Lillix: Returning for their Debut

It's been almost three years since our last chat with Lillix's Louise Burns and she was anxious to talk about how much the group has changed. Their debut album "Falling Uphill" contained soundtrack tunes and spawned hit singles and "Inside the Hollow" is sure to do no less with a sound that's more evolved. Although it has been the long-awaited follow up, the group insists "Inside the Hollow" is Lillix's real music debut.

The last two years have seen the girls grow and learn and it's these experiences that have inspired the music and vision for this album. Lillix hopes the songs will project a more positive and encouraging message and are also taking credit for writing and producing. Starting to sound too serious? Not to worry, Lillix describes "Inside the Hollow" as a mix of dance and classic rock and sees the group proclaiming their return to rock n' roll. Although, like most musicians, Lillix has encountered a few struggles along the way; the demise of their US record label, departure of one of their members and struggles with producers and labels over music and visions, through it all, they have proven that it has only made them stronger. Check out what one member had to say about their losses, gains and transformations, what the hold up was with the release of their long-awaited follow-up, and what they define as the finer points of life. Check it out...

TeenMusic.com: I guess the first thing people will want to know is what has Lillix been up to since the release of "Falling Uphill"?

Louise: Wow! Well...it's been three years since the release and after touring for "Falling Uphill", we started writing for the new record and that took a while because we parted ways with our old drummer and had to find a new one. For about a year or so we were rehearsing and auditioning new drummers and writing. We did find a new drummer – Alicia Warrnington and she is amazing and we're very happy with her. She used to play with Kelly Osbourne so we've been recording and writing. We recorded this record last year, believe it or not. Other than that, we've just been having a life.

TeenMusic.com: Tell us a more about your new member.

Louise: We were very picky this time around because we were looking for very specific things. Not only an amazing drummer but easy to work with and somebody we can get along with behind the scenes. Not just someone we would play on tour with but somebody we can hang out with also. We went through every drummer imaginable, guys and girls this time, we didn't really care. Alicia heard about us looking for a drummer and she was ready to move on from her (ventures) and she emailed us and flew up to Vancouver to audition and play and we played a couple of songs with her and decided that she was the one. She's originally from Michigan but lived in LA.

TeenMusic.com: How would you say you've changed since the last record?

Louise: In every way! Between the ages of 15-20 you change quite a bit. It's very interesting growing up doing what we are doing and we feel very lucky and very fortunate but you do learn a lot of life lesson's on the way and gosh, we've learned so much in the three years since "Falling Uphill". We have a completely different understanding of what is going on and what we want to do. We're just so much more mature this time around and we've got a different outlook on this. Our writing has improved, our musicianship has improved. We're influenced by different things now so I guess you just change a lot in those three to five years.

TeenMusic.com: Who or what would you say are your inspirations now?

Louise: The three of us grew up in a small town and back then you didn't have the internet and you didn't have MySpace and so many sources to get new music from so we had what our parents listened to and what was on the radio at the time like The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Beatles, Bob Dylan and even Classical music. I didn't know about any of this amazing music that I'm just getting into now like '70s and '80s rock music like David Bowie and The Cure. For this record, for me at least, I was very influenced by The Cure, New Order and Joy Divisions. We're also all into The Saint and Ladytron and we're a lot more into synth and electro. As you grow up, you find more bands and latch on to certain things and that's what really clicked with us.

TeenMusic.com: Do you share a lot of the songwriting responsibilities?

Louise: Yeah, we all trade off. We usually write individually. That's how it's always worked. Tasha and I co-wrote a song on the record and Lacy and her co-wrote another song and we all wrote the single "Sweet Temptation" as well as two other songs.

TeenMusic.com: On "Falling Uphill" you were constantly compared to Avril and other female rock groups. Do you think you'll be able to escape that this time?

Louise: I think the main thing was that on the first record we worked with "The Matrix" on our first single "It's About Time" and that same year, quite a few women worked with "The Matrix" and quite a few ended up sounding like Avril Lavigne. We're looking at this record as our debut because there's no bull*** and this time around it's just so much more us. We co-produced the record, we wrote everything, we played everything and there were no producers trying to brand us with their sound.

eenMusic.com: You said the album was done last year. Why did it take so long to reach the shelves?

Louise: Oh man, I know! It's kind of funny because our label, Maverick, in the US is gone now so that's been one of the BIG setbacks for us. We're on Warner now and we're very happy and very fortunate to be working with them. All the stuff holding us back was just boring, political label junk but when we knew the album wasn't going to come out for a while, we would just get on the road and do mini tours just trying to get the new stuff out. We relied a lot on self-promotion this time around.

TeenMusic.com: Do you feel any more famous this time around?

Louise: No, no even less than before. We don't really think about that. Our job is to make music and that's what we do. Some people work in an office and we're just incredibly lucky to be making music for a living and that's all we really think about. If people can recognize me for that, then that's great but it's not really what matters.

TeenMusic.com: What would you be doing if making music for a living hadn't panned out?

Louise: That's a good question. I've been doing music for so long that I know I would be doing something related to it. We've been a band for almost nine years now so I can't really imagine anything else but I think I would be in school or traveling in Europe. If I were in school, I'd be taking the usually interesting stuff like philosophy and psychology and English. I love English Literature and old novels and anything to do with writing.

TeenMusic.com: Can you tell us how you came up with the title "Inside the Hollow"?

Louise: Yeah, it's a lyric from our first single "Sweet Temptation(Hollow)". That song is about staying true to yourself and ignoring all the images people throw around you in the media like 'you have to be this way to be beautiful, you have to be 7 pounds to be beautiful' (laughs). Just that mentality that gets thrown around a lot and just resisting that and being yourself and just finding truth inside of yourself and "Inside the Hollow" because everything seems so empty (the media) and "hollow" is our metaphor for it and it's about finding the truth inside the hollow.

TeenMusic.com: What's your favorite song off the album to perform live?

Louise: "Tempo Change" for sure.

TeenMusic.com: And the hardest to record?

Louise: The single just because it was a compromise between what we wanted and what the label wanted.

TeenMusic.com: Can you describe the music on "Inside the Hollow" and what fans can expect?

Louise: I really hope the fans like the record for what it is. We wanted to make something a little more "dance-y" but at the same time, showing our classic rock influences and hopefully people can take it for what it is and see it as good music. There's no ear-candy and no over-production because we wanted to keep it simple and it's all about the songwriting to us. We've also got some ballads this time around, really pretty ballads on "Wishing Well" which has a lot of Beatles influence and also uses live strings. Hopefully, people can enjoy the record and not compare it to the last one or anything else because we're a completely different band with a different head-space. Hopefully they can see it as our debut because we're sure looking at it that way.

TeenMusic.com: If you could perform with any artist who would it be and where?

Louise: I would have to say David Bowie because he's such a genius and I don't know where, maybe somewhere in England.

TeenMusic.com: Do you have a tour in the works?

Louise: Yep, we're opening for Yellowcard across Canada starting Sept. 4th in Vancouver. Nothing has been planned for the states and hopefully we'll be visiting Japan. It's a great market over there and people are really genuine. The fans are all about the music and not the image.

TeenMusic.com: Have you chosen the next single?

Louise: We've had discussions and it's a decision that we make with the label and we have a couple of ideas but I probably shouldn't say yet. (sorry!) I want it to be either "Wishing Well" or "Little Things".

TeenMusic.com: Where can fans catch you next?

Louise: We'll be on "Much on Demand" at the end of August to correspond with the release of our album on August 29th.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.