For Whom The Bells Toll
“I remember thinking ‘what the fuck am I making music for that I wouldn’t go and buy?’”
Juanita Stein, sultry lead singer of brooding Sydney-via-London act HOWLING BELLS, has undergone a huge transformation over the past few years. The first time I saw her perform, at the Sydney Big Day Out in 2003, she struggled to overcome the taunts of rabid Frenzal Rhomb supporters during a main stage set as part of her previous band, Waikiki. These days though, Stein would have none of it. “I’ve grown big balls,” she laughs. “So I don’t think I’d put up with it this time around.” Her attitude isn’t the only thing that’s changed – her band has a new name, home and sound, and has subsequently begun to enjoy a good deal of international success.
So what inspired the radical change of direction? “I just didn’t really care for it anymore,” she reveals, referring to her old outfit. “I wanted to do something heavier and more meaningful because that’s what I was drawn to. I wasn’t listening to music that sounded like Waikiki at the time, so I remember thinking ‘what the fuck am I making music for that I wouldn’t go and buy?’”
Changing musical styles went hand in hand with changing address for Stein. She and her bandmates packed up and moved to the UK to start their journey as the newly formed Howling Bells with a clean slate. But it wasn’t as easy as sitting down to a cup of tea and a few scones. “It was terrifying,” she admits. “Overwhelmingly challenging logistically. It was not an easy thing to do.” She tells me that the band contemplated throwing in the towel “every day” and they only overcame the relocation-related obstacles they encountered through “absolute pig stubbornness.”
Thankfully it didn’t take too long for the band’s persistence to pay off. The Bells’ rise in popularity can be credited in part to hard work, but it also might just have had something to do with the bands they started to score support slots for. Some of the world’s biggest bands – Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Placebo and the Killers, to name a few – came knocking on Stein’s door requesting the pleasure of her company on stage. She remains modest about the opportunities presented to her. “We’re terribly flattered that these bigger bands want us to support them and play with them and you learn a lot from watching them,” she says. “But you really need your own network within which to connect to an audience. It’s not enough to just support a big band.”
Howling Bells will soon be in town to showcase songs from their second album, Radio Wars. Stein tells me punters might get a chance to hear new material as well, which they’ve been working hard on. “We’re taking our experiences into consideration and definitely drawing a middle point between the two records, which is somewhere in between earth and the galaxy, if that makes sense.” It certainly does, because it’s clear Stein has her sights set on the stars.
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