Lilly Wood and The Prick Front Woman Nili Hadida on the Duo’s First American Tour and What Being Remixed is Really Like

Stephanie Hernandez

One half of the folkcentric French pop group Lilly Wood and The Prick, front woman Nili Hadida has had a busy few months. From writing a new album pending release later this year, to dealing with the sudden stardom garnered from a Robin Schulz remix of their single “Prayer in C,” and gearing up for the group’s first ever American tour; it’s a wonder she still has the energy to get up and go to rehearsal. Which is exactly where we caught this soon to be a household name. The charmingly humble Nili took the time out of the group’s packed schedule to talk to Entertainment Voice about their recent rise to fame and bringing the show to America for the first time.

Entertainment Voice: We are sure you are asked this all the time, how did you decide on the group’s name?

Nili Hadida: Oh gosh, I think we we’re really young and just friends. We didn’t think anything would really come of the band, and that no one would really ask about the name, if we would have known, we probably would have chosen something else! So, yeah, I know it’s not a very wise choice for a band name, but it is what it is and we are sticking with it! We thought about changing it, especially for the American tour, because we thought people wouldn’t understand. But then again, it’s us, and it’s best to just stay ourselves and try to explain it as best we can.

It’s funny you mention changing the name, because in America, on iTunes your name is a bit censored.

Really?

Yes! The middle letters in Prick are marked out with asterisks, but clearly, we know what it’s supposed to say!

(Laughs) That’s so cool! That’s pretty French I guess, it fits with the whole cliché of “we don’t care, we are being rude.”

Well we love it, it’s refreshing.

Well cool! Because in England, people thought it was a little….stupid. Maybe I’m a bit paranoid, I always think that people hate us or don’t get it, I don’t know maybe it’s just me!

Oh no, People definitely like you! You can’t go anywhere right now without hearing your music.

Cool (sigh of relief).

Can you describe your writing process, where do you find inspiration for your music?

I think if anyone listens to the lyrics, it’s really just about every day questions that anyone anywhere could ask themselves. They’re about growing up, our first album [for example], was about transitioning from being a kid to…. less of a kid. You know, we were becoming adults ourselves and we were writing about how we felt about that time. We are very sensitive people, Ben and I. We’re not very comfortable with ourselves, and that’s what the lyrics reflect. As far as the music, we don’t have rules. Ben will send me a guitar [track] he has recorded, and I’ll record something on top of it, then we’ll send emails back and forth and hopefully we get somewhere. Sometimes we just grab a guitar and write together, it’s very easy we don’t have to think about it. [part of it] is we learned music by ourselves, we didn’t go to music school, we can’t read a partition, it’s natural.

Definitely a lot more spontaneous of a process.

Yes! That was the word I was looking for!

Sorry, I forgot to tell you about these psychic abilities.

(laughs) Oh, man!

When the group first began, you were remixing and performing covers of other artist’s songs, how did that come about?

Yes! We would do lots of covers! Every Sunday, we would get gather at home and choose a song, and give ourselves one hour to learn it and then just filmed it with a very shitty camera (laughs) and then we just posted it. But it was awesome because, once we covered The Rapture and they ended up posting it on their page, so that was really cool.

Now that you are making original tracks, how does it feel when you hear other artists loving your music so much that they in turn cover you or remix one of your tracks?

It’s always really fun to see. Once there was this metal cover of one of our songs on the Internet, we posted it on our Facebook, that was funny. It is hard calling these remixes, because it’s not really our music. We don’t really relate to it, it kind of just happening outside of us, and there is nothing we can do about it. So we are just watching it happen and it’s interesting to see. We are really happy about it, because that’s [part of the reason] we are able to now come to America! It can make you a little crazy, you know? When what everyone knows about you is not really what you do. That’s what we want to do when we come to tour in America, is to make people understand that we don’t really make dance music; we’re actually a band, a pop band.

You have a few albums under your belt now with “Invincible Friends” and “Fight,” What is the most both the most exciting and most difficult part of the record making process?

Well for me, being in the studio is like torture! Because I don’t have any patience at all! I like things to happen really fast and I have a very hard time with changing things, and being in the studio means changing things all the time. So the part I love the most is just being on the road once the album is done, sharing it with people, singing it to people. But making it, it’s difficult because I’m very not, confident. I ask myself a lot of questions and I’m not ever sure of what I do, so being in the studio is a bit hard. It is good [in some ways], if something isn’t hard, then I guess it’s not the right thing. If it’s tough then it means something.

Your single, “Prayer in C” is being played all over the world right now, what was the inspiration behind the song and why do you think people have fallen so in love with it?

I have seriously no idea. The song came out five years ago, it was very very random how this German dude [Robin Schulz] found it, found a video of us playing it at a park and he decided to remix it without asking us. We realized it had over a million listens on Soundcloud and then we got in touch with him and gave him the actual part so he could do it properly. We are as surprised as everyone else, you know we have no idea what’s happening (laughs)!

I was going to ask how that remix of “Prayer in C” happened, Did Schulz asked you beforehand? Guess not, he must have just loved the song.

It’s really crazy! We’ve always just been very lucky, every time we think, “oh man, everything is going to fall apart” then something else happens, we are so grateful. It’s just really weird.

Have you walked by a venue or been in a club that has played the remix yet? What’s that like?

Oh yeah! All the time (laughs) in the most random places. I’ve heard it on the radio a few times, it’s so weird because we are just a small band from Paris!

Hold on! To everyone else in America, “small band from Paris” still sounds pretty damn good.

Yeah, I don’t know…. I think I just have to see it and be there to realize it probably; because right now it all seems, very very surreal.

Now that you are coming abroad to tour in America, what are you looking forward to accomplishing the most while in the United States?

First of all, I hope there will be people there at the gigs! I’m always very worried that no one is going to show up blah blah blah blah, that is always my first concern. Then you know, we’ve been rehearsing, we’re rehearsing now and have another day of this tomorrow. We are trying to include some new stuff that we did in Africa this summer, we have another album coming out in September, we are just sort of rearranging everything and I just hope people like it.  I just hope that we get to come back.

Touring and putting out a new album 2015 is looking good, what else does the year have in store for Lily Wood & The Prick?

Oh gosh, a bunch of stuff. We are doing music for a documentary about French fashion, that is super cool. We’re preparing for the festivals in Europe since we are playing a few this summer. Finishing our third album, that we recorded in Africa back in June, well started recording, we are all over the place but we don’t mind. We love its African music, so we recorded a bunch of drums and backing vocals there, we wrote there and it was just three of us, it was very nice. We are very simple people!

The group may be simple in nature, but the word simple definitely does not apply to their musical prowess. Nili herself, though naturally concerned about the reception of her music abroad, assuredly has nothing to worry about. The duo’s je nais se quoi is sure to charm all those in attendance into becoming lifelong fans.

Lilly Wood and The Prick will be bringing their energetic genre bending folk pop to the Echoplex April 7. Tickets available here.