Bring The Noise

It’s an old story. Band has breakthrough hit. Record company demands more of same. Band demurs. Everything goes shit-shaped.

Such was the fate that befell Noisettes after they had announced themselves to the world with 2009’s Wild Young Hearts, a rollicking soul record that established the London duo as one of the UK’s pre-eminent R&B outfits. The album should have been a springboard. Instead, it threatened to drag them under.
In the wake of their unexpected success, the understanding, so far as their label Universal was concerned, was that singer Shingai Shoniwa and multi-instrumentalist Dan Smith would crank out Wild Young Hearts 2.0. Noisettes had different ideas and relations with their (now ex-) corporate sugar-daddy took a predictable turn for the worse.
“There was definitely an expectation on us to deliver the goods,” Smith sighs. “Our A&R guy was great. He really appreciated what we wanted to achieve. He was on our side. At the level above him, I’m not sure people quite understand us. They had their own ideas.”
Noisettes’ goal, says Smith, was an LP that would help them crack the United States, to which they had always looked for inspiration. However, Universal didn’t share the band’s confidence in their ability to gain a toe-hold in America. They would have been perfectly happy with another album that had the potential to do well in Europe. To that end, they suggested Smith and Shoniwa work with some hand-picked co-writers. Things got tense.
“Everyone was coming up to us saying, ‘You should target this or that audience’. Everybody thinks they have the secret to success. The truth is, the industry is changing so quickly, audiences’ tastes are moving so fast, the old way of looking at the world won’t do you any good. Everybody wants you to tick all these boxes. The thing is, you’re the one who is going to have to go out and perform it. So you have to be happy with it. In the first instance, you have to make it for yourself.
“We told the label we wanted to develop a more international sound. Not just one popular in a corner of Europe. The idea was to capitalise on all our interests, for all the rhythm ‘n’ blues and dance and funk influences in us to come out. We tried writing with a few people. It wasn’t working.”
Some of new LP Contact was laid down at Grouse Lodge Studio in Westmeath. A steady procession of A-list acts have passed through the sprawling rural complex, Muse, REM and Snow Patrol among them. However, the studio is likely to go down in the annals as the place Michael Jackson retreated to for work on his aborted final LP.
“We stayed in the house that was built for him,” Smith recalls. “The agreement had been to build the house and money hadn’t been mentioned. They were going to sort that out afterwards. He passed away while the work was going on. It’s literally half-done. When they found out he died, they dropped tools.”
Spending time in a place Jackson had called home in his final years was eerie, says Smith.
“Lots of his instruments were there. We got to play his favourite keyboard. It was used for a couple of percussion sounds. Michael Jackson’s keyboard, can you believe it? When we told people in Dublin that we were going to Westmeath, there was a bit of, ‘You’re what? It’s Deliverance country down there!’ We loved it. The people were so friendly. We had a couple of late-night jams. They have Guinness on tap at Grouse Lodge, which is a really bad idea!”
Keeping Noisettes going has been a constant battle against music industry logic. Labels keep telling the statuesque, charismatic Shoniwa she’d fare better as a solo artist. She’s always stuck by Smith.
“With the band we were in before Noisettes, Shingi was always getting all these offers. The record companies were saying to her she’d be better off. To her fucking credit, she told them where to get off. Her outlook has always been; ‘It’s me and the band, or it’s nothing.’”

Contact is out now.