Get To Know... Brigitte Calls Me Baby • Neu • DIY Magazine

Hello and welcome to DIY’s introducing feature, Get To Know… which aims to get you a little bit closer to the buzziest acts that have been catching our eye as of late, and working out what makes them tick.

On the face of it, titling your debut single ‘Impressively Average’ may be inviting a certain level of stick, but the simple fact is that Chicago-based five-piece Brigitte Calls Me Baby are anything but. Having this summer ticked off slots at End of the Road and The Strokes’ much-hyped All Points East day, the band then celebrated the release of their inaugural EP ‘This House is Made of Corners’ last month with a stint supporting The Last Dinner Party over in the U.S.

Their sound is one that nods to decades past - you can hear echoes of The Smiths, Roy Orbison and even The Maccabees throughout the project - but Brigitte Calls Me Baby occupy a thoroughly contemporary, utterly distinctive niche of their own. And so for what we can’t quite believe is our final GTK of the year, we caught up with the band’s enigmatic frontman Wes Leavins for some music, memories, and Christmas-themed chat.

What's your earliest musical memory?

I fell in love with music very young. The very first music I remember loving was '90s/2000s hip-hop (KRS One, Warren G, Outkast, Ice Cube) - it was so captivating and inspiring. Soon after that, it seemed I was thrown into a variety of vastly contrasting music worlds, and from somewhere in the middle of it all, I found myself.

What's your favourite 'unsung hero' of a Christmas song?

'She Won’t Be Home' by Erasure. In general, I think they're so underrated!

Your debut EP 'This House Is Made of Corners' came out last month, and was produced by Dave Cobb (who also produced the score of the recent Elvis film). Can you tell us a bit more about how this came about, and how this era of music informs your work?

I was hired as a musician on Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis where I met Dave, and we related heavily to our love of not only the music at hand, but also of post-punk, new wave, etc. It felt inevitable that we’d work together on Brigitte Calls Me Baby. We chatted about everything from Roy Orbison to The Cure. He’s so musically diverse and knowledgeable, which I appreciate so much.

Tell us the best (and worst) advice you've ever been given as a musician...

The best advice I’ve ever received was from Dave Cobb actually: any song you write, play it while you watch Molly Ringwald’s dance scene from The Breakfast Club. If the tempo lines up with her movements, you’re almost sure to make the entire room dance!

The worst advice? I’ve received so much of that I don’t even know where to begin…

You're based in Chicago as a band, but you hail from Texas - how would you describe these respective music scenes? How do you think these environments have helped shape the Brigitte Calls Me Baby sound?

I’m from a small town in Texas, I really didn’t fit in there at all. I know that sounds cliché, but one of the biggest effects on my music has been from that isolation. It has informed a lot of our music, honestly. That being said, there must be something in the water in my hometown because I’m from the same area as a lot of amazing artists. In fact, one particularly whose star is on the rise is Teezo Touchdown.

If people could take away one thing from your music, what would it be?

It’s all I have to offer, if ever I seem aloof. It’s all in the music. Is that really corny?? Oh well, it’s true!

Finally, we're coming round for Christmas dinner - what are you making?

I usually make a cheesecake, so let’s try that... oh, and egg nog too. Both big vices of mine!

'This House is Made of Corners' is out now via ATO Records.

Tags: Brigitte Calls Me Baby, Neu, Get to Know