Ben Langmaid says he left La Roux because of 'idiot' collaborator

La Roux’s second album, Trouble in Paradise, might have been attracting critical raves, but it hasn’t stopped the duo at the heart of the group – Elly Jackson, and her now-departed songwriting partner Ben Langmaid – getting caught up in a bizarre proxy war over their respective feelings about Kanye West. Langmaid has also revealed the reason he left La Roux was because of the involvement on Trouble in Paradise of the writer and engineer Ian Sherwin, whom he described as “an idiot”.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Jackson was asked to discuss her work with West on his 2010 track All of the Lights. “No, fuck him,” she replied. “Nobody likes him.” That might have been the end of the matter had Langmaid not chosen to take to Twitter on Monday morning to let West know he loved him.

He also retweeted several photos from West’s Twitter feed, and disparaging comments about La Roux from other people, including one stating: “Fuck La Roux, nobody knows her.” While it might have been possible Langmaid was joking – he has also retweeted many of the rave reviews of the album, and fans’ excitement about it – his disillusionment appeared to be genuine when he started responding to fans questioning him about the album. When asked what instruments Jackson had played on the album – she’s credited with many on the liner notes – he responded “er, triangle I think”. He replied to questions about Ian Sherwin by tweeting: “The guy’s an idiot. He’s the reason I left.” Sherwin is credited as a writer on three tracks on the album: Let Me Down Gently, Trouble in Paradise, and Uptight Downtown. He replaced Langmaid as Jackson’s closest working partner.

Jackson has not responded so far. Earlier this year, speaking to our own Tim Jonze, Jackson spoke about her split from Langmaid. “I felt that the artist that I’d decided to be, Ben didn’t agree with,” she said. She added that Langmaid refused to consider several songs she’d written, and that their relationship had suffered. “On the first record we would talk a lot and it became very emotional. One of [Langmaid’s] biggest roles was [being that person] I could go and talk to about lots of very personal stuff at length and then write about. But for want of a better way of saying it, I didn’t need that any more. I felt I could do that with a number of people.

This article was amended on 23 September 2014 to remove some content following a complaint.