Rosie Blair of Ballet School: “Being a pop fan right now is just fucking good fun”

Rosie’s vocal gymnastics – think an Elizabeth Fraser who sings with words rather than sounds - are complimented with propulsive, reverbed drums and super spaced-out guitars, which has led some to label the band as 80s obsessives, however their musical narrative is much simpler than that. Ballet School are instead in love with the perfect pop song and the inspiration is a means to that end, whether it’s The Cure or Rihanna. The mainstream isn’t a dirty word either, rather something that smaller artists are increasingly embracing and learning from in the digital age. “You need grist for the mill, we have to keep music interesting and we have to let things happen that want to happen. At the MTV awards Lorde won Best Rock video for “Royals”, maybe our ideas of genres are becoming outmoded and we need to let a little bit of chaos happen to try and create new forms. There are no rules with music, there’s just a series of models that we’ve created ourselves, and once the model ceases to function you just swap it for another.”

The increased availability of technology has levelled the pop field in terms of production values, Rosie sees no difference between her bands output and those on majors, the chief distinction is the budget behind them. Pop music across all genres is speaking the same language; it’s just on a different salary. She has a fascination with how mainstream artists operate and an admiration for the process and work ethic involved in the making of a big budget album, but sees no difference in the end product. “What’s the difference between the music that Ballet School make and the music Taylor Swift makes? You’ve got some blond girl with lipstick on, warbling. I play the guitar too and I have a sweet little voice you know? Rihanna’s team are putting together R8. Rihanna does an album a year - how amazing is that? But what’s the real difference between us other than monetary resources? These days a lot of stuff looks the same but it’s not the same. It’s all about the nuances.”

This coalescing of the underground and the mainstream isn’t just reflected in their music, but also the pop culture they consume, for Rosie the dialogue of mainstream pop music feels more tribal and interestingly, more passionate than that of the indie scene. “I used to read loads of hipster music blogs, but I kind of stopped doing it and started spending more time on pop blogs and boards, there’s so many gangs of fans roaming the internet and it’s so much fun. Pop is just so openly competitive in the way that the fans can have an amazingly fun time arguing with each other or backing each other up, or just showing off. It’s just great.”

The advent of social media has seen the fan placed at the heart of the pop experience, creating a new dynamic in their relationships with artists.“It’s not the artists who define the experience; it’s the fans. Being a pop fan right now is just fucking good fun from start to finish. It’s more fun than being a fan of classic or indie rock. If you compare the Reading Festival with how Beyoncé’s performance at the VMA was received on Twitter and on the message boards it was just like people are having an internet carnival, it’s a free for all, it’s an event.” This shift in dynamic doesn’t simply apply to the fans either, but also artists on smaller labels such as Ballet School. “Above everything I feel like I’m a fan. I’m influenced by the mainstream all the time. I feel that the times are such as they are right now, smaller artists can quite readily admit something like that because there’s such a free exchange going on with the mainstream artists.”

The conversation turns to the record and one of the most compelling things about it is that whilst there’s a lot of heartbreak in the lyrics, it doesn’t sound miserable. It’s unquestionably very serious music that also sounds incredibly exuberant. The album title is a reference to the ephemeral nature of both youth and love. As Rosie explains “It’s saying that beauty is fleeting and there’s a melancholy in realising that the most beautiful moments don’t last, but also whenever you have that realisation the gift that you get is wisdom. It’s about trying to come to terms with the things that happen to you as you grow up, people are going to break your heart, you’re going to experience tremendous loss and you have to find a way to get through it. It’s the children of true darkness who are always trying to create light.”

The songs on the album are a clutch of wonders and there is a fascinating triptych towards the end of the record, namely “Heartbeat Overdrive”, “Cherish” and “Jade”. They’re placed together in chronological order and create a narrative arc within the whole story of the record which articulate Ballet School's musical approach, namely that they can tackle any mood they turn their hand to and the music is always tailored to bring the emotions of the words to life. This is music for both the head and dancefloor. “Heartbeat Overdrive” is the tale of the initial rush of attraction love brings and literally sounds like thrill of the chase, euphoric and giddy. “The refrain is the sound of girls screaming their heads of when they get very excited [Rosie emits a high pitch scream I can’t possibly type] when they’re totally crushed out.”

The maelstrom of “Cherish” is a blissed out euphoria and is their closest relative of Cocteau Twins, a fulfilled cheer to the skies, with the protagonist dizzy in love and prowling the streets shouting about the fact, accompanied by yelps throughout. But as with other songs on the record, if it was stripped down to the basics it could work wonderfully for other artists to cover, which as it turns out, is part of the band's masterplan. “Something I want to do in the near future is to give some songs to other artists. I really like Sia and I kind of want to snatch her wig in a way, because she writes for great pop artists and manages to hold down her own career at the same time. I really like it when someone gets a lot of respect for being a songwriter in the pop sphere too.”

The last song of this cycle is the beguiling “Jade”, the sparsest moment on the record and reminiscent of “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak. It’s the closest they get to sombre and there’s a desolate desperation to the words, it’s the comedown, the moment that the reality of a failed love affair kicks in. Interestingly, it nearly didn’t make the record at all - in keeping with their desire to write for others, Rosie earmarked it for someone else. “I thought that song would be really nice if it was sung by Justin Timberlake. Sometimes you write a song and you have someone in mind for it, I was thinking should I put it in the record? But everyone said put it on. I just wanted it to sound really, really sparse, to create the sense of desire, but when it’s self-serving. I kept on thinking about Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct when I was writing it, someone who is detached and cold but at the same time has got this uncontrollable desire.”

In keeping with their love of the perfect pop record, the tracklisting was fretted over and then some, with the dynamic informed by telling a complete story. Rosie references Gwen Stefani’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby. as the perfect example. “I remember when she was talking about the tracklisting for that record she didn’t have the “Don’t fuck with me” song and that was when they wrote Hollaback Girl. We wanted a pop tracklisting; we needed couple of anthems in there, a couple of feminist songs, a couple of ballads and a straight down the fucking line pop song such as “Heartbeat Overdrive”. And it starts with “Slow Dream” an ambient opener that’s only a minute long and there’s a whistle note in there that goes “Come for me bitches!””

Their upcoming tour promises to be as immersive as the record itself, the last time Rosie spoke to TLOBF she said the album would feature “a couple of anthemic, kingmaker, get down the front and rip your clothes-off killers!” Which, not for the first time prompts a self-depreciatory laugh. “That was “Cherish” and “Pale Saint”, both of those songs have big choruses and that was my rather flowery way of saying that.” In an ideal world for Rosie however, people shouldn’t just rip their clothes off just for these songs live. “They can rip their clothes off any time!”

Ballet School are in a very interesting place, they’ve got the art school chops that being on Bella Union brings and a profusion of potential hit singles in their pocket, which means that we could be looking at serious contenders here, both in terms of critical and commercial success. They’re certainly up for the fight: “Once you get to a certain point you’re like fucking Macbeth, you have to continue, you’re halfway through man, there’s no going back now!” The mainstream pop charts would be an infinitely better place if Ballet School were in them, and with the songs and swagger on display here, these self-proclaimed fans of pop could become its new stars.

The Dew Lasts An Hour is available now via Bella Union. Ballet School tour the UK in November.