Hello guys! So firstly, how did you come up with the name "High Violet"?
Timon Oosthuizen [the newest member of the band]: Well, actually...
*everyone laughs*
Kézia Gerber [to Henry]: You pretty much invited all of us to be a part of your band, so...
Henry Dillon: It's kind of like, when I hear music I see picture and colour, I see like a feeling and it feels like "high violet". When I say the words it sounds like what the band sounds like.
Wax & Needle: It's a feeling more than a sound?
HD: Yeah, like when you say "Nirvana", it sounds like Nirvana, "Pearl Jam" sounds like Pearl Jam, "Peppers" sounds like the Chili Peppers, "High Violet" sounds like High Violet.
KG: And also we use colours in quite a lot of our songs as well. It's quite visual.
Fudge Odendaal: Like the one song "Violet Dream".
KG: And we have a new song coming out that's got hues of orange in!
W&N: So all the colours, just steadily working your way through the rainbow.
FO: We're the rainbow nation band.
HD: Nah, we're not BEE compliant.
KG: We have a white female in the band, we are BEE.
TO: Who's pregnant as well!
KG: Yes! Hello! Haha, if only it was a little girl...
And what inspired the nicknames? I know Kézia doesn't have a nickname because her name is already original enough!
KG: I was born with it *sings* maybe it's Maybelline.
FO: Wasn't mine just a misspelling of my name somewhere?
HD: What do you want though, "Fundge" or "Fudgesicles"?
FO: I don't care haha. "Fundge/Fudgesicles".
HD: And Tinsel was a present to us because we'd been looking for a drummer for so long, he's like the tinsel that just makes you happy when you see him.
KG: He's like Christmas, man.
TO: I wish I made me happy when I saw me.
KG: That's so sad!
TO: I know, somebody hug me.
KG: That's why you're in a band now that brings good vibes.
TO: Sorry, this isn't a psychology session haha.
W&N: It's an intervention...
You describe your music as "indie fusion". Henry mentioned you struggle to fit yourselves into one particular genre.
KG: We've recently decided that we are "psychedelic garage punk rock".
FO: That sounds like us.
HD: So what's the acronym for that? ...PRANG?
TO: GARP?
*laughter*
KG: Hey, we're GARP.
FO: We have the African drum style as well.
TO: No, no, that's just what happens when you do stuff in South Africa.
Okay, so who would you say are your musical influences? I know you all come from different musical backgrounds.
TO: Steve Jobs. He's always the answer to everything.
KG: I would say... Chili Peppers, No Doubt because Gwen Stefani is my shit -
TO: The Cranberries
KG: Yes, The Cranberries definitely, Skunk Anansie - just 'cause I wanna shout more.
TO: I would say The Brothers.
HD: The Brothers? They influenced you?
TO: They influenced you.
HD: Oh definitely, for sure. Ja, The Brothers, PE band. I love their sound.
TO: The ska influence in your music.
HD: Yeah, 'cause I've always loved ska music, and ska's kind of died, there's not much of a ska thing anymore, so I don't think there's many bands that wanna bring it back. It's kind of a risky thing to be the band that brings it back, but I think the way we're packaging ska is different in a way, 'cause there's elements of so much else in there. There's ska, there's punk, there's some psychedelic "Floyd"-y moments, it's got some door stomping shit going on. It's a very eclectic mix.
W&N: And then Fudge you come from more of a metal background?
FO: Yes, but I've always listened to like, both sides of music.
HD: Yeah who's your favourite band?
FO: The Beatles. Muse, The Killers, and then a bunch of death metal bands.
W&N: So like one extreme to the other.
FO: And everything in between, as long as it's interesting, not just the same thing over and over again. It's interesting, it's like what Tinsel said the other day, we experience the same thing in different genres but we like it for the same reasons.
TO: I like deep house where he likes metal, but there's similar elements in both those two genres.
HD: It's the solid kick bru.
TO: Yeah the kick and the rhythms going on underneath.
W&N: And Tinsel what are your influences?
TO: Uh, deep house, South African house, Quito, jazz music because I was educated in it. I'd say really a bit of everything.
HD: And you can really hear that in his style 'cause he'll play four bars of like a punk groove then all of a sudden boom he'll spin it around and do some kind of African groove.
KG: I think when you're musical, music can become boring as well especially when you know what's coming next. At a stage, you can even tell what word is coming next. Especially with the new pop music that's out there at the moment. There's nothing surprising about it, there's nothing exciting about it.
How would you describe your song writing and rehearsal process?
KG: Tinsel, take it away!
*laughter*
KG: Well, most of the songs that we're doing at the moment were written by Henry, but we construct it together. Like, we all bring something individual and kind of... special to it.
HD: I had a bank of music that I'd been writing for years, so it was nice to kick start the band with that. It's something very different to how I originally wanted it to sound, but it's different playing it by yourself. Timon brings his thing, Fudge brings his thing, and Kézia too so it's very much a collective now.
TO: Yeah, I'm even allowed to make a change every now and again, even as a drummer. That's a huge thing. Very open-minded band, the drummer speaks sometimes.
HD: Timon's changed our sound quite a bit hey.
KG: Yeah it's definitely like the Chemical X, we found it.
FO: I think the cool thing is, all of us have very specific ways of singing and playing our instruments and we do it that way, we're completely free to do as we want.
HD: I'll basically present a song to the guys, then Fudge will do whatever the hell he wants on bass, Timon will do what he wants and Kézia will do what she does, so they all bring their own energy to it.
Is that why you rate each song out of five at the rehearsals?
TO: That's just because we're insecure.
KG: We rate out of five before a gig so we can tell which songs we're really shitty at. It works for confidence.
W&N: Is it a personal rating?
KG: Yeah it's a self one. So like, I feel I should work on this song more.
TO: We can say yeah I suck at this song so we should do it again.
KG: And then the band can help you out. What's cool about that as well is sometimes you feel insecure about a song, but if you don't do it this way then you wouldn't know if someone else is also feeling the same about the same song.
You guys have played a whole bunch of shows since you formed. Which one has been your favourite, and why?
HD: I think it was Madison Square Garden...
*everyone laughs*
TO: Yeah, we turned down Central Park for that one.
FO: I'd have to say Fairy Knowe [Backpackers, Wilderness] personally.
KG: I enjoyed Fairy Knowe as well but I think that was the crowd. It was really intimate and there were all these weird people there. I really enjoyed Bay Pasta [Jeffreys Bay] as well though. But that was also really cool because Sonya makes you feel like a rockstar. Like, there's this backstage area with all these couches and they ask you what you want to drink, what you want to eat, they have all this really good equipment... I wish it was a night show though.
HD: We've never really been able to make the noise we want to make though, so I don't think anyone's really heard us the way they should.
KG: I also enjoyed Fairy Knowe because Fudge and I... caged the mascot.
W&N: Please elaborate?
KG: We have an elephant mascot called Stompy... We were in the kitchen making a sandwich with Nik Naks and melted cheese - best sandwich ever - and then we didn't know where to put Stompy because the bedroom was up these really big stairs and there were these cages because it's a backpackers and... we put Stompy in the cage, with his slurp [trunk] coming out like "help me". The best part was coming back and trying to trick Henry into seeing it without telling him to look. Just shenanigans, good old fashioned fun. Stompy gets love from all the girls when we play gigs, they all wanna hold him and push their boobs up against him. He's had more girls than anyone else in the band.
HD: He's a groupie magnet bru.
TO: Well, that's kind of unfair seeing as half the band is either married or getting married...
KG: We're a different kind of rockstars. We save all the girls for Stompy.
What are your future tour plans? Do you plan on playing further afield?
HD: We're gonna start recording an album now, then we're gonna do a couple of music videos and hopefully launch that album early next year.
KG: Once we've given birth -
Odene [Fudge's fiancée]: And gotten married!
KG: Yes, and gotten married, just need to get life out of the way quickly. Plus I think we're going to get lots of artists to collaborate with us on the music videos and stuff like that, so lots of fun things coming.
HD: We're going to try and get some festivals done next year too.
KG: The baby's gonna be the new mascot.
HD: Great time to break the news to Stompy, mid-interview, that he's being replaced.
Kézia, as we've mentioned, you and your fiancé/High Violet stage manager, André Ludik, are expecting your first child soon. As you're both musicians, do you think he's going to be a musical baby?
KG: With our luck, he's going to be a science wiz kid who thinks music is for hippies and hobos.
TO: Which perfectly describes the two of you...
KG: He's going to be the responsible one in the family who's like "ugh, these fucking parents of mine". Or he's just gonna be like a little Beethoven and shame us both and we'll just stop making music. Or maybe we'll just start a family band... I think he's a bassist.
HD: You'll have to train him from the ground up though, so first he'll be a roadie for like six years at least before he can even touch an instrument, hand out flyers, you know.
KG: To be honest though, because of the lifestyle me and André live, the only lesson I want him to learn is that he can do whatever the fuck he wants, as long as he lives his life with passion. It's hard to be creative, it's hard to be an artist, it's hard to be a musician, but at the end of the day it's better. You enjoy your life more.
Are you looking forward to having him at your shows in the future?
KG: We're thinking of soundproofing a camping cot and then just have it there so he can play in it and see everything but not have the music too loud on his ears. We'll definitely have to change our lifestyles a bit but we'll find balance. He's probably going to end up more famous than we do.
Lastly, if you could play a show with any band or musician, living or dead, who would it be?
André [from the other sofa]: André Ludik!
KG: Haha, yes, I do concur. Hmm... well, Beethoven would write the soundtrack to my life story. And I think if Beethoven lived now he'd be a crazy metal head, and I would enjoy hanging out with him.
HD: Nick Cave, man, totally.
KG: Oh actually, John Frusciante. Fuck, I will make music with that man, and my husband won't even mind. He'll just be like "go, go... can I come with?"
FO: Either The Beatles or Paul McCartney.
TO: I'd have to say, I'd love to do something in house music with Black Coffee, definitely, and when it comes to drumming it would be Jojo Mayer, this German Austrian dude. Crazy man. Although if I shared a stage with him, I'd probably never play drums again.
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| High Violet and Wax & Needle: L-R (back) Timon Oosthuizen, Fudge Odendaal, (front) Henry Dillon, Kézia Gerber and Stompy |
High Violet unfortunately had to pull out of the show last minute. Rather than introducing their new sound, they'll be introducing their "new mascot" very soon...
*UPDATE*: Kézia and André welcomed their beautiful baby boy, Aren, on Friday 28 September. Wax & Needle wish the three of them all the best. CONGRATULATIONS!
Responses slightly edited for clarity.
