Haiku Hands are beyond the point of needing a strong introduction. The Australian trio instantly allow the power of their wacky (and wonderful) songcraft to do the legwork for them, which has already garnered attention from the likes of Rolling Stone and NME. They’ve been described as the “Aussie Beastie Boys” – which is high praise, obviously – but just listen to one of their tracks, and you’ll see they’re much more than just that; they’re original and interesting, and their discography feels refreshingly new.
In December, last year, the band released their ambitious second album, Pleasure Beast. In the true spirit of Haiku Hands, the record begins with an eight second ode to French toast, of all things, before the album explodes into the weird and wonderful world of the electronic dance trio.
‘Feels So Good’, from the same record, is rapidly becoming one of the trio’s most popular tracks, which comes as no surprise. It’s the sort of song you can scream along to, either with a crowd, or alone. It’s catchy and electric, and almost anthemic in nature. You can just picture the band performing it on stage to an enormous crowd at a festival.
‘Grandma’ is another highlight of the album – a catchy track about capitalism and the exhausting idea of being ‘busy’. It’s the perfect track to listen to during the morning commute, but it was even better when the trio performed it live at Oslo Hackney on their recent tour. The whole crowd shouted along to the song’s most iconic line – “I’ve got three-thousand things to do because I’m an adult!”. It seemed to resonate with everyone in the room, momentarily ignoring their responsibilities on a Friday night. Live, the track has an incredibly unifying vibe to it, and Haiku Hands performed it with all the energy it deserves.
The trio also shone when they performed ‘Not About You’, while kitted out in their matching visor sunglasses. The track seemed to garner the most emphatic audience response, with many shouting along to “it’s not about you, shut up!” in a densely packed, boiling hot room – an incredibly cathartic feeling.
A few days prior to their London show, Mie Nakazawa and Beatrice Lewis of Haiku Hands spoke with WAX about the formation of the band, their newest album, and having three-thousand things to do (because they’re adults).
Where does the name Haiku Hands come from?
Beatrice: It’s kind of taken on a post-meaning, I think. I mean, quite a while ago, when we were trying to think of a name, we were putting together lots of different words – David Bowie had a word generator, which he built, where it just puts lots of different words together, and we were kind of doing that. We were trying lots of different combinations of words, and Haiku Hands stuck as soon as those two came together – we were like “oh, that’s cool!”. But, in hindsight, the meaning that’s come from it is – well, a haiku is a Japanese form of poetry, and it’s a beautiful art-form that’s a bit distilled in its meaning.
Mie: Yeah, and they’re often about nature. Kids in Japan learn how to write haikus, and it’s sort of about distilling an emotion in a small phrase. But they’re often to do with nature. And with Haiku Hands, we all like playing with words, so it felt right for us.
Beatrice: Yeah, and then the ‘Hands’ represents the many people that work on the project. We collaborate with a lot of different people – in our live shows, in the studio, and with photography and videos and costumes and visuals. It feels like, with Haiku Hands, the ‘hands’ are bigger than the sum of its parts, you know?
And how did you guys meet? What’s the story there?
Beatrice: I met Claire [Nakazawa] a long time ago – maybe ten years ago – at a music festival. I don’t know what you call them, here, but in Australia we call them Bush Doofs, which is like an electronic festival that you have out in the forest – it’s kind of hippie. And there wasn’t many female people playing at festivals at that time, but I was playing, and Claire was performing with another electric duo called Hermitude, and I thought she was cool, and then we ended up just hanging out for the festival. And, then, Mie and Claire are sisters, so, you know, they’ve known each other for ages. But I met Mie, then, at another festival, and so it kind of came from our love of festivals and enjoying the same kind of universes.
Mie: And, yeah, I met Claire a long time ago. I think the first day I was alive, actually.
What made each of you want to pursue music?
Mie: I didn’t have a great ambition to be a musician, but I was always in the music world – going to a lot of gigs, you know? I was wondering how I could be involved in this world, and I was thinking about being a stage photographer or a dancer. I did want to be Lauryn Hill when I was younger, so that was my dream. That couldn’t come true, obviously, so I kind of just ended up doing it – by being around the world, and being around Bea and Claire. I was already doing visual arts stuff, so music was another way of expressing and challenging myself, and challenging the idea of what music should be – it was another way to rebel, I guess.
Beatrice: I feel like what I like about Haiku Hands is that you still do all of those things within the project. You don’t just do music – you do dance and you do style and you take photos and do visuals. The cool thing about Haiku Hands is that it’s a bit DIY, and there’s a strong visual element, and there’s a lot of time and care put into that side of it.
So you’re visual artists, too – did one of you do the artwork for Pleasure Beast, then?
Mie: No, we didn’t. We were following this visual artist called Miki Kim, and she’s really great, and she did our visuals for us. And the art on that album has a really beautiful message behind it – it was mainly about longevity.
Beatrice: The art is actually of the Tree of Life. So longevity, yeah.
Mie: Which we didn’t know until after we bought it off her, actually.
I know Rolling Stone compared you to the Beastie Boys, which is great, but I was wondering who your other musical influences are?
Beatrice: There’s so many. So many! Right now, I think there are a lot of people that we’ve referenced. There are so many musicians that aren’t necessarily in the electronic realm – especially vocalists. I really like different vocal styles. I love sound, so I’m always interested in different uses of sound, and I like subverting sound in cool ways – like using breath as percussion, for example, and using our voices in weird ways.
Mie: We have this big list of artists, and a playlist that we shared, before we started writing them, and I don’t feel like we sound like any of them – like, at all! Alongside us listening to lots of different music, we were talking about our relationship with punk, and what punk is to us. Like a bit of a rebellion, freedom, self-expression – and all of those things influenced us more than specific music styles that we were aiming for. The attitude overrode what the sound was, I think.
So about Pleasure Beast, I was wondering about the 8 second introduction song about French toast – can you tell me how that came about?
Mie: So some of the interludes are from tracks that we haven’t used. That was one of the soundbites that we started writing about enjoying yourself and life and the little things. And we wanted to start the album with that intention. I mean, French toast is delicious, and it gets me salivating, which is why I thought it was a good way to start the album.
I mean, yeah, French toast is pretty amazing.
Beatrice: It really is.
Mie: Totally. I think that being present and enjoying your life is a message that sort of comes through on the whole album.
Yeah. That’s actually a good segue, because one of the tracks that stood out to me was ‘Grandma’. A line that sticks out is “I’ve got three-thousand things to do because I’m an adult” – I wanted to ask you about that.
Beatrice: It was really fun, writing that song. We wrote it in Bali, while we were on a writing retreat. And, yeah, we were just talking lots of gibberish into the microphone, and just grabbing bits that were working. We were talking about all the ridiculousness of modern capitalistic society, and how important everyone thinks their work is, and how attached we are to social status. And, actually, with the environment and the state of the world politically, it’s all a bit ridiculous, really.
I listened to it on the tube, early in the morning, and that was like the perfect way of listening to that song – with people pushing you out of the way, and that.
Beatrice: That should be the film clip! We should just get stealth videos of people being packed in the tube, going to work.
Mie: I love that line. “Because I’m an adult!” – it cracks me up every time.
I read that if a line makes you laugh, you keep it in the record – is that true? Do you have any examples of that?
Beatrice: Oh, yeah – Mie has a line in ‘Geddit’, that goes “I want to be president!” which makes me laugh. It’s just ridiculous, and I love it. I think that’s a good rule, actually. But some we do have to take out, because they’d stress our mums out.
You have your show at Oslo Hackney this week, are you excited?
Beatrice: Yeah! My friend told me that people in London don’t dance, though. I hope they do.
(Spoiler: the band had absolutely no problem getting the crowd moving)
Words: Rosie Smith // Photos: Sarah Pruim
‘Pleasure Beast’ is out now via Spinning Top Records. Stream or purchase the record via Bandcamp.