Page 18 - BN1 July-Aug 2019 web

BN1 CHATS WITH...
HAIKU HANDS Credit © Meredith Wohl

BY CHARLOTTE BELDHAM

Australian, three-piece Haiku Hans have made waves in What is the meaning behind the name of the band, or is it just two
recent times. With a unique alternative, indie dance sound, cool words that sound good together?
they are breaking the mold for modern girl groups. They’re Haiku is a short poem that consists of 17 syllables in three
certainly not another Little Mix. Think of The Ting Tings with a lines of five, seven and five. I think these poems have a
bit of Bjork, and even some Spice Girls. Highlighted as a new beautiful way of using only a few words to create a feeling
act to look out for by the NME and Vogue, they are certainly or message. We hope to do this in our lyrics. The poems
set for great things. traditionally refer to nature, which is a big love of everyone in
the band. We see Haiku Hands as being a collective, as we
Ahead of their Brighton show in August, we fired off a few are lucky enough to create with lots of different people. The
questions to the girls. hands represent the many hands that contribute to making
this project. We think the two words sound good together
Back in May last year you played The Great Escape festival in the too.
city. Did you enjoy the festival? Did you get to party and watch
some other bands? When is the album finally going to drop? What can we expect
We had a good time at The Great Escape festival. From from it?
our first show where we played to a packed room (this was The album release date will be a surprise, keep your eyes
the first show we ever played in the UK), until our last night peeled. You can expect to send up from your chair.
where we stayed up all night and watched the sun come up.
The highlight of the festival was playing at the pub on the How was supporting Bloc Party on their last Australian tour? What
beautiful pier with rides all over it. At this gig, we had one was the reception like?
of the bar staff come up to us when we had just jumped off It was really great to be playing in such big venues and we
stage holding a handful of blown light bulbs. She said they really enjoyed meeting the guys from Block Party, they are
had started blowing one by one during our set, this was quite all very lovely people. Our music is so different from Block
a satisfying thing to hear. This festival gave us the energy Party, I think the audience was quite shocked. It was cool
to give everything we had for the rest of our tour in Europe. to see the people in the crowd getting into our stuff. They
Sadly, we didn't get to see any other bands! looked puzzled at first but the puzzled-ness was joined by
head nodding and smiling not too far into our set.
You have a compelling future-pop sound. What musical influences
got you to this point? Your music makes everyone want to get up and dance. Is that
Sooooooo many. We all listen to quite different music to each something you wanted to encapsulate in your music? (I’m
other. I think this has been a big contributor to creating our guessing probably by the single’s title Dare you not to Dance)
sound. The meeting point for us are some of our childhood I’m so happy to hear that. Yes, we wanted to make music
favourites such as the Beastie Boys and Missy Elliot. We all you can dance to.
get down to CLiQ, Alika, Black Canviar, Major Lazer, Yaeji,
Elliphant, Die Antwoord........ Your live shows are raved about as being ‘electrifying’. Are they
a big part of your image? Do you feel people need to see you live
Being a Melbourne band, how does playing in Europe feel for the proper Haiku Hands experience?
different? I’d be happy for the music to stand alone but if people are
Every place we play in is unique. When we play in Europe, saying our shows are ‘electrifying’, then please do come to
we spend a lot more time repeating the country’s name see us!
where we are performing before going onto stage.
Haiku Hands play Brighton’s The Hope & Ruin on:
Claire and Mie being sisters, how did Beatrice complete the trio? Fri 7 Aug.
I was the last addition to the trio. Bea and Claire started
writing together before they got an offer to play at Falls
Festival and asked me to join them on stage.