Posted at 5:22 PM, 27 May 2010 -
First job at Xenomania
«My first job here was playing on The Promise by Girls Aloud, so I was thrown in at the deep end. The next one was The Boy Does Nothing by Alesha Dixon. That was literally within two weeks of starting. I remember hearing the first demo of The Promise and it had no melody or lyrics at that point. It was amazing to see the process of how it all worked and then the next thing I knew, they were playing it on The Brits.»
How Florrie got to work with Xenomania
«I met Gabriella Cilmi’s manager in an office one day. Then, a year and a half later, she called me and said, “I’ve got a friend, Brian, who’s looking for a drummer for the Xenomania house band”. I didn’t really know what Xenomania was, or who Brian was, so I Wikipediad him. I came down on the Thursday then again the next day, and he offered me the job. (...) I came down and played with Jason and Kieran, who are two of the writers here.»
The working environment at Xenomania
«It’s a bit crazy (laughs). It can go either way. We have days where it’s mad and I don’t see people upstairs for three days because they’re working away. It’s a different process to how you would expect to write songs and make a record. It is relaxed, but I have complete control into what I do, which makes it very hard work. I guess we have a good balance.
«It doesn’t get crowded, and, even in the busier times, everyone has their own space. Everyone gets on really well, it really is like a family. It’s like coming to your auntie’s house or something, Everyone is also totally on the same page. Totally creative and incredibly driven.»
The time spent at Xenomania
«[I'm here] every day. During the week and most weekends. That’s because I want to get everything right. I am totally involved with how my records are made. I work a lot with Toby, the engineer here, and I also work a lot here with Fred Falke whenever he is over from France. I play on all of my records, and I have also been remixing my own tracks. I record the songs here and Fred Falke also does some of the remixes. Panic Attack and Call 911 are already up on the web.»
«I’ve learned tons from the other amazing people that have walked through those doors. Things have changed - I was the house drummer and now I am an artist doing things in a totally different way. My whole life's changed. I lived in London when I started here. And I was like, “Do you know what? I am just going to move down here because it takes so long to get down from London”. I live just across the green. I think that the whole village is being taken over by Xenomania (laughs). It is quite small but it is amazing to get out of London and see a bit of the countryside. I didn’t want to go home at the end of the day.»
Building an online presence
«It’s important to know when you do gigs that people are going to come along already knowing your music. It’s a better way of doing it because people can feel like they discovered you as opposed to a major label. I want my fans to feel like they have some sort of ownership.»
The online response: positive and immediate
«That's the beauty of the internet and the blogging world. It's easier to stay in touch or respond when someone asks you a question; why would I not answer it? I guess it gets difficult when it grows into the thousands, or tens of thousands, it’s harder to keep it that personal... But I do little things like videos and blogs, then there’s Twitter, so people can see what you are up to. And I check what they’re up to as well.»
Transition from drummer to artist
«It was kind of a gradual thing, which I guess it had to be, for me to be able to get my head around it. When I came here, I was drumming half of the time, but obviously, to be here full-time, you wouldn’t need a drummer every day, so I was working in the admin side of it, stuffing envelopes and things like that. I knew that what I really wanted to do was just music, all day, so I took every opportunity that I had to get out of the office.
«I did lots of programming stuff, I learned how to make beats... I’d done a bit of that at school but nothing on Logic, so I learned that from scratch. That is an amazing thing to know now, so if I want to record something myself I can just go an demo some ideas or make beats. So, after I that, I did some lyricing and obviously, once you’ve lyriced something, it then needs to be demoed. So, I’d go up and record myself doing it, and Brian said, “Do you know that you can really sing?” - I’ve sung all my life, I like singing in the shower (laughs). So we worked at it together, we did more demos and tried different styles and I thought, “You know what? I can do this”.»
The drumming side of things
«I guess I am not doing it as much as I was. But I still drum on tracks that we do here. I love doing it, so probably once or twice a week I get down to the pool room and play. It’s a good place to rehearse, except in the night time and in the winter, when it’s dark and I just keep thinking that someone is going to jump out of the trees... It’s pitch black, and once Jason [Resch] actually hid round the corner. He jumped out and that scarred me for life! That room has an amazing sound and we’ve done some recordings in there which we’ve used as samples. All you need is one mic and a tape player, but mostly it’s for our rehearsals.»
First steps as a drummer
«I was six years old when I first said that I wanted to do it. We went on holiday to Greece, me and both my parents, and there was a bar down the road from the hotel with a band playing. We went a few nights in a row and I sat on this little housebrick, that’s how small I was, and I would just watch the drummer. One night he asked me if I wanted to do the hi-hat, just tap while he played… (...) On the way back, on the plane, I drew this picture of the drumkit, I’ve still got it, actually. And I remembered every little bit. I even put the worry beads on the hi-hat. I was only six years old, and that year I had my first gig ever. I was dressed as a fish in the school play and my class were all dancing and singing a fish song. I remember my feet not being able to reach both of my pedals because I had a tail.»
«I was brought up on 50s music like Chuck Berry and Elvis, all that sort of rock n’ roll that my dad listened to. I also really love nineties music, like The Spice Girls and everything. I think it’s good when people are influenced by their parents’ taste instead of just rebelling for the sake of it.»
«I listened to the radio a lot when I was younger, well, all my life, really. So, I guess a lot of what I like is mainstream, apart from the stuff that my dad likes. I think that it’s good to be able to sing along in the car with your parents, instead of listening to some sort of crazy metal headbanging thing.»
The sound of Florrie
«I’ve got different ideas. Different styles and ways to do it. I like to make music that people want to dance to. Obviously, I love beats, but I also like the raw sound that you get with a guitar. So it’s going to be a big mixture: Kind of a sixties, organic feel merged with modern pop beats and electronics.»
The future
«I can’t wait to get out there and do some gigs again. I love getting my music out there. At the minute I'm giving away tracks for free to fans, which is how I think it needs to be done. There needs to be a switch around, because people don’t really buy albums any more. There is a new route to be taken.»
Photos by Kate Bellm.
Labels: Florrie Arnold
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