This Won't Hurt A Bit

In the clubs and bars of Paris, where the French contemporary music scene is constantly evolving it's been decided that becoming a successful pop band just isn't cool. That's a problem for Lilly Wood & The Prick but also a challenge. This multi-national duo (who expand out into a full band for their live shows) revel in pop. Israeli-born, UK- and US-raised, French singer Nili Hadida loves the sounds of the '80s and her musical cohort Ben Cotto, according to Hadida, is obsessed with Talking Heads.

“France now is really conservative in a hidden way,” explains Hadida. “There's a lot of cool stuff happening but it has to be cool - with a big C. There's this whole thing in France if you start selling too many albums you're not cool anymore. There's no place for successful pop music.

“In France they had a way of making pop music in the '80s that was really open. They'd really go too far and it was okay. We're kind of obsessed with the '80s.”

While Lilly Wood & The Prick's latest album, The Fight, has just enough indie cool running through it, the shining synths and pop melodies on songs like Guys In Band hark back to a time when pop acts like Blondie and Talking Heads were making music for adult audiences just as much as teenagers.

There's certainly plenty to like about the album and with songs in English, there's no language barrier for the band to have to overcome. Hadida says writing in English is the more natural of the two languages she could write in but that's not surprising considering she spent her high school years in California and even did a year of boarding school in England.

“There was no decision. I met Ben in a bar and we started writing these little songs in a one-room apartment. We didn't think about it. It just came out in English. And I like my lyrics. I don't want to sound pretentious but I think it comes out okay in English. The problem isn't singing. It's writing. My father doesn't speak French. He always spoke to me in English. And I think I'm pretty shitty at writing in French. To be honest my editor actually told me to stop trying a few years back, which was really funny.”

But Hadida's earliest musical memory couldn't be more French. “I'm a mono-maniac. I have to listen to one thing for a week, but no other thing. I remember when I was really, really small, when I was five or something my grandmother had a vinyl of Edith Piaf. So she played that and I became obsessed with it when I was five. I wanted to listen to it all time.

“I have a few vinyl here at home. There are a few things that you can't take away. I listen to that and a lot of Chopin. And of the old stars I can't live without there's also Otis Redding; he's a fucking genius.”