NYC’s Ben Pollock and Lola ‘Lo’ Safari are Heartsrevolution, a pop ‘n’ rock ‘n’ roll duo for whom the asthetics are equal to the musical output. Since their first EP ‘CYOA’ (Create Your Own Adventure) in 2007 they’ve released a further three extended plays on the Kitsuné label, as well as touring in a pretty unique vehicle of choice…
Ahead of the release of their debut album ‘Ride Or Die’ and a London show, we caught up with Ben to discuss stuffed animals (hanging) and what you can buy from ice-cream vans (not ice cream). Sorry, childhood!
Hi Ben. You’re going to be performing live over here in the UK soon, what are your memories of London crowds?
The crowd get crazy drunk, like they start drinking mid afternoon! And they were not afraid to dance around the way they can be in LA or NYC. Maybe that is because they all pre-party?
Your choice of transport is usually a Swarovski crystal covered ice cream van, will it be joining you?
Not this time around but check it out, it’s AMAZING! We just finished building it, it took over 2 years to finish and is covered with close to 1 million magical Swarovski crystals passed down from Michael Jackson after his untimely passing. We believe we are carrying on the essence of Neverland with us. We call it the Pop He(art) Truck.
In that case, will you be jumping on an open-top double decker and visiting Buckingham Palace and Harrods in true tourist fashion?
Probably not, we aren’t really like that.
You were supposed to use the Pop He(art) Truck for your first UK tour, what happened there?
Just before we shipped our truck to the UK everything kind of went to shit. It never actually made it there. It went from LA to NYC and we ran out of money. We didn’t have enough money to get it back to LA, so we ended up moving to NYC.
The ice cream man in my local market square sells mobile phones and accessories along with the usual 99s and Screwballs, while British comedian Peter Kay portrayed one that sold X-rated films. What is the strangest thing you sell from your van?
Pleading the 5th on that one! We’ve done what we needed to survive – and avoid getting real jobs – over the years…
Despite first releasing music together way back in 2007, your debut album ‘Ride Or Die’ is finally released next month, what took so long?
There are 101 reasons why. We were held up in a bad record deal, Lo lost her mind… But in a weird way we feel like everything that happened did so for a reason. Time will tell.
Can attendees at the show in London expect a mix of the new album and all of the material that’s preceded it? (I’m hoping for ‘Ultraviolence’, ‘Switchblade’ and ‘Teenage Teardrops’.)
We can’t believe you even caught Teenage Teardrops! It was never even released! Funny story about that one: We made the most amazing muppet video for that song over four years ago in Hong Kong with Silly Thing that has been sitting on a shelf waiting for a release date. But probably not.
There seems to be a much more melodic sound to ‘Ride Or Die’ (particularly lead-single ‘Kiss’) than the gritty experimentation heard on some of the previous tracks, was that a conscious decision?
I think we were trying to find our sound. When we started there was a lot to be angry about but we realised we couldn’t really change anything if nobody knew what we were talking about or couldn’t understand Lo’s lyrics.
You’ve said before that you decided to make music together as there wasn’t anything out that you liked at the time, is that still the case?
Completely. At least not in the current musical climate
When playing your music to friends, CSS, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Crystal Castles and – particularly with ‘Kiss’ – Icona Pop are all names that crop up. Are you happy with these comparisons?
Back in the day we would get Crystal Castles comparisons all the time, maybe because we did a split 6″ with them, but we never really understood it. We thought it was because they were the only other boy/girl duo at the time. Obviously times have changed. All those bands are great in their own way but it was our intention to make rock & roll dance music that had lyrics that dealt with matters of consequence. Hopefully we accomplished that on ‘Ride Or Die’. And in our opinion it still doesn’t sound like anyone else.
You also seem to be filling an art-shaped void with a project involving stuffed animals; can you explain how this project came about to the Gigslutz readers?
Yes, we are currently working on a project called Street He(art): 2,014 stuffed animals hung in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York. They are metaphors for your childhood dreams – lynched when caught in the maze of life. We have been doing graffiti for years. It’s something that brings us happiness.
Are you going to target London while you’re over here?
Our work follows us wherever we go.
Is it true that you’re making videos for every track from ‘Ride Or Die’?
That was the plan… Not sure anymore. So far we have 4 videos ready to go…
Did you have the idea before Beyonce?
Yeah, we actually started on it years ago and we got pretty far: a muppet video, an anime video and a few others. We wouldn’t mind that Beyonce budget though!
We have a monthly radio show where we ask interviewees to choose a 3-track playlist. Which songs (either your own or others) would you like us to play?
‘Pop He(art)’ off our last mixtape ‘Revolution Rising’ and ‘Ride Or Die’ and ‘KISS’ from our upcoming LP.
You’re obviously big fans of wordplay. Can you give us something new to sum up this interview?
F*CK THE HYPE. RIDE OR DIE. LOVE, HEARTSREVOLUTION
Dan Bull.
Dan Bull
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