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"  Since forming in 2003, the Noisettes have garnered a following for their high-energy punk-and-soul-tinged pop songs (the London trio counts tour mates TV on the Radio, Bloc Party, and Pharrell Williams among their fans). While enjoying a day off at an Atlanta aquarium, the band&amp;#039;s fashionable front woman, Shingai Shoniwa, chatted with us about Wild Young Hearts, their sophomore album, which features the infectious single &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t Upset the Rhythm.&amp;quot;   How did the three of you meet? Dan and I met when I was in school. We just had loads of music and books and friends in common. We met Jamie through a friend of a friend when we were looking for a drummer.   What were your first impressions of one another? My first impression of Dan was &amp;quot;Who&amp;#039;s this crazy cat wearing these amazing two-tone trousers?&amp;quot; He reminded me of a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Mowgli from the Jungle Book. He was strumming some chords, and I just went up and started singing.   How has your sound evolved since the band formed? It&amp;#039;s evolved really organically but also in a very playful way. Every time we make new music, we&amp;#039;re able to keep digging into that vast sea of influences that we share, but we&amp;#039;ve had more time to try different arrangements.  Tell me about the recording process for this album.Wild Young Hearts was recorded in a studio in Primrose Hill called Mayfair Studios. What&amp;#039;s Love Got to Do With It and a couple of Radiohead albums were recorded there. Blur recorded there. It was fantastic to be recording in London again\u2014we would work till 10 or 11, then go out to the pub for a pint. My little brother came and recorded some vocals, and a couple friends of mine came and sang. We were at Mayfair for three and a half weeks, and then they went bankrupt and the doors were locked. So we moved to a studio called Rak in St. Johns Wood, another gorgeous area of London. And the last studio, called Olympic Studios, in Barnes, was the most incredible one of them all. Some legendary stuff was done there\u2014the Stones, the Kinks, Jimi Hendrix. The sad thing about that is a few weeks after we finished recording at Olympic, it closed too.    Who are some of your musical icons? A lot of our favorite acts are people who create an original sound, who never stick to the same formula\u2014people like Radiohead, David Bowie, Grace Jones, Nina Simone, Kate Bush, Talking Heads.  What are your biggest lyrical influences? I read a lot, I watch a lot of films, and I travel a lot. And there are so many incredible stories in my family and my heritage. My dad was a politician; my mom&amp;#039;s from a family of artists who traveled around East Africa playing music in the &amp;#039;70s and &amp;#039;80s. I also think we&amp;#039;re coming to the end of the age where a woman has to write a love song where she becomes pitied; I like to create some kind of optimism. Sometimes there&amp;#039;s a little bit of macabre humor in my love songs, but they&amp;#039;re also saying don&amp;#039;t stop dreaming.  How do American audiences differ from UK audiences? There&amp;#039;s more of a live-music culture here. People love going to shows, and real performers, like Prince and Beyonc\u00E9, tend to do well on the charts. In England, radio dictates the live scene too much for me. It might be four guys who look the same and have a great set of songs, but they don&amp;#039;t really have a show. They think you&amp;#039;ve got to be too cool for school and just stand there wearing a Fred Perry design, and they don&amp;#039;t really make the effort. So people say, why go to the gig?   What&amp;#039;s on your summer playlist? There&amp;#039;s definitely more old stuff than contemporary music. But we can go from Bad Brains to Luther Vandross in a heartbeat, and from Cameo or Alexander O&amp;#039;Neal to Empire of the Sun, and then from Scout Niblett or Cat Power to Toni Braxton.  How would you describe your style? I&amp;#039;m really into the high-fashion couture approach to design, where it&amp;#039;s very much about the imagination, but I like to put my own Afrocentric spin on it. I don&amp;#039;t think that clothes should be so neck-breaking that you can&amp;#039;t perform in them. I really think it&amp;#039;s fantastic to go to town in editorial situations and photo shoots, but when you go onstage, it&amp;#039;s nice when an outfit doesn&amp;#039;t get between your performing and communicating with the audience. I like to make a huge statement when I walk onstage, but afterward, you have to be able to move your body, otherwise people are just going to see someone with a great voice standing in really painful heels. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/music/interviews/a10382/were-the-band-the-noisettes-339269/?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=ELM&link=-SMT-ELM>