White Rose Movement - Girls In The Back Video

White Rose Movement
Girls In The Back
3rd April
Video

"We used to have white paint on our hands all the time," says White Rose Movement vocalist Finn Vine. "And people thought it was this clique-y band thing where we'd dip out fingers in white paint." People couldn't have been more wrong: the reason Finn and the other members of the band used to have paint-splattered hands wasn't a fashion statement, it was because they were painting walls all day. "Yeah," continues guitarist Jasper Milton. "We were a painting and decorating team for a while. That's how we kept the band going. We grafted all the time in between rehearsals. We finally managed to give it up last year when we got signed to Independiente."

White Rose Movement – Jasper Milton (guitar), Finn Vine (vocals/guitar), Taxxi (keyboards), Owen Dyke (bass) and Ed Harper (drums) – are a panacea for the umpteenth wave of angular guitar bands. Their debut album, produced by Paul Epworth, fuses electronics and guitars with consummate skill. First single, 'Love Is A Number', is a feral blast of percussive synths, twangy bass, mechanised guitars and Finn's distinctive, soaring vocals. A measure of its hard-to-categorise appeal is the fact that it's been played both at taste making London club Trash and on Kerrang! radio. The rest of the album is just as difficult to pin down. One minute White Rose Movement are showing New York a thing or two about disco punk with the jaunty bassline and nimble pop chorus of 'Girls In The Back', the next they're out rocking all comers with the dark, aggressive thrash of 'Alsation'. It's a unique sound that has thus far earned them support slots with The Rakes, The Kills and Soulwax.

White Rose Movement's free spirit approach to making music is probably a result of two factors: they used to run a club, Dazzle! in an old S&M venue in London's East end – M.I.A. and Chris Cunningham have played there; and four members of the band – Jasper, Finn, Owen and Ed – spent their childhood on a hippy commune.