The Aces: Hare & Hounds, Birmingham — Interview
As soon as I heard that The Aces, who first exploded onto the contemporary music scene with their 2016 single Stuck, were embarking on a UK and Europe headlining tour, I knew I couldn’t miss out. Comprising of sisters Cristal and Alisa Ramirez, Katie Henderson and McKenna Petty, the Utah-based alternative pop group have been making waves since their debut album When My Heart Felt Volcanic was released earlier this year. Their 80’s sounding instrumentals combined with catchy lyrics have earned the female four-piece international recognition and praise, making it clear that The Aces aren’t a band you’ll forget any time soon.
After their electrifying performance, I sat down with guitarist Katie Henderson and bassist McKenna Petty to discuss how far they’d come in this past year…
I just wanted to say congratulations on the response for your North American tour.
McKenna Petty: That’s so nice, we’re so excited about it. We didn’t expect that to happen, it was crazy.
Katie Henderson: We haven’t even done a support tour here, like usually before you do a headline you support a bigger band so that, you know, you can get in front of the crowds and people can see you and get to know you — we didn’t do that. We just put out a headline tour and it did way better than we even expected it to do.
How was supporting 5 Seconds of Summer on their tour?
M: It was awesome, they’re awesome guys, really fun.
K: It was the perfect fanbase to be in, it was awesome. They treated us so good too.
M: It was a very fulfilling tour, for sure.
Do you have a particular highlight?
M: I loved Boston, that was a really special show.
K: Boston was a really good show.
M: We did meet and greats after every show, just go out and meet everyone and that was particularly cool because there was just a good vibe, like there were so many people just hanging out. Then we had to move because the venue closed so we had to move to this park down the street and we all walked and there were, like, two hundred girls marching together [laughs] it was so cool.
You’ve recently collaborated with Smallpools, do you have any other dream collaborations?
M: We have a lot. Tame Impala…
K: Yeah, Tame Impala is a big one for the four of us. Honestly Paramore would be amazing, with Hayley Williams.
M: We’re doing some cool ones that you’ll get to find out about soon. Some ones that we’re really excited for.
Were there any other album titles you were considering for your recent debut record, When My Heart Felt Volcanic?
M: I think we played around with the phrase quite a bit.
K: I don’t think we ever really had a different idea than that because I think we all collectively felt like Volcanic Love was the title track of the album. It really is a song that we found our sound, like what we wanted to sound like as a band. That song was written from an Edgar Allan Poe quote, Cristal [Ramirez] and Alisa [Ramirez] wrote that song and found this quote and in the quote it says ‘These are the days when my heart felt-
M: — Was volcanic’.
K: So we kind of went off that quote as, like, an homage to him because that’s how Volcanic Love was written and I think it’s just a really good description of the album because it sounds like the moments when your heart just feels so much.
M: It was a time in our lives when so much was changing, like we were becoming young adults, we had just signed to a label, we were starting to travel and have relationships and doing stuff with family and just everything, so it just felt like it really represented that time for all of us, like a volcanic time.
K: A coming of age.
M: Yeah, it just felt like really, really right. We kind of messed around, the Edgar Allan Poe poem is ‘Days When My Heart Was Volcanic’ so we thought like ‘Days When My Heart Felt Volcanic’ and that was really long so were like ‘Heart Felt Volcanic’ and we were like no [laughs] and then ‘When My Heart Felt Volcanic’ felt good, so, we were excited.
Writing for this album, was it a collaborative process or was there one person who takes the lead?
K: We started collaborating — the producer who did our EP, we continued working with him and we still work with him, he did half the album, about six tracks and then we collaborated with six other producers on other tracks in LA. It’s funny how an album can sound so cohesive even though they’re so different. Cristal and Alisa usually go in first and get the bones of the songs — write the lyrics, melodies — then Kenna and I come in and we’ll help finish and write guitar and bass.
M: I feel like it’s very collaborative and it’s always evolving and changing. We love to all work together and put our heads together.
The Spanish version of your song Last One, was that something that you always wanted to do or was it spontaneous?
M: It was something we’d always dreamed of. We all grew up around the Spanish language, we all took Spanish throughout school, like I took it in Elementary School to High School, Cristal and Alisa — their dad’s Honduran so they’re half-Honduran so his dad’s first language is Spanish and he’s a Spanish translator so we’ve just always loved that culture and the language so…
K: Utah has a big-
M: Latin population.
K: Yeah.
M: It for sure does. We’ve always dreamt of going to South America and even, like, Spain so we’re going to Spain on this tour — we’re so excited, we’ve never been. I’ve travelled, and I know Alisa has, to Humanitarian trips in Guatemala and Peru so we’ve always loved it and then when the opportunity came around, Cristal and Alisa’s dad actually translated the song and then helped Katie and Cristal pronounce everything and sing it. It was a really special thing.
K: It was fun, it was really fun. I can’t wait to go to Spain and sing it in Spanish.
M: A dream for sure.
What genre do you identify your sound as?
K: We always say Alternative Pop because the songs are definitely pop songs but it’s definitely for a band with guitar, bass, drums. It’s very guitar-driven so we just say Alternative Pop.
What is the thing you miss most about home?
M: Aw! That’s a good one, it’s fun to talk about that.
K: It’s so funny because my parents are flying out tomorrow and they’re coming to, like, four or five of the shows. It’s so funny because me and Kenna asked them to bring these cookies from home —
M: — Are they bringing them?!
K: I asked too late! I thought they weren’t leaving until later —
M: — Oh my gosh.
K: My mum was like ‘if you’d have asked us earlier’.
M: My sister and brother-in-law and niece are coming to Spain so I’ll ask them. We’re obsessed with these cookies.
K: There’s this cookie place, it’s called Chip, and I was like ‘can you just please bring some’, it’s funny. I think what I miss the most about home, at least right now in the fall, is we live in the mountains and it’s so beautiful with all the leaves changing colours and we live in these massive canyons and so this time of year, I feel like it’s my favourite time to be in Utah so I think I miss the atmosphere right now.
M: We’re both big homebodies, we both love going home. I think for sure I miss that a lot too, just being at home is really beautiful and fun and with Thanksgiving coming up it’s going to be kind of sad to miss — I think we missed it last year too, we were on tour — but I just miss my family and my boyfriend a lot.
K: That’s funny, they don’t do Thanksgiving here.
M: Yeah, that’s so crazy. We’re spending it in London, they’re taking us to an American restaurant.
K: Making it as American as possible. [laughs]
So you’ve got a song called Holiday, do you have any dream holiday destinations?
K: Bali.
M: That’s a dream one for me too.
K: I’ve always wanted to go to Bali. And I’ve always wanted to go to the Bahamas.
M: I think Bali is a big one for me. I’ve always wanted to go to Spain so I’m really excited to go there. I really want to properly go and travel through it, though.
Do you have any fashion influences or style icons?
K: I think all four of us are very into fashion and want to do more things with fashion, I think. Personally, I wouldn’t say I have specific fashion icons, I mean I have more of a style more misogynist, and a little more tom-boy but I wouldn’t say I have a specific person I look up to.
M: I think you mean the term androgynous.
K: Androgynous [laughs] I knew the term wasn’t misogynist.
M: I was like ‘hmm’. What does misogynist mean again?
K: Isn’t it, like, offensive. Like, ‘you’re so misogynist’. I meant androgynous. [laughs]
M: I feel like I don’t have a certain person I look up to, either. I feel like I dress the most feminine out of the band. Like, when we were growing up I was the only one in a dress, like I always used to wear dresses but I feel like I just wear jumpsuits now ’cause I want to be comfortable. Maybe that’s just like getting lazy or old, but I feel like I just wear pyjamas, like clothes that are hiding as pyjamas all the time [laughs]. I think fashion is really cool and it should be something that’s always changing and you can just take influence from so many different people or things.
K: I know Alisa always says, like, Kehlani, Rihanna —
M: Cristal has a ton too —
K: Cristal has a ton too, like Mick Jagger —
M: Old rock ’n’ roll, she’s always wearing leather jackets and leather boots, yeah. I feel like our styles are all very different, individually.
Where do you see yourselves in a year?
K: That is a really good question. I was actually thinking about that a lot the other day. I was like ‘where am I going to be in a year?’.
M: This is like a time of a change, too. I think a lot is going to be different in a year.
K: I do, too. I mean we have a big headline tour coming up in the US that we’re all really, really excited for. We’re starting to write again so we could have new music out, we could possibly be touring with a bigger band in different countries —
M: Yeah, we want to go to more countries, Asia…
K: It’s really weird to think about, I don’t know, you never know.
M: I think we’ll be working on our next album. Who knows? The world’s our oyster, the world’s your oyster! We could all be anywhere…
The Aces’ debut album ‘When My Heart Felt Volcanic’ is out now! Listen to the interview here:
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