Why The Pipettes were marvellously out of place in 2004
15 years ago this month, The Pipettes released their first single to dent the UK Top 40 (reaching number 35 in March 2006), ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’. Whilst it’s a jaunty-sounding two-minute pop song with a catchy refrain, it contains a wistful pre-chorus and a barbed lyric where the singer pleads with a needy ex-boyfriend to finally leave her alone. “And you might cry for some time” and then later in the track; “I want you out of here, don’t send me wild / you’re just a child.”
On a trip to Nashville, Tennessee some years later whilst working for the Jack Daniel’s music team, I found out that a colleague actually met her future husband at the video shoot for ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’. The band invited fans to be in the audience and it was shot at the much-missed Kilburn Luminaire – both Music Week and Time Out London’s ‘Venue of the Year’, before closing its doors and being turned into student accommodation in 2011.
The official video to ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’.
The Pipettes formed in Brighton in 2003 and the group originally started life as the vision of local musician, actor and writer Robert “Monster Bobby” Barry. Bobby was already a luminary of the city’s alternative music scene and friends with established Brighton bands such as British Sea Power, The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, The Electric Soft Parade and Brakes. Inspired by the heartbreak pop of the girl groups of the early 1960s, yet determined to give it a modern slant, Bobby recruited various faces from across the Brighton music world and brought them together for an initial get-together at The Basketmaker’s Arms on Gloucester Road in the North Laine area. The first line-up of The Pipettes was born.
Consisting of three singers and their respective adopted alter egos; poet and photographer Julia Clark-Lowes (“The Duchess”), Rebecca Stephens (more commonly referred to as “RiotBecki”) and multi-instrumentalist Rose Elinor Dougall (“Rosay”), it was agreed that The Pipettes would be backed by an all-male band known as The Cassettes. This would feature Monster Bobby himself on guitar, drummer Joe Van Moyland and brothers Jon and Seb Falcone. Only the three female Pipettes would take part in any interviews and the individual personalities of The Cassettes were deliberately largely anonymous; in live shows, members could only be identified by the initials embroidered on the musicians’ matching knitted beige cardigans. Julia would leave The Pipettes in 2005 and be replaced by the Cardiff-born singer Gwenno Saunders who had left Wales aged 16 and moved to Las Vegas to star in Michael Flatley’s ‘Lord of the Dance’.
In contrast to the drab outfits The Cassettes wore onstage, The Pipettes’ uniform were kitsch blue and white polka dot dresses, heavily leaning on late-1950s fashion. Their sound wore its influences on its sleeve too; Phil Spector-produced girl groups like The Ronettes and The Crystals, the harder-edged Shangri-Las and Motown’s more soulful Supremes, yet also British Invasion-era solo artists such as Cilla Black, Helen Shapiro, Sandie Shaw and Dusty Springfield. However, songs such as ‘Pull Shapes’ also showed a more modern side, incorporating electronic and disco elements, as well as the songwriting and production prowess of the ‘80s powerhouse Eurobeat trio Stock Aitken Waterman.
‘Because It’s Not Love (But It’s Still A Feeling)’
Despite being heavily influenced musically by the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, The Pipettes’ attitude and lyrical content was thoroughly modern and the group avoided falling into the revivalism trap. Whilst Dusty sang “I only want to be with you”, The Pipettes fiercely warned off potential suitors; “leave me alone, you’re just a one night stand.” The Crystals sang the praises of a male protagonist in their most famous song ‘He’s A Rebel’, but The Pipettes reminisced about ‘Judy’, the intimidating bad girl at school; “she used to do things I thought were rude / but I never said anything to her face / ‘cuz my friends, I thought she’d kick my arse all over the place.” Then there was the small matter of grievous bodily harm on the indie disco dancefloor in ‘It Hurts To See You Dance So Well’:
“Half past one on the dance-floor,
‘It Hurts To See You Dance So Well’
And my thoughts have turned to murder,
Can’t these strangers feel my eyes, burning into them,
They know that I want to kill them.”
‘It Hurts To See You Dance So Well’ live at the Brighton Freebutt. 30th September 2007.
The group also spoke in interviews about how their formation was very much a reaction to becoming tired of the post-Strokes and pre-Arcade Fire musical landscape of the early to mid-noughties. Whilst not dissing their music specifically, they were also antipathetic towards The Beatles and the consequent legacy they inspired; in particular, “all of the really boring all-male guitar bands”. When asked to name her favourite artists of the 1960s in an interview with the Spanish fanzine Yellow Melodies, Rose named girl groups “The Shirelles, The Chantelles and The Revlons” and tellingly, “Pulp and Sleater-Kinney” for the ‘90s. The Pipettes definitely had a riot grrrl side to them too and even though their melodies were impeccable and unmistakably poppy, their songs were permeated with shrieks, yells and chants that wouldn’t be out of place on a Bikini Kill, Huggy Bear or Shrag record.
Various live shots of The Pipettes between 2005 and 2007.
I first saw The Pipettes live in late 2005 at the tiny Cardiff Barfly. It was a matinee show on a Sunday afternoon and my English Literature coursemate Matt (later the frontman of the band Drowners) and I arrived early (and hungover) to gingerly nurse a lunchtime pint, unsure of exactly what to expect. The crowd was relatively sparse but the show was great, with the band working their way through many of the tracks that would later appear on their debut album ‘We Are The Pipettes’ (released in July 2006 and produced by Gaz Parton of The Go! Team fame), complete with their trademark synchronised hand jives and choreography. I also recall it being one of Gwenno’s first performances (if not the first) with the band and several friends and family were there with it being a hometown show for her.
The next time I saw them live would be 18 months later and in slightly different surroundings; The Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2007. It was my first Glasto’, I had just turned 20, was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and on Saturday had been up watching bands from 10am whilst my friends still dozed at our Kidney Mead campsite HQ. Even though they went onstage in the lunchtime slot The Pipettes were my fourth act of the day; “you don’t seriously like these do you mate?”, was one of my more sceptical mate’s reactions to the gig.
The Pipettes performing their signature tune ‘We Are The Pipettes’. The Pyramid Stage, Glastonbury. 23rd June 2007.
In many ways, that Pyramid Stage appearance represented the pinnacle of the first incarnation of The Pipettes’ career. Their debut album was released to generally positive acclaim and their chart positions gradually increased with each single, peaking with ‘Pull Shapes’ (No. 26 in the UK, also in July 2006). However, Rose Elinor Dougall and RiotBecki both left the band in early 2008 and the consequent revolving door policy of Pipette members never saw the band reach the same heights again. 2010’s album ‘Earth vs The Pipettes’ only featuring Gwenno and her sister Ani, bombed both critically and commercially.
The Pipettes story has a happy ending though and the group proved to be quite the launchpad for future endeavours. Since leaving, Rose Elinor Dougall has had a well-respected solo career, releasing three albums and collaborating and touring with Mark Ronson. Her brother Tom played guitar with the brief indie starlets Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong and is now in psychedelic band and former Heavenly Recordings signing Toy. RiotBecki / Rebecca Stephens has collaborated with Californian singer Jesca Hoop and appears regularly with her live. Former drummer Joe Van Moyland (real name; Joseph Bernays) was the frontman of the short-lived but massively-hyped aforementioned Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong and will be familiar to many readers as Sophie’s brother Jamie in the British comedy Peep Show.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Rose Elinor Dougall performing live. 2.) Gwenno live at Islington Assembly Hall, 2018. 3.) The short-lived Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong. 4.) The Cassettes’ former drummer Joe playing Sophie’s brother Jamie in ‘Peep Show’.
It’s Gwenno though who has perhaps, experienced the most success since leaving the band in 2010. She initially toured as synth player with both Elton John and Pnau and then signed to Jeff Barrett’s eclectic Heavenly Recordings in 2015 as a solo artist in her own right. She has since released several EPs and two widely-acclaimed minority language albums (she was raised by Welsh and Cornish language activist parents) including ‘Y Dydd Olaf’ (‘The Last Day’) which won The Welsh Music Prize in 2015 and 2018’s Cornish language album ‘Le Kov’. The Cornish Language Board claimed that the latter directly resulted in a 15 percent increase in people taking Cornish language exams in 2018 and Gwenno was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh at a ceremony in Saint Just, Penwith in 2019. Gwenno also collaborated with the Manic Street Preachers in December 2020 to re-record English and Welsh versions of their track ‘Spectators of Suicide’, with the download proceeds going to food bank charity The Trussell Trust and Missing People UK.
Gwenno at The Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh ceremony, 2019. Photo: Greg Martin. 
The Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh ceremony. Gwenno is third from left. Photo: Greg Martin.
The Pipettes (and The Cassettes) were proudly independent and fiercely claimed that “we manufactured ourselves” and that every member was as involved in the creative process as the other. That said, Rose and Gwenno have both since talked about how they eventually found being in the group “restrictive” as they began to develop musical ideas that were outside of the tried-and-tested formula and given the free-spirited nature of all of its members, The Pipettes would always have a limited shelf life. They were fantastically out of place set against the musical backdrop of the time though (Jet, Razorlight and Kaiser Chiefs anyone?) and although they paid their dues to the girl groups of yesteryear musically, they put to right the subservience and patriarchal nature of their lyrics. Outspoken, risqué and most importantly fun, The Pipettes were ahead of their time. Give their debut album ‘We Are The Pipettes’ a spin and re-immerse yourself in their world for 33 minutes.
A 2006 mini-documentary about The Pipettes
The full set from The Pipettes’ show at the Camden Barfly. 25th February 2005