Electric Youth Discuss Debut Album ‘Innerworld’: Interview

You know synth-pop duo and real life couple Electric Youth, aka Bronwyn Griffin and Austin Garrick, from their breakout collaboration with College, “A Real Hero.” The song wound up on the soundtrack to flashy Ryan Gosling noir thriller Drive in 2011, and catapulted the pair from Canada into the arena of super-cool electronic artists.

But rather than rush out an LP to quickly capitalize on that success, Griffin and Garrick spent the better part of the past three years carefully recording their debut in both Toronto and Los Angeles, watching old films for inspiration and making, what Austin tells Idolator, is “a record that is so ‘us’.” Helping out on the production side: Peter Mayes (Empire Of The Sun) and Erasure‘s Vince Clarke.

Electric Youth’s first album Innerworld will be released next week (on September 30 — pre-order it on iTunes) via the label Secretly Canadian. Ahead of that, you can catch our chat with the duo below.

I’m pretty excited to talk to you two. I saw you in Dallas once doing a DJ set, about two summers ago. BRONWYN: Oh, yeah? Cool! AUSTIN: Yeah, that was cool. I remember that.

I even bought an Electric Youth T-shirt that night. BRONWYN: Amazing!

So, congratulations on the impending release of your debut album, Innerworld. How are you feeling about it? AUSTIN: It’s exciting! I mean, we’ve really been working towards it since we started, which is about five years ago now. For the last four years steady, it’s been working on getting this album to the point that we really feel good about it. We eventually got it there, and it’s going to be coming out really soon. Yeah, we’re just really excited for everybody being able to hear it.

“Without You” is a beautiful standout song on the album. When in the process of the making of the album did you record that one? AUSTIN: That’s a more recent one. It’s co-produced by a friend of ours in L.A. That song, I would say, is one of the more personal songs on the album, and I can say it’s inspired by real life events.

Speaking of producing, who did you work on this album with? AUSTIN: I produced most of the album myself, and then in a co-production role, we worked with a couple of guys. We were really fortunate to get some of the guys that really have been inspiring to us, and we’ve sort of looked up to. We were able to get a couple of them involved, and one of them is Vince Clarke from Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure. The other who played quite a big role, because he mixed the record, was a producer by the name of Peter Mayes. He’s like a studio member of Empire Of The Sun, and as a producer he’s just so amazing. Sonically, he helped us quite a bit when the songs were already there and the mix. Past that, it was really mainly just us.

There are 12 tracks on Innerworld. Did you initially record more, and have to whittle it all down? AUSTIN: There were quite a lot of other ideas, and, with the way it usually works for us, there is a sort of rough demo stage. It was in that rough demo stage where we sort of decided on what songs to go further with and see all the way through. So, yeah, there was definitely a bigger pool of ideas, but these are the ones that we felt strong enough about to see through to the finish line.

It’s been five years since the two of you formed Electric Youth. Any nerves about how your first full album will be received by fans? AUSTIN: I mean, we’ve tried and really worked so hard towards making this record that is so “us,” and that we feel so strongly about ourselves, that it’s just like, whoever’s going to accept it, take it in and appreciate it or like it, we don’t feel like it could’ve been any other way. It’s really a genuine record. I mean, we’ve definitely kept it in mind and sort of gauged responses from the few singles we’ve put out along the way, and just kind of seeing what people and our fans and the audience that’s into our music has gravitated to. BRONWYN: How about you? I mean, you’ve known us how many years? Was it what you were expecting from us?

I’m definitely one of the fans of yours who discovered you through the Drive soundtrack, and I’ve probably played “A Real Hero” a million times over the past three years. It’s just one of those songs I never tire of. And “Without You” and “Runaway” and “Another Story” off Innerworld all have the same timeless quality. You’ve definitely kept with what people will perceive to be your “core sound,” I feel. AUSTIN: Good to hear. I mean, that’s the most we could ask for.

Electric Youth’s debut album Innerworld will be released on September 30 by Secretly Canadian.