Rubella Interview

Rubella are an all-girl trio from London who have been together for just over six months. The girls brought their brand of quick-fire, furious-bubblegum punk to Blackpool to play the North by Northwest music festival. We spoke to vocalist and guitarist Noush, bassist Gemma and drummer Lisa.

Why Rubella?
Noush: Rubella came before the pun; we didn’t call ourselves that name so we could make jokes.
Gemma: The name came before the swine flu outbreak. It’s just a happy coincidence I guess [giggling].
N: We only chose Rubella because it sounds like a girls’ name.

There seems to be a despairing theme running through your songs from Napalm to Arbeit. Do you find creative inspiration in devastating events?
N: Yeah kind of. The Arbeit Macht Frei thing, you can link it to the Second World War or whatever but we like it because it means ‘work liberates’. The idea that you can apply that today because we are in the middle of a credit crunch, the worst depression we have had for decades. There is this idea that you work all your life and then your savings get completely wiped out, so it’s sarcastic, Arbeit Mach Frei.

Does anger express itself differently for you than for a male band?
N: To a degree yeah. Stereotypically if girls get angry they just cry, do you know what I mean? But on the other hand there is this myth that if guys get angry with each other then they fight it out and walk away afterwards whereas girls are really mean to each other and bitch behind each others backs, which I think isn’t exactly true. I mean I don’t know many guys who every time they have an argument give each other black eyes. I think the fact that we look the way we do and the way we sound might be unexpected. It isn’t particularly calculated. This is how I dress anyway. I don’t think it’s necessarily shocking, some people might think so. It’s not our intention. It shows we have much more depth, there is always much more going on beneath the surface.
G: It’s a juxtaposition, it takes people by surprise. You come on stage and people don’t know what to expect. It’s quite Japanese school girly, cute and innocent until you start playing.


Who are your influences?
G: We like Manga, so we’re quite influenced by that.
N: We like Kill Bill. I’m really influenced by films when I write songs and lyrics not just listening to other bands. I really like slasher flicks, Quentin Tarantino and all that. We want to be the girl version of Clockwork Orange. That’s why we dress kind of similar.

Like The Droogs?
N: [laughing] Yeah we want to be the Droogettes. If we form a covers band we might call ourselves the Droogettes and we’ll just play Jimi Hendrix covers.

How would describe one of your gigs?
G: It’s different every time really.
N: I just say whatever comes off the top of my head. Sometimes I’m really self-deprecating and sometimes I just really egotistical and rude; depends when you catch us really.
G: It’s a bit of a white-knuckle ride being on-stage with Noush. We never know what she is going to say.

Any festivals planned this summer?
G: No, but we want to and we are working on blagging ourselves into a few places.
N: We’re only getting to the stage now where things are opening up for us.
G: We’ve been advised by people that it’s not a great idea when you’ve just formed to play festival as the promoters tend not to put the same people on new band stages for a second year running. Plus we’ll get a better slot if we’re better established.
N: We’ve been lucky so far getting some exposure on the radio. It’s a mixture of luck and hard work. And we want to build on that.