WITH A name like Sweet Jane and a singer called Lydia Des Dolles, you could be forgiven for thinking this Dublin trio took their moniker from one of The Velvet Underground’s best loved songs and were in thrall to a kind of decadent New York 1970s glamour.
However the reality is rather different. “A lot of people think we are named after the Velvet Underground song,” singer Lydia tells me during our Monday morning interview, “but it’s actually a reference to Jane Fonda from her Hanoi Jane period [when the actress made a controversial visit to the Communist controlled area of Vietnam in 1972]. We were watching video footage of Fonda being released from gaol and some reporter asked ‘What happened to the sweet Jane we knew and loved?’”
It also turns out that the singer’s glamtastic name Lydia Des Dolles is not a stage-alias but her real name. “It’s not actually my birth name,” she admits, “but it’s what I’ve been calling myself for years. It is a real name, it’s French, and comes from my mum’s side of the family. It’s also much more glam rock.”
Sweet Jane were formed in 2007 by Lydia (vocals/percussion ), Danda (guitar/vocals ), and Ruairi Paxton (bass ), all bringing with them very different tastes in music.
“I’m into British indie music from the early 1990s and the whole revolution in music which happened there,” says Lydia. “Danda is into country, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and Gram Parsons, and Rurai is into garage rock and 1960s and 1970s underground.”
The band released its debut EP Blackbooks & Blackhearts in 2008 and since then they have spent much of the time touring Ireland, Britain, and the continent, supporting high profile acts like Glasvegas, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Duke Spirit, and The Kills.
“We have been really lucky with the bands that have asked us to come on tour with them,” says Lydia. “It’s been a learning curve to see how it all works and to see a big stage production and how professional it is. We learned a lot from doing that and it was great fun as well.”
How was it though for a young emerging band, barely 18 months together (at the time ), to play support to acts which would draw large crowds in large venues?
“You’re always a little bit nervous playing in front of a crowd that is not yours,” admits Lydia, “but we play a similar sort of music to the bands we toured with. I think that’s why they asked us along and were so accommodating and we play music their crowds would also be into.”
It was during the tour with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club that the band’s singer and bassist Robert Levon Been described Sweet Jane as “not totally gay”. What did he mean by that?
“That’s tongue-in-cheek,” laughs Lydia. “He has a very black sense of humour. We were asking him for a quote about the band we could use and that’s what he said! It’s very light-hearted though, nothing serious.”
Sweet Jane need not have worried what the BRMC man said as they have been showered with praise by music journalists and fellow musicians, as well as Jeff Barradale of the Arctic Monkeys management and Jarvis Cocker/British Sea Power producer Graham Sutton.
However the most memorable quote about Sweet Jane came from the charismatic Irish DJ, broadcaster, journalist, and photographer BP Fallon who said they sounded like “The Raveonettes having sex with The Jesus And Mary Chain”!
“Anything BP has to say about us is a positive and we’re happy with it,” says Lydia. “It’s a good comparison as they are the two bands people think we draw on, we do have a similar style of attacking music and a hard drum beat, I can see why people hear that.”
Lydia describes BP as “a great supporter”. “We are very lucky to call him a friend of the band,” she says. “He has helped us with a lot of gigs and always has wise words for us.”
In late May/June, Sweet Jane will release their debut album Sugar For My Soul on Reekus Records. It will have 13 tracks and cover artwork by Eoin Stanley. Sonically though, it is likely to be a little bit different from the music the band has previously released or streamed on Myspace.
“It will be very different from what we have done before,” Lydia declares. “We have not released anything for two years and in the last six months we have got to record all the songs that we wrote on tour or in the studio. Danda is the main songwriter and his influences are country, Gram Parsons, and the Rolling Stones, so people are now starting to compare us to The Byrds, but it’s still us, just more grown up, more mature.”
And since we’ve been on the subject of names, what lies behind the name of the album title Sugar For My Soul?
“We were on the bus on day reading a review of the ban and it said we take our music too seriously,” laughs Lydia, “so we were taking the p*** out of it, saying ‘Oh yes, our music is sugar for our soul’, then we said, ‘That’s a good name for a song, it’s a great name for an album!’”.
Sweet Jane play Substance at Kelly’s, Bridge Street, on Thursday March 11 at 9pm. Admission is free. Earlier that day at 1pm the band be in the TG4 studios in Baile na hAibhainn to record a performance for the stations’ ‘Imeall programme. See www.myspace.com/officialsweetjane
