Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Berlin dance band Claire, and review of new EP Broken Promise Land

Claire By Lynne Datson
Claire by Lynne Datson.

The new EP from Berlin based band Claire features a series of anthemic dance tunes that will get stuck in your head in the best possible way. Sultry female lead vocals are supplied by Josie Claire Burkle, with the boys in the band providing pretty harmonies that makes this music to get lost in…. It has taken a while to catch up with this busy band that prides itself on a DIY ethos, but let’s find out more…

Claire by Rose Petal Deer (Emily Reader)
Claire by Rose Petal Deer (Emily Katherine Reader).

What inspired the songs on your EP?
We inspire ourselves a lot, all coming out of slightly different genres we started playing all sorts of music to each other. Stuff of which you knew the other one doesn’t know but might be into it. So we started this private Facebook group, were without the other giving a comment on it you can post music. A few songs out of these we try and put on our tumblr.
 
Claire Illustration by Hollie McManus
Claire Illustration by Hollie McManus.

How did you spend your ‘adolescence in the underground’ and how did you all meet up and start playing music?
We all had a really different time growing up but for some reason we all fell in love with music. In the end it is just a big coincidence that we started doing music together. After working on our first song together, which was actually just thought as a song for a short-film of a friend, we started by doing a bit more together, because the feedback was really great on it and we had fun doing music together.

CLAIRE
Games
 
Why is it so important to you that you maintain credibility in a sea of plastic pop, and how do you act to ensure this?
In our case, we do everything ourselves and that is what makes it credible for us. We started of with not just us five being Claire but also a whole bunch of friends and family members who helped us from day one to create everything that goes with the music. Christoph Schaller, a old friend of Flo’s (he is also the one we did our very first song for) does most of our videos and band pictures, Messel’s brothers are doing the artwork and our website and many many more to be mentioned and we are really thankful for all the help. Even if we are now signed to a major label we are still able to keep it the same as when we started.

Claire- Broken Promise Land ep cover
I love the artwork for your for your album sleeve, who designed it and what was their brief?
Again, Thanks to Alex (Messel’s brother)… Actually as he has been doing our artwork from day one on. He also formed the image we wanted to convey. We often give him a free hand in what he wants to do, and up until now we think it worked very well.

CLAIRE by Gemma Cotterell
CLAIRE by Gemma Cotterell.

What next for Claire?
We are preparing for our fist headliner tour in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in November and after that we are taking a few weeks holliday over Christmas and New Year. Then we are really hoping to play as much live as we can and hopefully do a bit more travelling in the next year.

Broken Promise Land by Claire is out now.

Categories ,berlin, ,Christoph Schaller, ,Claire, ,Emily Katherine Reader, ,Fidolin Achten, ,Florian Kiermaier, ,Games, ,Gemma Cotterell, ,Hollie McManus, ,interview, ,Josie Claire Burkle, ,Lynne Datson, ,Matthias Hauck, ,Nepomuk Heller, ,Passion Pit, ,Rose Petal Deer

Similar Posts: