With shows including a sold out EP launch on the Belfast Barge and Belfast Pride’s ‘Party in the Square’ amongst others, Vokxen look set to make a name for themselves. The all female ‘alt-pop supergroup’, consisting of Claire McCartney, Samantha McMillan, Jayne Harkness Bone and Debbie McCormack, have been around for less than a year but have already been out to impress. The band’s undeniable pop sensibilities are evident on their debut self-titled EP released last month with hooks and harmonies at the forefront. Aaron Cunningham caught up with the band to delve a little deeper into their sound, thoughts on all-female acts and their story so far.
►Can you tell us a bit about the new EP?
Claire: Well, it’s self titled because at the moment it’s what we feel Vokxen is soundwise.
Samantha: Every single song is so different and I think we wanted to showcase that we don’t really fall into one category but even in a recent review, one song was 90s, one was 80s and one was compared to alt rock. We’re just loving making music together and that’s all part of the creativity of it all.
►So there’s no specific genre you’d attribute to the band?
Claire: We keep fluctuating between genres.
Samantha: We were called art pop the other day, I liked that one. I’m going to go for that.
►Are these songs newly written or have they been around since the band started?
Claire: ‘The Dark Side’ has been around from day one, along with ‘Hoping’ and ‘Somebody’. We recorded those in January so this EP has been a long time in the running. And then ‘Pages’ and ‘Captivated’ we recorded over the summer there.
Samantha: Although what’s really good is that we all write separately. So ‘Pages’ actually was part of a song I’d written, part of a song that Claire had written and we just brought them together as neither of the songs were quite working separately. That’s the beauty of this all, everyone brings something to the table and it actually creates the sound. Whereas if you’re just trying to do it on your own there’s always something that doesn’t quite seem right. So it just seems that it works really well.
►Is that how a lot of the songs have been written, is it more of a collaboration rather than an individual effort?
Samantha: Well even if one person does bring a song in, we all make it what Vokxen is. We might come with an idea then it might be completely changed by the end of a session. We’re quite flexible that way. It’s really creative.
►You played a repeat encore at a previous show, is there more music in the bank nowadays?
Samantha: I think we have enough that we are thinking about getting back in and making an album. So tonight we’re doing nine songs. We’re prepared for an encore this time.
►Where did the name Vokxen come from?
Samantha: We get called Vokken, Voxken, different variations. We just thought the K would help people search for us and get us. I think there’s a Japanese petrol company called Voxen… Even the name Vokxen looks edgier. It’s bit like Chvrches using the V.
Claire: It’s a number of things coming together, because we’re all girls there’s the idea of vixen there. But then vox is because vocals are a big part of Vokxen.
►You’ve been described as a supergroup, what other projects have you all been involved in?
Claire: All of us are different arts backgrounds, Debbie’s theatre and musical side of things. That’s how I met Debbie, through theatre. Then Samantha, through teaching music. Jayne, drums and also an arts therapist, so all different things coming together to make it super.
►How did you come together as a band?
Samantha: Me and Claire met when we both worked in the Lisburn school of music. We had actually started as a different group called ‘Cantabella’. We did a few gigs with another girl, Catherine, and it was very vintage, like war songs. That was good fun. Then because it was all covers we wanted to go in a different direction. Claire and I were writing songs separately, and we decided to come together and see if we could start something. It wasn’t really complete until we got the other two girls to make the sound.
Jayne: It was organic when it happened. We just came together in a really natural way.
►Do you feel the vocals are a big part of your sound?
Claire: Definitely. I always think harmonies lift songs so much and take them to another level. We’re actually hoping to work in a lot more harmonies as much as we can.
Samantha: I think it makes you write differently as well because there’s two lead vocals. It makes you write in a certain way, it’s more question and answer and there’s beautiful woven sections as well. It brings both strengths of each person’s voice. It’s also less tiring, it spreads the load!
Jayne: If I can get my coordination right whenever I’m singing that would be great. There’s part of ‘The Dark Side’ that is in four person. We recorded so many harmonies over it.
Debbie: I was listening back to ‘Pages’ and I couldn’t tell which of you was which.
Claire: We’ve sung together so much that we’re morphing and becoming one.
Samantha: There’s sometimes even my mum will be listening and she’ll ask ‘is that you or Claire?’. We’ve done quite a lot of stuff together as a duo so I think we’re getting used to singing together.
►Was there a lot of work put in before you debuted yourselves?
Claire: As a four-piece we were together from March. We were practicing every week and we weren’t really sure when to debut but it just came at the right time, with Hidden Machine saying we’re going to put this show on. We booked that gig first then it just happened we played the first one the night before but we’d anticipated Hidden Machine to be our first one and it just didn’t work out that way.
Samantha: It was nerve-wracking at the start because we were in our comfort zone in practice rooms, and then we had to get out there.
►You’ve had a lot of success already, with shows such as Belfast Pride. What do you think of the reaction so far?
Jayne: I think it’s good that people are there that see and something else comes from that. Like City Hall was really good, for suicide awareness and we put on a stripped back acoustic set for that. You just never know who’s there listening and what’s going to come from that.
►Do you think with Pride at Custom House Square, City Hall and your EP launch on the Barge, is there something special about playing more unique venues?
Samantha: I suppose it’s all part of the creativity. Every single gig has been very different which is so lovely. It really grows you as a band as well because every time you move around different venues you have to work out what’s it going to be like this time. Even the tech side of things.
Claire: For our launch we purposefully wanted somewhere a little bit different and we hadn’t really played or seen before. It’s just such a lovely location to have a gig.
Jayne: We’ll never forget the moat at Sunflower Fest either. Or even the Empire, with the set up being different and drums at front of house.
Debbie: Pride was great because you could actually see the audience more as well. And there were so many of them as well. But we all remember this one guy who was dancing his heart out, but he’d obviously never heard us before.
Samantha: There’s a video of him with 30 thousand views and our song in the background. We actually want to try to find this guy. We want him to be in a video and find him. He was giving it stacks.
►Unfortunately you are a bit of an exception being an all female band in the Northern Irish scene. Do you feel that’s the case?
Debbie: More so because of the reaction people have, people keep saying ‘wow, you’re all girls’. That wouldn’t really have occurred to me before unless people pointed it out.
Jayne: I know people, like my family who came to see us in the Empire. And my uncle was blown away, our sound is so different. You know, you see the cliches of an all girl band and we’re not that.
►Do you get a bit tired of the cliches people may already have of you?
Samantha: It’s not really that. It’s just hard because people always try to see you’re this or this.
Claire: I think that girls in the music industry are boxed in very separate places. You know, this is a girl band, they need to be like this or this is a solo singer…
Samantha: It seems acceptable to have a lead female vocal and then all men around. Or maybe one female in the band, that seems to be a given. Or even singer-songwriters is acceptable but it does seem to be such a shock to people that four girls can get up and play music together. It just seems natural because these guys are my best friends and we just make music together and it’s just a lovely output. We’d love to encourage more people.
►Do you think there’s a way to remedy it?
Debbie: Well hopefully if people see we’ve done it then they can do it as well.
Samantha: I can’t think of all female bands I’ve ever really looked up to. We were talking earlier on about how we got the privilege of meeting Viv Albertine of The Slits. To be honest I didn’t know The Slits but whenever I met her she was so inspirational. I’ve been listening to their music and thinking they were so powerful. But at the same time I didn’t really know very many all female bands. I think as a child the one band would probably have been No Doubt with Gwen Stefani. I was actually trying to think do I have any female role models in bands, but very few.
Claire: But the fact you don’t know them shows what’s being pushed in the media more.
►Finally, what are your plans going forward?
Claire: Well I think the album is a far off goal at the minute but it’s something we really want to work towards. We’ll keep writing and just see how things go. It’s really such early days for us that it’s just nice that we’ve had these great experiences and we’re so lucky to have had them so soon.
Samantha: I think for me, I’d love to play somewhere like Dublin or London. I’d love to go as a band and play in different places. We’ll have to see what happens.