November 10th, 2009 
Chris Courtesy: Pitchfork
Elizabeth Harper is a singer-songwriter. A few years ago, she was recording simple coffeehouse fare under her own name. More recently, though, she has hooked up with producers Scott Rosenthal and Mark Richardson (no relation to the Pitchfork managing editor of the same name) to form the Brooklyn-based electro-pop trio Class Actress. Harper still sings and writes songs, but now she does it in a radically different setting, flexing her chilly, confident voice over decidedly vintage synth twinkles.
On December 15, Class Actress will release their debut EP, Journal of Ardency, on Terrible Records, the new label run by Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor.
Pitchfork recently caught up with Harper; check below for our interview.
Pitchfork: Before Class Actress, you were doing solo stuff, right?
Elizabeth Harper: Yeah. I put out a record under my own name, and I was doing that. Then Mark [Richardson] did a remix of one of my songs, and I just thought it was better than the original. So I decided to invite him up from Philly. I said, “Why don’t you come up? We’ll see what we can make.” In a week, we basically recorded half a record at my house. We had all these pop songs lying around. We just made it happen. And then I decided that I shouldn’t release this under my own name. So I called it Class Actress.
Pitchfork: Where does the name come from?
EH: I just like the double S on the “class” and the “actress”.
Pitchfork: So there’s no deep meaning behind that?
EH: Well, I was a drama major in college. It’s sort of a joke about myself, actually.
Pitchfork: The solo stuff you did under your own name wasn’t as electronic and synth-poppy as the stuff you’re doing now?
EH: No, it was totally guitar-based.
Pitchfork: Why the change?
EH: I actually wanted to make electronic music, and I kept trying to figure it out on my own. I always loved electronic music, and it’s ultimately what I wanted to do. I just learned how to play guitar first, and then I picked up keyboard, and I taught myself how to do that. It’s always what I wanted to do; I could just never get my hands on the sound that I wanted. I was sort of flipping between producers, and then finally, when Mark came, it was exactly what I wanted.
Pitchfork: Have you put together an album yet?
EH: Yeah, we have a full-length ready.
Pitchfork: Chris Taylor is putting out your EP on Terrible Records. Did he produce it?
EH: No. We recorded the whole EP, pretty much. There’s a song on the EP that I recorded with [Violens’] Jorge Elbrecht, and there’s another song that I recorded with my other bandmate Scott Rosenthal. I did the other three tracks on the EP with Mark, and then the full-length is going to be all me and Mark.
Pitchfork: How did you hook up with Chris Taylor?
EH: I had known Chris around, and then he heard Class Actress. I guess that’s how the story goes. It just happened.
Pitchfork: Is he going to put out the album, too?
EH: No, we’re shopping for another label for the full length.
Pitchfork: You mention this on your MySpace a couple of times: what is “goth prep”?
EH: [laughs]. I think it sort of refers to the sort of style that Mark and I have. We’re always walking around with these popped collars– you know, this very 1980s look. But we’re always wearing black. It’s just kind of more of talking about the way we dress. A lot of people call it goth pop. I was thinking it was more like goth prep.
Pitchfork: There’s a really 1980s sound to your songs. Do you have any specific inspirations?
EH: The first Madonna record is a huge inspiration for me. We sample all our beats from vinyl, and all the keyboards we use are really old, so we’re definitely going for Depeche Mode’s Some Great Reward, early Madonna, Human League– that kind of sound.
Pitchfork: What kinds of records do you sample from?
EH: Anything that has a good beat on it. Sampling the beats from vinyl changed, for me, the electronic sounds I was using. I was always trying to find this big drum sound, and finally I realized that that’s where you could get it. That changed everything. Trying to get synthetic drums from a Logic-based thing or whatever, it just doesn’t have the same punch. We just make the snares from a whole list of different records, anything from the 1970s to the 1990s.
listen here.
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