For anyone not yet familiar, Allo Darlin’ is a four piece pop outfit from London that plays in the vein of Noah and the Whale. The music saunters to that same wistful pace as other Uke-wielding indie bands, but like Noah and the Whale, the band possesses real talent in their songwriting. Specifically, songs that initially come across as pleasant and inoffensive, later reveal a low key attention to detail in their carefully vibrating guitar harmonies, ukelele rhythms, and distinctive vocal melodies. You’ll hear this band tagged with words like cute and adorable, but pay no mind, Allo Darlin’ writes great music and plays it well taboot.
We caught up with Allo Darlin’ front-woman Elizabeth Morris for a quick chat in advance of the release of the band’s second LP, Europe, which comes out on April 17th.
Hidden Track: I’ve read that Allo’ Darlin came about very organically in terms of it being a situation where it a group of friends who played some music and next thing you know you’re touring all over the world. Is that basically how it came to be?
Elizabeth Morris: Kind of. Paul and Mike were friends of one of my friends, and she suggested Paul and I work together on this Springsteen track for a compilation record WIAWYA were putting out. We’d hung out a couple of times before that but I wouldn’t say we were close friends at that stage. But we got together to do that track and got on really well, and before we knew it we were recording more songs together and then we got Bill in on bass who was a friend of mine, to play some live shows. Then we were asked to make an album for Fortuna Pop. So that’s a roundabout way of saying yes – we came about organically!
HT: One thing that gets under my skin a little bit is how you guys sometimes get characterized with terms like twee and cute, because while the music does have pleasantness about it, you guys also write extremely well-crafted songs with skillful playing and strong melodies. Do you guys think about any of that stuff when you’re writing, or do you just write and play what comes naturally?
EM: Anytime you start thinking about what other people think is when you start writing untruthful songs. That doesn’t necessarily make them bad, but it’s not for me. It’s hard to keep that stuff out of your head but it’s worth it when you write something that really connects with people. I don’t really know what people mean when they say those things, they should come to one of our shows and we’d show em how hard we rock!
HT: Along those lines, the new album Europe seems to lean toward slightly heavier lyrical material. How would you say you approach the lyrics in terms of what tends to spur an idea for a song?
EM: Generally it’s the idea for the song, then the lyrics. Maybe a title or a phrase will come to mind, and then the rest of the song will be built around that. Writing songs is sometimes like doing crosswords or a puzzle, and it can be really infuriating. I’m not very nice to be around when I’m writing songs – you can be talking to me but I’ll always have something else on my mind. I don’t do it all the time and I can take quite long breaks between writing, but when I do it it helps me make sense of things in my head.
HT: This is a random one, but if you could pick one song from your childhood that had the most profound impact on you growing up, what would it be?
EM: Probably Sloop John B. Can’t say why or how but that was the first one I thought of.
HT: Were there any songs on the new album that you felt came together better than expected in the studio?
EM: Not really – the ones we knew would be easy were easy and the ones we knew would be hard were hard! I guess Wonderland came together in a really nice natural way, and we’d rehearsed it a few times before recording it so we felt confident about what we were doing.
HT: I’m curious about the themes on Europe. It seems like there’s something exploratory, maybe even celestial, in there with songs like Neil Armstrong, Wonderland, and Northern Lights?
EM: When I was writing songs for this album I didn’t know how much longer I would be legally able to stay in Europe, because my visa was nearly up. Lots of the songs are connected to the idea of what “home” is, so I guess in that sense it’s exploratory. Not so sure about celestial but I do have a thing for space so maybe that comes across. Australia is so isolated and I was thinking about what it would be like to go back to that.
HT: And lastly, one more off-the-cuff one: who is your favorite songwriter of all time?
EM: Probably Lou Reed, but Joni Mitchell and Jonathan Richman are not far behind.
