Echobelly, Bob Gajarsky

INTERVIEW: Echobelly

- Bob Gajarsky

"I'm not interested in being a flash in the pan - we want longevity!"

So echoes the lead singer of Echobelly, Sonya Aurora-Madan. She is a compassionate, but strong-willed "modern" woman. Her beliefs are based around freedom and honesty while woven with a touch of irony. Many will misinterpret her motives or twist her comments, but pay them no heed - listen to the music. Understand her words. And, you too will be won over by the next great British export.

Echobelly first was started on a meeting between Glenn Johansson and Aurora-Madan in London 18 months ago. At the time, Johannson was in a now-defunct band which returned to their native Sweden, and Sonya and Glenn commenced writing and recording material on a four track player; she writing lyrics, he writing music. This division in writing still continues in Echobelly to this day.

Soon, they realized they were producing exciting material. However, the "band" was still short a drummer and bassist. They were able to get Alex Keyser (bassist) and Andy Henderson (drummer). Henderson was actually playing in a band with PJ Harvey (she on saxophone, he on drums) at the time he left for Echobelly.

The band was now a four-piece unit which was starting to generate attention in London's close-knit musical community. But, the attention which some bands strive for can throw a less experienced unit out of whack.

"We got a hell of a lot of attention too early on", Sonya recalls. "It just got a bit silly. The fourth gig we did was at a place called The Borderline in London's Soho district. It was only the fourth show - and I'd never been involved with music before - at a 200 capacity venue, with 250 music industry people there. I'm not impressed by people basically waving contracts in front of me. I like to know a bit more about what I'm doing." Throwing up her hands, she exclaims, "It was just too much!"

A fifth member, guitarist Debbie Smith of Curve, was soon added. Smith was first a fan of the band and could be seen jumping up and down in the front of the audience. A mutual friend of Aurora-Madan and Smith introduced them, and, according to Sonya, "Debbie came back to my flat, where she picked up my guitar and started playing songs off our first E.P. (which contained "Bellyache", "Give Her A Gun", "Sleeping Hitler" and "I Don't Belong Here"). It was like 'Hey, you know these songs better than I do!'"

Smith came on board when Johansson broke his arm in a pub accident. At first, she was brought on as a temporary replacement (until he was healthy), but because Smith and the band got on so well - plus, a third guitarist would add another dimension to the group's sound - she was shortly added to the group's permanent lineup.

The E.P.mentioned above earned "Single of the Week" honors from Radio One and continued to generate a buzz about the band. Morrissey stopped by, and, in true melodramatic style, proclaimed it the best thing he had ever heard. It also helped trigger their first "real" management support.

"Bellyache was being played on the radio", Sonya recounts, "and Martin Heath (who owns Rhythm King) heard it while driving, stopped his car, and taped the song on his dictophone. He rushed into Rough Trade and asked 'Who IS this band?' They said 'Oh, it's Echobelly - look, in the window - it's Single of the Week!'"

But, what separated King from other potential suitors was his honesty. "He was the first person who didn't give us any bullshit. We had lots of dinners with various record companies, but it was the same old crap. He said 'Here's the money, I want to sign you.' We said we wanted our own label (Fauve - taken from the French art movement, which means beast or savage), and we got it."

The ball was in motion, and so was Echobelly. The next year produced several critically acclaimed singles and an album, Everybody's Got One, which hit #8 on the UK charts. So what *is* Echobelly about? We got a chance to speak to Sonya Aurora-Madan, lead singer for the band, for a more intimate look at both the band and herself. CONSUMABLE: Some people in America have only heard of you through your import singles. Why did you have different release dates in the U.K. (August) and U.S. (end of October)? SONYA:We didn't record the album first and have a plan of action. We're very much 'Let's see what happens' - we've only been together 18 months. We had to record the album very quickly (in three weeks) and the whole thing was done - mixed and all - in 4 1/2 weeks. We did have to rush - we hadn't signed a deal in America until the end of July.

If we released the album simultaneously here, it would be a disaster - we can't be expected to spend time here (yet) because we have fans (in other places that want to see us) such as Japan. C: What's the inspiration of "I Can't Imagine The World Without Me?" S: (Laughing) "Can't you? It makes me laugh. It's such an honest sentence, it's packed with irony and truthfulness. The way I see it, the world revolves around me. The world revolves around you...you see the world through your own eyes. In a literal sense, it does revolve around me. The song is not about *me*, but about the universality of being an individual. Everybody is an individual, you see the world through your own eyes. If you try and imagine the world without you, you can't. C: As an Anglo-Indian woman in rock and roll, do you feel a need to bear a torch representing others? S: There's a real problem in talking about this because I have no desire to be a role model or to bear a torch. Unfortunately, I have to admit to myself that this will be thrust upon me because there is no one around like me. There's never been anyone important who's been an Asian woman and sung rock and roll. So, of course, if you're the first, you're actually going to make a difference - then, fair enough, people will get excited about you and people will want to ask you questions that lead to far more indepth discussions than they would with a typical male rock and roll band. It has to be expected.

Having said that, however, I'm *not* a politician, I'm *not* interested in having to be answerable or to answer for any particular minority. I sing and I write lyrics and this is for myself.

I have an enormous amount of guilt because I know that there are people in similar circumstances to me who have written to me or expressed some feelings to me after shows. - a hell of a lot, much more than I expected. If I don't feel responsible for them, almost that they're relying on me, than I feel that I'm doing something wrong. At the same time, it's a heavy burden to have to bear when your foremost interest is writing classic pop songs, which I think we excel in, and we want to work at that more than anything else. Everything else comes with it.

To be a spokesperson for a generation is too much of a responsibility sometimes for people who aren't trained in that. Just look at what happened to Kurt Cobain - I really think that glorifying someone incessantly causes so much damage to that person's sense of self that it's a dangerous thing. People constantly telling you how important you are and how you're changing their life - it's all very well. I've had Asian kids who say to me, 'No one has ever spoken to me before".

What can you say to that? "Thank you? Gee, I'm flattered"? I know it's harder for me than the average rock and roller, pop person, and I suppose I have to learn to deal with that" C: It's not as if you're singing fluff stuff - there's a message, and with that comes extra burden. S: (Jokingly) "Yes, I'm a *serious* artist!" (more laughter). C: Where do you get your writing influences from? S: From real life experiences. Sometimes I write lyrics and they come out as if there's a ghost in my hand. Sometimes it just flows, when you're out on the road. C: Morrisey had asked you to open up for him on his aborted early 1994 American tour. Will you be touring with him in the future? S: "The problem with Morrissey is that he doesn't have concrete plans and, rather than wait for his agent to book a tour for him, I think the best thing is for us to play smallclubs in America and do our own thing rather than going straight on to a big venue. Obviously, I would have loved to play at Carnegie Hall (where Morrissey did perform) the first time we came to America

I just wish they would think things through, because they don't make me look stupid, they make themselves into fools and hypocrites. There's no point in preaching about racism if you're going to be so stupidly sexist. C: How did your kickboxing background evolve? S: (Dryly) I have no interest in aerobics, I suppose. I found a club in King's Cross (a rough area of London) where there was a sign for a karate club, through a youth club downstairs. It became my home away from home, and I got a brown belt. I trained very hard and then I discovered rock and roll and the two lifestyles aren't conducive- it was one or the other. C: What is your family's history? S: I was born in New Delhi 28 years ago (pure Indian). My parents came over to England when I was young. Both of them have Ph.D's; my father worked in a spark plug factory where he saved up money for everyone else to come over. My mother became a teacher, my father had a secret job with the government; they had 3 daughters. I like to think we're outspoken and caring individuals. I'm glad I don't have any brothers if the Kaliphz are anything to go by because you find that there is a peasant mentality among Asian men. They want to fuck white girls, but they want a nice little Indian girl at home to cook them dinner. I don't tolerate that sort of crap, so I'm going to get (verbally) abused. C: When you were growing up, what music did you listen to? S: That's such a hard question to answer because I didn't go to see bands - I wasn't *allowed*. I watched television, such as Top of the Pops, and I was an avid John Peel listener. In fact, I told him when he introduced us at Glastonbury and Alex and I told him,'If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here." He's asked us to do a session, which is going to be great. We've done a few, but we haven't done his before. I'd like to give him some new material for that. C: How would you describe your lyrics to the masses who haven't heard it? S: It's harder to come up with these things rather than answer questions *laugh*. I suppose I've always been aware that we're going to get a fanatical audience -people don't come just to see Echobelly and have a good time, they seem to lose themselves. I want the people who come to see us to participate in any way that they feel - they need to - as long as they're not actually hurting people. We seem to touch a nerve - I think every so often, a band comes along and people take them to heart - a certain type of person does. I think that we get put in the same category because - well, I've been an outsider so long, I've suddenly discovered that there are so many of us (outsiders)? It's like some secret society *laugh* throughout the world? It will be interesting to see what happens in America. Morrissey told me a long time ago that we would love America and would be well received here. C: Do you want people to reach out and touch you, such as happens at Morrissey concerts? S: The only danger is that I'm light and don't want to get dragged (into the crowd) - I need to be careful. I spoke to him (Morrissey) about it and he said I can ring him up and ask him for advice. He's been really great and we've had some nice chats.

It's interesting...a lot of the press here (in the U.S.) have been very on the case and very enlightened - we're so pleased about that. I've talked to people- for example, from NME - it seems that they haven't caught up with what's going on in the street. - there's definitely some sort of a cock-rock reaction to anything.

(Cock rock is) an element has crept back into rock in Britain - you know, screw groupies, wreck hotel rooms, very Led Zeppelin 1970's stuff as far as i'm concerned. When people say to me "rock and roll is dead", which is something that's been thrown around in Britain for a while - I've thought about it and no, *cock*-rock is dead. Make way for the women, it's our turn now. I find that a lot of white male journalists in Britain find me intimidating. C: Are they threatened by you? S: I don't know. The Kaliphz thing, for example - I knew that they (the press) would not say anything (in reaction) about it, which is fine, because in a way it gives me ammunition. I'm so used to being outside that it's strengthening me. We played the Reading Festival and we had more people to see us than any other band. It was just ridiculous; there were queues ten rows outside, I couldn't see a thing, but *nobody moved*. We sold more t-shirts than any other band there - in fact, we sold double some of the bands that were on the main stages. It was crazy...the queues for the autographs went all the way back. And, back to NME, all they said in it was to criticize me for swearing. Now, if I want to say "fuck" at MY show to MY audience, I will. This is all they said in NME. Now, if a guy swears, he's called a man...this hypocrisy exists in 1994 - by the so called politically correct journalists. This is fucked up and this is out of order and I'm going to carry on and be arrogant and have a big mouth because I think we need people to do this.

The other problem is that the Kaliphz comments are tokenism. If you read the British press, they'll give space to a few Asian acts, because it's their form of tokenism. "Yeah, yeah, they're not racist - they're doing the thing" but when someone like myself comes along and is going to break into the mainstream, in a big way, and they know it, it's scary - they have no control over it. C: What plan do you, Echobelly, as a band, have? Your goals and that sort of thing. S: (Long pause) "I suppose the basic goal is that we don't implode. By that, I mean a lot of bands are made up of one person who is basically the band. With Echobelly, it's five very feisty individuals and there is a lot of internal fighting which immediately speaking can cause a lot of problems. In the long term it makes it very exciting. There have been near fights on stage, there's been a lot of arguing, but it just creates that energy.

She echoes the now-famous Johnny Lydon line, "Anger is an energy" and continues: "This is the way Echobelly are going to be. If we're going to crash and tumble at some point...i don't know."

Aurora-Madan sums it up thusly: "We didn't want hype in the beginning

There's no need for Echobelly to be scared. A strong live show assures that their devoted following won't be left out in the cold. The wall of sound created between the guitarists virtually assures that every moment is filled with power. That power is only enhanced when Sonya's strong voice, as much as her convictions, come forth on stage. The sense that this is a band, with not only substance, but a real presence, emanates from the first note of their first song and carries through to the end of their show.

Winter plans for Echobelly include touring mainland Europe and England through November, a United States tour in November and December, a brief interlude during the winter holidays, more touring and then the recording of their second album with famed producer Steve Lilywhite. The material has not been completed yet, but will be finished while on the road.

The British musical torch had been passed from the Beatles down to the Smiths. There's more than a passing link between the Smiths and Echobelly - Marr and Morrissey spoke to their generation much the way that Echobelly is speaking to today's fans. It appears, with Echobelly, that the same torch Morrissey carried through the 1980's will burn brightly in the 90's.