M.O on breaking through with Who Do You Think Of?, landing a US record deal and MØ: Interview

After a couple of near-misses, girl group M.O finally cracked the UK Top 40 last week with their latest offering Who Do You Think Of? - and it's still climbing. 

Chart success has been a long time coming for the Nadine, Frankie and Annie - they've been together since 2012, and in such time have released a string of hit-worthy tracks (more on that later).

With the track still sailing up the chart, and news of a new US record deal with Insterscope announced this week, we caught up with the group  to find out how they're taking it all in...

Hello M.O! Who Do You Think Of is currently everywhere and scaling the Official Chart, which is pretty exciting, isn’t it?

Nadine: We’re so happy! It’s our first proper single since signing to Universal, so we’re glad everyone seems to like it.

You’ve already released a few great pop songs, but this is the one that seems to have connected. Did you have a good feeling about it when you were recording it?

Nadine: Do you know what, I think we did know with this one – we all just like it so much. Personally, it’s my favourite song of ours so far. Obviously you never know what’s going to happen when you put a song out – but we definitely all believed in it.

You’ve been together since 2012 – a lot of girl groups don’t last that long and things seem like they’re just taking off for you. It must be nice to know the hard work is paying off?

Annie: We didn’t start putting out music in 2012 but we have been together since then. Honestly, it’s gone so quickly – it’s flown by!

Frankee: Time flies when you’re having fun! It’s been a roller coaster ride so far – there have been ups and downs – but we’re so tight as friends before bandmates. We’re just having fun. But it is nice to see the work paying off – the deal with Polydor was incredible for us because we always wanted to sign to a major label at some point. And we’ve just signed a deal with Interscope in the US. We’re taking everything as it comes and making sure we have fun with them.

Big congrats on that Interscope deal, what exactly does it mean for the group?

Frankee: It’s in our plans to go to America at some point, but obviously we want to crack the UK first. To get on out there in America would be amazing – it’s such a huge territory out there and it’d be interesting to see how they’d take to us. Apart from Fifth Harmony, I don’t know of any other girl bands cracking the US at the moment.

Annie: There’s no grand plan yet, but I think we’re heading out there soon just to have a feel of things, and whatever the norm out there is to start things off. We haven’t met our team out there yet, so we should probably do that first!

Back to those other great songs you’ve released – Dance On My Own, Preach, For A Minute – are there plans to re-release any of them at some point?

Frankee: We have actually spoken about that. Do you know what, we wouldn’t be against that at all. Most of the songs we’ve put out have had a great reaction in their own way, so why not?

Nadine: If we continue to go like this, I think we should re-release Dance On My Own, which is a bit more garage-y. I’d love to go back to that one – I’m still not bored of it.

How’s the album coming along? You must have recorded a lot of songs… who have you been working with?

Nadine: We have had a lot of studio time, but it’s all about timing with the album. With the way things are going, it could be out soon! We want everyone song on the album to feel like it could be a single.

Frankee: We’ve been recording non-stop since 2012 – I think there’s quite a few songs we’ve forgotten about so we’ll have to dig them out!

Because you’ve been recording for a while now, are we going to get a 21-track opus from you? An album of 10 – 11 bangers max would suit us perfectly. Who have you been in the studio with?

Annie: We’re so with you on that! Some albums lately have been so long, haven’t they? We’re going to keep it on the trim side.  

Nadine: We’ve been working with Nana Rogues (Tinie Tempah), Ray, Fred Gibson (who produced Who Do You Think Of?), Dallas Austin (TLC) – we’ve been in with some amazing people.  

We need talk about MØ. How annoying is the confusion between you two out of 10?

All: TEN!

Nadine: You know what though, we’ve had some great perks out of it. Some people think we feature on the new Major Lazer/Justin Bieber single… we’ll take that!

Annie: One time her label sent her a bottle of champagne ahead of our show, but it was sent to our show instead.

Frankie: On Twitter we’re @MOMusic, so we get tagged in all her tweets, which is, umm, great!

The next single choice is going to be crucial, isn’t it? Have you picked one yet?

Annie: We have and we’ve got something really excited coming with it. Jesus, I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. It’s exciting. Look out for it.

M.O's Who Do You Think Of? is out now