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WHERE’S YOUR HEAD AT?
Ant and Dec, gin and tonic, those twins from ‘Sister Sister’ – you
may think you’ve met all the greatest duos, but you’d be wrong.
Introducing Heads Hearts.
Amber ‘weaned on the teat of soul’ Taylor-Groves, met Ed Cox ten years ago, both working on their first passion - music – but with little success. While Amber has been working in the music industry since she was 15, Ed has already had a tantaslising bite of the fame cherry, working with dance legends Groove Armada.
“They heard my old band and asked if I wanted to do a vocal for them, totally out the blue,” says Ed. “I spent a while recording the vocal and they didn’t use it. But I also snuck a piano line in one of the songs and they kept it for their new album – it made me think maybe I should stick to keyboards”.
Meanwhile, Amber has played in her fair share of terrible bands and bizarre gigs.
“I used to get booked singing at awful social clubs. I was at this very old pub in East Ham once, totally disturbed by how dusty and haunted it was. I was looking down at this man and woman in electric wheelchairs, sipping drinks. I start singing ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline - very romantic - and they start wheeling out to ‘dance’ together. Then this other guy comes out of nowhere with a baseball bat and starts going for the guy that owns the place, smashing things up.”
“Did you carry on singing?” interjects Ed.
“Yeah. I was singing, laughing … weeing a little.”
“I’ve just had bad gigs where the kit fucked up, I can’t really top that”. Ed replies.
It’s obvious that Ed and Amber are great friends and have a good knowledge of the music industry. Thankfully, their chemistry extends to their recordings too. They both share a love of 80s synths and drums but they’re much more inspired by contemporary artists like Digitalism, MGMT, Friendly Fires and Kings of Leon.
They do, however, understand comparisons with them and 80s super-duo Eurythmics. Amber comments.
“I can’t bear people branding things, just take it for what it is … but when we see some pictures of us, it’s like, shit…”
It was at a fancy dress party where they first decided to start Heads Hearts.
“I was in a huge moustache and white suit - I looked like a sex offender” says Ed,
“It was so bad, I couldn’t talk to him,” continues Amber laughing, “Our bands split at the exact same time and we were both sad, but within two weeks we were in the studio recording together”.
The guys spent eight months recording solidly and the end product is a stripped-down funk adventure with tinges of electro – very fresh and very different. The recording process isn’t your usual studio set-up either.
“Amber discovered our vocal sound by opening the wardrobe and singing into my coats,” says Ed. “The thing I get the most out of it is, when you make music, you want the vocalist to take it from a 9 to a 10, but she knocks it up to an 11 for every time.”
As Amber rolls her eyes, you can tell she’s touched, but lets out a huge cackle, “For at least five years I was convinced he was queer. I’m still waiting for that moment”.
While Ed may not be coming out in 2009, we predict their music will come thundering out of those closet doors and onto your dance floors and iPods. Watch this space. - QX Magazine
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
When Amber Taylor-Groves and Ed Cox formed Heads.Hearts, they had no idea how the music would come out. Amber had always sung soul. Ed had always written pop songs and loved synths.
After 8 months of solid writing, recording in Ed’s studio (Amber sung in her pyjamas into Ed’s wardrobe for the perfect sound) what came out was a mix of all three. The live, raw vocal you get with a band, the edge and energy of dance music and plenty of pop music's catchy bits.
Like Groove Armada (who Ed played session keys for on Soundboy Rock) Metronomy or Basement Jaxx, it’s a sound that’s just at home in indie clubs and as it is on dancefloors. All from a melting pop of old and new influences - classic 80's pop like Eurythmics and Human League to new electronic sounds of Cut Copy, Justice and hitmakers Xenomania.
“A stripped-down funk adventure with tinges of electro – very fresh. We predict their music will come thundering onto your dance floors. Watch this space.”
QX Magazine - YOUNG, FRESH AND NEW
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