November 26, 2025 • 53 mins
On this week's In Service Of Steve Baltin sits down for an extended conversation with up and coming British star Luvcat a week before she hits the US for a December tour. One of the most charismatic new faces on the scene, Luvcat has earned rave reviews for her inspired 'Vicious Delicious' album. This time next year Luvcat will be a star. Check out why now.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, it's Steve Bouts and welcome to this week's in
Service of Man. This one was a blast. I had
so much fun with the brilliant British artist Lovecat. Incredible conversation,
wonderful artist, one of my favorite albums of the year,
Vicious Delicious. We had so much fun talking about everything
(00:28):
from Tom Waits to touring to starting her career too.
We covered so much. This is a wonderful album. She'll
be here in the States touring in December. I highly
recommend it. Do not miss the show and do not
miss this album. She is an incredible artist and I
really look forward to a great career from Lovecat. So
(00:51):
I hope you enjoy meeting her as much as I did.
All right, Well, first off, thanks for being here today.
(01:12):
I fucking love the record. It is so fun. It's
so wonderful. But before how wonderful your record is. You're
already one of my favorite people because you're a Tom
Waits fan. So I am what would be the Tom
Waite song you wish you had written?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And why Alice from his album of the same name,
I think for inspired by my favorite book I listen
Wonderland and I just it has some of my favorite
lyrics of all time. It has like my favorite few lines,
(01:52):
which is and so a Secret Kiss brings madness with
the bliss. And I will think of this when I'm
dead in my grave. I just I think how every
time I listen to that song, it just takes something
new from each line, every single one holds so much
weight and mystery and poetry. And I just adore him.
(02:15):
And I still haven't even scratched the surface of what
he's made, you know. It's what excites me so much.
There's still I still haven't heard all of his music.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I don't know if you can. There's so much of it.
It covers so many different eras, you know. I mean,
I've been listening for a lot longer than you, let's say,
and I still find new songs. And I've actually interviewed him,
and I still find new songs, and I'm like, wait,
how the fuck did I hear this?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I know, I'd like to become such an a stalker
of Tom Waite's, Like even last night I was in
the bath in the hotel in Bristol where we were
playing a show, and and I just was watching his
old interviews and he's just so funny and inspiring, and
I just don't think enough people, especially in England and
(03:11):
people of my age, not enough people are obsessed with him.
He's the coolest fucker around.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Was so funny because he actually has always been more
converseially successful in group though than he is in States.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh is that true? That's funny. Well, the first time
that I was really normally like, I got all my
influences from my dad or my granddad, but my dad
actually never played me much Tom Waite's growing up, I
kind of discovered he was one of my own discoveries
(03:47):
as I got into my twenties and he and then
I realized he was playing the devil in one of
my favorite films of all time, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassis,
which is he'd ledge his last movie, Terry Gillingham movie,
and Tom's playing the devil, smoking this with this bowl
of hat and smoking a cigar, and he's just so
(04:10):
He's so great in that film.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
No, he's so insanely talented. I've actually seen him in
the stage plays as well, you know, because being in
la where he was based for a long time, I
got to see him and like, there was a play
called I can't remember where it was now, this was
like in the nineties, but I mean it was like
he's done multiple plays, you know, and it's just such
(04:33):
an interesting dat It's so funny. The only time I
interviewed him, his assistant called me up and said, Okay,
are you ready. Tom's gonna be calling you now, and
I'm like, sure, hang on the phone. I put down
the phone and the phone rings like two minutes later,
and I picked it up and He's like, stay Tom,
and I practically peeved myself, like I was so freaked
(04:55):
out on the other line, just like that. But so
it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
No, he's I mean, there's no one quite like him.
And it's funny though, because it does tie in. As
I said, I love this. So it's just it's so
fun and it's so smart. But I mean, it's funny,
do you Like I've talked about this so many people, right.
Writing is such a subconscious thing, and you'll go back
(05:26):
and you'll hear all these influences and you're like, oh,
I didn't know that was in there. And so when
you go back and listen to it, are the songs
where you hear either Tom or like you said most
of your influences came from your dad or granddad. First
of all, was most of this written? Was most of
this written subconsciously? Do you feel like.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
When you yeah, I mean yeah, most of it was
totally suberconscious. Like my dad always used to joke about that,
like when I was growing up, because a lot of
the a lot of his favorite musicians are like old man,
really deep voices, singing very miserable things. And he used
to say it because I would was just a little
(06:06):
blonde kid who'd be a little blonde girl. He'd be like, Dad,
turn off the miserable music. And then he was like, oh,
I'm subliminally, I'm subliminally influencing you, and one day you'll
thank me for it. And it's true. I did. And
I think when I say the piano, I don't really
think about anything else other than just telling the story
(06:28):
about what, you know, whatever I'm feeling at the time.
But there is one song of mine called Dinner at
Brass froos Adele, and that came from having a Tom Waits.
An ex lover of mine bought me a Tom Waite
song book and I would just read it like the
Bible and I just saw this chord progression and I
was like, oh, I've never tried that, And then I
(06:50):
played it and I was like, oh, that's instantly. That's
instantly the core progression I want to use in every
song ever. And I've had to stop myself from doing that,
but that was definitely a Tom Waits. So then I stole.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
So what song was do you remember from Tom?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
No? I mean he uses it a lot. I don't
remember specifically what song it was. I just randomly opened
a page and then used this use the chords in
front of me and then and then I just kind
of went off on went off into my own world
from then. But he does use this a minor to
e major thing quite a lot. And then it has
(07:31):
that it just has this like late night, smoky, mysterious
thing about it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But you know, it's so funny. Is I love the
way that you paint your own pictures? And it's like,
it's so funny because and it is very Tom as well.
You know, you go back to his seventy stuff like
nighthawks at the diner. But it's like even like the
image of you holding hands to McDonald's, it's like, I
just love that because it's like no one thinks that
McDonald's is being cool, but it's it's like it's very
(08:01):
fucking authentic.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, yeah, that just came from that was where we were,
and I wish we were in somewhere more glamorous, but
you know, we were playing these empty pub shows in
southeast London when I moved down from Liverpool, and I
was in love with my bass player at the time,
who was in the back, my old bass player, and
we would be going after the shows. We'd be staying
up and going for three am McDonald's near my old house,
(08:27):
near my old flat and Campwell, and I remember just
being in there and it just being chaos obviously three
am and everyone's coming in from nights out and were
relatively sober and with our guitars on our backs and
just trying to eat something because we've been at this
venue all day. And it was just a magical time.
(08:47):
Because those are the gigs that you know, every few shows,
things were starting to feel slightly different and we felt
like we were part of something bigger and things were
changing right before eyes, and being in McDonald's it just
felt so romantic. The whole thing it's all been at
(09:08):
the past two years have just been a wild love story,
all of it, and I feel very privileged to have
to have had to be living within that and that lyric.
You know, some people, especially in the studio, they're like,
are you sure you want to say McDonald's, Like it
doesn't seem very you And I was like, yeah, but
it was the truth, and it's not meant to symbolize
(09:32):
like I'm not always in some soho jazz club, Like
sometimes I'm just having French fries in the makis.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
As I say to me, it felt very authentic, So
I really liked it. I mean, it's interesting that do
you feel like it's funny in a weird way, because
you know, I've talked to everyone who's ever lived musician wise,
and you know, it's like it's there's something. You know,
it's an exacting time. You're having so much success and
the tour a selling out and everything, but is there
(10:05):
something kind of I had a nostalgic about those early
shows where you know it was like a struggle and
it's like but it was also there's something nice about
being able to just go off and like, I don't know,
being anonymous as McDonald's you know, I imagine now if you
want to do Donald's at three am, it would be
(10:25):
a very different scenario.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, you know what. Sorry, I just want to apologize
because this washing machine is so possessed by the devil.
And it's because we're like in between shows and I'm
finally at my flat in between tour shows and we're
doing all the washing but it's not being fitted so
loud anyway. Yeah, I do think like it is. I
(10:53):
knew it. I knew it was weirdly. I knew it
was nostalgic when I was in it, like I was
missing it when I was in it, because I was
like aware that for the first time for the first
time in my life, because I was a struggling musician
for many many years, playing in empty pubs and clubs
and being a wedding singer and busking, and I was
(11:14):
just finally aware that, oh shit, like this is actually
something's something's changing. And and I knew that they would
be the golden days because they were and it. Yeah,
I was just kind of aware of it while I
was in the middle of it. And I loved the
(11:36):
dreaming of it all, you know, just everything was ahead
of us. It was all kind of this thing we
would dream about and we didn't have any pressure at
that point. You know, there was no one to disappoint.
It was all just in front of us for the
taking kind of thing and any like musician coming up,
(11:56):
anyone that is ever at like a show. And they
asked me about advice, and of I'm just saying, like,
treasure those precious early days because you know, they are
so magical.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's funny though, I mean, Joe, do you feel like
these have their like these days have their own magic
as well, Like you talked about, you know, having girls
come up to you with the love cat you know,
like necklace or insignia, and I mean for you. You know,
I've talked to so many people about this and like
most people will say, for them, the first moment they
(12:31):
know they made it is. It's interesting because I mean
I've talked to people who've won Grammys, I've talked to
people who had like stadiums, I've talked to I mean,
I've talked with everybody from Mick Jagger to James Brown,
but everybody will say the moment they first made it
is when people sing their lyrics back to them.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah. Yeah, that was I remember that feeling, and it
was it was still in one of the pubs we
were playing in London, and my dad was actually at
the show, and he's obviously been to so many of
my empty gigs, and he said it was the first
time when he came in from the bar he felt
(13:08):
when it came to like eight thirty or whatever time
I was on the bill, he felt like a swell
of people and he was like, that's the first time
I've ever felt the swell moved forward and that they
were hungry for hungry for your music. And that's when
it was like a pivotal moment for him. And it
was similar for me when I started to see strangers
(13:31):
and they traveled from I remember there were these two
lads at one of our very early shows and they
were outside of skateboards and I could see through the
window my band talking to them having a smoke, and
I was like, oh, wonder what those two lads are
up to. And then the band came in and said
they're here for you and they've come from Bournemouth, which is,
you know, quite far.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
And.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I was just like, what what do you mean. I
couldn't father, you know, I just couldn't understand it, and
it's just I that still feels like it wasn't that
long ago. So I still haven't really switched out of
that mentality. And now like we're like last night, the
night before play into a nine hundred people headline show,
and I'm really still struggling to make it feel real,
(14:18):
and it feels like a fever dream. It feels like
I'm the support act of someone else. I can't. I'm
still in the pub band mindset, and I think maybe
that's a beautiful thing because it means we don't take
any of it for granted. But like, but for instance,
(14:39):
last night, one of the things that really was really
poignant for me was I managed to sneak out and
do a rid of signing at the merch desk. Some
venues like now won't let me do it because it's
the bigger venues and it's they need to get everybody
out and it takes too long, but they let me
go out. And then a few an hour later, I
heard one of the boys say that there was fans
(15:00):
waiting by the van and it's obviously really cold, so
I went straight outside to meet them and make sure
they got out of the cold, and they'd been waiting
there for hours, and there was a young couple in
like early young late teens maybe I don't know, but
they had there was like a car waiting across the
car park, and I thought it was like security or something.
(15:21):
And then I saw after I met them, them go
in and get in and it was their dad, And
it just made me feel so emotional because you know,
my dad did that for me when I would wait
by the stage door to meet my chemical Romance or whoever,
and he would wait with the heater on in the
car until like one in the morning sometimes and then
I wouldn't meet the band or they'd wiz passing a
(15:41):
tour bus. So I kind of know I was a
fan and I know what that feels like. And to
have that kind of the family all come in there
and it's just it's really really, it just blows me away.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Wait. Many questioned you to ask from that, and the
first one is, it's funny you mentioned your dad coming
to you like early shows and obviously seeing you so much,
does he ever now give you shit? Of like, you
know when he hears your music and he's like, see,
remember the depressing music I made? You listen to. Like now,
now I hear you know, I don't know, Like what
(16:28):
what depressing guys do you make you listen to? Was
it like Blues? Was it like Leonard Cohen? Like what
was it?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah? To be honest, I actually never I never slagged
him off and said they were depressing. It was more
my mom because she was just definitely into like she
loved the West End and she was named after Maria
in West Side Story, so she just had a very
different musical palette and she she thought it was dreary.
(16:57):
I actually always loved my dad's bands, like he was
a He's a massive fan of the National and he
introduced me to the Smiths and Van Morrison and Nick
cave So, but it's really broad really. He introduced me
to Nick Drake because I was a foousinger for many
years as well, and that was a big part of
(17:18):
my life. The slightly more like the lighter end of
the spectrum, I guess. But but he did, like like
Inter Paul, a lot of heavier bands too, And yeah,
I think he definitely succeeded in subliminally. He just always
turned me on to the lyrics. He'd always say to me,
(17:38):
just listen to what they're actually saying. Don't just sing it,
you know, read read the lyric booklet. I always would
read the CD booklet in the car and fell in
love with rhyme and poem poetry that way, I think.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
The way when you go back now, though, do you
hear your mom's influence? Like it's interesting because you hear
like a little bit of you know, sort of that.
It's like, it's cool because now you I talked about
this with so many people, right. What happens is you're
a kid, you listen to your parents' music constantly. Then
you get older and you need to find your own shit,
to find your own voice. And then once you've establish that,
(18:16):
as you get older, you're like, okay, now you find
that music influencing ill. So it's like there is a
little bit of Broadway meets you now the Cure in
there or whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah. Yeah, I think I grew up going like my dad.
My parents are madly in love. And when my dad,
my mom was raised kind of on you know, the
Frank Sinatra rat pack, lots of musicals, and my dad
was a punk and they met when they were like
(18:48):
eighteen nineteen, fell in love and my mom then was
like sneaking out on black homing her hair, and they
would go to all these goth clubs together, this one
in particular called Peppermint Gardens. They lived, and it kind
of became I was told a lot about Peppermint Goardens
growing up, and it kind of became this ethereal, surreal
(19:09):
place in my memory. And there's no photographs of it.
But yeah, she's so she did have one. She did
love the Smiths and the cure with my dad, but
definitely was more on the other side of things, and
I just ended up somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I love this story. It feels like it should be
a movie. Peppermint Gardens.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, and I'm thinking about like how I can write
about it because I just wish, I wish I could
find more. I've really tried to look online about the place,
but so far it's only the stories that can paint
the picture for me.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
But see, that's kind of cool little way too, because
it's like everything now is archives so much that it
becomes almost like a mythical.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I don't know if you ever saw the movies theyanda
do hate, but I love that movie, you know, And
it's like it becomes like this sort of like ideal.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah. Yeah, I just think, you know, we don't have Well,
where I grew up, there wasn't a lot of alternative
clubs or places for alternative people to hang out and
listen to great music. So I'm very envious of them
in those days.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Well it's awesoly cool. So wait, how old are your parents.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, they're like coming up to sixty.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Okay, so they've been together like forty years.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, Like they got married at twenty one and had
me ten years later. So my whole family are kind
of liked that. My grandparents on one side, got married
at fourteen and they both died madly in love when
they were sixty six. And on the other side, they
got married at eighteen and they were together for sixty
three years, and so kind of been surrounded by these
(21:01):
really you know, very passionate love stories, and I think
that's bled into my like romantic way of living.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I was going to say, does that make you an
curable romantic or does it like create an impossible standard?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, initially it was I think it was. It was
difficult because when I met my first like proper love,
when I was a teenager. I was like, Okay, well
this is me and this is it, you know, this
is what happens in my family. And it wasn't It
definitely wasn't the right one. But then I realized that
(21:41):
I'm a writer and maybe live in a few more
you know, maybe fallen in love and marrying at eighteen
wasn't going to be the best idea for me.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, so you didn't marry like your elementary school boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, I really I kind of thought the idea of
of being you know, a teenage bride in this in
this uh, in this generation, I thought it was kind
of I thought it was quite exciting really, but now
I'm looking back, like, thank fuck, you didn't do that.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Really, I go ahead, I was just.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Gonna say that I feel like I've you know, the
people that I have met being a just being a
young woman and going out and experiencing so many different
characters from across the world. Like it's I feel like
I've stolen little bits of everyone and soaked them all up,
and they've all not just become part of the record,
(22:52):
but become just part of me. And and even just
being introduced to so much new music, and that's so
that's what I love about. Like all of the lovers
and libertines that have crossed my path, I do feel
like I've took a tiny piece of them all carried
it with me.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
So is that who love that? He is?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I think so? I think so?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I mean I was definitely, like I said before, on
a different path. When I was young, I thought, you know,
I thought that was going to be. My parents live
in a small town and you kind of marry someone
from your town, and that's what my family's all done,
and it's been magical for them. But I kind of
(23:42):
had this calling. I don't know, Paris was always calling me.
So I went and and many fun things happened there.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So it was the most fun thing that happened in Paris.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Well, I am because I wrote this song about called
Your Star, about wanting to be whisked off on the
Eurostar by a stranger and taken to Paris. It is
dreaming of getting out of Liverpool and going to Paris.
And then it happened. About three months later, met this
(24:17):
handsome French sailor man pirate I don't even know what
he was poet all kinds of things, very very cool
character and he had all his boats boat names tattooed
down the side of his body like women's names, but
they were all the names of his boats, and he
(24:38):
had all the traditional sailor tattoos. And he would he
sent me like in the post from France. He'd send
me lingerie and amazing books and poetry books. And it
was just a wonderful love affair that we had. And
we would stay in Paris in the most beautiful hotel
(25:01):
suites and with red vealve we'd listen to the Libertines
and then strangely, like a few a year or two later,
I was back in Paris opening for the Libertines. So
it always felt like there was this weird cyclical thing
going on in what I've been doing.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Well, you know, Shneid O'Connor, who I love and was
I always, you know, have to quantify this by saying
I'm not that interesting, but I've talked to very interesting people.
And she said, so fascinating to me. And it's funny
because you're the environment of this. She said, as a writer,
you have to be careful about what you write, because
(25:42):
she realized as a writer, you can make it all
come jail. You know, She's like, yeah, Kave told me
the same thing, Like Nick Cave said, you always write
what you're longing for, So if you're happy, write a
sad song. And he told me about writing into my
arms in a fucking church on Heroin, you know, because
you always write what you're missing. So I guess you
(26:03):
know it's true that you know. So what are you
planning to will into existence next?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I don't know. I really do agree with that. You
have to be so careful and I've figured I found
it out myself. It's not the first time it's happened.
And yeah, I'm slightly scared to open the notebook at
the piano now, but I don't know. You can't control
these things, and I just I can't wait to write
(26:34):
the second album. I've not had a lot of time
with an instrument that we've played, like coming up to
ninety shows so far this year, and I've just been
I've had a really crazy year in many ways, and
I can't wait of kind of bottled it all up,
and I can't wait to just sit down for a
(26:55):
few weeks and let it all come out.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
What you know, It's interesting too, because like I know,
you still have more touring to come you come in
to La, you know, like next month. But for you,
I mean, do you find as well, Like, you know,
I always find it amusing because you may say, like,
this is my favorite song on the record, and the
audience is like, eh, whatever, and then some song that
(27:21):
like I was just talking about the Slob on the
other day and they were saying, like, there was a
song that barely made the album and like that was
my favorite on the record. So have there been those
ones that like have really surprised you the way the
audience responds, And maybe you're like, eh, I kind of
like this one, but you know, Flushing is not my favorite,
and then the audience is like, oh my god, Like
(27:43):
I'm tattooing that lyric on my ass.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, that's definitely happened a lot. And you know, you
just can't predict what's gonna resonate. And I think when
I released my first single mat at All, it felt
like specific thing to me at the time that I
was going through and this kind of torturous, dark love
(28:10):
affair that I was trapped inside, and seeing how that
rippled through and just and introduced me to so many
new listeners that kind of shocked me and woke me
up to well, I'd never been right. It's strange really
(28:31):
because I'd only been ever making and writing music for myself,
and then after certain songs would go would blow up
on the internet through like live videos and stuff. It
was really strange to go to record them knowing people
there was a hunger for it and knowing people wanted it.
And that's a really strange switch when you've been testing
(28:53):
loads of songs out live and then suddenly you know
you're not making a secret album and then presenting to
everyone they've already heard bits of it and you kind
of picked up on what people you've almost like trialed
it on the road, which has been really fun. But yeah,
there's there's a song on the album called Emma Dilemma,
which is my favorite by far. I just I loved
(29:17):
writing that song and it had there was a real
sparky moment writing it that'll stick with me forever. And
although it's not the most commercial or maybe the most
relatable song on the album, I do hope it's one
of those that grows with people and it's a slow burn,
maybe because sometimes that they always end up my favorites
(29:41):
of albums that I love, for the ones initially where
I'm not quite sure of and then it it gets
you in the end.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
They give you a couple of examples of where that happened.
I mean, I know exactly what you mean, but I'm
curious on your tea, it's where that happened?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
What on other albums?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, where you're liking like for I mean, like I said,
and I know that that's happened for me as well,
but I'm curious of yours where like you heard a
song and you're like yeah, you go back to it
and you're like, Wow, this is the cool song I've
ever heard.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, let me think there's I think like probably a
lot of the early National records because my dad was
playing them a lot around the house and I was
maybe not fully absorb in them. And then when I
got into my twenties and and really like because my
(30:35):
dad was such an early fan of that band, Like
he was going to their shows in Manchester and Liverpool
when there was like twenty other people there and he'd
come home and he'd say, I can't believe it. There
was there was like nineteen other people who knew my
favorite band, Like and and we kind of watched them
explode into the stratosphere together. And I remember hearing Blood
(30:58):
Bass Ohio when I was really young, and I it
was just sort of like there's a lot of drums.
And then as I got as I spent more time
with it, it became one of my favorite songs of theirs.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
That's funny, your dad has actually the taste. I love
that band, and my ex was really into it. I'm
so similarly. We saw them at like the Echo Plex
in La and then you know, I've interviewed Matt a
hundred times, seen them at like the Hollywood Ball Loser.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, I'd love them. I've seen them so so many times.
And he's a massive, massively lyrical inspiration for me. I
just think he's Yeah, it's it's everything I longed to
be as a writer. I just love his work.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah, to me, he's always I've said he's my favorite writer,
like favorite songwriter the century of the ones who started
in the two thousands. You know again, I'll always be Tomling,
I agree. Yeah, So what's your favorite nast.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh my gosh, Well that's so hard, that's so so hard.
I would say I just love the Geese of Beverly
(32:32):
Road or Daughters of the Soho Riots just because they
remind me of being in the back of my dad's car.
But songs like Hard to Find, more recent songs and
fire Proof, I just think he can make you.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Know.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
What I love about Matt is We've said I love
you and I'm in love with you so many times
in songs, but he has this knack of finding such
and interesting and off kilter way of saying that, you know,
and that's something that I admire so much, and it's
(33:12):
not an easy thing, and I think he's so he
does it so effortlessly. And that song Terrible Love as well.
I was listening to an interview with him where he
was saying he had this line it's a terrible love
and I'm walking with spiders, and he was like, I
don't know what that means, but I know what it
made me feel. And I'm like, I get it. I
(33:32):
just so I just get what I just I think
he just leads with that. He's so good at leading
with that inner thing, that otherness, and he's so good
at leading with that well.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I mean, I keep coming back to the line I
leaned against the wall, and the wall in the way.
I mean, who the fox says that.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
That's so I don't even know what songs are from.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
It's I believe from I believe Mistaken for Strangers.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
That's so good. I yea, so good.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I know, I mean against the wall in the wall,
and I mean, come on, you know it's like you
know my daughter when when he's like, I have no
idea what the hell the lyricsro came from? But most
people say that I was stucking with Mike ninety years
old co wrote stand by Me, which is I'm going
to argue is the great song of all time. There's
(34:29):
not a better song than stand by Me. And he
co wrote that song. He's like, I don't know where
those songs come from. You know, So there have been
those moments for you in your songs, because again, when
you write something that's so good and so profound, and
you're like, I feel like I should credit someone else,
but it's me. Everybody always started like channeling. You have
(34:53):
the antenna app and just as like brilliant messages come
to you and did you start getting those when you
were a kid.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, And what I think is the most important thing
of all that, and Nick Cave definitely. I think has
this ethos and it's just doing doing the hours, doing
the craft, like working on your craft and writing a
lot of shit and just getting through it and finishing it.
And it's a you know, it's a it's a calling.
(35:28):
Like I continued to write for many many years when
no one gave a fuck. It wasn't about that, Like
that's just that's a beautiful thing that comes at the
end of it. But it's it's a it's a thing
you just have to do, a Catharsis or whatever, and
it's just something from the heavens. But I think singing
is a bit like that, Like the gift of singing
(35:50):
is such a spiritual thing, especially singing in harmony with
the people you love. That is just an indescribable and
touchable force and I don't understand it, but it's just
a blood thing. It's like feels like it's in your veins.
And songwriting is a similar thing. And I think all
(36:10):
those years of grafting and writing a load of shit
and not really being able to articulate quite what's in
your head in a poetic way or whatever, eventually those
twenty shit songs will lead to a song where you're like, oh, yeah,
you know what, I've kind of summarized and told the
(36:31):
story how I wished to in my head, and yeah,
sometimes it comes from pulling. Like one of my tunes
on the album Blushing has a lyric that I wrote,
which is every holy altarro. I was dreaming of sin
and I wrote that when I was sixteen, when I
was in Venice with my family, going onto all the basilicas,
(36:53):
just being like a horny teenager thinking about boys. That
ended up on the record because it never left me.
And I think that's really cool that we can pull
from all these things and eventually, when the right song,
the right story comes about, all of those little pieces
of you make sense and they come together and and
(37:15):
that kind of high. I don't write many songs a year,
Like I'm not very prolific. I'm a prolific lyric writer.
I'm always every day writing in my book, but I
never finish a song very often. So when that moment
happens and I like it, which again is rare, it's
like a high like no other thing can give you, you know,
(37:36):
and we're always in pursuit of that high, and then
like looping the song after the writing of it and
listening back to it, and that feeling of like accomplishment
that you've actually, you know, finally boiled all these little
parts down and they've all fit together the perfect puzzle.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
So I was just asking you were big, like, like,
how do you celebrate if you spent much time in La.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
I have only been to La once, which is in
May of this year, and it was, honestly like it's
burnt into my memory. It was fucking I just loved
it so much. We were playing in at the Hollywood
Forever Cemetery and the Masonic Lodge and it was like
(38:38):
Golden Hour and they took us around the cemetery and
we went to all like, you know, David Lynch's graven
and I saw all the fans in the queue and
them are parking their cars and walking over to the
venue and we're seeing all the palm trees. It's just
so alien to work anywhere near where I grew up.
And it's funny because I actually my dad had got
(39:00):
a job in Silicon Valley when I was four, and
my mom didn't want to leave her parents, so we
didn't end up going and stayed stayed at home. But
it's funny to imagine, like what my life would have
been like if I did grow up in California.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
I see. I love that, by the way, but I
mean as someone who's from LA and I grew up here,
I lived on these gusts a few times. But you know,
it's always interesting to see it from someone else's perspective.
So when you talk about it, and I've been to
Hollywood forever many times. I'm friends with like Chris Cornell,
who's buried there. You know, multiple people who've been buried
(39:37):
there and been to like ceremonies there. How fucking weird
is it to play a cemetery?
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, it's weird, But like I mean, I've always the
music I've always listened to has definitely cemeteries and churches
have always been a big part of it. And and I've
kind of got this secret hope to one day do
(40:07):
a tour of sort of church cemetery kind of tour
because there's something about playing in a church music feeld.
It does feel regardless of you religious or not playing
in it, in those kind of buildings, there is something
that feels that feels so right about music being played
in a church. I don't know, what it is. But
(40:28):
we did one recently for our record store tour and
in London and me and the boys. You know, no
one's overly religious, but it did feel like a very
spiritual experience to do it.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
So what's the dream church to play?
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Sorry say that again?
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Church? Is there one? Like one famous cathedral the church
you've always play?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, Liverpool has the most beautiful cathedral I think I've
ever seen, and the architect died before it was finished.
It took so long to build and it's huge. And
I've seen one of my favorite bands, a band called
Lamb Chop, and they played in that church, in the
cathedral and it was such a beautiful gig because I'd
love that one day. But it's huge.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Well that is hometown, so don't you think you do it?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah? So maybe?
Speaker 1 (41:35):
So what is the best show you've ever seen at church?
It's funny, I've never thought about this way because I'm
not religious, Like, yeah, I don't believe in organized religion.
I mean I was raised Jewish, but you know, but
it's interesting because so I have never thought about seeing
music in a church, but I did see Damien Rice,
who I'm obsessed with, do a solo acoustic show in
a Korean church for two and a half hours, and
(41:57):
it was one of the best shows I've ever seen.
Was just because it was the church, because Damien Rice
is fucking amazing.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Yeah, it definitely was this. I don't know if you
know the band Lamb Chop, Oh you should if you
like the National, it's kind of in the same vein.
But the lead singer, songwriter, I forget how to pronounce
his name, as I don't want to get it wrong,
but he is another Matt, you know, has such an
(42:38):
interesting and intricate style of of of songwriting and very conversational.
And my dad pointed me out to this this one
lyric where he was talking to his wife on the
phone and he was on tour and he mentioned the
curly chorded telephone line and said it's National talk like
(43:01):
a pirate day, and it was just it kind of
really beautifully summed up what it's like to be on
the road and to be trying to keep in touch
with someone back home and keep the fire burning, you know.
But yeah, he's that band. It's like very layered. It's
kind of like how what the National do so well
as well? It's just so many beautiful organic instrumentation layers,
(43:24):
and yeah, that was one of my favorite shows I've
seen at the Cathedral.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Very cool. Well wrap up for a second, but I
haven't asked you yet. The name of the podcast is
in Service Off, which comes from the idea of giving back.
And it's interesting though, because when the show started, it
was kind of with the idea of giving back, you know, philanthropically,
because I remember talking with Alice Cooper, who I love
(43:49):
and I've known for years, and he had this amazing
quote where he said, fame is the brand that allows
you to do good. But what I found i'm talking
with so many artists is that for a lot of them,
like being in service of means the music. And you
were kind of addressing this earlier when you were talking
about the pursuit. But it's interesting because it feels like,
(44:09):
you know, from talking with so many great songwriters again,
there is this thing of like music comes from beyond
the divine, whatever the fuck you want to call it,
because I evern'te once you want to believe. I mean,
maybe there are aliens up there who are just like,
oh I really want to hear this song. Let's send
it to some stupid earth things write it. I have
no idea, as Mike Still, He's very smarter than me, said,
(44:31):
no one knows where songs come from, but for you
do you feel like you've always been in like in
this pursuit or in service of like. And it's interesting
because being in service of also now applies to the
idea of like. When you have fans who say, well,
this song saved my life, this song changed my life,
this song got me through a breakup. This song you know,
because I mean, I've heard insane stories from artists, stuff like,
(44:55):
you know, once your song goes into the world, it's
not yours anymore. And people hear in like the craziest places.
The craziest I heard was I spoke to an archaeologist
who was listening to the Doors who was a big
fan of while activating dinosaur bones in Patagonia and so like,
I told the story to the Doors at the Living Doors,
(45:15):
and they were like, that's the craziest thing we ever heard.
Like literally, they would like have horses pulling the dinosaur
bones while listening to writers on the storm.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
That's really funny, and it reminds me of something that
someone said to me recently when I was doing one
of the signings for the album, and she said, I'm
a paramedic and when and I love listening to your
murder ballad. He's my man. When I'm blue lighting through
the city to go to a casualty and I'm driving
and weaving through all the cars and I feel like
(45:51):
a badass, And I thought, that's hilarious. That was one
of the coolest things I've ever heard. But yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Is fair cool. I mean I've heard, you know, the
number of people who told me about like people telling
them they've had sex to their music is like insane,
you know, like it's very interesting that you need to
share that, but they do. Yeah, so yeah, I mean
out there, it's just it's not yours anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Man, No, No, it doesn't belong to you. The moment
that it's it's a funny. It's a funny. It's like
a phenomenon. I think, like the minute that you listen
to your own song over and over again, and you're
listening to it when you're writing it, you're listening to
it when you're recording it, mixing it, mastering it, and
then the minute that it's released, it's almost like Oh,
(46:45):
I don't want to I don't want to listen to
that now, and it doesn't belong to me now, you know.
It's a really strange thing. But I feel like almost
every artist that I've met has that same phenomenon happened
to them, and and it's it's a I could only
hope that, you know, people in terms of giving back,
(47:06):
you know, at the shows, well that's where I predominantly
feel like I can really give back. And I would
always just want everybody to feel a kind of it's
for me, it's the three yes, is safe, strange, and sexy.
You know, if that's what they're feeling those three things
(47:26):
at a show of mine, I'm happy, you know. I
want them to embrace all those things. And yeah, was
to just just just escapism. You know, life's scary. The
world is a really really mean and angry place and frightening, frankly,
and I just want us to still have those moments
where we can go to a gig and just get lost.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
That is such a great wrap up. Note that I
hate to ask another question, but now I'm so curious
as a music fan, and then will wrap up. But
for you, what are this shows that you have remembered
feeling most safe, strange, and sexy at.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Well. What would immediately spring to my mind is when
I went to see the Black Parade tour when I
was very very young, and my parents had told me
that I wasn't allowed to get tickets because it was
explicit and it was too adult for me, and they
told me all the way the run up my birthdays
(48:27):
at Christmas, so the run up, and some of my
friends in school, my older friends, had got tickets and
I was heartbroken. I was like, I can't believe you're
doing this to me, Mom and dad. You're so like,
you're so chill normally. And then I realized it was
all prank, because on my birthday they did they had
they got me some tickets to see them in Manchester.
(48:48):
And I'd also said like, if if I do get tickets,
I'm going to streak naked down the street because I'm
going to be so happy. And then I was like,
oh shit, I have to do do this now. But
I went to this concert and Gerard came out on
a hospital bear on a gurney with a drip, and
(49:10):
it was just true theater and I was so lost
in it and so in love with this new Jersey band,
Like it couldn't have been further away from what I
grew up with. And I was in this room and
it was total hysteria and the noise like when the
lights went black, and being a kid that it just
(49:32):
never ever left me. And now being a musician in
their shoes in a small way and having like kids
coming to see our shows and it's their first concert.
I could never you know, forget that feeling of you know,
when the lights go black and the band are about
(49:52):
to walk on stage and it's just for a minute,
you know, all all your worries go away and yeah,
you just totally consumed. And that that show for me
was was yeah burnt, another thing burnt into my brain forever.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Hate asked, Yeah, I was question, but did you streak
down the street?
Speaker 2 (50:16):
I don't think I went. I don't think I went
ahead with it. I think my family were like, it's okay,
you don't need to keep that promise.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
They were like, please keep that promise.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, yeah, so we can't have a nine year old
streaking down down the estate.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
Oh wow, so you were nine when you went to that.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, I was really young and my my, my parents
went with me and I went to it a few
I've been to so many of their shows, like probably
over ten eleven shows. And my mom said, I was standing.
I couldn't see. I was tiny, and I was standing
on the seat and I was just jumping like a
(50:56):
lunatic for the whole thing. Just my mom was just
watching me watch them. She was just like, what this
child was possessed? And then I wanted to go and
see them play in London, so so my parents said, okay,
you can. My school was really strict and you weren't
allowed any days off and whatever, and they said, okay,
(51:16):
we're going to give you. We're going to ring in
and say you're sick, and we're going to take you
to London. They were were the coolest parents, and they
did but I told They said, you just can't tell
any of your friends because if this gets out, you'll
get expelled from the school. But I told all my friends.
I was so excited. And then when we were in
the car on the way down to London, my mom
had a message and they they found out that my
(51:38):
parents had took me out of this very religious, strict
school to go and see my chemical romance concert. No,
I've never I waited by a stage door when I
was very young on my dad's shoulders and they signed
my poster. But I don't know what I would do
if I met them. I just I just adore them
(52:02):
and the world that they created, and the passion and
the eye for detail and everything they put into the
music videos and the artworks. You know. I'm I'm very
very I feel very blessed that they were the band
that they were, like my childhood teenage band.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Well, I hope if you meet them, you fucking tell
them these stories.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
Oh I will, I will. I just won't tell him
the story about when I was like ten, crying in
my room when I googled him and it said he'd
got married, and he was because he was like twenty
seven at the time or something, and it says he's
got married. Backstage to the bass player of mine was
self indulgence, and I was sobbing my heart out in
my bedroom thinking I had a chance.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
You didn't, But that's okay. If you had, it would
have been really creepy.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yeah yeah, all right, cool.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
Well, on that note, is there anything you want to add?
I did not ask you.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
No, I think that's good. It was a really nice interview.
Thank you for talking to me.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
M m mmmmmmmmmmmmmm hmm
Hey, it's Steve Bouts and welcome to this week's in
Service of Man. This one was a blast. I had
so much fun with the brilliant British artist Lovecat. Incredible conversation,
wonderful artist, one of my favorite albums of the year,
Vicious Delicious. We had so much fun talking about everything
(00:28):
from Tom Waits to touring to starting her career too.
We covered so much. This is a wonderful album. She'll
be here in the States touring in December. I highly
recommend it. Do not miss the show and do not
miss this album. She is an incredible artist and I
really look forward to a great career from Lovecat. So
(00:51):
I hope you enjoy meeting her as much as I did.
All right, Well, first off, thanks for being here today.
(01:12):
I fucking love the record. It is so fun. It's
so wonderful. But before how wonderful your record is. You're
already one of my favorite people because you're a Tom
Waits fan. So I am what would be the Tom
Waite song you wish you had written?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And why Alice from his album of the same name,
I think for inspired by my favorite book I listen
Wonderland and I just it has some of my favorite
lyrics of all time. It has like my favorite few lines,
(01:52):
which is and so a Secret Kiss brings madness with
the bliss. And I will think of this when I'm
dead in my grave. I just I think how every
time I listen to that song, it just takes something
new from each line, every single one holds so much
weight and mystery and poetry. And I just adore him.
(02:15):
And I still haven't even scratched the surface of what
he's made, you know. It's what excites me so much.
There's still I still haven't heard all of his music.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I don't know if you can. There's so much of it.
It covers so many different eras, you know. I mean,
I've been listening for a lot longer than you, let's say,
and I still find new songs. And I've actually interviewed him,
and I still find new songs, and I'm like, wait,
how the fuck did I hear this?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I know, I'd like to become such an a stalker
of Tom Waite's, Like even last night I was in
the bath in the hotel in Bristol where we were
playing a show, and and I just was watching his
old interviews and he's just so funny and inspiring, and
I just don't think enough people, especially in England and
(03:11):
people of my age, not enough people are obsessed with him.
He's the coolest fucker around.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Was so funny because he actually has always been more
converseially successful in group though than he is in States.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh is that true? That's funny. Well, the first time
that I was really normally like, I got all my
influences from my dad or my granddad, but my dad
actually never played me much Tom Waite's growing up, I
kind of discovered he was one of my own discoveries
(03:47):
as I got into my twenties and he and then
I realized he was playing the devil in one of
my favorite films of all time, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassis,
which is he'd ledge his last movie, Terry Gillingham movie,
and Tom's playing the devil, smoking this with this bowl
of hat and smoking a cigar, and he's just so
(04:10):
He's so great in that film.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
No, he's so insanely talented. I've actually seen him in
the stage plays as well, you know, because being in
la where he was based for a long time, I
got to see him and like, there was a play
called I can't remember where it was now, this was
like in the nineties, but I mean it was like
he's done multiple plays, you know, and it's just such
(04:33):
an interesting dat It's so funny. The only time I
interviewed him, his assistant called me up and said, Okay,
are you ready. Tom's gonna be calling you now, and
I'm like, sure, hang on the phone. I put down
the phone and the phone rings like two minutes later,
and I picked it up and He's like, stay Tom,
and I practically peeved myself, like I was so freaked
(04:55):
out on the other line, just like that. But so
it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
No, he's I mean, there's no one quite like him.
And it's funny though, because it does tie in. As
I said, I love this. So it's just it's so
fun and it's so smart. But I mean, it's funny,
do you Like I've talked about this so many people, right.
Writing is such a subconscious thing, and you'll go back
(05:26):
and you'll hear all these influences and you're like, oh,
I didn't know that was in there. And so when
you go back and listen to it, are the songs
where you hear either Tom or like you said most
of your influences came from your dad or granddad. First
of all, was most of this written? Was most of
this written subconsciously? Do you feel like.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
When you yeah, I mean yeah, most of it was
totally suberconscious. Like my dad always used to joke about that,
like when I was growing up, because a lot of
the a lot of his favorite musicians are like old man,
really deep voices, singing very miserable things. And he used
to say it because I would was just a little
(06:06):
blonde kid who'd be a little blonde girl. He'd be like, Dad,
turn off the miserable music. And then he was like, oh,
I'm subliminally, I'm subliminally influencing you, and one day you'll
thank me for it. And it's true. I did. And
I think when I say the piano, I don't really
think about anything else other than just telling the story
(06:28):
about what, you know, whatever I'm feeling at the time.
But there is one song of mine called Dinner at
Brass froos Adele, and that came from having a Tom Waits.
An ex lover of mine bought me a Tom Waite
song book and I would just read it like the
Bible and I just saw this chord progression and I
was like, oh, I've never tried that, And then I
(06:50):
played it and I was like, oh, that's instantly. That's
instantly the core progression I want to use in every
song ever. And I've had to stop myself from doing that,
but that was definitely a Tom Waits. So then I stole.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
So what song was do you remember from Tom?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
No? I mean he uses it a lot. I don't
remember specifically what song it was. I just randomly opened
a page and then used this use the chords in
front of me and then and then I just kind
of went off on went off into my own world
from then. But he does use this a minor to
e major thing quite a lot. And then it has
(07:31):
that it just has this like late night, smoky, mysterious
thing about it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But you know, it's so funny. Is I love the
way that you paint your own pictures? And it's like,
it's so funny because and it is very Tom as well.
You know, you go back to his seventy stuff like
nighthawks at the diner. But it's like even like the
image of you holding hands to McDonald's, it's like, I
just love that because it's like no one thinks that
McDonald's is being cool, but it's it's like it's very
(08:01):
fucking authentic.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, yeah, that just came from that was where we were,
and I wish we were in somewhere more glamorous, but
you know, we were playing these empty pub shows in
southeast London when I moved down from Liverpool, and I
was in love with my bass player at the time,
who was in the back, my old bass player, and
we would be going after the shows. We'd be staying
up and going for three am McDonald's near my old house,
(08:27):
near my old flat and Campwell, and I remember just
being in there and it just being chaos obviously three
am and everyone's coming in from nights out and were
relatively sober and with our guitars on our backs and
just trying to eat something because we've been at this
venue all day. And it was just a magical time.
(08:47):
Because those are the gigs that you know, every few shows,
things were starting to feel slightly different and we felt
like we were part of something bigger and things were
changing right before eyes, and being in McDonald's it just
felt so romantic. The whole thing it's all been at
(09:08):
the past two years have just been a wild love story,
all of it, and I feel very privileged to have
to have had to be living within that and that lyric.
You know, some people, especially in the studio, they're like,
are you sure you want to say McDonald's, Like it
doesn't seem very you And I was like, yeah, but
it was the truth, and it's not meant to symbolize
(09:32):
like I'm not always in some soho jazz club, Like
sometimes I'm just having French fries in the makis.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
As I say to me, it felt very authentic, So
I really liked it. I mean, it's interesting that do
you feel like it's funny in a weird way, because
you know, I've talked to everyone who's ever lived musician wise,
and you know, it's like it's there's something. You know,
it's an exacting time. You're having so much success and
the tour a selling out and everything, but is there
(10:05):
something kind of I had a nostalgic about those early
shows where you know it was like a struggle and
it's like but it was also there's something nice about
being able to just go off and like, I don't know,
being anonymous as McDonald's you know, I imagine now if you
want to do Donald's at three am, it would be
(10:25):
a very different scenario.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, you know what. Sorry, I just want to apologize
because this washing machine is so possessed by the devil.
And it's because we're like in between shows and I'm
finally at my flat in between tour shows and we're
doing all the washing but it's not being fitted so
loud anyway. Yeah, I do think like it is. I
(10:53):
knew it. I knew it was weirdly. I knew it
was nostalgic when I was in it, like I was
missing it when I was in it, because I was
like aware that for the first time for the first
time in my life, because I was a struggling musician
for many many years, playing in empty pubs and clubs
and being a wedding singer and busking, and I was
(11:14):
just finally aware that, oh shit, like this is actually
something's something's changing. And and I knew that they would
be the golden days because they were and it. Yeah,
I was just kind of aware of it while I
was in the middle of it. And I loved the
(11:36):
dreaming of it all, you know, just everything was ahead
of us. It was all kind of this thing we
would dream about and we didn't have any pressure at
that point. You know, there was no one to disappoint.
It was all just in front of us for the
taking kind of thing and any like musician coming up,
(11:56):
anyone that is ever at like a show. And they
asked me about advice, and of I'm just saying, like,
treasure those precious early days because you know, they are
so magical.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's funny though, I mean, Joe, do you feel like
these have their like these days have their own magic
as well, Like you talked about, you know, having girls
come up to you with the love cat you know,
like necklace or insignia, and I mean for you. You know,
I've talked to so many people about this and like
most people will say, for them, the first moment they
(12:31):
know they made it is. It's interesting because I mean
I've talked to people who've won Grammys, I've talked to
people who had like stadiums, I've talked to I mean,
I've talked with everybody from Mick Jagger to James Brown,
but everybody will say the moment they first made it
is when people sing their lyrics back to them.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah. Yeah, that was I remember that feeling, and it
was it was still in one of the pubs we
were playing in London, and my dad was actually at
the show, and he's obviously been to so many of
my empty gigs, and he said it was the first
time when he came in from the bar he felt
(13:08):
when it came to like eight thirty or whatever time
I was on the bill, he felt like a swell
of people and he was like, that's the first time
I've ever felt the swell moved forward and that they
were hungry for hungry for your music. And that's when
it was like a pivotal moment for him. And it
was similar for me when I started to see strangers
(13:31):
and they traveled from I remember there were these two
lads at one of our very early shows and they
were outside of skateboards and I could see through the
window my band talking to them having a smoke, and
I was like, oh, wonder what those two lads are
up to. And then the band came in and said
they're here for you and they've come from Bournemouth, which is,
you know, quite far.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
And.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I was just like, what what do you mean. I
couldn't father, you know, I just couldn't understand it, and
it's just I that still feels like it wasn't that
long ago. So I still haven't really switched out of
that mentality. And now like we're like last night, the
night before play into a nine hundred people headline show,
and I'm really still struggling to make it feel real,
(14:18):
and it feels like a fever dream. It feels like
I'm the support act of someone else. I can't. I'm
still in the pub band mindset, and I think maybe
that's a beautiful thing because it means we don't take
any of it for granted. But like, but for instance,
(14:39):
last night, one of the things that really was really
poignant for me was I managed to sneak out and
do a rid of signing at the merch desk. Some
venues like now won't let me do it because it's
the bigger venues and it's they need to get everybody
out and it takes too long, but they let me
go out. And then a few an hour later, I
heard one of the boys say that there was fans
(15:00):
waiting by the van and it's obviously really cold, so
I went straight outside to meet them and make sure
they got out of the cold, and they'd been waiting
there for hours, and there was a young couple in
like early young late teens maybe I don't know, but
they had there was like a car waiting across the
car park, and I thought it was like security or something.
(15:21):
And then I saw after I met them, them go
in and get in and it was their dad, And
it just made me feel so emotional because you know,
my dad did that for me when I would wait
by the stage door to meet my chemical Romance or whoever,
and he would wait with the heater on in the
car until like one in the morning sometimes and then
I wouldn't meet the band or they'd wiz passing a
(15:41):
tour bus. So I kind of know I was a
fan and I know what that feels like. And to
have that kind of the family all come in there
and it's just it's really really, it just blows me away.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Wait. Many questioned you to ask from that, and the
first one is, it's funny you mentioned your dad coming
to you like early shows and obviously seeing you so much,
does he ever now give you shit? Of like, you
know when he hears your music and he's like, see,
remember the depressing music I made? You listen to. Like now,
now I hear you know, I don't know, Like what
(16:28):
what depressing guys do you make you listen to? Was
it like Blues? Was it like Leonard Cohen? Like what
was it?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah? To be honest, I actually never I never slagged
him off and said they were depressing. It was more
my mom because she was just definitely into like she
loved the West End and she was named after Maria
in West Side Story, so she just had a very
different musical palette and she she thought it was dreary.
(16:57):
I actually always loved my dad's bands, like he was
a He's a massive fan of the National and he
introduced me to the Smiths and Van Morrison and Nick
cave So, but it's really broad really. He introduced me
to Nick Drake because I was a foousinger for many
years as well, and that was a big part of
(17:18):
my life. The slightly more like the lighter end of
the spectrum, I guess. But but he did, like like
Inter Paul, a lot of heavier bands too, And yeah,
I think he definitely succeeded in subliminally. He just always
turned me on to the lyrics. He'd always say to me,
(17:38):
just listen to what they're actually saying. Don't just sing it,
you know, read read the lyric booklet. I always would
read the CD booklet in the car and fell in
love with rhyme and poem poetry that way, I think.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
The way when you go back now, though, do you
hear your mom's influence? Like it's interesting because you hear
like a little bit of you know, sort of that.
It's like, it's cool because now you I talked about
this with so many people, right. What happens is you're
a kid, you listen to your parents' music constantly. Then
you get older and you need to find your own shit,
to find your own voice. And then once you've establish that,
(18:16):
as you get older, you're like, okay, now you find
that music influencing ill. So it's like there is a
little bit of Broadway meets you now the Cure in
there or whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah. Yeah, I think I grew up going like my dad.
My parents are madly in love. And when my dad,
my mom was raised kind of on you know, the
Frank Sinatra rat pack, lots of musicals, and my dad
was a punk and they met when they were like
(18:48):
eighteen nineteen, fell in love and my mom then was
like sneaking out on black homing her hair, and they
would go to all these goth clubs together, this one
in particular called Peppermint Gardens. They lived, and it kind
of became I was told a lot about Peppermint Goardens
growing up, and it kind of became this ethereal, surreal
(19:09):
place in my memory. And there's no photographs of it.
But yeah, she's so she did have one. She did
love the Smiths and the cure with my dad, but
definitely was more on the other side of things, and
I just ended up somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I love this story. It feels like it should be
a movie. Peppermint Gardens.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, and I'm thinking about like how I can write
about it because I just wish, I wish I could
find more. I've really tried to look online about the place,
but so far it's only the stories that can paint
the picture for me.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
But see, that's kind of cool little way too, because
it's like everything now is archives so much that it
becomes almost like a mythical.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I don't know if you ever saw the movies theyanda
do hate, but I love that movie, you know, And
it's like it becomes like this sort of like ideal.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah. Yeah, I just think, you know, we don't have Well,
where I grew up, there wasn't a lot of alternative
clubs or places for alternative people to hang out and
listen to great music. So I'm very envious of them
in those days.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Well it's awesoly cool. So wait, how old are your parents.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, they're like coming up to sixty.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Okay, so they've been together like forty years.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, Like they got married at twenty one and had
me ten years later. So my whole family are kind
of liked that. My grandparents on one side, got married
at fourteen and they both died madly in love when
they were sixty six. And on the other side, they
got married at eighteen and they were together for sixty
three years, and so kind of been surrounded by these
(21:01):
really you know, very passionate love stories, and I think
that's bled into my like romantic way of living.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I was going to say, does that make you an
curable romantic or does it like create an impossible standard?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, initially it was I think it was. It was
difficult because when I met my first like proper love,
when I was a teenager. I was like, Okay, well
this is me and this is it, you know, this
is what happens in my family. And it wasn't It
definitely wasn't the right one. But then I realized that
(21:41):
I'm a writer and maybe live in a few more
you know, maybe fallen in love and marrying at eighteen
wasn't going to be the best idea for me.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, so you didn't marry like your elementary school boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, I really I kind of thought the idea of
of being you know, a teenage bride in this in
this uh, in this generation, I thought it was kind
of I thought it was quite exciting really, but now
I'm looking back, like, thank fuck, you didn't do that.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Really, I go ahead, I was just.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Gonna say that I feel like I've you know, the
people that I have met being a just being a
young woman and going out and experiencing so many different
characters from across the world. Like it's I feel like
I've stolen little bits of everyone and soaked them all up,
and they've all not just become part of the record,
(22:52):
but become just part of me. And and even just
being introduced to so much new music, and that's so
that's what I love about. Like all of the lovers
and libertines that have crossed my path, I do feel
like I've took a tiny piece of them all carried
it with me.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
So is that who love that? He is?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I think so? I think so?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I mean I was definitely, like I said before, on
a different path. When I was young, I thought, you know,
I thought that was going to be. My parents live
in a small town and you kind of marry someone
from your town, and that's what my family's all done,
and it's been magical for them. But I kind of
(23:42):
had this calling. I don't know, Paris was always calling me.
So I went and and many fun things happened there.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So it was the most fun thing that happened in Paris.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Well, I am because I wrote this song about called
Your Star, about wanting to be whisked off on the
Eurostar by a stranger and taken to Paris. It is
dreaming of getting out of Liverpool and going to Paris.
And then it happened. About three months later, met this
(24:17):
handsome French sailor man pirate I don't even know what
he was poet all kinds of things, very very cool
character and he had all his boats boat names tattooed
down the side of his body like women's names, but
they were all the names of his boats, and he
(24:38):
had all the traditional sailor tattoos. And he would he
sent me like in the post from France. He'd send
me lingerie and amazing books and poetry books. And it
was just a wonderful love affair that we had. And
we would stay in Paris in the most beautiful hotel
(25:01):
suites and with red vealve we'd listen to the Libertines
and then strangely, like a few a year or two later,
I was back in Paris opening for the Libertines. So
it always felt like there was this weird cyclical thing
going on in what I've been doing.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Well, you know, Shneid O'Connor, who I love and was
I always, you know, have to quantify this by saying
I'm not that interesting, but I've talked to very interesting people.
And she said, so fascinating to me. And it's funny
because you're the environment of this. She said, as a writer,
you have to be careful about what you write, because
(25:42):
she realized as a writer, you can make it all
come jail. You know, She's like, yeah, Kave told me
the same thing, Like Nick Cave said, you always write
what you're longing for, So if you're happy, write a
sad song. And he told me about writing into my
arms in a fucking church on Heroin, you know, because
you always write what you're missing. So I guess you
(26:03):
know it's true that you know. So what are you
planning to will into existence next?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I don't know. I really do agree with that. You
have to be so careful and I've figured I found
it out myself. It's not the first time it's happened.
And yeah, I'm slightly scared to open the notebook at
the piano now, but I don't know. You can't control
these things, and I just I can't wait to write
(26:34):
the second album. I've not had a lot of time
with an instrument that we've played, like coming up to
ninety shows so far this year, and I've just been
I've had a really crazy year in many ways, and
I can't wait of kind of bottled it all up,
and I can't wait to just sit down for a
(26:55):
few weeks and let it all come out.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
What you know, It's interesting too, because like I know,
you still have more touring to come you come in
to La, you know, like next month. But for you,
I mean, do you find as well, Like, you know,
I always find it amusing because you may say, like,
this is my favorite song on the record, and the
audience is like, eh, whatever, and then some song that
(27:21):
like I was just talking about the Slob on the
other day and they were saying, like, there was a
song that barely made the album and like that was
my favorite on the record. So have there been those
ones that like have really surprised you the way the
audience responds, And maybe you're like, eh, I kind of
like this one, but you know, Flushing is not my favorite,
and then the audience is like, oh my god, Like
(27:43):
I'm tattooing that lyric on my ass.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, that's definitely happened a lot. And you know, you
just can't predict what's gonna resonate. And I think when
I released my first single mat at All, it felt
like specific thing to me at the time that I
was going through and this kind of torturous, dark love
(28:10):
affair that I was trapped inside, and seeing how that
rippled through and just and introduced me to so many
new listeners that kind of shocked me and woke me
up to well, I'd never been right. It's strange really
(28:31):
because I'd only been ever making and writing music for myself,
and then after certain songs would go would blow up
on the internet through like live videos and stuff. It
was really strange to go to record them knowing people
there was a hunger for it and knowing people wanted it.
And that's a really strange switch when you've been testing
(28:53):
loads of songs out live and then suddenly you know
you're not making a secret album and then presenting to
everyone they've already heard bits of it and you kind
of picked up on what people you've almost like trialed
it on the road, which has been really fun. But yeah,
there's there's a song on the album called Emma Dilemma,
which is my favorite by far. I just I loved
(29:17):
writing that song and it had there was a real
sparky moment writing it that'll stick with me forever. And
although it's not the most commercial or maybe the most
relatable song on the album, I do hope it's one
of those that grows with people and it's a slow burn,
maybe because sometimes that they always end up my favorites
(29:41):
of albums that I love, for the ones initially where
I'm not quite sure of and then it it gets
you in the end.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
They give you a couple of examples of where that happened.
I mean, I know exactly what you mean, but I'm
curious on your tea, it's where that happened?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
What on other albums?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, where you're liking like for I mean, like I said,
and I know that that's happened for me as well,
but I'm curious of yours where like you heard a
song and you're like yeah, you go back to it
and you're like, Wow, this is the cool song I've
ever heard.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, let me think there's I think like probably a
lot of the early National records because my dad was
playing them a lot around the house and I was
maybe not fully absorb in them. And then when I
got into my twenties and and really like because my
(30:35):
dad was such an early fan of that band, Like
he was going to their shows in Manchester and Liverpool
when there was like twenty other people there and he'd
come home and he'd say, I can't believe it. There
was there was like nineteen other people who knew my
favorite band, Like and and we kind of watched them
explode into the stratosphere together. And I remember hearing Blood
(30:58):
Bass Ohio when I was really young, and I it
was just sort of like there's a lot of drums.
And then as I got as I spent more time
with it, it became one of my favorite songs of theirs.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
That's funny, your dad has actually the taste. I love
that band, and my ex was really into it. I'm
so similarly. We saw them at like the Echo Plex
in La and then you know, I've interviewed Matt a
hundred times, seen them at like the Hollywood Ball Loser.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, I'd love them. I've seen them so so many times.
And he's a massive, massively lyrical inspiration for me. I
just think he's Yeah, it's it's everything I longed to
be as a writer. I just love his work.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah, to me, he's always I've said he's my favorite writer,
like favorite songwriter the century of the ones who started
in the two thousands. You know again, I'll always be Tomling,
I agree. Yeah, So what's your favorite nast.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh my gosh, Well that's so hard, that's so so hard.
I would say I just love the Geese of Beverly
(32:32):
Road or Daughters of the Soho Riots just because they
remind me of being in the back of my dad's car.
But songs like Hard to Find, more recent songs and
fire Proof, I just think he can make you.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Know.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
What I love about Matt is We've said I love
you and I'm in love with you so many times
in songs, but he has this knack of finding such
and interesting and off kilter way of saying that, you know,
and that's something that I admire so much, and it's
(33:12):
not an easy thing, and I think he's so he
does it so effortlessly. And that song Terrible Love as well.
I was listening to an interview with him where he
was saying he had this line it's a terrible love
and I'm walking with spiders, and he was like, I
don't know what that means, but I know what it
made me feel. And I'm like, I get it. I
(33:32):
just so I just get what I just I think
he just leads with that. He's so good at leading
with that inner thing, that otherness, and he's so good
at leading with that well.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I mean, I keep coming back to the line I
leaned against the wall, and the wall in the way.
I mean, who the fox says that.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
That's so I don't even know what songs are from.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
It's I believe from I believe Mistaken for Strangers.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
That's so good. I yea, so good.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I know, I mean against the wall in the wall,
and I mean, come on, you know it's like you
know my daughter when when he's like, I have no
idea what the hell the lyricsro came from? But most
people say that I was stucking with Mike ninety years
old co wrote stand by Me, which is I'm going
to argue is the great song of all time. There's
(34:29):
not a better song than stand by Me. And he
co wrote that song. He's like, I don't know where
those songs come from. You know, So there have been
those moments for you in your songs, because again, when
you write something that's so good and so profound, and
you're like, I feel like I should credit someone else,
but it's me. Everybody always started like channeling. You have
(34:53):
the antenna app and just as like brilliant messages come
to you and did you start getting those when you
were a kid.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, And what I think is the most important thing
of all that, and Nick Cave definitely. I think has
this ethos and it's just doing doing the hours, doing
the craft, like working on your craft and writing a
lot of shit and just getting through it and finishing it.
And it's a you know, it's a it's a calling.
(35:28):
Like I continued to write for many many years when
no one gave a fuck. It wasn't about that, Like
that's just that's a beautiful thing that comes at the
end of it. But it's it's a it's a thing
you just have to do, a Catharsis or whatever, and
it's just something from the heavens. But I think singing
is a bit like that, Like the gift of singing
(35:50):
is such a spiritual thing, especially singing in harmony with
the people you love. That is just an indescribable and
touchable force and I don't understand it, but it's just
a blood thing. It's like feels like it's in your veins.
And songwriting is a similar thing. And I think all
(36:10):
those years of grafting and writing a load of shit
and not really being able to articulate quite what's in
your head in a poetic way or whatever, eventually those
twenty shit songs will lead to a song where you're like, oh, yeah,
you know what, I've kind of summarized and told the
(36:31):
story how I wished to in my head, and yeah,
sometimes it comes from pulling. Like one of my tunes
on the album Blushing has a lyric that I wrote,
which is every holy altarro. I was dreaming of sin
and I wrote that when I was sixteen, when I
was in Venice with my family, going onto all the basilicas,
(36:53):
just being like a horny teenager thinking about boys. That
ended up on the record because it never left me.
And I think that's really cool that we can pull
from all these things and eventually, when the right song,
the right story comes about, all of those little pieces
of you make sense and they come together and and
(37:15):
that kind of high. I don't write many songs a year,
Like I'm not very prolific. I'm a prolific lyric writer.
I'm always every day writing in my book, but I
never finish a song very often. So when that moment
happens and I like it, which again is rare, it's
like a high like no other thing can give you, you know,
(37:36):
and we're always in pursuit of that high, and then
like looping the song after the writing of it and
listening back to it, and that feeling of like accomplishment
that you've actually, you know, finally boiled all these little
parts down and they've all fit together the perfect puzzle.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
So I was just asking you were big, like, like,
how do you celebrate if you spent much time in La.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
I have only been to La once, which is in
May of this year, and it was, honestly like it's
burnt into my memory. It was fucking I just loved
it so much. We were playing in at the Hollywood
Forever Cemetery and the Masonic Lodge and it was like
(38:38):
Golden Hour and they took us around the cemetery and
we went to all like, you know, David Lynch's graven
and I saw all the fans in the queue and
them are parking their cars and walking over to the
venue and we're seeing all the palm trees. It's just
so alien to work anywhere near where I grew up.
And it's funny because I actually my dad had got
(39:00):
a job in Silicon Valley when I was four, and
my mom didn't want to leave her parents, so we
didn't end up going and stayed stayed at home. But
it's funny to imagine, like what my life would have
been like if I did grow up in California.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
I see. I love that, by the way, but I
mean as someone who's from LA and I grew up here,
I lived on these gusts a few times. But you know,
it's always interesting to see it from someone else's perspective.
So when you talk about it, and I've been to
Hollywood forever many times. I'm friends with like Chris Cornell,
who's buried there. You know, multiple people who've been buried
(39:37):
there and been to like ceremonies there. How fucking weird
is it to play a cemetery?
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, it's weird, But like I mean, I've always the
music I've always listened to has definitely cemeteries and churches
have always been a big part of it. And and I've
kind of got this secret hope to one day do
(40:07):
a tour of sort of church cemetery kind of tour
because there's something about playing in a church music feeld.
It does feel regardless of you religious or not playing
in it, in those kind of buildings, there is something
that feels that feels so right about music being played
in a church. I don't know, what it is. But
(40:28):
we did one recently for our record store tour and
in London and me and the boys. You know, no
one's overly religious, but it did feel like a very
spiritual experience to do it.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
So what's the dream church to play?
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Sorry say that again?
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Church? Is there one? Like one famous cathedral the church
you've always play?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, Liverpool has the most beautiful cathedral I think I've
ever seen, and the architect died before it was finished.
It took so long to build and it's huge. And
I've seen one of my favorite bands, a band called
Lamb Chop, and they played in that church, in the
cathedral and it was such a beautiful gig because I'd
love that one day. But it's huge.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Well that is hometown, so don't you think you do it?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah? So maybe?
Speaker 1 (41:35):
So what is the best show you've ever seen at church?
It's funny, I've never thought about this way because I'm
not religious, Like, yeah, I don't believe in organized religion.
I mean I was raised Jewish, but you know, but
it's interesting because so I have never thought about seeing
music in a church, but I did see Damien Rice,
who I'm obsessed with, do a solo acoustic show in
a Korean church for two and a half hours, and
(41:57):
it was one of the best shows I've ever seen.
Was just because it was the church, because Damien Rice
is fucking amazing.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Yeah, it definitely was this. I don't know if you
know the band Lamb Chop, Oh you should if you
like the National, it's kind of in the same vein.
But the lead singer, songwriter, I forget how to pronounce
his name, as I don't want to get it wrong,
but he is another Matt, you know, has such an
(42:38):
interesting and intricate style of of of songwriting and very conversational.
And my dad pointed me out to this this one
lyric where he was talking to his wife on the
phone and he was on tour and he mentioned the
curly chorded telephone line and said it's National talk like
(43:01):
a pirate day, and it was just it kind of
really beautifully summed up what it's like to be on
the road and to be trying to keep in touch
with someone back home and keep the fire burning, you know.
But yeah, he's that band. It's like very layered. It's
kind of like how what the National do so well
as well? It's just so many beautiful organic instrumentation layers,
(43:24):
and yeah, that was one of my favorite shows I've
seen at the Cathedral.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Very cool. Well wrap up for a second, but I
haven't asked you yet. The name of the podcast is
in Service Off, which comes from the idea of giving back.
And it's interesting though, because when the show started, it
was kind of with the idea of giving back, you know, philanthropically,
because I remember talking with Alice Cooper, who I love
(43:49):
and I've known for years, and he had this amazing
quote where he said, fame is the brand that allows
you to do good. But what I found i'm talking
with so many artists is that for a lot of them,
like being in service of means the music. And you
were kind of addressing this earlier when you were talking
about the pursuit. But it's interesting because it feels like,
(44:09):
you know, from talking with so many great songwriters again,
there is this thing of like music comes from beyond
the divine, whatever the fuck you want to call it,
because I evern'te once you want to believe. I mean,
maybe there are aliens up there who are just like,
oh I really want to hear this song. Let's send
it to some stupid earth things write it. I have
no idea, as Mike Still, He's very smarter than me, said,
(44:31):
no one knows where songs come from, but for you
do you feel like you've always been in like in
this pursuit or in service of like. And it's interesting
because being in service of also now applies to the
idea of like. When you have fans who say, well,
this song saved my life, this song changed my life,
this song got me through a breakup. This song you know,
because I mean, I've heard insane stories from artists, stuff like,
(44:55):
you know, once your song goes into the world, it's
not yours anymore. And people hear in like the craziest places.
The craziest I heard was I spoke to an archaeologist
who was listening to the Doors who was a big
fan of while activating dinosaur bones in Patagonia and so like,
I told the story to the Doors at the Living Doors,
(45:15):
and they were like, that's the craziest thing we ever heard.
Like literally, they would like have horses pulling the dinosaur
bones while listening to writers on the storm.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
That's really funny, and it reminds me of something that
someone said to me recently when I was doing one
of the signings for the album, and she said, I'm
a paramedic and when and I love listening to your
murder ballad. He's my man. When I'm blue lighting through
the city to go to a casualty and I'm driving
and weaving through all the cars and I feel like
(45:51):
a badass, And I thought, that's hilarious. That was one
of the coolest things I've ever heard. But yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Is fair cool. I mean I've heard, you know, the
number of people who told me about like people telling
them they've had sex to their music is like insane,
you know, like it's very interesting that you need to
share that, but they do. Yeah, so yeah, I mean
out there, it's just it's not yours anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Man, No, No, it doesn't belong to you. The moment
that it's it's a funny. It's a funny. It's like
a phenomenon. I think, like the minute that you listen
to your own song over and over again, and you're
listening to it when you're writing it, you're listening to
it when you're recording it, mixing it, mastering it, and
then the minute that it's released, it's almost like Oh,
(46:45):
I don't want to I don't want to listen to
that now, and it doesn't belong to me now, you know.
It's a really strange thing. But I feel like almost
every artist that I've met has that same phenomenon happened
to them, and and it's it's a I could only
hope that, you know, people in terms of giving back,
(47:06):
you know, at the shows, well that's where I predominantly
feel like I can really give back. And I would
always just want everybody to feel a kind of it's
for me, it's the three yes, is safe, strange, and sexy.
You know, if that's what they're feeling those three things
(47:26):
at a show of mine, I'm happy, you know. I
want them to embrace all those things. And yeah, was
to just just just escapism. You know, life's scary. The
world is a really really mean and angry place and frightening, frankly,
and I just want us to still have those moments
where we can go to a gig and just get lost.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
That is such a great wrap up. Note that I
hate to ask another question, but now I'm so curious
as a music fan, and then will wrap up. But
for you, what are this shows that you have remembered
feeling most safe, strange, and sexy at.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Well. What would immediately spring to my mind is when
I went to see the Black Parade tour when I
was very very young, and my parents had told me
that I wasn't allowed to get tickets because it was
explicit and it was too adult for me, and they
told me all the way the run up my birthdays
(48:27):
at Christmas, so the run up, and some of my
friends in school, my older friends, had got tickets and
I was heartbroken. I was like, I can't believe you're
doing this to me, Mom and dad. You're so like,
you're so chill normally. And then I realized it was
all prank, because on my birthday they did they had
they got me some tickets to see them in Manchester.
(48:48):
And I'd also said like, if if I do get tickets,
I'm going to streak naked down the street because I'm
going to be so happy. And then I was like,
oh shit, I have to do do this now. But
I went to this concert and Gerard came out on
a hospital bear on a gurney with a drip, and
(49:10):
it was just true theater and I was so lost
in it and so in love with this new Jersey band,
Like it couldn't have been further away from what I
grew up with. And I was in this room and
it was total hysteria and the noise like when the
lights went black, and being a kid that it just
(49:32):
never ever left me. And now being a musician in
their shoes in a small way and having like kids
coming to see our shows and it's their first concert.
I could never you know, forget that feeling of you know,
when the lights go black and the band are about
(49:52):
to walk on stage and it's just for a minute,
you know, all all your worries go away and yeah,
you just totally consumed. And that that show for me
was was yeah burnt, another thing burnt into my brain forever.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Hate asked, Yeah, I was question, but did you streak
down the street?
Speaker 2 (50:16):
I don't think I went. I don't think I went
ahead with it. I think my family were like, it's okay,
you don't need to keep that promise.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
They were like, please keep that promise.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, yeah, so we can't have a nine year old
streaking down down the estate.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
Oh wow, so you were nine when you went to that.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, I was really young and my my, my parents
went with me and I went to it a few
I've been to so many of their shows, like probably
over ten eleven shows. And my mom said, I was standing.
I couldn't see. I was tiny, and I was standing
on the seat and I was just jumping like a
(50:56):
lunatic for the whole thing. Just my mom was just
watching me watch them. She was just like, what this
child was possessed? And then I wanted to go and
see them play in London, so so my parents said, okay,
you can. My school was really strict and you weren't
allowed any days off and whatever, and they said, okay,
(51:16):
we're going to give you. We're going to ring in
and say you're sick, and we're going to take you
to London. They were were the coolest parents, and they
did but I told They said, you just can't tell
any of your friends because if this gets out, you'll
get expelled from the school. But I told all my friends.
I was so excited. And then when we were in
the car on the way down to London, my mom
had a message and they they found out that my
(51:38):
parents had took me out of this very religious, strict
school to go and see my chemical romance concert. No,
I've never I waited by a stage door when I
was very young on my dad's shoulders and they signed
my poster. But I don't know what I would do
if I met them. I just I just adore them
(52:02):
and the world that they created, and the passion and
the eye for detail and everything they put into the
music videos and the artworks. You know. I'm I'm very
very I feel very blessed that they were the band
that they were, like my childhood teenage band.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Well, I hope if you meet them, you fucking tell
them these stories.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
Oh I will, I will. I just won't tell him
the story about when I was like ten, crying in
my room when I googled him and it said he'd
got married, and he was because he was like twenty
seven at the time or something, and it says he's
got married. Backstage to the bass player of mine was
self indulgence, and I was sobbing my heart out in
my bedroom thinking I had a chance.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
You didn't, But that's okay. If you had, it would
have been really creepy.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yeah yeah, all right, cool.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
Well, on that note, is there anything you want to add?
I did not ask you.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
No, I think that's good. It was a really nice interview.
Thank you for talking to me.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
M m mmmmmmmmmmmmmm hmm
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.