News Saint Lou Lou: Seeking The Perfect Pop Song

“When we made the song we weren’t even that sure that we liked it in the first place,” explains Miranda Kilbey, one half of the Swedish / Australian sister-act Saint Lou Lou, of their mesmerising debut single ‘Maybe You’. “It’s hard to try and look back and see how it went because we were in the midst of just trying to find our sound and the song just happened… It was on top of an old beat that our producers had come up with years before. The version that is out there now is the demo version; we haven’t touched it since we sang it the first time.”

It’s just as well the duo didn’t scrap the song. It’s the kind of head-turning, once in a blue moon single that receives as many questions as it does plaudits. As soon as it came out, Saint Lou Lou found themselves on everybody’s radar. On its own merit, ‘Maybe You’ has acted as the duo’s golden ticket to a seemingly endless journey of success.

Speaking to us on a Skype call from Brussels, Miranda is evidently the dominant sibling. Throughout the interview she’s only occasionally interjected by her sister Elektra to help finish her sentences. There’s a sisterly bond though, in the sense that each knows exactly what the other’s going to say. They’re on the same wavelength, both musically and in conversation.

“I don’t think that there was a clear decision that made us decide to make music together, I think it’s always been our dynamic that makes us do things together,” claims Miranda, moving on to describe the tale of how the two sisters came together to start making music. “In the past, if one of us has a job at one place, then the other has worked there too. So I think it was just a natural thing for us to start doing music; Elektra started tagging along and we immediately became Saint Lou Lou.”

But when it came to working out what exactly makes the pair’s music resonate with so many, on such a large scale, the girls found it a little harder to answer. “I think there’s a sense of melancholy mixed with hope,” Miranda says. “So in one way, it’s an adolescent sound. We feel like it can reach out to different states of mind - the music is very open to interpretation.”

Saint Lou Lou are currently finishing up a handful of shows that will lead them up to Christmas, while working towards an album release in 2013. There are no set in stone plans as of yet but the sisters are determined to have an LP available before the end of next year. “We’re just trying to gather songs - it’s not in any particular direction but we’ll just add what we love most to the album,” says Miranda.

Progress is still being taken at a step-by-step pace. Uncertainty lingers, to an extent. But ‘Maybe You’ alone makes it clear that they must be doing something right, and with their impressive live performances, 2013 looks set to be Saint Lou Lou’s time to sparkle.

Taken from the December 2012 / January 2013 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.