Your names:Richard Citroen and Stephanie B.
Where are you from?
Richard: Coventry, UK, although I live in Toronto, Canada.
Stephanie: I am currently based in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Name of band:
LOLA DUTRONIC.
How would you describe yourselves and your music?
Richard: Electro-pop in several languages. People tell me that we're quite Euro sounding.
Stephanie: There is a certain dreaminess in the sound and lyrics of all of our songs, Lola is happy, sad, lonely, in love - sometimes all at once, but always in a very light-hearted way.
Who are your main influences musically?Richard: Saint Etienne, Luke Haines/Black Box Recorder, David Bowie, Portishead, Suicide…and Lady GaGa! ;-)
Stephanie: Uh, Lady GaGa? I admit she is extremely talented, and she definitely knows what she is doing - but her sound is not really my cup of tea. I have rather been influenced by movie soundtracks and easy listening from the 60s and 70s in English, French and German, the first albums of the Cardigans and Zoot Woman, all albums of Goldfrapp - that's all I can come up with right now, and I am sure you can hear all of that in our music :-)
What do you hope to achieve in music?
Richard: We've gotten some attention in the past with our all-star single "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead" with Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, Hugo Burnham etc., and we got a minor radio hit in Peru with "Happy Birthday", but what I'd really like is to get a proper hit single…something we could play on The Graham Norton Show, but failing that, it would be great if we could get a major artist to have a hit with one of our songs.
Stephanie: A hit single is always nice :-) After all, it is proof your music touches people's hearts, at the same time securing your financial situation.
What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
Richard: Supporting Tom Tom Club on the German leg of their European tour in 2013 was great. Chris & Tina are such lovely people….but on a more personal level, getting the email from our label in 2007 telling me that our album "The Love Parade" was on the "shortlist" for a Grammy Award nomination takes some beating. I was so excited I was practically stopping people in the street(!) and whatever happens in the future, short of actually winning one or having a proper hit, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to repeat that sense of optimism.
Stephanie: I completely agree :-)
And what’s the moment you want to forget?
Richard: Playing Bucharest Romania! While it was the biggest crowd we've ever played to, we ended up getting stiffed by the promoter.
Stephanie: But the city and people were really nice, I have to say. And also the food and drinks! Would I want to forget that? I definitely can't forget what it felt like getting on the plane after just 2 or 3 hours of sleep :-)
If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
Richard: "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead", because it practically wrote itself, and I managed to get some of the sense of humour that I've got in "real life" into the lyrics. Also, because our label boss, the late Marty Thau got us together with a bunch of fairly well known performers to sing backing vocals on it and I had people like Blondie's Jimmy Destri and Michael DesBarres giving me advice and encouragement behind the scenes, so it was a bit a of a "welcome to the club" moment for me.
Stephanie: For me it is "Everyone's A Star". Listen to it and you will understand.
Where can we listen to it?
"Everybody Loves You When You're Dead"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
"Everyone's A Star"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Where can we find out more about your music?
We're pretty much everywhere…
http://loladutronic.bandcamp.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/
https://www.facebook.com/lola.
https://www.facebook.com/
https://twitter.com/
https://myspace.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/
http://www.redstarmusic.net/
Anything else you’d like to say about your music that I forgot to ask?
Richard: We're working on a new album that should be ready to go sometime in early 2015. It's our best one yet! But we would say that, wouldn't we?
Stephanie: We would. Thanks for listening!
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