Dork Radio

Live

Live 24/7

Dork Radio

Hey Violet: Brand new moves

GENRE BOUNDARIES ARE DEAD. NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR DEATH EATER STYLE PURE BLOOD TENDENCIES, GRANDAD. THE REST OF US ARE MIXING THE STREAMS, FINDING SOME...

GENRE BOUNDARIES ARE DEAD. NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR DEATH EATER STYLE PURE BLOOD TENDENCIES, GRANDAD. THE REST OF US ARE MIXING THE STREAMS, FINDING SOMETHING NEW AND EXCITING. ARE HEY VIOLET STILL ROCK? WERE THEY EVER? WHO CARES. THIS IS A BAND WHO DEAL IN ONE CURRENCY. HUGE, GIGANTIC BANGERS, AND WITH THEIR DEBUT 'FROM THE OUTSIDE' THEY'VE HIT THE MOTHERLODE

Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

There are far more interesting stories to be told than the one asking if Hey Violet are a rock band. For over a decade the likes of Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy and Linkin Park have been taking a little bit of everything they love and making it their own. More recently, Twenty One Pilots and PVRIS have been more focused on the art, than what colours they’re allowed to use. It’s 2017, and anything goes. Hey Violet aren’t wasting their time worrying about how the rest of the world views them because they’ve got stories of their own to tell. Questions of authenticity are shrugged off - “Any artist getting up on stage and doing their own thing is authentic if they feel their music” - and instead, a sure-footed confidence reigns.

The core trio of Rena and Nia Lovelis and Miranda Miller have been in bands together for nearly a decade. “We’ve grown up together. Miranda was twelve when I first met her,” starts Nia. “Rena is my sister so I couldn’t really avoid that one.” They’ve always shared a similar idea of where they wanted to go. “Miranda, Rena and I are on the same page, and we’ve always taught each other things. I know I’d be a completely different person without them.” Alongside Casey Moreta and Ian Shipp, all five of them are very similar people. “We’re different ends of the same soul,” continues Nia, with Rena adding: “Everyone adds something special. In the beginning, we were these lost kids not knowing how to connect. Being friends but not really understanding each other’s emotions, and in the process of this band, we’ve got closer and gained a lot more understanding in each other. We’re really solid right now.”

This isn’t overnight success or easy riding though. It’s been a hell of a trip. First came Cherri Bomb, a snotty rock band with arena ambitions, that saw Rena, Miranda and Nia joined by vocalist Julia Pierce. They shared stages with everyone from Foo Fighters to The Smashing Pumpkins and put out album ‘This Is The End of Control’ in 2012. The following year Julia left, Casey started filling in on guitar, and Rena took her place at the front. “We were still going by the name Cherri Bomb while Casey was in the band but we should have changed the name then. We were hanging onto the name because we were afraid of change.” The name stuck around for a few years while the band figured some things out, but Cherri Bomb was dead. Hey Violet was alive from that moment on. “When we parted ways with the other member, that’s when it was a complete change. It was a new era. We were trying out different things, and that’s when we were a different band. It took us a while to get the name change going, but in our hearts and souls, we knew this was different. This was a new band. We needed a fresh start.”

After a couple of years of moving the puzzle pieces around, Hey Violet broke cover in 2015 with debut EP ‘I Can Feel It’, signing to Five Seconds Of Summer’s Hi Or Hey Records and supporting the Australian band on their arena tour. The ‘Brand New Moves’ EP followed in 2016 alongside the addition of Iain Shipp on bass, freeing Rena up to focus on the microphone.

Over the course of the past few years, the band have moved from the sort of primary-coloured pop-punk that you’d expect, to something less obvious. While ‘I Can Feel It’ is all power chords and bubblegum punk, ‘Brand New Moves’ takes that attitude to the dancefloor. Elsewhere the tilted-head truth of ‘Fuqboi’ and the dark euphoria of ‘Pure’ started the band down a path that leads to their debut album ‘From The Outside’. “There have been ups and downs musically, there have been some weird moments, our mid-band-life crisis, but now we’ve got to a great place and can confidently say we stand behind it. There was just such a long period of trying to find our sound,” offers Rena. “Even at the beginning of Hey Violet when we were a different band, we knew we wanted to go more pop, but we were lost in the fact that we didn’t know how to do pop. It’s a whole other animal you have to tackle.”

Refusing to take the easy route of staying in their lane, ‘From The Outside’ sees Hey Violet branching out and not making any apologies about it. “We were doing that whole pop-punk thing, and then we asked, ‘Well, where can we go now?’ It’s more about pushing yourselves than seeing where the destination is,” explains Nia. “Let’s see how far we can go to the left, or how far can we go to the right, and then figure out what feels best to us.” It turns out what feels best is a little bit of everything and a whole lot of heart.

“Somehow we ended up in a comfortable spot for us, and yet, uncomfortable at the same time,” laughs Rena. It was important for ‘From The Outside’ to see the band “outside of our box”, without seeming like they’re trying too hard. “We’re not going to do something different just to show people we’re unpredictable; we’re just doing it because we loved it.”
“The funny thing is, talking about doing what other people say instead of doing what’s in your heart, we’ve definitely been there,” adds Miranda. “Now we’re coming out of it; people are like, ‘Now you’re just not being yourselves’, but this is us. This is the most us that it’s ever been.”

‘From The Outside’ is a record about falling in love. It’s about heartbreak and heartfelt discovery, being in control and not being afraid of how you feel. “We used to write a lot of songs about not being in control. We wanted to turn that around and see what it was like from the other side,” starts Nia. “The record does that. When we’re singing about having a broken heart, we want you to break our heart. We want to feel next level. We wanted to take an average story, all these different love stories, and figure out different perspectives. That’s why we named it ‘From The Outside’, we want you to take a step back and realise there are all these different ways to look at love and experience love.”
“It gives you a different view of your life and the different ways that you can see it,” adds Rena. “I overthink a lot of things, but with the record, it just came from the heart. We let it be exactly what it wanted it to be. We let the songs do their own thing.”

“When you spill your guts, they don’t go back in,” sings ‘My Consequence’. “That’s me in a nutshell,” laughs Rena. The band surrender to the vulnerable across the record, without submitting or bowing down. Instead, they find power in the truth. At first, it was daunting, but now - “I’m a pretty open book about the shit that I’ve gone through. I’m open about the fact I suffer from anxiety and depression. My anxiety is constantly through the roof, to put my journal on the line was a very nerve-wracking thing for me and for a long time I felt like I was a guinea pig because I was going through all these medications. I was happy being onstage but apart from that; I felt messed up.”

“This is us. This is the most us that it’s ever been.”

She took that turbulence and ran with it: “That’s a flaw in my human design because I tend to make things a lot more difficult than they need to be.” But taking the expected route was never really an option. “On one hand, we do take the easy route because the songs are coming from our heart and we don’t need to make anything up, but it is a lot more heart-wrenching and difficult to talk about. The easy way was never an option. You really have to mean what you’re saying. Audiences can call out a fake really quick. They can tell when you’re BS-ing. We’ve always tried to stay authentic in the way we talk about what we believe in. We’re very opinionated, we don’t talk about things that we haven’t experienced, or we don’t believe in. I feel like an audience could tell straight away if we started singing about something we didn’t feel in our hearts.”

Their power is real. Rena might be happy onstage but getting there is scary. In spite of this, she overcomes, and Hey Violet performs like proper stars. “It’s about taking your movements and making them bigger. The confidence just comes from feeling our songs. I don’t have to think about selling a song onstage to the audience because these songs mean a lot to me. It’s going to sell itself. It hasn’t always been like that. I definitely used to get stage fright, but I just found the confidence in knowing I love the songs we’re playing. The empowering aspect comes from feeling empowered myself in the new music we have.”

It’s a power they want to share. Despite the obvious rainbow-drenched celebration and desire for a good time, the band’s music isn’t just about having fun. “It delves deep into love and love lost; being vulnerable and feeling like you’re a little bit fucked up. I think the album has something special to offer people.” ‘O.D.D’ kicks back with the line, “I’m the girl in the back of the class, fuck bitches, get money, blow cash,” which dances with the idea that you should just do you. “Do whatever you want to do, and if that means being different or weird, that’s cool.” The song also starts with the admission: “I was raised by a mom who told me I should never listen to another voice but my own.” It’s a lesson that dictates everything Hey Violet are. “We have such supportive parents who have really shaped us as human beings in a way that helps us cope with ourselves and the things that go wrong in life,” explains Rena. “I feel like there are a lot of artists who are told to be something and that’s never the way to be because it’s never going to be authentic.”
“One of the best things all of our parents ingrained in our heads was always to ask questions,” continues Nia. “If you’re not sure about something, or if you don’t really want to do something, ask why. Get an answer back from it. I always thought that was important.”

There’s a distinctive energy across ‘From The Outside’. Songs about love see the band taking back control. “Strong female energy just comes from what we stand for as a band. It’s just not in our nature to come across as damsels in distress.” It’s something that comes from “who I am as a person,” starts Rena. “We’re all feminists in the band. We stand up for women’s rights. It all comes across naturally because it’s who we are as people. There was no intentional ‘let’s write a song about girl power’ because then it’s just going to come across as insanely fake. I’m a supporter of our fans being inspired to do the things they want to do. A lot of our fans are girls and if they want to pick up an instrument or sing songs, we’re their biggest supporters.”

“Growing up with a lot of strong women has helped,” continues Nia. “Our mums are incredible. We all support each other. We also really want to inspire girls and boys to grow into their own and be as amazing as they can be. We never set out to be a revolutionary or whatever; we’ve always just tried to inspire people who didn’t believe in themselves.”

Hey Violet are a lot of different things. There’s fierce determination to everything they do, from the swelling messages within their storytelling to their vocal dreams about headlining the likes of Madison Square Gardens and Red Rocks in Colorado. (“We have a live DVD at home of Incubus playing there and I remember watching that a lot as a little kid.”). They’re also “a pretty playful band.” Give them balloons and experience the chaos. “Even when we’re super serious, there’s a silliness about us. I hope it connects to the fans because that’s what really brings us together. Even though we can get serious and deep, we still have that lightness to us. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

“Do whatever you want to do, and if that means being different or weird, that’s cool.”

They refuse to be told what they can or can’t do. Back when they were Cherri Bomb, “Rena, Miranda and I were always told ‘You play okay for a girl’. That’s not really what you want to hear. We got a lot of people telling us we didn’t play our instruments.” Not that they’re out for your approval. “All the criticism and the doubt made us better musicians and better performers. We don’t have to listen to this. We can just show them that we’re way better than they think we are. Whenever someone tells us we’re not able to do something, we’re going to try our best and do it. Just to prove everybody wrong. It’s that teenage angst thing; it still hasn’t died out here. Whenever something’s against us, we’ve tried to prove it wrong. We have that complex that as soon as someone tells us we can’t do something or we’ll never be this, we’ll show them. It’ll be nice to show those people who don’t believe they can get anywhere, that if they go up against it, or use it as motivation, they can get anywhere they want to go.”

Despite the outsider leanings, there’s a sense of belonging to ‘From The Outside’. There’s connection in their live show. “I’ve always felt in our band and with our fanbase, we’ve been a unit,” starts Nia. “If you feel like an outsider, you have somewhere to go. We’re trying to create a little home for each other, in our shows and with the music we put out. It’s why we tell the stories we do with the songs we have. People might feel like they’re going through something completely alone and no one has ever felt this before, and even if you feel like that, it doesn’t mean it’s true. We’re trying to create a safe space for people and for ourselves.”

“If they do feel like outsiders, there’s a home for them in our little Hey Violet family,” continues Rena. “We belong on stage, we belong home sometimes, but we’re travellers. I love the sense of belonging and not belonging anywhere because we travel so much. I feel like if you’re an outsider, you can still relate to other people because everyone feels different and everyone feels a little messed up sometimes. We constantly talk about this in our song ‘O.D.D.’. It’s about being weird. It’s about being different but that being okay because it makes you a fucking human being. Even if you feel like an outsider, it doesn’t mean you’re disconnected from the world.”

There’s heavy reality across ‘From The Outside’. Despite the bright hues and the sunshine bask, there’s no sugar-coating the lyrics or hiding meaning behind thinly veiled metaphors. Hey Violet have a younger fanbase than most, but they never talk down to them or try and shield them from what’s going on.

“Even though a lot of our fans are young, they’re definitely mature enough to handle everything we have to say,” states Rena, as Miranda explains that: “A lot of them came from when we toured with 5 Seconds Of Summer. We didn’t really know what to expect. At first, we weren’t really sure if they were going to be into anything we had to say, but as we’ve grown and as they’ve grown, we’ve realised they’re really open to all these perspectives and it’s really nice.”
“I think people dismiss them as younger girls who don’t know what they want, but it’s not true,” adds Casey. “They’re very intelligent, they know what they want, and they can smell bullshit from a mile away.”
“They’re smart,” grins Nia. “These younger kids, they’re going to be the next generation and you want to be supporting them using their voices and telling you when they like things and when they don’t like things. I’m happy we’ve got a generation that can smell bullshit because I think we’re pretty much done with it.” It’s a group that can get intense - “They’re passionate, intense, determined and what more could you ask for in a fanbase?” - and turn towards Hey Violet for guidance. “When we were younger, I looked up to people who I thought always knew the answers,” continues Nia. “I looked up to Gerard Way. When he did an interview or he did something I thought, ‘Wow he definitely knows everything’, but I’m sure there were times when he had no idea what he was doing. Having people look up to us is great but I don’t have all the answers. The one thing that makes them comfortable is that we understand where they’re coming from. There are certain things they tell us, that maybe we haven’t gone through, but we tell them it’s completely normal to feel this way, it’s not going to last forever, it’s going to be okay and that’s maybe what they need to hear. Maybe they don’t need answers; maybe they just want someone to understand where they’re coming from.”

For all their confidence, their control and their commitment to their own desires, the band are “still figuring it out.” They’re happy in the moment, but “there are still a bunch of different places we want to go musically and presence-wise,” says Nia. “We’re always going for more. We don’t want any limits. We like the fact it’s all over the place. The album is cohesive but we have so many avenues we can continue down, we’re keeping those doors open. We’re very much enjoying what we’re writing about and the stories we’re telling, it’s like a fantasy and a dreamland.

“As we go on, I think it’ll go deeper in meaning. Maybe we’re going to explore different things, but right now we’re having fun singing about pleasure and having fun. I don’t think we’ll ever settle on one thing. We have so many influences between the five of us; we’ll always going to be a little all over the place because that’s what we are.” That belief in who they are, individually, as a unit and to their audience, is total and unshakeable. “We’ve been through a lot of phases just by being in this band. Phases that last or don’t last, but we’ve started to come into our own now.”

“We’ve accepted that we’re always going to change,” continues Miranda. “At some point, you realise, ‘I’m going to get to a point where this is what I look like and this is what I sound like, but it always changes’. As we’ve grown up, we’ve realised that just saying it is so much better than trying to please everyone. People are going to dislike it whatever you do.” There’s a joy in the self-discovery. “A lot of that on this album was due to my age and the experiences that were happening around me,” explains Rena. The battleground of late teens and early twenties is where everything starts to make sense, but you know less than ever. One thing that remains firm throughout though is the belief that: “I’m being authentic to myself, and that’s all that matters. This is my story. Take it or leave it.”

Hey Violet’s album ‘From The Outside’ is out now. Taken from the July issue of Upset. Order a copy now below.

Hey Violet: Brand new moves

Salford Lads Club marks 40 years of The Smiths' ‘The Queen Is Dead’ with a new Tony Walsh poem

ladylike, Insider Trading and English Garden lead SON Estrella Galicia's free summer Sebright Arms series

Vince Staples has shared ‘Cotton’ ahead of this week’s ‘Cry Baby’ release

The Youth Play celebrate friendship and freedom on their new single 'Sunday'

Hey Violet: Brand new moves

Related Articles

Salford Lads Club marks 40 years of The Smiths' ‘The Queen Is Dead’ with a new Tony Walsh poem

ladylike, Insider Trading and English Garden lead SON Estrella Galicia's free summer Sebright Arms series

Vince Staples has shared ‘Cotton’ ahead of this week’s ‘Cry Baby’ release

The Youth Play celebrate friendship and freedom on their new single 'Sunday'