Literal Bedroom Pop - An Interview with Out of the Blue
Few students can imagine doing much more outside of uni than a sports club and maybe a society or two. But two students in a makeshift studio on Winton Drive have taken expectations and exceeded them—writing, recording, and producing an entire album in a little over a year. Not only did they self-release their debut LP, bedtime stories, an eclectic mashup of house beats and bedroom pop, but they managed to hear their single “iris” played on BBC Introducing. G-You has reviewed bedtime stories and gotten an exclusive interview with its creators—Nicolas and Bérénice!
Out of the Blue’s two halves - Bérénice on the left and Nicolas on the right
G-You: How did you meet and what do you study?
Bérénice: We were on our way to uni because we both stayed in Winton in first year and we met because we were both doing film and TV as one of our courses. We met on the way there and we started talking about what music we like.
Nicky: It was a very quick process of being like, OK, I like them and you just find a common interest really quickly and then you work off of that. I think it took us like a day or two to get that idea off the ground and say, you know what, we should try and see if we can make some sort of music project together. It came very naturally because we were living next door to each other and doing the same course. In those circumstances, things develop really quickly.
G-You: When did you guys start making music? Have you done this since you were little or is it pretty recent?
Bérénice: I took piano lessons when I was a kid and then I started singing pretty early on. But I didn't have the confidence. I was writing songs in my room and not doing anything with them. And then I met Nicky and I was like, might as well use that.
Nicky: Well I was like nine years old. I am technically a drummer first and foremost.I have been playing the drums for almost ten years. Then in the summer of 2016 I got into music production, did a lot there and I was getting better and making my own stuff. By the time I came to Glasgow, I had already released a few things, but nothing had really happened. I kind of came to Glasgow with the mindset of trying to just start out, start making a new thing. And that's when I met Bérénice. But it's definitely not, for either of us, a new thing. It's just a new combination of factors that culminated into the music we make now.
Bérénice: For me, it's the first time it's actually serious, because I wrote songs with my guitar when I was 14, but I never performed. Well I performed once and it was horrible— I was very distressed and started crying.
G-You: What about you, Nicky? Have you done some songwriting as well?
Nicky: I was making predominantly instrumental music. Mostly house, a lot of EDM, dancey stuff, which would occasionally feature vocals. But they never were my own. And I wouldn't write that either. I’d just grab something from somewhere and splice it in. So I don’t think that you would call it songwriting, right? It's not the kind of traditional sitting there with the guitar writing lyrics thing.
G-You: How long have you had the idea for an album? I know you said you started in first year, but have you been working on this for that long?
Nicky: I think it actually did take us a week to get into the first studio session. But it basically started from the very get go. At the beginning it’s a bit of a finding procedure to figure out what works, what doesn't, and to get the set-up working. Like figure out what we want to do, what do we like, what do we not like, where do we have common influences, where do we have something that's unique to one of us and that we want to really bring in? But I think the actual creative process started week one.
G-You: So you said you worked in a studio. How did you get to do that?
Nicky: Yeah, I might have been misleading. I'm not talking about a professional studio. All the stuff I'm talking about was rebuilding my dorm room into a workspace.
Bérénice: The DIY studio was the best place ever because he lived one floor above me. I’d just leave my bed, go up in my pajamas, go there and fall back asleep on his bed while listening to what he was doing. So it was really nice.
G-You: How do you juggle doing uni work while making your music?
Nicky: Not doing the work (laughs). For me, the solution was to sleep less. It was a lot of late night sessions and going to classes in the morning and then doing as much as I could during the classes, and then working on music in the afternoon. And after recording, work some more on the music, sometimes at night and hope the neighbors don't complain about the noise.
G-You: You've had a lot of really big achievements lately. You put out your album and your song was played on BBC Introducing. So how does this feel?
Bérénice: I don't really realize it yet. It was really odd to hear one of our songs on the radio because I was listening, and then at one point I realized that other people were listening in other parts of the country. So I was like, that's really odd. And then having an album out there is... big, especially because we've been working on it for a while now. We worked for over a year and when it was finally out, it felt like, oh, it's out. What now? What can we do?
Nicky: This is very similar for me. Those things happen and it takes a few days to compute what's happening. The radio appearance specifically happened with very little fuss. They just sent me an email saying “we're probably going to play something.” And then it actually comes on and it's weird, because we’ve listened to that song a million times, you go through it over and over again and find all those tiny details that still need fixing. So hearing the song itself, it's somewhat strange, because to everyone else it's new, but to you it's really not. But at the same time, you kind of have to put into perspective that it's not just playing, but it’s on the radio. That's something else! It’s a lot to take in and it's not easily processed. The same with the album release, because if you work on something for a year, it just becomes a part of your routine and all of a sudden it's not there anymore. It's primarily this weird feeling of my schedule, my habits, all changing. But then you kind of move on to OK, what's next? And that's kind of where I am right now.
Iris - the single that BBC Introducing sent out across the airwaves to all of the UK
G-You: What are your musical influences? What are your strongest inspirations? Do they necessarily align with the type of music that you make or do you sort of listen to other stuff and cherry pick the interesting bits?
Bérénice: We basically had a week of songwriting over the summer where we were only listening to Dua Lipa's new album for a week. So I think in some parts of our songs, you can kind of pinpoint little influences that we picked up from there. But it's nothing set. There’s random things that we really like, like Linkin Park. What would you say, Nicky?
Nicky: It's such a broad range of stuff, whenever we are working on something that's not music related, we’ll just put on something to listen to in the background. It goes from Linkin Park’s “Numb” to Grace Carter to probably some Bass House-y type thing and then moving on to something completely different. But I'd say if we had to just pick a few influences, probably the strongest one would have to be Future Nostalgia. I think the biggest influence from that album, at least in terms of production, would be the drum work. And those very almost disco-esque house-inspired beats. There's two tracks on our album which are inspired by things that you wouldn't even consider to be radio music. The intro track has some inspirations from the Avengers theme songs. Like what? And then the groove for “rest” is inspired by The Terminator theme song. But if I had to pinpoint certain artists, Max Martin needs to be one of them.There is a playlist on our Spotify called “Our Essentials”, which features some of the music that we really like.
G-You: Do you plan on continuing in this genre of music?
Bérénice: We’ve had a conversation about that. I think we want to try out different genres that we like. I'm very into softer pop: guitar, piano, and voice. And I would like to do something like that. Something a bit more housey would be nice as well. I think we want to explore a bit more, because that's what was really interesting for me with the album, is that every song was a new experiment in terms of sounds and lyrics. So I'm looking forward to trying out new things.
Nicky: I agree with that. Like we said, the plan would be to kind of embrace a certain aspect of what we like. It kind of comes down to the problem that every work you do, be it an album or an EP, demands its own mindset: you need to find a specific sound that's unique to that one record. Because if you don't do that, it just becomes, well, boring. If you make an album, then you make another album, and it's basically the same, what are you doing? You want to find something that's new. And for the time being, we need to do a bit more experimentation, we need to find a new, slightly different interpretation of what we like and then find a new sound for our next bigger album that might be done in two years.
G-You: Next, I want to ask about your songwriting process. Do you start with a melody or with the lyrics?
Bérénice: Hmm it changes? I write a lot on my own in my bed when I go to sleep. And Nicky writes a lot as well. And then we kind of present to each other, whatever we wrote and try to see what fits what. It depends on each song.
Nicky: I'd say like 60 percent of the songs were started by one of us and the remainder is written in cooperation. The vast majority of it is coming up with a vocal idea or a melody line, but I think more often we write lyrics first and then come up with something that could be an interesting instrumental. Then we see how we can either combine them or change something to make it all work. But I don't think we have a really established process yet. It kind of changes with every song we make.
Bérénice: Yeah. And it's funny because there's songs that come naturally, like our first song, for example: “just a little taste”. It came together in a very organic way, he sent me the music, I wrote lyrics in 10 minutes, and then I had this idea for a melody and then we recorded it. And then there's songs that take six months to get somewhere and we don't give up because we like one part of the song, so we decide to work more on it. And there are songs where in terms of melody and lyrics, it's actual work. I don't know if it sounds bad when I say that, but for example, “Iris”, our third single, was more demanding in terms of lyric writing, poetry, and metaphors. And that was a good experience to have.
Nicky: That one took forever to get right. Yeah. It took for-frickin-ever. It's kind of funny. Within the creative process, there's always this moment when you think all is lost. There's no way in hell you're ever going to see the finish line and that song was the musical equivalent of that. There were moments where we were really close to just scrapping it and moving on. Like we can't make this work. Screw it, we’ll make the next song. But you’ll see that every now and then it's worthwhile to push through and finish something.
G-You: What’s your favourite song on the album, for musical or other reasons?
Bérénice: I have a favourite, but it's because of the context in which it was written. Last year, we both went home because of lockdown and we managed to meet over the summer, which was really cool, because we wanted to create something again. We wrote a song that I really like, “fade out”. It's my favourite, because you have the memories and the lyrics are also very close to my heart. But then again, I really love “just a little taste” because it's like the little baby, the first song ever and then I like “iris” because it was more demanding in terms of lyrics writing—I can't choose.
Nicky: Yeah. I don't think I would be able to choose if it came down to specifics. I probably could say I like the production on “iris” best and I really like the lyric writing on “fade out”. You can't choose your favorite child, it doesn't work.
Album cover of bedtime stories, featuring the creators
G-You: So where do you see yourself and Out of the Blue heading in the next five years?
Bérénice: It would be cool to be a bit bigger, in the sense that it would be cool to have more songs out there and maybe more listeners and get better at what we do. Then again, I do not know where we'll be because we also have filmmaking projects that we want to get done as well.
Nicky: I'm really interested in the kind of cross section between making music and making movies, if it were to grow. It would be really cool to be able to do more ambitious projects in that connection, like more ambitious music videos, and see if you can write something for film and kind of dive more into that. But of course, I'd love it to go big and blow up, but I don't see much point in trying to picture yourself in five years' time, since there's only so much you have control over. And right now, of course, we're trying to push it as much as we can and get promotional content out there and make things happen. So far the trajectory is looking promising.
Bérénice: So I think we're not done yet, basically.
Nicky: No, not at all. We've just got started. There's a lot more stuff that’s going to require us getting better at what we do. And also getting “more famous” just because that enables more things, right? I just want to see how far we can go with it. And we can say we have a video coming!
Bérénice: So what happened is we released the album last week, and then one of our songs was on the radio, and the day after we shot a music video. So it was a very emotional 48 hours.
G-You: If you could pick anyone in the world to collaborate with, who would it be?
Bérénice: Because we have different influences, I would say it would be really great to have a duet with Grace Carter. It would be epic, but at the same time, doing something with Dua Lipa would be great as well.
Nicky: I can only relate to that. The thing is, the sheer amount of talent out there is so insane. There are so many people who are so impressively good at what they do. I think collaboration might be a bit rough in the sense that maybe we're not quite there yet. But being able to work with some of the really great artists out there would be insanely cool. I like the choice of Grace Carter and Dua Lipa.
G-You: Any final thoughts?
Nicky: Final thoughts? Yes, I know there's a lot, but honestly, I'm just really happy that our cross-breed of electronic music and bedroom pop, whatever you want to call it, is being received so well. I was a bit worried that it might be too out there. And there's a few songs on the record where you were like, this one might push it a little. Like “rest” being a little too punk rock. And then “121.95” being too depressed and then moving straight into full-on house. But it's been great and I'm very grateful that people have been liking it. And I'm very much looking forward to reading what you guys have to say. Reading reviews is the one thing you don't think about whilst you're making everything. It's great to actually hear and read what people think about it, especially people who aren't directly related to us.
Bérénice: And to be able to talk about it as well, because we were very critical of our work and the ways in which we write songs. But it's always really nice to get to talk about it and hear advice or opinions. It's always helpful.
If you want to read our thoughts on the album itself, head over to our Instagram to find the review we wrote, which goes live with this interview!
*Interview has been edited for clarity*
