White Lies Anxious About North America

White Lies' debut album, To Lose My Life, issued a synth-pop assault on the U.K. album charts when it premiered at #1 in January.

North America remains an unsettling territory for the band, despite their early successes in their homeland and a vigorous touring schedule including some western dates. To Lose My Life hit North American shelves on Tuesday, and White Lies are excited but nervous about it.

"It's actually really hard to judge [how the album will be received in North America]. We didn't even really know what to expect from the U.K., so I'm really kind of not sure how it is going to go," drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown said over the phone from Berlin, Germany, where the band were performing a sold-out show.

"Obviously, North America is such a vast place. We have [high] hopes definitely for Canada. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes in America. You really can't predict what they're going to like and what they're not going to like."

The nerves seem highly unwarranted. The band's show at Toronto's Lee's Palace on March 31 is already sold out. The trio are scheduled to play the South By Southwest Music Festival this week and the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival next month as part of their upcoming North American tour.

While cynics have undermined much of this success as typical British hype, it appears the band have more than buzz to back this record. There's actually solid musical foundation.

The album was recorded at Brussels, Belgium's ICP Studios and was produced by Ed Buller (Suede, Pulp) and Max Dingel (The Killers, Glasvegas). Buller is also an accomplished music score writer and helped fulfill White Lies' dreams of adding a string section by scoring a 20-piece orchestration for closing track "The Price Of Love."

"Me and Harry [McVeigh, vocalist/guitarist] got to go into the studio while they were doing it, and it was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. It was amazing, though," says Lawrence-Brown.

"It was so exciting to hear people play a massive string section, which was written for our songs. It definitely adds an exciting element that I think a lot of bands of recent times haven't really used. I don't think there are many large orchestrated pieces in modern music, so I really like it."

White Lies have these shows lined up:

March 20 Austin, TX @ Cedar St Courtyard (SXSW)
March 21 Austin, TX @ Stubbs Bar-B-Q (SXSW)
March 24 Washington, DC @ Black Cat
March 25 Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
March 26-27 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
March 28 Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
March 30 Montreal, QC @ Les Saints
March 31 Toronto, ON @ Lee's Palace
April 1 Ann Arbor, MI @ Blind Pig
April 2 Indianapolis, IN @ Radio Radio
April 3 Chicago, IL @ Double Door
April 4 Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock Social Club
April 7 Seattle, WA @ Neumo's
April 8 Vancouver, BC @ Richard's on Richards
April 9 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
April 11 San Francisco, CA @ Slims
April 17 Indio, CA @ Coachella Festival
April 23 Tokyo, Japan @ Astro Hall
May 3 Leeds, England @ Metropolitan University
May 4 Glasgow, Scotland @ Glasgow Barrowlands
May 5 Manchester, England @ O2 Academy Manchester
May 7-8 London, England @ Heaven
May 22 Liverpool, England @ O2 Academy Liverpool
May 23 Edinburgh, Scotland @ Picture House
May 24 Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England @ Spiller's Wharf (Evolution Festival)
May 31 Landgraaf, Netherlands @ Pinkpop Festival
June 13 Newport, England @ Isle Of Wight Festival
July 11 Balado, Scotland @ T In The Park Festival
July 12 Dublin, Ireland @ Punchestown Racecourse (Oxegen festival)
July 19 Benicassim, Spain @ Benicassim Festival