Discussions with Shilpa Ray are a surreal experience; there is a very clear difference between her musical persona and personal demeanor. Both onstage and on-record, Ray just unloads on listeners with a booming and tormented but soulful bellow not unlike what one might expect to come out of Shirley Bassey if that singer were to down a fifth of whiskey before a show. That voice is genuinely imposing and, if all a listener knew of Ray was that sound, it would be easy to assume that she is a very imposing figure. However in conversation, there is no hint of that at all. Shilpa Ray is talkative, witty and genuinely easy to talk to – after that image barrier is broken down.
So how does one explain the disparity between image and reality? Well, one sure-fire way is to realize that business has only been picking up for Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers since Teenage and Torture came out in January. Things are moving quickly in the singer's world and she's striving to keep pace. “The shows just got better and better attended as we went along through this year, and we had a really good time out on the road,” exclaims Ray brightly. “I can't complain about how anything has gone at all. We started the year going out and doing short tours in the mid-west and things like that, but then we got picked up and asked if we wanted to go on a tour with Acid Mothers Temple so, after we went down for South By Southwest, we met up with them and toured the United States and Canada through the spring with them. After that, we went out with Man Man and did the whole thing again with them. It was a grind, but it was great; it was a completely different side of life – it was really, really exciting!” In saying that, the singer confirms that the excitement generated by Teenage and Torture works both ways because audiences have felt it too – many have lined up to sing the album's praises.
Stomping and screeching like a barroom cat-fight between Mia Zapata, Chrissie Hynde and Shirley Bassey, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers ride a ragged undercurrent of madness, mania and violence throughout their performance. It flows through the music; giving it a taboo feel from the moment “Hookers” launches itself out of the gate to open the band's sophomore effort. That same vibe – that there's something a little forbidden in that opening – ends up being the hook that drags listeners in for the long haul; the siren song of the sweet and lowdown, hypnotizing listeners with a will to walk on the wild side and holding them enthralled. As Ray bays at the moon and drops sheets of torrential harmonium for a textural backdrop, guitarist Andrew Bailey, bassist Nick Hedley and drummer John Adamski swirl up a menacing cyclone of sound that only occasionally breaks to give listeners a breather. That pattern is so infectious, so unrelenting that anyone caught in the maelstrom might not notice when “Hookers” collapses into “Death In Stereo,” or the rest of the album, for that matter. At every turn (but particularly on songs like “Hookers,” “Heaven In Stereo,” “Liquidation Sale” – which borrows from Howlin' Wolf's “Backdoor Man” – and “Erotolepsy”), Ray exorcises demons and leaves them on blood-splattered tape to every listener's excitement. At the same time, the singer proves that not every lyric has to be profound to be brilliant. Check out the line “You can travel to Oprah's Chicago/ but the broad is gonna make all your problems worse” from “Requiem In A Key I Don't Know”) for a prime example. There are great songs here which wouldn't even be songs for anyone else – they'd be drunken half-writings from that long night at the bar – but they're perfect here because they add more binding to the unhinged, maniacal spell that the album casts. Teenage and Torture is a phenomenal rock n' roll record in that way – it combines all of the best original inspirations of the genre (raging libido, anger, frustration, love, hate, happiness and disdain) and plays them all at once. The final result is a dizzying experience that makes damnation sound good. But – as the artist is quick to point out – it wasn't the single easiest thing to make. “[Making Teenage And Torture] took a really long time – like surprisingly long,” remembers the singer of the process to make the record. “It was our sophomore album, but it didn't feel like it; with the first one, A Fish Hook An Open Eye, I had just left my other band and really just made that album quickly to see if I could do it without them; I needed to see how it would work. I did that one like a tornado – just really, really quickly – but we did Teenage and Torture a completely different way; first we did demos for it, then we mastered the demos and went through them to see what was working and what wasn't, then we went into the studio and did it for real.
“What made making Teenage and Torture easier was the fact that we did pretty much everything in the same place and did everything the old fashioned way,” continues Ray. “I've never been able to rely on technology in that regard; I like doing things the old fashioned way and I have to do the whole thing so I can feel what I'm saying and singing and writing and doing; I could never chop it all up and work through the pieces. I know lots of people can and they're really good at it, but I really can't – I have to do the vocals in a live take and then maybe I'll do overdubs on top, but I can't dissect, hack and slash everything down to individual pieces and hold onto the same feeling at the same time. Happily, I didn't have to try and do that as we made this record; it was nice because we were able to work the way we were comfortable and, when it was all finally done, we did the mastering and everything for that and we released it.”
As critics continue to fawn over Teenage and Torture [with a little bit of help from a glowing endorsement by Nick Cave –ed], the conventional wisdom would be for the Happy Hookers to stay out on the road and get in front of as many potential fans as possible. But instead of booking themselves onto every package tour and festival they can manage, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers have elected to begin work on another album and really blow their burgeoning fan base's minds. According to Ray, the work on new songs has been going smoothly but, because of the way she writes, the process is far from over. “The tour was really, really great but, when I got off the road, I started thinking a lot and I looked at the material on our first two records and realized that a lot of the songs and the ideas for them had to do with a lot of things that I thought were important when I was in my twenties, but now I'm in my thirties,” says Ray of the creative impasse she's standing in front of. “Because of that, I think my writing style has changed a lot.”
“For me,” explains the singer, “a song starts with an idea and it's like some kind of poison which makes me really nauseous. When I vomit, out comes the song. I get a lot of anxiety before I even start a song. Like, a blank piece of paper or a blank slate makes me really anxious and it really bothers me until I finally just say, 'Fuck it! Let's do it.'
“Because the music comes out of me the way it does, it can't help but be pretty blunt [laughing], but I really like that,” exclaims the singer excitedly. “I like the results I've gotten from the way I work so far, so I'm going to keep pushing it. I'm trying to be a little uncompromising with myself; I'm off the road indefinitely until I can finish the work on our third album. I'm seven songs in and still have a bunch of unfinished material that I'm trying to work through.
“I have the summer to write and I'm hoping that it'll be enough time that I'll be able to get enough songs done that I'll have enough and even have enough that I'll be able to throw a couple of the ones that aren't working so well out. After that, hopefully we'll be able to go back into the studio to do it all over again.”
Artist:
www.shilparay.com/
www.myspace.com/shilparay
www.facebook.com/shilparayandherhappyhookers
www.twitter.com/shilparayandHHH
Further Reading:
Ground Control – Teenage and Torture [Review] – Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers
Download:
Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers – “Heaven In Stereo” – Teenage and Torture
Album:
Teenage and Torture is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
