The band discuss the gruesome influence behind 21 Girls...
How long have you been a band for and how did you get together?
Lucy: Me and Aly have been in bands together since we were at school. In the late '90s we played around Nottingham in a band called Strap on Sally, and we've been in several others before forming The Madeline Rust with Martin in 2011.
Martin: We asked Gez to do a guest spot on our first album and we've never been able to shake him since.
Your new album – 21 Girls – is a concept album with a rather dark subject matter. Can you explain a bit about it please?
Lucy: Simply put, 21 Girls is a journey into the mind of one man, and twenty-one women that come to know him. The 21 girls are not just victims though; some are loved ones, including his wife and daughter. This is an exploration of what makes a person a murderer, and how the people closest to him might feel.
What was the fascination about that subject for you as a band?
Lucy: Having read many books about serial killers, what's most interesting to me is how the people who commit these crimes are not, as people like to think, the weirdo down the street. They are able to compartmentalise an outwardly normal life alongside a dark secret that's hidden from those even closest to them, who don't know there's anything wrong. This truth that murderers walk among us is of great fascination, and that's what 21 Girls is about.
What was the challenge of writing something based around a specific theme with a story and applying that to a series of songs?
Lucy: Our last album Truth or Consequences was a collection of songs with a common thread running through - and it was seen as a concept album - but it wasn't written with a theme in mind, it just ended up being that way.
Aly: With 21 Girls, Lucy and I set ourselves a writing exercise – we created a serial killer, talked about who he was, his motives, who his victims were, and tried to write music and lyrics that were evocative of his life and actions.
Are there any particular serial killers or murderers you are particularly fascinated by?
Martin: For me it's Rodney Alcala. The fact that he was able to get on national TV on the American version of blind date. Go check him out on YouTube...
Lucy: ...and he won, although, the date decided she didn't want to go out with him in the end, which was probably a good decision. Dennis Rader - the Blind Torture Kill (BTK) murderer, Ted Bundy, Ed Kemper, Gary Ridgway.
Aly: All these guys went unnoticed, nobody thought they were odd, nobody suspected them.
How did the writing and recording of the album come together?
Lucy: Aly and Gez usually bring a new idea to the studio, and we work on them together to create the finished song. I write the lyrics, and having a pre-defined storyline gave me a clear idea for what the lyrics of each song should convey, and what mood should be expressed with each melody.
What music were you listening to when writing the album?
Lucy: God knows. We all listen to all sorts of stuff. This is probably why we've had people compare us with everything from Ennio Morricone to The Bangles.
Gez: Pinkshinyultrablast, Flyying Colours, Lee Hazlewood, Sunn O))), Hüsker Dü, Roxette, Clutch, Ringo Deathstarr…
Martin: We all have our own individual tastes. I wouldn’t say they all influence our music, but then again maybe they do.
Aly: I was secretly trying to write pop songs.
Why should we listen to your new album?
Gez: Because it’s fucking badass, has more than 4 chords and has ZERO “woo woo” choruses. My favourite colour is gold.
Lucy: It may not have any "woo woo"s but it does have a few "bop bop shoo ah ah aahs".
Are there any crime books or documentaries you would recommend?
Lucy: My favourite true crime books are both Ted Bundy-related, and I love them both for the same reason. Anne Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, and The Phantom Prince by Elizabeth Kendall are both written by women who were very close to Bundy. Anne Rule became friends with Bundy when they both worked at a suicide crisis centre, and Elizabeth Kendall is a pseudonym for Bundy's long-term girlfriend who was in a relationship with him throughout the majority of his murders, and even when she started to suspect something, she thought it couldn't be true. Both books are written from the heart, sharing personal thoughts about a man they still clearly care about, despite now knowing his heinous crimes. People generally want to believe murderers are monsters, and that you would know if you lived next door to one. These books challenge those thoughts, and have been a huge inspiration on writing 21 Girls.
Aly: I’d also throw Mindhunter and Inside The Mind of BTK by John Douglas in there.
Lucy: Moving away from books, The Killing of America is the most profoundly disturbing and still chillingly relevant documentary experiences of our time. It was banned for years due to its graphic content, but you can now get it uncut on Blu-ray.
Aly: We played at a screening of The Killing of America at Rough Trade when it was released, it was great to be associated with one of our favourite films.
The band recently performed at the True Crime Museum in Hastings, which isn’t the usual gig venue...
Lucy: Yeah, we were invited to play at the brilliant True Crime Museum by the owner Joel. He organised a show at The Carlisle, a great music venue in Hastings where a murder had taken place in the 1980s (and which is part of the museum's True Crime Walk), and he also hosted a Q&A with us in the caves inside the museum, where we played an acoustic set a few feet away from real-life letters and drawings by Richard Ramirez. Amazing.
Martin: Really good fun. The rest of the band put me in the electric chair.
Lucy: He deserved it.
How was the launch at Rough Trade and where can we see you next?
Martin: Pints of wine...
Lucy: Martin can't remember the launch night, but we can confirm it was a lot of fun! Our next local gig will be part of Oxjam Nottingham Takeover on 21st October - we're playing at Spanky van Dykes.
Gez: For future gigs, you can always check our website.
21 Girls, the new album from The Madeline Rust, is out now.
The Madeline Rust perform at Spanky Van Dykes as part of Oxjam Nottingham on 21 October 2017.
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