With SoundCloud
making music, Vander Gucht, 27, says her ultimate dream was to write a song for Rihanna — not to be Rihanna. “Now that we’re doing it, it’s incredible, but neither of us grew up with a hairbrush in our hand in front of the mirror, dreaming of being that kind of star,” she tells me. Their first Oh Wonder songs were intended as a showcase of their abilities, should someone want to hire them as backroom composers.
They’re attractive people, I can’t help but notice, so it’s admirable that they wanted the focus to be entirely on their music at first. “We didn’t want it to be about us, and performing together had just never crossed our minds, so it was a very innocent thing that we stumbled across, says West.
In fact you can see them performing together for the first time on YouTube, in a video made back in May 2012. West was the singer in a band called Futures, making melodic, polished indie rock. They were signed to the major label Mercury Records but didn’t get as far as releasing an album before parting ways again. Just before they split up for good, they took over a Chiswick recording studio with 18 friends and were filmed performing a stirring new song c alled Karma Satellite. There’s Vander Gucht in the clip, sitting next to West on an adjacent piano and harmonising with him to c reate a sound t h a t ’s n ow ver y
I guess,” familiar. He had been producing her as a solo act called Layla, who wasn’t doing too badly herself. She selfreleased three EPs and just lost out to Tom Odell in the battle to record the song for the 2014 John Lewis Christmas advert.
“Some days I listen back to our previous stuff and think it’s far better than Oh Wonder,” says Vander Gucht. She was the classical nerd as a child in London, playing violin, piano and oboe, and her music as Layla was a touch more elaborate than what she does now. “But if it had kicked off for me earlier, I’d have been a deer in headlights. I ’d h ave said ye s to anything.”
“It’s given us a lot of perspective,” says West of their past disappointments.
These days they live together and write whenever someone has an idea. They try not to give anything away about a personal relationship in public (“People think we’re brother and sister, which suits us just fine,” says Vander Gucht), but their songwriting technique sounds more intimate than most. It’s not one person bringing a half-formed song to the other. They sit together and do everything from scratch, even the lyrics. “It’s basically us sat at a piano shouting words at each other,” says West.
“It’s a blessing and a curse, doing it at home,” adds Vander Gucht. “One person’s going, ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea!’ and the other ’s trying to watch Netflix.”
It’s working, though. Their music is connecting with a passionate fanbase, which Vander Gucht is finding is a far more satisfying feeling than jetsetting superstardom or landing that Rihanna writing credit. “It’s not just me wanting to be a pop star. Music is an incredible thing. If you can make people feel a little bit better in some capacity — that is now my drive. We’ve met the most remarkable people and heard some amazing stories. You realise that music is the soundtrack to a lot of people’s highs and lows. That’s what makes me think t h a t wh a t we ’ re d o i n g is valuable.”
Oh Wonder play Omeara, SE1 (0871 220 0260, omearalondon.com) May 10. Ultralife is out on June 16 on Island