Meet Transviolet: The band leading a pop revolution

Transviolet’s star has been fast on the rise, having already attracted praise from a list of pop heavyweights including Katy Perry, Harry Styles, Lorde and Twin Shadow.

All of them were impressed by their track Girls Your Age; a sparse yet shimmering coming of age song that did the business in creating plenty of online hype last year.

Now the group - which comprises of singer Sarah McTaggart and musicans/songwriters Judah McCarthy, Michael Panek and Jon Garciao - are back and upping the ante with their first official single New Bohemia; a rousing, Bowie-esque call for unity declared to the tune of a big pop chorus.

To get to know them a little better, we had a chat with Sarah, which you can read below:

Hello Sarah! For those who haven’t heard of you yet, tell us who Transviolet are and what you’re all about…

Oh wow, that’s hard! Essentially we’re a pop band but there’s a complexity to it. We’re definitely trying to do something different. There’s something pop about every song, but there’s stuff there for the ‘musician’ musicians – if that makes sense - and we take a lot of pride in our lyrics and our message.

You only released your first EP late last year; things are taking off pretty quickly, aren't they?

I wish it happened that way! Behind every overnight sensation there’s years of practice and hard work, right? I’ve been trying to do this for nearly nine years now, so it’s been a long time. The band started almost six years ago, so it certainly hasn’t happened overnight. We have taken our time writing and making sure everything is as we want it, meaning our first proper release was just a few months ago. Things have been building behind the scenes for quite a while now.

How did you all meet?

I was doing my solo thing where I lived in the Cayman Islands and eventually I decided I wanted to collaborate with other writers and maybe join a band, so I found this musician networking site and set up a profile. On the profile I lied and said I was living in San Diego, because that’s where I wanted to be rather than in the Cayman Islands! I figured if I wrote it, I’d figure out a way to get there, even though I had no money.

[Fellow band member] Mike was in San Diego at the time, and he contacted me and I quickly admitted I was lying about where I lived but that I would find a way over there. He said he liked my voice and song writing and he sent me over a track to put some vocals on, and I just loved the vibe of the song. We sent songs back and forth for a while and shortly after a couple of his friends - Judah McCarthy and Jon Garcia – joined the band.

How did you go from a local, unsigned band to scoring a deal with Columbia Records?

It’s actually a funny story! My mother was moving from Grand Cayman to California and on the plane she was sat next to this celebrity hairstylist who is Italian and hilarious. My mum being my mum, she told him I was in a band and he should do my hair. She told me all about it, and I was like, ‘mum, leave this poor man alone!’ She wouldn’t leave it though, so I found him on Twitter and sent him our music. He ended up having dinner with a label exec that week and played it to him and the label guy got me on the phone. It was 10.30 at night and I was in my pyjamas because I was working three f**king jobs, and we ended up doing a showcase later that week and signing with them a month later.

Erm, WOW!

What’s funny now is that a couple of weeks before this happened I was so fed up with everything. We’d been doing the band thing and playing small shows for ages. I was exhausted. I broke down to my boyfriend about how broke I was and how I couldn’t do it anymore. 

New Bohemia has great, positive message without being trite; does that continue in the rest of your music?

Not all our songs have the positive message of New Bohemia, but we do take a lot of time with our lyrics. Michael (Panek) is a great writer and we always try to be honest and authentic about what we’re doing. That particular day we wrote New Bohemia, I think I was fed up with the world and thinking what a perfect world would look like; and it was a place where everyone was allow to pursue the life they wanted and love who they want to love.

Your music and especially your lyrics have drawn comparisons with fellow rising star Halsey...

I’ve heard people mentioning that New Bohemia sounds like her song New Americana. It’s a bit of a coincidence – we actually wrote New Bohemia three years ago! I think we’re both people that want to influence our generation and are speaking directly to them as a group of intelligent people. She also seems to share our way of thinking. It’s been on the underground for a while and it’s now just coming through the mainstream where we believe that we should be able to love whoever we want to love.

Dealing with homophobia and sexism in 2016 seems completely ridiculous to me… don’t get me started! It’s still around though, and as long as it is, we have to confront it head-on, which is where I guess we’re similar to Halsey. 

Transviolet are supporting Twenty One Pilots' UK tour, which kicks off tonight (Feb 18) in Leeds. See the full list of dates here.