Elly Jackson doesn't just channel hits from the '80s — she also has the hair.
The 22-year-old lead singer of British electro-pop duo La Roux has one serious 'do. It's a quasi-quiff, a tidal wave of red hair that stands at rigid attention several inches above her scalp. More impressive still: It stays that way, even in the middle of a show.
The La Roux 'do (it doesn't have an official name) will be on full display at Rams Head Live on Wednesday, when Jackson rolls through hits such as "Bulletproof," "In for the Kill" and "Quicksand." The band's sound has roots in the music of the '80s, Jackson said. It's no stretch to say the same about the hair.
Once known as the La Roux Flick, it used to just be off to the side, Jackson said. But that got annoying when she started performing.
"It didn't work live," she said. "I'd dance around, and my hair would go all over the place."
With time — and a ton of hairspray, which Jackson calls "mist" — the 'do grew. And grew. These days, Jackson has a five-step process to coiffing her hair.
"It begins with quite a lot of mist — a lot of mist," Jackson said.
All kinds of mist. Regular mist. Volume-increasing mist. Lifting mist. After Jackson has doused her head in hairspray, she blow-dries it all in. Then, she separates her hair into sections and applies a special kind of spray at the roots.
"It's kind of like hair scaffolding," she said. "That solidifies it and makes it stand up."
Finally, Jackson molds it by running her hands through it several times. Once the shape is right, she hits it with some more hairspray and stays as still as possible while it dries. Jackson now has the whole ordeal, which used to take "a long time," down to a mere 15 minutes — with the help of at least one personal assistant, she said. Every so often, disaster has struck, and they've run out of hairspray.
"Someone would have to run to the [store] and buy me five different types of hairspray in the hopes that one of them would work," she said. "There were a lot of nights like that."
UPDATE: La Roux's July 28 concert has been postponed. A new date will be announced. See ramsheadlive.com for details.