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B R I G H t o n R o C K Holy state/JaIden JaMes/Bon IveR/tHe dRuMs lIttle dRaGon RoaRs/vIva BRotHeR
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volII.92 deCeMBeR 2010
Men aBout town
uK £3.95 us $9.99 Made In tHe uK pHotoGRapHy aMelIa Hone
InteRvIew wItH RaMona
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Men out of Town Photography JAMES COFFEY Styling AMELIA HONE
[opposite page] [left to right] shirt by LEVIS STRAUS; trousers by PRADA; belt by TOM FORD; socks models own; shoes by BURBERRY hat VINTAGE; shirt by DIOR HOMME; cardingan by FRED PERRY; trousers by JIL SANDER; socks from a selection; shoes by RAF SIMONS; bag by LOUIS VUITTON [this page] [left to right] shirt by YVES SAINT LAURENT; trousers as before; socks as before; shoes as before; belt by GUCCI. outfit as before; camera by OLYMPUS
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[this page] Shirt by TOPMAN; Teeshirt just seen models own. [opposite page] [left to right] Shirt by D&G; trousers just seen by PRADA. shirt just seen as before.
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BRIGHTON ROCK Exclusive interview with Ramona
Ramona, a band hailing from Brighton, have had an eventful year including playing the iTunes festival and Burberry’s night out in New York City. Dazed interviewed them to see how its been and what they’re about. PHOTOGRAPHY JAMES WATTS COLIn LANE
Interviewing Karen-Anne and publicity shy Freddy West from Ramona in their hometown of Brighton was really interesting. Karen-Anne was painfully beautiful, the kind of beauty where you know she rolls out of bed chucks on a band tee shirt and looks cooler and more natural than we could ever look. She is also inherently lovely and really quite funny, someone that you should love to hate but can’t. Freddy was shy and reserved but mysterious and intriguing like an unopened book. I liked Ramona a lot. For those who haven’t heard you yet what do you sound like? Freddy West: We all listen to a lot of different music in the band, but we have
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a common love for 70’s punk which definitely worms its way into our music, we take a lot of influence from films and books not just the music we listen to, lyrical content is important to us as well, so we couple our love for great pop music with trying to tell a story, music should provide escapism and we try and provide that with our songs. How did you meet? And where did your name come from? Karen-Anne: I grew up in Brighton, when I moved back down from London and I met the boys who were all playing in different bands on the Brighton scene, we ended up getting a rehearsal space together and just started playing, at first lots of covers by other bands we were into
which was a good way of getting to know each other, and then working on song ideas which I had been writing whilst living in London. The name comes from the Bob Dylan song ‘To Ramona’. I heard that Karen Anne used to write on her own when she lived in London, do you write your songs together now? If so was it hard to make the transition? K-A: We still play many of the songs which I wrote in London but we’re always sending each other ideas when we’re not together. I think song writing has modernised over the past ten years to the point where a band can build a song together without meeting in person, we rarely write in a live rehearsal but each
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of us have ideas we will send each other to work on and then when we meet up we can try and realise the song as a band. I’ve always been scribbling lyrics and singing melodies into an old dictaphone and likewise the boys have all been writing music so the transition was a fairly natural one. Do you ever have arguments when you’re writing?
How was the iTunes festival that must have been amazing?
a typical acoustic version so we wanted to keep it energetic which worked well for the track.
F.W: iTunes festival was amazing, such a great venue and the crowd we’re amazing, the live E.P from the gig is up on iTunes now and its doing really well, so we’re chuffed. But again we are hungry for more so we build up to a show like that, have a great night and try and nail the show, the next day
I noticed on the Burberry Acoustic album that you’re placed between David Bowie and Elton John... Did you ever think you’d be in Bowie and Elton sandwich? How does it feel?
K-A: Because of the way we write we never need argue, we always give a song a chance to develop into something before judging it. If you’ve had a vision of where you want to take a track we go with it, our songs are always changing, even the oldest tracks morph the more we play live and often the songs will move through different guises before they make it to the version you’re hearing.
nothing without a woman or a girl....
B R O G UES theres no douBt about it, the brogue is in vogue. pair yours with pretty dresses to rough up your look.
K-A: Can’t say that’s a sandwich we thought we’d be in but Burberry are helping lots of new music get heard with their acoustic sessions so its great we get to share a CD with those names.
F.W: We filmed that backstage at a gig in Brighton, forgot about it, then discovered the video one night and really liked it, so we uploaded it. We love playing covers so we’ll often upload videos purely for fun, I can’t see it being released but it won’t be the last video like it.
K-A: Obviously it can be interesting when you spend all hours with three boys, especially sitting in the back of a small van, but we have a lot of fun together. That doesn’t mean they don’t get on my nerves from time to time! I just put my headphones in and close my eyes. But, boys will be boys.
Karen-Anne you featured in the Spring 2011 Burberry campaign, what was it like shooting with Mario Testino?
Who has the worst bad habit in the band? we move on quickly, I think once you can sense something gathering pace you have to work harder to keep the momentum going.
You’ve been compared to Debbie Harry how do you feel about that?
You’ve also developed a good relationship with Burberry and featured in their acoustics album with ‘How long’, I know a lot of your music is very loud and upbeat, was it hard to adjust the song?
K-A: We got our inspiration from the all the greats growing up so it’s great to be compared to the best, but we’re hungry for more and I know we will still have a lot of learning to do, hopefully in the future we can hold our own against the big names.
F.W: Burberry have been great, obviously with the trip to New York and the acoustic track, strangely ‘How Long’ was very easy to translate, we thought as long we kept the punk feel of the song it would work acoustically. We didn’t want it to turn into
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this is a man’s world but it doesn’t mean
Talking about acoustic sounds are you going to release ‘Common People’? I saw the video a while ago on YouTube, Karen Anne’s voice sounds amazing are you going to release it as a song or was it just for fun?
What is it like touring with three boys?
K-A: Honestly, when you tour you become so close you don’t pick up on those kind of things, we take each other warts and all. I do wish Freddy wouldn’t click his knuckles though.
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K-A: It was a great experience for me, he’s an amazing photographer and a very cool guy, the day was made even better when they decided to shoot on Brighton beach so it felt right in that sense as well. And finally, when are you going to release an album? K-A: The album will be out later this year, but we don’t want to rush into things, which we see lots of now days. So we’ll make sure everything is ready to go first and we’re happy with the record. In the meantime you should have plenty of tracks appearing online and plenty of gigs to look out for.
Black studded brogue by Topshop; Dark brown brogue by Russell and Bromley; Tan brogue by Office Photography and styling AMELIA HONE
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