Belleruche

BBM recently headed down to Belleruche’s studio in East London to hang out and chat about their upcoming European tour taking place in May and June and find out what the ridiculously underrated band have been doing since the recent release of their new album ‘Rollerchain’. Musically they could be compared with the Dum Dum Girls, but with Kathrin’s sultry Moloko style vocals, Belleruche certainly harbour a distinct sound.

Here’s what Kathrin de Bouer, Tim (A.K.A DJ Modest) and Ricky Fabulous had to say.

What have you been working on today?
T: Just rehearsal, we’ve got the tour starting on the 4th of May, so just been working out how to play all the new stuff for the last couple of months. We’re finishing rehearsals next week and then we’re off the week after. We’ve got about thirty dates to do, so we’re trying to get the practise in now. Rather than our previous method of just thinking, ‘Oh it will be fine!’

So you’re off going around Germany?
T: Yeah we’re going to Switzerland, Germany, France and back to the UK then a couple of dates in Holland and Belgium and the end as well. We’re quite pleased, it’s quite a lot of dates in a short period, which is nice.

When did you guys all get together, and start and meet and how did you meet?
T: Ricky and I have known each other for years, we went to college and uni together, and then we ended up living in London after university. We started sort of making, what you could maybe describe as music in a pub in Angel, every Sunday night. It was this sort of weird scratching bass guitar, guitar sampler thing going on, and no one ever listened or came, but we did it because it was something to do and they gave us chips and beer.

K: There was a couple of people that came!

T: Yeah and Kathrin was one of them! Then we sort of just started having more of a regular jam session with the three of us working out, and then someone offered us a real gig, so we thought we’d better write some songs rather than just turning up and making noises for about 2 and a half hours and then getting a free pint at the end.

You’re on your fourth album?
T: This is our fourth, Rollerchain.

What direction did you want to take with this new album? What were your inspirations behind it?
T: I think we’ve all got quite differing tastes in what we listen to, so one of the healthy things we do as a band is play each other music quite a lot. I think over the last year we’ve been listening to things that have a lot more bass in them. It wasn’t a definite decision to make an album, which sounds subbier and has more lower end in it, but it seemed to evolve that way. I think that’s the only direct thing you can point out, I think the rest of it is just the product of the ideas we had in this room really.

R: There were definitely certain things like sample drum breaks and stuff like that where I just thought, “You know what, I’m just bored of that.” I was starting to hear music using clippy drums and filters on drums, and I was like, I want to start messing around with that. It was kind of cool that we all seemed to be on the same page, and that when we started messing around everyone was like, “That actually sounds pretty cool.”

Who have you been listening to recently?
K: Greaves, Jack White’s new album, ‘Blunderbuss.’

Tim, what have you been listening to?
T: Recently, lots of old, very old folk blues stuff from America and English classical music *laughs*Stuff like Elgar! Other stuff that’s a bit more electronic, stuff from Alpha Pup Records from America which is really odd, electronica, and turntable based music which is quite strange and quite divisive.

What have you guys got planned after the tour around Europe?
All: Holiday!
T: Yeah after the end of May, sort of mid-June, we’ve got thirty days to do stuff. Then we’ve got a couple of festival shows in France and in the UK and it’s kind of time to see how the album does. It goes out and no matter what press feedback you get before it goes out, you never really know what’s going to happen. So we see what happens and then we’ll probably do a tour again around October time and take it as it comes really, see what happens.

Have you done Australia at all?
T: Yeah we have a couple of times. In 2011, at the beginning of last year we did Australia and New Zealand.

Have you got any plans to go back out there in the next year or so?
R: We’d like to, but again it depends on how the album does out there. We were very lucky the first time as Fat Freddy’s Drop asked us to come and support them, so we were kind of like, “Cool, we’ll go and do that.” Yeah just to see what the pick up’s like and if there are the offers and everything like that then great. It’s the same thing, to get over there is expensive stuff.

K: There’s lots of factors that need to work together, with schedules and time wise, and money, it all needs to work.

What was it like touring with Fat Freddy’s Drop?
K: Good, a lot of fun. I think it was the largest audiences we had played to at that point, so it was quite a cool experience. They are an amazing band, just really chilled out.

Where does the name of the band come from?
T: We’re named after a dead New Zealand dog *laughs*
R: Just keeping that connection going…
T: Let me explain. Ages ago before we even met Kathrin I needed a name for this thing we were doing.
R: Really quick as well.
T: Yeah, and one of us I forget which, worked in a place where you could spend all your day on the internet and not do any work, and I think it was you, came across a dog, there’s a tribute website to a dead dog from New Zealand, one of those giant mountain dogs?

R: A St Bernard.

T: Yeah enormous. It was so renowned, it was like a champion of champions and it had its own tribute site. It was called something Belleruche The Third, and we just thought that’s quite a nice word. Being idiots, we chose that. We didn’t know what it meant, and thankfully once we found out what it meant it wasn’t too bad. It sort of stuck.

What does it mean?
T: It means beautiful beehive. Which could be worse. I assumed it meant something nice, with “belle” obviously, we just didn’t know that “ruche” meant beehive at the time. It sort of stuck and you don’t realise that five years later when you go to France, everyone goes, “Why are you named after the beehive?” So yeah that’s basically how it happened.

By Hannah Shakir