Electric ladyland: The all-girl trio putting keyboards on top

Au Revoir Simone has a following across two continents – and film director David Lynch is leading the fan club

Synthetic sounds (from left): Erika Forster, Annie Hart and Heather D'Angelo formed Au Revoir Simone as a celebration of the keyboard [ANTONIO PAGANO/RETNA PICTURES]

We’re big in the Swedish death metal scene,” laughs Au Revoir Simone’s Erika Forster, only half jokingly. As incongruous as it sounds, the New York trio’s wistful dream-pop ditties have apparently won them an enthusiastic following amongst some of Scandinavia’s most satanic and Forster can’t hide her bemusement or indeed, amusement.

“The last time we played there, there were these huge guys dancing in the front row like crazy – and we don’t even play that many songs you can really dance to. I was talking to them afterwards and they really were in a death-metal band but for some reason, they loved us even though they admitted that they don’t normally like our kind of music.”

In truth, it’s not all that surprising to find Au Revoir Simone are taming the world given that their current album The Bird Of Song is awash with a childlike innocence and a wealth of warm melodies. As I greet them prior to a hometown gig, it becomes instantly apparent that the trio really are as charming in person as they are on record and it’s extremely difficult not to be taken in by it – doomy devotee of Beelzebub or not.

“We’re not pretending to be like that,” states Forster with a look of glee that is quite possibly welded to her face. “I think the music we make is pretty reflective of our personalities. Some of the songs I’ve written have come from tough times and moments of emotional sadness but I’ve always tried to turn them around to be more positive or hopeful. We’re pretty optimistic people. That’s kind of our style…”

Back in October of 2003, the band members first gravitated together when Forster and Annie Hart discovered their mutual love of the keyboard and batted around the idea of forming an all-girl trio based around one of rock’s more peripheral instruments. After subsequently enlisting their mutual friend Heather D’Angelo and cribbing their name from a scene in Tim Burton’s quirky, 1985 comedy Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Au Revoir Simone began life as a kind of keyboard club; an informal gathering of musical hobbyists meeting periodically to play synthetic covers of songs they adored from their youth. Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks”, Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark” and amusingly “Now That We’ve Found Love” by Heavy D And The Boyz all received re-workings.“

It seemed like something fun for us to do – to celebrate the keyboard,” recalls Forster. “I was part of another band before we put together Au Revoir Simone and it was very much an accessory rather than anything to compose with. We weren’t being specifically antiguitar but it was great to let the keyboard shine and allow it to be the focus of attention for once. It’s not so unusual to see that kind of set-up now but when we started, there weren’t many other bands doing itthat we saw.”

Over the next couple of years, their reinterpretations of radio hits from yesteryear gave way to original material which found a sympathetic ear at London based indie Moshi Moshi – the label responsible for issuing early works from Bloc Party and Kate Nash, among others. The über-hip imprint have since released both 2005’s mini-album Verses Of Comfort, Assurance & Salvation as well as The Bird Of Musicwhich emerged to a suitably quiet but overwhelmingly positive fanfare back in March of 2007. The latter collection in particular is an understated marvel as the trio have become proficient at stretching their humble keyboards to create a remarkably lush sound.

As a result, the album has all the melodic grandeur of Pet Sounds and oozes a breathless ambience akin to that of Gallic synth-pop maestros Air (whom ARS have also supported recently). When Phil Spector’s mind wasn’t preoccupied with the threat of having to do porridge for the next 15 years, he was probably wondering how these three girls managed to do what he did with just a fraction of the equipment and barely a trace of the eccentricity.

“It took us a while but we can replicate a pretty full-band sound now,” explains D’Angelo who also pursues a scholarly interest in astrophysics outside of music. “We all sing but when it comes to the keyboards, we always make sure that one of us is making a lush, sweeping sound, one is handling the more percussive side of things and maybe one is playing a melodic, high end part. Figuring out how to do that was part of the whole point of Au Revoir Simone. We used to get some overly opinionated people say (adopts the voice of a bolshy know-it-all), ‘You guys needs a drummer’ but not so much now… unless it’s from people interested in joining the band.”

It’s certainly an enchanting end result and one which seems to win them fans at some of the most unexpected of turns. Despite having few audible musical commonalities, fellow Brooklynites We Are Scientists are nevertheless committed advocates (singer Keith Murray makes a guest appearance on the latest album) and the trio even had Au Revoir Simone support them on a UK tour.

“They fought soooo hard to get us on that tour,” recalls Hart. “Not only that, but they made sure we had soundchecks and that we were fed every night. When I would be feeling sad, they would do something to make me happy – we kind of fell in ‘band-love’ with them.” The swooning track “Stars” from The Bird Of Song was written specifically about the powerpoppers and attests to that strong bond but the list of unlikely fans goes on.

“There was a MySpace comment on our page from a teacher of a third grade class and apparently, she plays our song ‘Through The Backyards’ during the kids’ nap time or quiet time,” says D’Angelo. “Apparently, they have the entire song memorised now! That’s such a huge compliment.”

By far their most famous follower, however, is David Lynch who has declared his unbridled love for the band publicly and repeatedly. Not only did Au Revoir Simone play at the Blue Velvet director’s art exhibition in Paris last May, they also provided musical accompaniment for him during a poetry reading in a Manhattan branch of Barnes & Noble at the start of 2007 (some footage of which is available to view on YouTube). “He wasn’t too specific or deep about why he likes us,” explains Hart with a barely contained bolt of excitement that threatens to boil over into a fit of spontaneous cartwheels. “He just said that he found it really pretty and he always tells his friends to listen to it and that everyone should hear our music.”

“There was one thing that he told me,” interjects D’Angelo with a slightly calmer train of thought. “He said we had a similar musical spirit to Julee Cruise who sang the theme to the Twin Peaks series and has been a huge part of his career in general. We met her in Paris at the exhibition and it was very important for David that we met her. Maybe that’s part of the reason he likes us so much…”

Hart: “…or maybe it’s because he’s actually in third grade?!” A joke of course but then again, even the avatar of modern surrealist cinema must need a nap some time.

The broad diaspora of music fans that Au Revoir Simone attract is clearly evident at the show they play an hour or so later. It’s a small but perfectly formed demonstration of how D’Angelo, Forster and Hart have the ability to bypass factors such as age and reach beyond the genre-specific tastes of many individuals to connect with the shared human soul in everyone. The gig attracts a crowd of hip indie kids, middle-aged professionals and even a scruffy punk rocker who swaps a scowl for a starry-eyed gaze as the band begin to coo the beguiling chorus of set opener “The Lucky One”.

It might sound nauseatingly soppy, but there genuinely is a romance to the music Au Revoir Simone create and it’s something that Hart has also noted in their fan mail. “We get a lot of people writing to us saying that they’ve used our music to soundtrack the start of a relationship and it still rekindles that initial spark between them,” she beams. “I don’t think any of us thought that there would be people making that kind of deep connection with our band back when we were just messing around and playing Heavy D covers to each other.” Proof again that that love can come from the most unexpected of places.

Au Revoir Simone’s album ‘The Bird Of Song’ is out now on Moshi Moshi