INTERVIEW: The Veronicas on new single 'Biting My Tongue': "You have to really figure out if you are creating from an authentic space and not a space of fear in any capacity"
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Australia pop duo The Veronicas - also known and Jessica and Lisa Origlasso - need no introduction. Icons of the Australian music industry since 2005, they have achieved major success both at home and internationally, with 10 top 10 Australian singles including three number one hits, three top 20 UK singles and and a platinum record for one million sales of the ‘Untouched’ single in the US.
Last week they returned with their first new music of 2020 with the single ‘Biting My Tongue’. The song is classic Veronicas, with their ability to mould a multitude of sounds - rock, electro, trance, guitarpop - into a perfect slice of pop music. Written with DNA Songs, Jess and Lisa say the song is about “saying everything you've been holding back.” The single will be featured on their fourth studio album Human, due to be released later this year, their first album in four years. Also coming soon is the music video for ‘Biting My Tongue’ which was directed by Jess and Lisa.
Women In Pop recently caught up with Jess and Lisa to find out all about their new music.
Hi Jess and Lisa! Before we start, I have to just say I saw your performance on The Voice on Thursday and it was incredible. How was it performing your new single live?
Lisa: Thank you so much. It felt incredible to do the song live. We did a lot of rehearsals and every time we do a live performance, especially if it's the first time a song's been on TV, we like to be able to create a moment that we haven't necessarily explored before creatively. So we had six amazing dancers with us and a whole choreography moment with this song. It was a lot of fun. It was quite a few days rehearsal leading up to it.
It was gorgeous. I was getting a real kind of ‘Simply Irresistible’ Robert Palmer girls vibe.
Lisa: Hell yes! Always an inspiration.
Jess: Forever!
And massive congratulations on the ‘Biting My Tongue’. It's such a sugar high dance pop anthem Where did the inspiration for this track come from?
Lisa: In true Veronicas fashion, we were sort of in this zone of being very inspired by wanting to do something more upbeat that felt like real electro and dance, but also that soulful really meaningful lyric that we love to delve into. We write from our personal experiences and we really wanted to just capture a feeling. This one really did start with the feeling of like a confession to someone. You have to sort of confess your love for them. It's a dynamic song, it builds a lot of anticipation. That real conversational honest lyric in the verse that builds to this big euphoric confession of love in the chorus. It's got a bit of a soulful dark kind of feel to it as well and what I think people know from us. All of our favourite things in one pop song.
You both directed the accompanying music video, and it is a euphoric, upbeat dance track, but it looks like a Guy Ritchie film! What was that experience like and what was the inspiration behind that sort of contrasting storytelling to the sound?
Lisa: We call it a mini-film. Our inspiration... we love Quentin Tarantino, we love Baz Luhrmann, Guy Ritchie... very theatrical, quite fatalistic. All of our music comes from a place like we have a dramatised version of something. We feel everything very deeply. We feel the highs really high and we feel the lows really low. We write from those exaggerated places. So when we created this music video, we actually found these two boys online that lived in London and they were twins. And we started to create this idea in our heads of a music video that we wanted to create with them, because we got really excited about the duality of twins and that close relationship that you have as a twin that really is very difficult to explain to people that aren't necessarily twins. Especially identical twins. We wanted to depict the closeness of what it's like to have family and soulmates be the one thing and then to express the threat of losing that. The main focus of it is this bond that becomes threatened and how that's dealt with by the two twins, and the twinship. It's a love story essentially, but it's through a very unique perspective. We had a really, really good time directing this We were really quite nervous. We concept out every single music video, but this is our first time being directors where we get the final say and we're not answering to anybody else's creativity.
That's incredible and I'm so glad you said that because of course this is the first time you’re doing it visually and your music videos up until this point have always been pushing the boundaries, which is wonderful. Musically you two have always seemed to drive your careers from gut instinct and passion. is that creative autonomy crucial to you with regards to your music?
Jess: It is probably the thing that we value the most about what we do. The freedom and the personal autonomy to be able to create. We try not to overthink things too much because we do love the visceral feelings that we put into our music or our production, our visuals and any decision that we make, we like that first instinct feeling. It's taken us a few years to realise that even if we used to have that first instinct feeling and go back on it we’d always want to find our way back to that anyway. So we try to run with that, and we did run with that on this music video. We could have made the big pop video for this, but it was more about having our own personal creative exploration and for us we wanted to get into making a mini-film. So that's what we decided to go with.
I think it's incredible and want to know how do you balance creative freedom and your experimentation with what I imagine to be quite a lot of pressure to still make a hit song?
Lisa: Mmm... I think the important thing is not to overthink competing with what you’ve created before, which is difficult especially after such a long career, we're celebrating 15 years this year. The public definitely have their favourite times and songs that they would love for you to keep recreating the .2, .3 version of. But no artist that has ever had longevity in their career has done that. So we just look to the greats and what they continue to do is follow their heart and take risks with what they’re creating and at the same time it just has to be authentic. You have to really do the work to figure out that you are creating from that authentic space and that it's not a space of fear in any capacity, because when you create from fear you tend to copy out of that fear. For us, it's just about empowering ourselves and what we're being influenced by, what we’re loving. We look to people like Madonna, we look to people like Michael Jackson and Bowie. Anyone that's been an icon that has paved the way forward, and they just always continue to expand their creativity. That means you have to be ready for people to not necessarily love what you do all the time because if you're people pleasing all the time... I don’t even know what that would be like. Because to be completely honest we've never done that. After our first record, the Hook Me Up album turned out the way it did because we didn't want to make a record to what everybody had become familiar with. It’s been our go to mindset. If people love what we've done, great, we've done it. You know what I mean? So, that's amazing and we love and cherish that. But each album for us sits in its own space of creativity. It's just about challenging that personally within us.
2020 has been one huge train wreck after another. I want to know what the two of you are turning to for solace, information, discussion, leadership and creativity in this year of complete unease? What has been the thing that's powered you through?
Jess: The thing that's powered us through is perspective. We have gained so much perspective the last few years, expedited these last few months. Our mum isn't well and with that brings so much strength and perspective that you could never imagine having before and it brings a new sense of being grateful. We look around us and it seems like things are being limited but in a way, [giving back] time to be introspective. We are turning to the things that we value like good health. We love sustainable living. Learning about Chinese medicine, medicinal mushrooms. Things that nourish us and our soul. A new level of self-care, as well as opening your consciousness to what's happening around the world. You have a new sense of focus and energy to be able to share with people when you're looking after yourself. We're all faced head on with fear and an unpredictability our generation has never had to experience before. It can be a choice as to whether you become freer in that thought or whether you become trapped in that thought. So we just turned to greater self-care. We started an online community called iam.planted on Instagram where we started sharing a different side of what we really care about and that sustainable lifestyle. And just trying to connect with people on a soul level outside of the entertainment world. That's been beautiful for us. It's been really healing. We spend every day with our mum and you can't let life stop because there's a huge paradigm shift right now. For us, we look at it as an opportunity to grow and as long as you're continuing to grow, it doesn't matter if you're in the one space. You have to find new ways to grow. We have less distractions now if we're not in the space of fear than we did before. We have to find new ways of doing things. Lisa and I really value innovation and in a way it's a time for people to be innovative if they can be. It's privileged to say that, but it's a mindset. It's personal. Whatever that looks like, it's personal for everybody.
Incredible. And lastly, what's coming up for The Veronicas?
Jess: There's so much! This new album Human is coming up. We have a lot of other little things in the works right now. There are shows coming up within New South Wales if everything stays on the positive up and up health wise around the country. Fingers crossed. Just getting this album out is what we're focused on right now. It's our baby and we're so ready for all of our fans to have it.
‘Biting My Tongue’ is out now via Sony Music. You can download and stream now here
To keep up with all things The Veronicas, you can follow them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
