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Introducing… Sirens
If you haven’t already noticed, now is a notable time to be Geordie. Think Ant and Dec’s Saturday night side-swipe to the heart of the nation. Think Cheryl Cole breaking its heart from beneath a malaria net and bouncing back for another definitive turn on X Factor.
Think him from Big Brother, bowing out after 11 years, having become the most recognisable voice on the television for the last decade’s youth. And, oh, think Karina, Kathryn and Lea, otherwise known as Sirens. ‘Who?’ you might reasonably quiz?
Allow us to explain the biggest pop sensation you’ve yet to become properly acquainted with. Seven years ago, Sirens took the unusual pop step for an all girl-act of signing to the bespoke Newcastle indie label Kitchenware. For those that know it, Kitchenware is the stuff of 80s Geordie legend. Homestead to local, then global heroes Prefab Sprout and The Kane Gang it was as pivotal to the region’s music for a spell as Factory Records was to Manchester and Sub Pop was to Seattle.
‘It was probably quite a mental thing to do at the time,’ says Karina now. In retrospect, it was perfect. ‘We’re self-created, we’ve always wrote and co-produced our own records and everything we’ve done has been our done our way. We’ve been allowed to develop organically, so you could say that we’re closer to being an indie band than a pop band.’
Just because their laser-honed gift for pop hooks and 21st century beat-work doesn’t sound anything like fellow Kitchenware luminaries Editors sound doesn’t mean it wasn’t created the same way. ‘We have as much say over music and our image as they do. Kitchenware look after us. Because we’ve always earned a good living out of music we love them looking after us, too.’
So how do they do it? On the verge of releasing their third album and still relative unknowns on home shores, Sirens might just have accidentally uncovered the solution to that eternal music-industry-in-crisis dilemma that’s been foxing the most dextrous music minds for a decade. Go indie, pop kids! Keep it strictly D-I-Y.
The mysterious formula of Sirens’ back-door success stems back to their first single release, a radical club re-imagining of the N*E*R*D banger Things Are Getting Better. Without the huge video budget cramming the airwaves at the time or radio pluggers offering exclusives in return for favours on new acts, Sirens watched the track simmer away as a low-level club boiler in the UK.
In Japan, however, it turned them into bona fide stars. ‘Japan is mental,’ says Karina, ‘and we’re not even sure how it first happened. We didn’t even have a record contract there and when we got off the plane in Tokyo there were crowds of fans screaming for us. Then we’d see our video on Billboards in Shinjuku. Something just connects there between us and the audience. It’s absolutely insane.’
The word spread over the rest of the Far East. Sirens became bankable stars, ambassadors for the indigenous music scene that had not yet taken them to heart. This created some confusion back home in Newcastle (these girls remain resolutely Geordie to the core and have not moved to London.
As Japan led, so America followed. In 2006 their song Easy was used as a sound-bed for MTV hit and The Hills forerunner Laguna Beach, Adam DiVello’s Californian reality monster. ‘It caused a bit of an internet stir,’ says Karina, underplaying it wildly. The success of Easy gave Sirens the due leverage to take the States with second album Goodbye To LaLa Land. A 4-to-the-floor remix of the nominal title track, Club LaLa became a huge US hit on airwaves and dance-floors alike and America provided their second platform for global takeover. Billboard top 10 dance tracks? Hello…
World duly conquered, on exactly their own terms and a tiny Newcastle label, it’s time for Sirens to access phase three. Fittingly, the album’s called 3 and shows something of a u-turn for the threesome, both musically and stylistically. Rocking a look inspired by the Gotham City Sirens -somewhere between drag queen fierce, sci-fi scintillating and super-charged sexy, 3 is based around a loose concept.
‘We were thinking about all the talent TV shows,’ explains Kathryn, ‘About X Factor and American Idol and wondering why no-one ever does a show about finding the next great songwriter? At the end of the day that’s what music is all about. The songs. Unless you’re in that little clique of whoever’s hot at the time it’s very hard to get your songs forward. So a TV show seemed like a great idea for them. Then one of us said ‘look, why don’t we just record an album of other people’s songs?’ Do an album based on it. So this is the kick-off for our idea about a songwriter’s talent TV show.’
The reasoning came after seeing the astronomical success of one of the collaborators on their second album, Mr Ryan Tedder, author of definitive pop hits Bleeding Love and Halo. ‘We stopped off at his studio in LA and he said he’d been dropped by his label, he couldn’t get his songs recorded and did we want to hear his stuff? We were just absolutely humbled by his talent and he was so down on himself.’
If anyone could lift him up, Sirens could. Now let the Geordie trio that, by rights, you really should have heard of by now, do exactly the same to you. It’s time to go astral (sneakers not appropriate).
Track listing
1. Don’t Let Go (written and produced by Eric Sanicola)
2. Stilettos (written and produced by DeeKay)
3. Good Enough (written and produced by DeeKay)
4. Murda (written and produced by Eric Sanicola)
5. Couldn’t Luv U (written and produced by Eric Sanicola)
6. Damn Right (written and produced by Eric Sanicola)
7. Headlines (written and produced by DeeKay)
8. Bossy (written by Kelis, produced by D C Joseph)
9. Get Me Home (written and produced by Eric Sanicola)
10. Merry Go Round (written and produced by O D Hunt)