After making heads turn with their splendid cover of Santogold’s L.E.S. Artistes (which stormed the Fairtilizer charts), Lilly Wood and the Prick are releasing their debut EP “Lilly Who and The What?” today. Discover the new single “Down The Drain” and its remix by Lafayette, along with a playlist by the band.

Get to know Lilly Wood and the Prick: interview below!

Hi, how are you doing?
Hyper. Want to tour and have the EP out and do things!

What’s goin’ on in Lilly Wood & The Prick’s world right now?
Everything is moving and changing for the better (or so we hope …).

Please could you let us know a bit more about the band: what are your influences, do you have records out?
We try to mix our love for Elvis and Marylin Monroe and Johnny Cash and The Beatles, with our love for Depeche Mode and Joy Division, and our love for Justin Timberlake and Rihanna. Without having to many people hate us.
Our EP will be our first release.

What are you currently listening to?
Nili : Willow Tree by Chad Vangaleen, and Physical by The Glimmers, and a lot of Michel Delpech (cheesy French singer from the 60’s)
Ben : Metronomy, Murray Head

How is the scene in Paris at the moment?
We think it is all kind of coming down now, we had a sort of golden moment about two years ago when Justice went big and started touring with Daft Punk and the Paris scene was so “cool” and everyone was talking about local DJs (which was good cause it saved us from the whole fake little rock bands movement). I’m not sure if it is a negative thing, maybe something new is coming that will be less overrated. Although, we have our contemporary geniuses, like Sebastien Tellier or Yann Tiersen who actually isn’t really part of a “scene”, and pretty cool bands like One-Two, Revolver or The Do.

You’re releasing a digital only EP in a difficult moment for the music industry: is it a statement, how do you see the future of this industry?
No statement. No money !
More seriously we think being released digitally only for an EP is perfectly acceptable, and it’s also kind of saying, you know, doesn’t matter, the important thing is releasing your music and putting it out there, doesn’t matter how you do it.
About the music industry, our opinion is that music cannot die, crisis or not, people will always go to gigs … Of course we’re not here to become millionaires otherwise we’d definitely do something else.

Will you take your music on the road? and if yes, how?
We play quite a lot of gigs in Paris at the moment. We played in Sweden recently, and should have a couple of gigs in London then Italy early 2009. Hopefully we will set up a bigger tour when the E.P’s out.
All this is very new for us…

How important is the internet for you as an a band?
We have mixed feelings about this. I know that it allows us to encounter music we would never have without tools like Myspace and Fairtilizer etc. and also to spread our own music very largely. But there is also this “worn out” feeling, when something becomes too easy to get to, it is not interesting anymore. Maybe there is too much
choice, we might miss out on so much because there are too many bands and artists out there…And sometimes you feel you’re just this tiny little thing in an ocean of other things, which is true but the internet really shoves it in your face ! It gets scary once you realize its width, because it is just too big.

Where do you see this whole internet thing going?
We’re guessing as long as there will be good websites and real artists and that quality stays a priority next to quantity, then there is nothing to worry about …

Please could you give your Top 5 for 2008?
Nili : Metronomy, Santogold, Fleet Foxes, Britney Spears, Estelle.
Ben : Metronomy, Santogold, Alain Baschung, Vampire Week-end.

Visit Lilly Wood and the Prick Fairtilizer profile
Visit Lilly Wood and the Prick website
Buy their new ep on