THE VERONICAS
NEW SECRETS
by Scott McLennan
Two words of warning to all the right wing and uptight folk who have previously become worked up about The Veronicas’ faux-lesbian photo shoots, onstage drug allusions and a debut single possibly advocating teen sex: brace yourselves. While Lisa and Jessica Origliasso cannily downplay it, there’s little doubt that new album Hook Me Up takes the twins’ provocative lyrics up a notch. From the drug euphemism of the album title through to the none-to- obscure theme of Take Me On The Floor, the Los Angeles-based Queenslanders are sure to have family groups in a lather. Speaking from Sydney during ARIAs preparation, Jess protested that Take Me On The Floor doesn’t necessarily advocate sex with a stranger.
“Basically we wrote that song about just going to a club and meeting someone,” Jessica suggested with a knowing giggle. “Take Me On The Floor means go out and dance. A lot of people have read a lot more into that lyric as well, which is fine. We’re totally open to people taking what they want, but it was a really fun song we could envision playing at clubs and we love it!”
Surely you were aware of the sexual tone that people take it under as well?
“I guess it is a bit of a double meaning and for the kids who are old enough to realise that then it shouldn’t be a problem,” Jessica agreed. “People are saying, ‘But you’ve got 10-year-old fans!’, but to tell you the truth I highly doubt they’ll relate to anything like that sexually – and if they are then I’d be a bit worried about the friends that they are hanging around. When we wrote Take Me On The Floor we were aware that people would take other meanings from it.”
And what do you think your 10-year-old fans will think of the line ‘I want to kiss a girl, I want to kiss a boy’? Are they ready for bisexuality?
“You know, I hope that it helps them become open-minded. I think that society is far too close-minded in terms of pushing kids into thinking that one sexual preference is all that’s allowed in this society. If they’re that young and they’re listening to this album then maybe their parents will have something to say about it or might not approve of it, but it would be extremely close-minded of them to think that. We were also writing it from the point of view that if you weren’t necessarily gender-orientated – because boys listen to our music too – then it could be taken that way as well. We wanted to cover all bases.”
It seems you like to be a bit naughty with your lyrics and titles though - do you think there’s going to be some controversy about the album title?
“Controversy?” Jessica laughed. “Why is that?”
Hook Me Up’s title is a drug euphemism for when addicts need to score their next hit.
“Okay, well that’s not what the song’s about but obviously when we write songs then we leave it open to the listener to take from it what they want. The song was written at a time when we just wanted to get away for a minute and our lives have changed a lot since releasing The Secret Life Of… and we can’t really walk down the street without people recognising you. Obviously we were working a lot and didn’t get a lot of time to ourselves so when we wrote that song we were talking about how you want to get away to a place where there’s no one. ‘Hook me up’ means set me up or get me out of here. It’s funny, because I’ve heard lots of explanations of it. A lot of people thought it was about hooking someone up on a date, but when you listen to the verses it’s so not about dating.”
As part of an industry where drugs are notorious, are they something you often come across a lot in your life?
“I guess – especially living in LA,” Jessica commented. “You do come across that scene and it’s quite huge over there. It would be easy to turn your back on it and pretend this industry isn’t full of drugs, but it is. It’s definitely not a path we’ve chosen to take and we’re very focused on our music, which is what we’re passionate about. We obviously like to get out and party and the rest of it, but if you went and partied every night it would kind of take the fun out of it. I don’t know how these young Hollywood teens do it, since you’ve got to be focused at the same time. That’s the path we’ve chosen to take, but not everyone chooses that path.”
Lisa and Jessica both had relationships bloom and die during the two years of promotion for The Secret Life Of The Veronicas, with the twins channelling anger about their broken hearts into a number of Hook Me Up tunes. The aggression of This Is How It Feels even culminates in The Veronicas dropping the F-bomb. While Jessica wouldn’t stipulate whether it was her failed romance with Repeat Offender’s Steven Childs or Lisa’s experience with US singer Ryan Cabrera that triggered the vengeful lyric, she’s aware that the song may need to be censored for radio.
“Every song we write might be about one of our experiences, but the other one can relate to it in some part of their life,” Jessica asserted. “That song was both of our experiences, so it wasn’t about a particular person. We might have to beep the F word out as we are aware of younger fans and it might not be necessary to keep that word in there, as opposed to censoring something like ‘I wanna kiss a girl’, which we’d never take out.”
The Veronicas play Thebarton Theatre on Tue Dec 4. Hook Me Up is out now through Warner/Sire.