The Veronicas interview: "We're very complicated women"

After a string of hits in their native Australia, sibling duo The Veronicas finally cracked the UK in 2009 with their Top 10 smash Untouched.

However, due to problems at their record label, their moment in the spotlight was short-lived - causing them to retreat back home for five years.

Back on UK shores and already armed with a Top 10 single in You Ruin Me, Official Charts sat down with the group as they prepare to release their long-awaited, self-titled third studio album.

Hi, Veronicas! You Ruin Me was your first UK single in five years and it smashed straight into the Official Singles Chart at Number 8. That must have been a relief, no?

Lisa: I think the song’s success speaks to the strength of the song, rather than us. I don’t think people bought it because it’s by the Veronicas. The song just really seemed to connect with people.  To be honest, I think a lot of people were surprised to see us back! It’s great, because rather than getting people to try and remember us, we just focused on making the music as good as possible.

The song matched the chart peak of Untouched in 2009, which is when things really took off for you. What are your memories of that time?

Jess: I remember it very fondly, especially being in the UK and touring here. The UK has always been one of our favourite places in the world. We’ve always felt very connected to the fans here. In some ways, it feels like a lifetime ago…

Lisa: I remember it so clearly. It was really hard to get the songs played on radio because music was in a very guitar-pop, Kelly Clarkson-like place. Lady Gaga and Katy Perry were just starting out and it was difficult to get any airplay. It’s interesting now in hindsight, I feel like the record was maybe a bit ahead of its time. We still see people saying ‘still listening to this album in 2015’, which is crazy! In fact, people seem to be enjoying more now in reflection, which is so cool. I feel the same way about t.A.T.u, and we even wrote one of their songs!

Jess: I remember we were insistent on doing exactly what we wanted to do – we didn’t want to play by the rules and we still don’t. We didn’t let anyone put us in a box.

Due to problems with your old record label, you effectively haven’t put out an album in seven years, which is a long time in pop. During the troubles, did you ever consider just throwing in the towel?

Lisa: Throughout all those problems we just thought, ‘screw this label’. We thought about releasing music online for free, but we never considered giving up on music. We knew it wasn’t personal; the label wasn’t set up for anyone to be invtested in what we were doing. People weren’t saying the music wasn’t good enough, there was just no-one there to hear it and push it forward. We couldn’t get any meetings with our label, so we just thought, ‘what’s the point being here?’

Jess: If you’re boyfriend’s not picking up the phone, go and get another boyfriend! It was a pointless process for us and we were so frustrated and just over that, so we took every step possible to get off the label. We almost put the music up for free online, but we realised ultimately it was a disservice to the fans. We didn’t have the money to master the songs and create visuals – or get sued.

You eventually signed with another major label, Sony. Were you very strict about how things were going to play out this time?

Lisa: They just got us straight away. We had a meeting with head of Sony Australia, Denis Handlin, and he approached with so much respect, so much integrity. We hadn’t been treated that way almost the whole time we were at Warner. He told us he was a fan and we played him some music, and he just got it. There was no having to convince someone or prove anything beyond the musicality. That was the humbling and re-inspiring feeling.

He was the reason we wrote You Ruin Me. He set us up with certain collaborators and songwriters and while we were resistant at first, we decided to go for it and got two great songs from it. In fact, it was his decision to release You Ruin Me as the first single. Before him, we’d been working out of fear for a long time. He taught us to be brave.

You’ve been working on your new album for a long time. How different is the end result to where you started out?

Lisa: It constantly changed because we spent so long working on it - over three years. We’re writers who like to challenge ourselves. If something is too easy or too familiar, we stop working on the song. We took a six month break, and then because our last album was electro-pop, we wanted to go full-on rock n’ roll this time. We wanted to go in the studio with Butch Vig and Billy Corgan. We had that f**king rebel mentality.

Jess: At the time I couldn’t think of anything worse or more predictable than making the same record again. We probably had a bit too much time to work on it, but it meant we had the creative time and freedom to just explore, as well as gather songs that we really loved and stood the test of time. We were definitely inspired by a lot of genres.

I remember we really got into trip-hop and decided we were going to make a trip-hop album. I then got on a bluesy-rock-swampy-soul kick after we'd spent some time in Nashville. Eventually we came back around to songs like Cruel – the stuff people identify with The Veronicas. It was a natural progression to get there – if someone had told us to make this sound we would have told them to f**k off.”

What’s the weirdest song that got left on the cutting room floor?

Jess: Probably something we did with Toby Gad. We’re doing a deluxe record which will have seven previously unreleased songs on it, so not much was left on the cutting room floor in the end. There’s a song called Psycho Bitch which definitely needs to come out.

Lisa: I really like Kaleidoscope as well, we need to put that out. We did this really weird song called Godzilla – it was f**king WEIRD. It was like Muse meets Spice Girls meets J-pop.

What’s the best song on the album?

Lisa: My favourites are Cruel, Cold, Line Of Fire and Always.

Jess: Line of fire, Born Bob Dylan, You Ruin Me, Always, More Like Me...

We said one song, girls...

Jess: Ok fine then… the whole record! The album as a whole is very eclectic. Every song comes from a very passionate place and it’s a bit of a sonic adventure. There’s a lot going on – we’re very complicated women. The album shows different facets of our personality.

You’re both songwriters, but Emeli Sande is credited as writing Always on the record; how did that come about?

Lisa: What a woman, seriously – she’s such a babe. We haven’t even met her and we love her. We’ve had psychic contact with her!

Jess: We’re very picky about songs we haven’t written, but when we got that song, it was like someone had looked into our soul or something. We had to have to song. She’s got so much soul in her. If there’s one thing this record embodies, it’s soul, so this song was like the perfect missing piece.

The album is released on March 16 in the UK; what happens after that?

Jess: Touring! We're touring for the rest of the year and playing a bunch of festivals.

Lisa: We're also continuing with our activist work and are putting together a new merch line to tie in with that. I'm also writing a book, we want to make a documentary... it's like we're back now and we don't want to stop! 

The Veronicas is out on March 16