Friday, December 14, 2007

Queue and Eh? - Little Joy Box...


I was introduced to Little Joy Box by Huw Stephens and his new music unsigned show on Radio1 a few weeks back. The track that hooked me in was Son of Dog, and after hearing the rest of their tunes on Myspace I had to contact LJB's creative voice, Sara, for more info.

Vital statistics (name, age, location etc)
A lady should never be asked to reveal her age, but I can tell you that i am, by birth and technicality an essex girl, though London is but a stones throw away!

How long have you been actively making music?
Little Joy Box was born about a year ago but before that I was playing bass, gigging and co-writing in The Itchy Tits (an all girl punk/rock band of friends I met at uni) for nearly 5 years which was great fun!

When did you realise that music was what you wanted to do?

My Mamma is a singer and had a contract with EMI when I was in the womb, in fact she was still gigging a week before i popped out so it's likely that I decided to do music about then!!

How did the name come about?

"Joy" in my opinion, is the ultimate word to describe happiness and I defo wanted that in the project. Put "Joy" with "Box" and (if you have a dirty mind) it can sound a bit rude, lol, but add "Little" to the front and it distracts from this and makes the name sound cutesy!

Does your location inform the music?

Hmm.. does Essex inform the music? Not intentionally, but i guess it must have an impact somewhere; circumstance, social, emotional situations are likely to impress my brain to paper.

What inspires you?
Gosh, if I analyse (haha i just noticed that anal makes up part of the word analyse!) my songs are about annoyances, animals, my Jesus complex, lost and future loves and sexuality, but i'm actually quite a nice simple girl in reality, these songs must just be a kind of cathartism!

What do you imagine people are doing when they listen to your music?

When people listen to my music they are either; loving it loathing it; busy being indifferent; eating, sleeping, going to the toilet, making babies, skipping and jumping all at once or not at all!

Favourite gig moment so far?

A lovely girl who randomly came to one of my gigs and is now a good friend told me that she liked my voice as it reminded her of chocolate, i liked that compliment!

Is there a particular song you like playing live?

When I play with my band, I like singing 'Hodgeheg' best as it's all jazzed up and about a hedgehog whose husband is cruel to her, so she decides that she "just can't deal with man's extra leg" and would "rather bat for the other side instead"

Have you a favourite moment from your career so far?
My most memorble JOY gig so far has to be my debut, when my loveable keyboardist didn't make it to the venue until the end of my 2nd song and then jumped on stage set up and played flawlessly through to the end of the set. It was kinda a Crystal Maze moment!

If my music was a fighting style it would be...
...akin to Buffy slayering demons whilst being witty in a US sitcom kind of way but being oh so girly at the same time. (or Mr Miagi; wax on, wax off!-who knows why?)

If I could be in any other band it would be...
...Queens of the Stone Age on their Songs for the Deaf tour and I'd be Dave Grohl pounding the drums!!

Are you signed to a label?
LJB is in discussion with labels but as of yet no pen has been put to paper.

Is your music available to buy?
There is a short run of JoY demo E.P'S which are to hand at gigs or on request via email.

Plans for the future?
Plans for the future all entail making JOY an epidemic!!!!

Thanks to Sara for taking the time to answer my reasonably cliched interview questions. Check out Son of Dog below, and when it's all over the blog-o-world in '08 don't cry when I said I told you so. Also, just put up on the Myspace is their cover of Pop-Hop track Hey Ya by the usually dependable Outkast. It's rather good I tell thee.

Little Joy Box - Son of Dog (YSI)

Little Joy Box - Hey Ya (Outkast) (YSI)

Little Joyspace

2 comments:

ANS said...

She sounds absolutely lovely! How comes you haven't warn you fans of your impending desertion?

ANS said...

Ahhh, I'm totally busy with end of term and preparations to go away. You get writing some new posts ski boy. Like 4Hero? Just got sent they're new track.