Lou Salome craft a dreamy alt-rock anthem on the impossible “Your Eyes Immaculate”

They take their name from a renowned French psychoanalyst, compelled by her dual-status as a “serious academic and unhinged romantic figure,” she’s a person they desperately wanted associated with themselves. “Taking being a wild romantic so seriously is important to the band,” band member Leah Hennessey says.

Hennessey, a movie director (John Early: Now More Than Ever, Zhe Zhe) is one half of Lou Salome. Joined by her bandmate actor Jack Kilmer (Palo Alto, Lord of Chaos) the duo’s debut album Something You Cared About In High School is slated for release later this year. In anticipation of the release came lead single “Faith”, and now “Your Eyes Immaculate”. Here Hennessey shouts into a swirling void of fuzzed-out guitars and driving drums, while Kilmer whispers gently in response. It’s a surprising dance between delicate, airy dream pop and driving alt-rock.

Originally slated to become a part of Kilmer’s solo project, Archaic Angelic, he eventually felt like this would be a perfect project for him and Leah to work on together. “ I'd really been dreaming of making a song like that for a long time, and it’s an important song for us because it was sort of one of the first things Leah and I made as a band,” he explains. “Before 'Your Eyes Immaculate' the songs Jack and I were writing in dialogue were all just acoustic demos, and this was the first one that I think really got like the sound of what became a shared song sensibility,” Hennessey says.

While the creation of the song is historic for the band, it was created on a particularly memorable night for New York City, too. “ I remember it very vividly. There was a torrential rainstorm and the subways were flooded. It was one of those really apocalyptic weather events. I had a plan to go over and see Jack and I was like, this is crazy. Why am I walking through a foot of water just to hang out and listen to a song?” Still, she persevered. “I showed up and my underwear was soaked. I was angry and exhausted and in the least open state to hear something. But I walked in and Jack was completely absorbed in the song. The minute I heard the demo, I was just so moved and captivated and excited.” Kilmer responds “I was also soaked just from how good the riff was.”

While it’s difficult to describe the sound of their music, the duo initially bonded over a shared love for British post-punk bands and cites the likes of Public Image Ltd, Momus, Of Montreal, and Escape-Ism as favourites. “Britain is the only place where a song about the robot from Doctor Who can become number one and everybody loves it," says Kilmer, "You know what I mean?  It's just the most perverse place ever.”

“ We were really into that book about The KLF for a while,” Hennessey adds.

Still, both Hennessey and Kilmer say they haven’t thought much about what sounds they want to go for as a band; they’re simply making something based on instinct: “When we really got into making music together, it was more about us chasing a feeling of intense sincerity and vulnerability and all of those influences kind of fell away. But I think a lot of our initial bonding over music was over a lot of snarkier, cleverer, almost funny music. That whole sensibility and approach to not being afraid to be overly intellectual and still be a rock and roller, I think that's really important to us. Even though we can come off as a little self-serious and gazing at our shoes, or what have you.”

While Lou Salome is just taking off, Hennessey and Kilmer have been enmeshed in a creative partnership for a while. They started off, not as strangers, but as genuine admirers of one another’s work. “I had been a fan of Jack's solo music before and listened to his EP,” Hennessey says. “I went to see Jack play at Baby’s All Right. I didn't realize how affected I was by seeing him perform live, but then I wrote a song about it after that.”

Amazingly, Kilmer felt a similar draw to Hennessey’s work at the time. “ Maybe a year or two before that I had seen Leah's film, Byron & Shelley: Illuminati Detectives.  It was a dis premiere at Brain Dead in LA, and I loved the movie. There’s something so rock and roll about it. It reminded me of the first time that I saw The Smith's music videos on VHS when I was a kid, and that made me want to play guitar. So I was really desperate to hang out with her and make music with her.”

While some open-ended invites can feel like empty gestures, Kilmer was determined to extend one that was genuine. “I did reach out to Leah and was like, if you ever wanna make music, that would be great. There's so few times in my life where I ever extend myself that much. How often do we really do that with people? But Leah got back to me and was like, 'Okay, you wanna make music? Here's a song that I wrote'," and it was about seeing me play that show at Baby’s All Right,” he says.

“At the time I was writing hundreds of songs, so I didn't even know that it really meant anything to me. I also wasn’t sure if he would know,” Hennessey says. “I also ripped off one of his songs on his EP. I stole a part from one of his songs and wanted to make him paranoid, so it was a little bit of a troll.” Kilmer agrees “yeah it was, and I actually re-recorded that song with a bunch of nice gear and sent it back to Leah. I think it's a great song, and it’s actually on the album.”

That collaborative process wasn’t just a one-off, it became an integral part of how the duo creates songs as Lou Salome. “That’s often how we operate now,” Hennessey says. “One of us will write a song and then the other one will take the lyrics or the melody from that and write another song. I feel like there's an open source agreement between us as songwriters. We're just really obsessive fans of each other and I don't think we've ever really gotten over that. What's so fun about this band is that we are the biggest fans of this band and we're obsessed with this band, and then the twist is, we're in the band.”