Hints from Heloise
Sippin' wine and flippin' hair with the voice of Heloise and the Savoir Faire

It's Saturday Night at the Annex, a club on New York's Lower East Side, and a substantial crowd has gathered, drawn in by the buzz surrounding tonight's band: Heloise and the Savoir Faire. Frontwoman Heloise Williams hits the stage in a reflective sweater and, under flashing lights, proceeds to shimmy what she's got, grunting, whooping, and whipping her blond hair around in time to the disco beat. Williams' two backup dancers execute high kicks, synchronize handclaps, and strip down to gold lame underwear. And believe it or not, this is the tame version of their show. "We used to be much more of a campy variety act," says Williams later, over wine with me in Brooklyn, where the band is based. "We used to have, like, five costume changes behind a shower curtain and all these weird gimmicks like 'Let's strap Cheetos to our bodies!'"

Before they became the five-member electro-rock/synth-pop hybrid they are now, the group consisted of just Williams and professional dancers Joe Shepard and Sara Sweet Rabidoux, who together filmed a series of viral videos in which they played a terrible dance troupe trying to make it big in N.Y.C. But after the addition of a bassist, a drummer, and a guitarist (who also happens to be Williams' fiance), the band gained momentum and is now poised to release a new album in April, Trash, Rats, and Microphones, on Elijah Woods Simian label, an imprint of Yep Roc. On the album, Williams' vocals flip from sultry to shouty to upper-decibel shrieking. But even the mellowest tracks are accompanied by a dance beat that could easily score your next cardio session. Highlights include "Odyle," the single the band recently performed on BBC2 in the U.K., the hyperpowered "Canadian Changs" (which boasts guest vocals by Debbie Harry), and "Members Only," which Williams wrote in response to a run-in with some holier-than-thous at an electronic-music festival. "I'd just moved to New York, and I didn't know anybody, and these people thought I'd butted in line or something, and they said, 'You're obviously a loser.' I was shocked at the meanness! I immediately took a napkin and started scribbling down lyrics," she recalls. "I don't like anybody who thinks they're better than anybody else. I love nerds and people who are vulnerable. That's humanity. Everyone being cold and perfect isn't real."

For Williams, though her band's lineup has changed, the group's emphasis on showmanship has always been the same. "I like to go to shows where I feel like people are trying," she says. "If I just paid money to see a show, I want to see people sweat, bleed, scream, and roll around. I really want a quality performance." That means that in addition to the lights and the dancing, Heloise and the Savoir Faire put a lot of work into their appearance. Their designer friend, who has outfitted Williams and her dancers in Tootsie Roll berets, spangly half shirts, and silver pants, also designed Williams a fluorescent yellow lace minidress with huge shoulder pads. "I just like getting dressed up and putting on makeup," she says.

Despite her devotion to fashion, however, Williams off stage is the antihipster. Even the "Nurses Are All Heart" pin clipped to her multicolored wool sweater when we meet isn't ironic; it reminds her of her sister in nursing school. And though we're sipping our house white in a notoriously arty Williamsburg, her demeanor underscores he position as lead singer of a band that's having too much fun to worry about cred. At the center of a musical scene that often borders on being dour, Heloise and the Savoir Faire are too cool not to dance. As Williams puts it, "I don't like it when people take themselves superseriously unless they're, like, Beethoven. Some of what we do is definitely a reaction to the people who are walking around as if they were discovering a cure for cancer instead of being entertainers. Everyone should just loosen up and stop asking, 'Are you cool enough?' Who cares? Yes, you are."

- Emily McCombs, Bust Magazine, April/May 2008.