Blood Red Shoes: Cats On Fire

“I am obsessed with Jack The Ripper, I even tried to work in the pub below the brothel he murdered all the prostitutes in.” When asking someone about their hobbies this is not the kind of answer you generally expect, but then Laura Mary Carter is no ordinary girl. Comprising one half of the hottest 2 piece around, Laura Mary is currently breaking hearts and amps all around the country with her band mate Steven Ansell - collectively known as the gloriously trashy Blood Red Shoes. They’re a band, who, despite being 50% female, owe about as much to Blondie as Jack The Ripper does to the East London tourism board.

As the duo have only released two limited edition singles and are about to unleash their first single ‘proper’ on November 27, you may not know too much about them. How would Laura Mary describe Blood Red Shoes to the non converted then? “A girl boy duo, we’re a bit heavy but disco and a bit grungey. We don’t sound like a two piece. It’s hard to describe because I don’t think we are in any real scene. We fit in in all sorts of places, we play a lot of indie clubs but I wouldn’t say we are an indie band ‘cos we are a bit too heavy” comes the clear as muck answer.

In fairness to Laura Mary Blood Red Shoes are a nightmare to describe, poppy yet not pop - heavy but not metal, a real juxtaposition of sounds and amalgamation of attitudes and beliefs. We get to the roots of exactly how Steve and Laura Mary got together to eventually make this heady brew. “We were both in different bands and I really liked his band and one day we go to play together. We swapped email addresses and talked about maybe having a jam one-day. Nothing came from that for a while but then Steve’s band split up and I went down to Brighton for the day and we played together and actually got a song written. Then when I was on the train home back to London and Steve rang me and said how do you fancy doing a gig? Somebody heard us rehearsing and wants us to play. I went to Brighton for that week and we found a name to put on the flyers and now we’re here.”

Named after a dancing scene in a film which Bette Davis did so many times her white shoes became red from blood, BRS have one of the best names going but did they ever consider alternatives? “Yeah one of the runners up was Flesh Eating Mothers, I am kinda glad we didn’t pick that one”. Er, right.

Those of you fortunate enough to have heard Blood Red Shoes songs like ‘ADHD’ and newie ‘You Bring Me Down’ will be aware of the band’s colourful dynamic of raw and powerful sonics with harmonious vocals from both of them. Laura Mary talks us through their inspiration to write? “We both write our own parts, everything that Steve sings he has written and everything that I sing I write as well. A lot of the songs are about situations we find ourselves in and giving things up for this.”

When moving on to musical influences, Laura Mary cites “Blur, Sonic Youth, 50’s rock ‘n’ roll, 60’s garage music and we like the band Battles - NOT Battle- who are a dance band but play instruments. We might not sound like any of those bands but that’s what we listen to". And what was the last song Steve and Laura Mary wrote? “The last song we wrote is actually going to be our next single, we haven’t played it live yet but we will be doing in a few weeks. We are just practising it and stripping it back a bit. It’s quite dancey, not in an obvious way but it’s quite upbeat.