon, former frontman of London chancers The Daze, and his flatmate Hutchinson (who had previously conjured up beats for a slew of ‘terrible aspiring rappers’) started experimenting with keyboards for fun.

The first fruits of their labour, a cover of Rihanna’s chart-gobbling Umbrella, caught the ears of a Club NME DJ who started playing it out.

“It’s horrendous,” chortles Hutchinson.

“We thought: this sounds awful and someone actually likes it, so why don’t we do something good and be liked even more?”

Hence their calling card single, Dance The Way I Feel, first released by Lost And Found Records and now available in a new mix by Horn; a fluorescent dreadnought armed with a chorus that burrows into your head. The thing is, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool aren’t going to be the last group this year to plumb the shallows of Eighties synth-pop for inspiration – indeed, with Nitevisions (quite literally, in both DNA and aesthetic, the Duran Duran Juniors) and the Manchester-based Hurts on the horizon, next year looks set to be the battle of the nu-Romantic boybands. 

'We'll still stand out'

“We’re spending ages on the production because we don’t want to be pigeonholed too much into that whole 80s thing,” insists Hutchinson.

“Just so it’s not that tinny sound that people are inevitably going to be bored of in six months’ time.

“We want it to be more epic.”

Growing up, neither Hutchinson nor Haddon were particularly interested in synths – although the latter did become obsessed with Michael Jackson.

“We never set out to be this Pet Shop Boys-esque band because it’s nothing that we ever listened to,” points out Hutchinson.

“We’ve been given about 10 Pet Shop Boys albums by A&R people now.

“I downloaded all the Human League albums off iTunes which I would never have done if we hadn’t been compared to them.

“I sit there listening and working out which bits we actually sound similar to.”

Haddon attended the prestigious fee-paying Rugby School, in Warwickshire, sharing a room for four years with The Horrors bassist/keyboardist Tom Cowan.

“Everyone there was quite jock-y basically, and we’re striding around dressed in Sixties stuff with long hair,” he recalls.

“We started hanging out with Faris (Badwan, Horrors frontman) in the last two years. When I first met him, he was so quiet. I asked Tom, ‘Why are you hanging around with this guy? He doesn’t say anything’. But then you have to get past the fact he mainly just sits there and doodles.”

Completed by Caan Caplan, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool have gone from jokers to shrewd pop strategists, who have shared stages with the likes of Mr Hudson and Alphabeat and flew out to New York to record their promo video (even hanging out with Katie Melua – surely the only cure for the city that never sleeps).

“The thing is,” concludes Hutchinson. “I think our songs are really good. Even if 100 bands start today using synths and stuff, we’ll still stand out by a mile.”

Dance The Way I Feel (Stiff Records) is out now. Ou Est Le Swimming Pool play the Warehouse Project on Saturday, November 21.