by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“I’m just an awkward bastard,” says Danny Hunt. “As soon as anyone tells me to do something, you know I’m not gonna do it.” Whether he’s fucking with dancefloors as a “kamikaze” DJ, playing footie with photo shoot props or basking in the California sun, Hunt prefers the role of merry prankster over man-machine. Since Ladytron’s founding in 1999, his band (with Helen Marnie, Mira Aroyo and Reuben Wu - all on keyboards) has been pegged as robotic revivalists and, more recently, the British cell of electroclash, despite consistently staying one step ahead of the brat pack. Ladytron’s debut, 604, preceded Larry Tee’s first Electroclash festival, and Light & Magic is the only sophomore disc to date among the ’clash’s major players.

Filtering classic pop through analog synths remains the primary mission for the uniformed four, regardless of all the column inches spent fighting off misconceptions. However, these awkward bastards still have something to prove, and their new, live rhythm section is key evidence.

“Ladytron is more of a rock band now, which is what we’ve always wanted,” says Mira Aroyo. “Someone described it as ‘electro with a fist.’”

The way that I found her

“Helen used to come to all the clubs in Liverpool,” says Hunt. “I probably fancied her. When she told me she wanted to sing, I said, ‘Oh, that’s funny, I’m looking for a singer,’ and she didn’t believe me. It took me three months to convince her that I wasn’t just messing around.” Hunt, who’d already been making and spinning music with Wu, was then introduced to Aroyo, a science student and DJ in Oxford. The easy juxtaposition of her Slavic chill and Marnie’s girlish hush gave the budding band the go-ahead to bloom. 604 compiled songs written over a lengthy period - “Ladybird” dates back to Hunt’s old band Chevette - but critics called it the new sound of now, and then.

“I respect a lot of synth bands from the late ’70s and early ’80s,” says Aroyo. “They were pioneers in their field and there was something really punk about it. But they did their thing at their time, and now this is our time.” Kraftwerk and New Order became staples in Ladytron write-ups, but the band couldn’t help but balk at some of the other names being dropped.

“I’ve never, ever liked Gary Numan,” says Hunt. “Even when I was four years old, I thought he was a fool. When we were recording the new record, we stuck a copy of The Pleasure Principle on the wall as an example of where not to go. Whenever things were becoming too pompous, we’d look up at him and go, ‘Okay, this is Gary, let’s ditch it.’ We also had a picture of Gillian from New Order as an example of a good synth - good synth, bad synth. So in that way, Gary Numan was certainly an influence on the album!”

Despite the guidance of their patron synths, Ladytron didn’t predict the nu-electro wave that crashed onto the shores of America and Europe in the year following 604. Aroyo and Wu DJed at New York’s Electroclash festival in 2001, but have since criticized the scene as an elitist marketing scam driven by fashion. But Aroyo and Hunt agree that nu-electro is too diverse and geographically scattered to constitute a “scene,” and that these bands are simply ’80s children who like a little synth.

“Miss Kittin, KC Spooner and myself are all the same age, if everyone’s telling the truth,” says Hunt, adding that the music writers who’ve given them “shiteloads of free press” tend to be in their late twenties as well. He points to New York’s new disco-punk movement, led by the DFA production team, as an extension of electroclash, like minds making modern music from long neglected sounds.

“I mean, A Certain Ratio sounded terrible to me 10 years ago,” he says. “At the moment, I’m completely obsessed with the production of Mutt Lange - you know, Pyromania, Hysteria, Def Leppard? I’m not suggesting that our next album’s gonna sound like that, but you have to look away from the official, top-100 albums of all time. That shit always makes me crave for something else.”

Flicking your switches

“We’re all really into this film called The Andromeda Strain, and we liked the way their lab coats looked - ’60s, but really neat and functional, so those were the first uniforms we got made,” explains Aroyo, whose lab coat may serve another purpose - she’s got a PhD in genetics on the way.

“We looked similar already, so we thought we’d become a real unit and detach ourselves from fashion. It’s much more practical than carrying 30 outfits on tour. It’s like a school uniform. You don’t have to worry that the other kids will look better than you.”

Ladytron’s uniforms come in black, dark green and the aforementioned “nuclear facility white,” as NME called it. With vaguely utilitarian vibes, deadpan pusses and reported “robotic” behaviour in their first round of live shows (Hunt says they were “frozen with fear”), the band has often been dubbed 21st-century man-machines. Not surprisingly, Hunt would love to diffuse the droid image, perhaps with photos of the band on horseback or frolicking on the beach.

“There was one photo shoot where the photographer for Muzik had crash test dummy heads for us, and it was like, ‘Oh, fuck this, I’m not even touching that.’ So we kicked them around like footballs and broke them so we couldn’t use them. We ended up making a mock Satanic sacrifice of Helen on this big slab and we ran around giving each other piggybacks and stuff. To be honest, they’re the best photos we’ve ever done.”

They’re with the pilots

“Manchester’s pretty depressing,” says Hunt of his adopted hometown. “It’s right at the base of the hills, where all the cloud accumulates, which completely explains all that dour Mancunian music. If I get the train to Liverpool, 45 minutes away, often the clouds will break up and suddenly there’s these glorious rays of sunshine.” Hunt is set to move back to Liverpool, where Wu still resides (the ladies live in London) but Light & Magic took Ladytron to an even sunnier spot.

“We could have worked with Toby Neuman in Berlin,” admits Hunt. “He’d done a remix for us, but what would he do? Make us more electro than we are already? So when Emperor Norton suggested [Beck, Eels producer] Mickey Petralia, we chose him. And everyone told me I would hate L.A., but I fucking loved it.”

“I’ve never, ever been anywhere so inhumane,” says Mira, who loved the sun but loathed L.A.’s massive freeway grid and wall-to-wall weirdoes. “It’s very Lynchian, glossy on the outside, but so sinister at the same time, like there’s something lurking at the bottom of the swimming pool. And you’re lost without a car.”

Stranded at Petralia’s studio with little distraction - other than a pool and constant car chases, broadcast live on TV - the band recorded quickly and flew home. Hunt, however, stayed on to mix the album, and L.A.’s creeping surreality began to outshine the sun.

“By that point, we were working in a studio just behind Hollywood Boulevard. I think Earth, Wind & Fire built it, it’s where Prince did his first albums. It was really old school, just a big, stone-clad room with all these leather couches along the back wall and black surfaces everywhere. I don’t drive, so all I had was Hollywood Boulevard, which is just strippers’ clothes shops and dodgy bars, and after a couple of weeks of that, I was completely losing it. Eventually, our manager Tony came out to rescue me, to show me what reality was again.”

He took her to a match

Light & Magic is Ladytron’s defence against the electro-backlash, an album they describe as more classic and elegant than their debut. They say their songs feel edgier and rougher on stage, with a live drummer and bassist granting the core quartet more freedom to rock the synths. Whereas they used to dread going out on the road, Hunt says, “Now, we barely wanna come back off tour, it’s become our natural state.” But in their time off, between recording, promoting and touring, Hunt seeks simple, escapist pleasures (other than “reality TV shite”).

“I’m doing this interview in my front room, surrounded by keyboards, computers and decks,” he says, “but you need an outside interest when all your hobbies and your work and your social life, everything, revolves around music.”

He says it often surprises anti-jock Americans to learn that he’s psyched on soccer. “I don’t like sports either, but this is different. This is completely political. Between Protestant and Catholic, Everton and the Beatles, that’s basically the whole social makeup of Liverpool.”

Hunt says Aroyo’s interest in football is limited to admiring the players, and “Reuben is more or less agnostic,” whereas Marnie has happily joined him for a match or two.

“She’s quite a good omen, actually. It’s nice to be involved in something you have no control over and is not musical in any way, but, having said that, I went to this one Liverpool match where they played [the Ladytron song] ‘He Took Her to a Movie’ over the PA system at half time. I just sat with my head in my hands - it was the most embarrassing thing ever!”

Regardless of Hunt’s efforts to break out of the boxes, kill the clichés and, occasionally, lose the limelight, Ladytron is no longer personal property to be contained and controlled, a sign of success despite little embarrassments.

“My friend was sitting in another part of the stadium,” says Hunt, “and he heard some guy behind him say [in a dirty accent], ‘Who the fuck’s this? It sounds like Kraftwerk!’” :

With Simian and Phaser at Club Soda
on Saturday, Feb. 22, 9pm, $22

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