La Roux

La Roux

La Roux is a British electro / pop duo. They rose to fame in 2009, when they were selected as part of the BBC's annual 'Sound of.' poll. The female pop singer Little Boots won the overall vote. La Roux is comprised of Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid. The band has cited Heaven 17, Yazoo and The Human League as influences.

La Roux: The Members

Elly Jackson was born on 8th March 1988, to the actress Trudie Goodwin (aka June Ackland in the Bill). Elly grew up in Herne Hill, London and was bullied at school, to the point where she almost left at the age of eight.

Jackson's love of music stemmed from listening to the likes of Nick Drake and Carole King, which she found in her parents' record collections. Whilst studying at Tabor Academy in the USA, she experimented with both folk and electronic music. Elly Jackson started a degree at the University of Nottingham but left in order to follow her music career.

On a personal level, Elly Jackson has referred to Molly Ringwald, Madonna and Annie Lennox as influences on her style. Her haircut has been compared to the hairstyles of the 1980s pop band A Flock of Seagulls.

Ben Langmaid is a London-based producer. He has previously worked with Rollo Armstrong of Faithless. Ben and Rollo attended the same school together and they formed an act called Huff & Puff in the 1990s.

Langmaid has also used the pseudonyms Atomic and Huff & Herb.

The other touring members of La Roux include Michael Norris on keys and computers, William Bowerman on drums and Mickey O'Brien on keys and backing vocals. O'Brien also performs as Ladyburden.

La Roux: Career

Langmaid and Jackson were introduced by a mutual friend in 2006. Their first project was called Automan and consisted mainly of acoustic music.

La Roux's first single, 'Quicksand' was originally released by Kitsune Music. The band were then signed to Polydor Records, who released their debut album.

The second single from La Roux was 'In For The Kill'. Released in March 2009, Skream's remix of the single also became hugely popular. Polydor then released 'Bulletproof' as a single, before releasing the album, entitled La Roux.

In March 2009, La Roux were chosen as the main tour support on Lily Allen's tour. They also headlined the NME Radar Tour, supported by Magistrates, Heartbreak and The Chapman Family.

When La Roux went to America, they performed live on The Jimmy Kimmel Live show.

The album La Roux was nominated for the 2009 Mercury Music Prize, along with The Horrors, Kasabian, Bat For Lashes and Florence and the Machine. They lost out to Big Dada's new signing Speech Debelle.