Oh Wonder on ‘music for millennials’
For sure, Oh Wonder is no onehit wonder.
The British alternative-pop duo of Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West continues to garner international success after releasing the DIY debut album in September 2014.
For those new to the music tandem, Josephine and Anthony started out with a musical experiment to support their individual careers.
They started posting their songs on a SoundCloud page carrying the description “Writing duo, one song a month” in hopes of having their songs noticed and picked up by popular artists.
Instead, millions of music fans noticed and streamed their music. Their first song Body Gold reportedly had more than 100,000 plays in less than a week.
A BBC online feature on the duo said: “Recording on a budget of just £200, they hit upon a vocal style where both musicians sing in unison, with Josephine’s voice in the centre, and Anthony singing twice, once in the left ear and once in the right.
“The technique was actually a happy accident — they’d recorded two sets of vocals so the songs could be pitched to both male and female artists, but their managers advised them to blend the two takes, and it became Oh Wonder’s unique sonic signature.”
Oh Wonder has since toured the globe with 162 shows across 112 cities. At the moment, they’re touring three continents to promote their second album Ultralife.
Josephine and Anthony recently
returned to the Philippines to do three back-to-back mall shows at Ayala Malls. This was their third time in the country; first one was for a music festival, while last year was a headlining show at a mall.
Prior to their series of performances at Ayala Malls, The STAR joined a brief roundtable with the duo at the Johnny B Good at Glorietta 3, Ayala Center in Makati.
On how’s life and career after their last visit to Manila:
Anthony: We’ve been touring a lot around the world. But we had a month off, so we feel very energized. We’re currently on a tour of three continents — Asia, Australia and South Africa — for five weeks.
Josephine: The last time we played in Manila, it was like one of our favorite shows of all time, our whole crew was even crying. They weren’t performing, they were just doing the lights or the sounds, but even they were so moved by the audience, the fans, they were crying. That was a special show. My god, we’ve been to many places, we’re so lucky. Touring in Asia is very special because it’s so far and
it feels so exciting for us. Anthony: Yes, we’re very grateful to be visiting. It’s very special for us. It’s amazing. On collaborating with hip-hop recording star Lil Uzi Vert on The Way Life Goes:
Josephine: We never actually met him. We still haven’t met him. He reached out to us and said that he really liked our song Landslide, from our first album, and if we’d approve him rapping and doing a verse on it and kind of releasing it himself and then (he got) Nicki Minaj singing on it as well and rapping on it. So yeah, we found ourselves on a song with Lil Uzi and Nicki so it’s pretty insane. It’s cool and he’s playing the same festival as us next month in Canada. We’re on just before him so we’re gonna say hi and try to sing with him. On the 2017 album Ultralife: Josephine: We took a couple of months off from touring and wrote the whole album at that time. Ultralife was one of the last
songs we wrote, and we felt that the word is kind of about finding someone, something that makes you feel ultra, makes you feel invisible and amazing and passionate and curious and all those things, and for us that’s touring, right?
Anthony: Yeah, touring brings out our ultra selves. Being able to meet fans, it makes us feel incredible. We try to write songs that reflect how we’re doing on tour. It’s so much fun to play live.
On why their partnership works:
Josephine: I think it works because we’re very different people, we’re opposites in our personalities but share very similar outlook in life. We are both very ambitious people, creative and value the same things. But I’m a bit more crazy than him. So we balance each other out.
On music-making dynamics:
Anthony: It always starts in the piano. The best songs are those done when we sit down on the piano and play, we always make sure we make the songs as great as we can make them out. Josephine comes up with the chords, lyrics and melody together…
Josephine: Basically, we sing to each other, it’s really weird. Anthony: I wouldn’t even
call it singing, I’m making noises (laughs)… Josephine: (Laughs) Yeah, singing with melodies and then the lyrics. On music as a career:
Josephine: I think we both knew from a very young age that we’re really passionate about music. It’s a big thing to believe that it’s possible to make it your job because it’s also one in a million, you know. I don’t think we had ever realized that this was possible. Either of us thought we’d ever be in Manila doing shows. It’s crazy…
Anthony: I think it turned into a job as soon as we saw (the opportunity)... I left school and was making money for music. It was my job. Then Oh Wonder started and now we’re here.
On being tagged as “music for millennials”:
Josephine: We’ve never heard of that until we arrived in the Philippines (laughs). But it’s cool. We’re millennials so it makes sense that millennials like listening to our music I guess.
But we write music about how we see the world so I guess people can relate to that because we’re young and we’re writing about stuff that’s relevant and feels “very now” like love and anxiety, depression and euphoria, and all the emotions teenagers have. People maybe find comfort in the songs.