Speaker 1: I'm like nineteen years old.
Speaker 2: I can't make I can't make to pimp Butterfalo my
Speaker 2: first album.
Speaker 3: You know, Hello, Welcome to Loud and Quiet's Midnight Chats
Speaker 3: or Midnight Chats by Loud and Quiet Magazine, whichever way
Speaker 3: you like it. This is episode one hundred and one
Speaker 3: with tonight's guest Arlo Parks, who you may or may
Speaker 3: not know. She is a new artist. Her debut album
Speaker 3: is coming out in January. It's called Collapsed in Sunbeams.
Speaker 3: It's coming out on Transgressive Records, and it's just gonna work.
Speaker 3: It's just gonna be one of those records that next
Speaker 3: year just lands and does really well. I certainly hope
Speaker 3: that's the case, but I'm quite confident that it will be.
Speaker 3: We start off our conversation actually talking about why we
Speaker 3: had to reschedule this podcast. We were going to meet
Speaker 3: up and then she had to go to Rome and
Speaker 3: I asked her why she was in Rome, and you'll
Speaker 3: find out why at the beginning of the podcast. It's impressive.
Speaker 3: I don't know what else I can tell you about
Speaker 3: Arlo Parks. I mean, she grew up in West London.
Speaker 3: She's still only nineteen years old. She made her album
Speaker 3: during Lockdown earlier this year in a rented Airbnb, pretty
Speaker 3: much putting the whole record together herself. And her first
Speaker 3: love is poetry, you know, lyrics are her things. She's
Speaker 3: got a great talent in writing lyrics, so it made
Speaker 3: sense that she would then become a musician. And she
Speaker 3: also loves horror films and Radiohead and all sorts of
Speaker 3: music like everything. Essentially, she just loves music. All of
Speaker 3: that will come out in this podcast. And that's about
Speaker 3: it from me. Thank you for listening to this episode.
Speaker 3: I hope you enjoy it. If you enjoy it enough
Speaker 3: to sling us some money. There's a link in the
Speaker 3: description of this podcast, as well as some links to
Speaker 3: some of the things that we talk about. Thank you
Speaker 3: for listening to Midnight Chats. This one is with Arlow Parks.
Speaker 2: I was shooting this, uh kind of. It's a collection
Speaker 2: of short films for for Gucci basically, and it was
Speaker 2: directed by Gus Vansant.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It was pretty crazy. It was.
Speaker 3: So this is like because the first one.
Speaker 1: You directed the first yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: So this is a series called the Absolute Beginner.
Speaker 2: Series, right, yeah, So I mean the so The absolute
Speaker 2: beginner series was the one that I did by myself,
Speaker 2: and that was just getting like artists and actors to
Speaker 2: kind of get behind the camera and honestly just make
Speaker 2: a film about whatever they wanted. And I was always
Speaker 2: super inspired by like Where's Anderson, you know, Grand Bede, Pest,
Speaker 2: Hotel ten and Bounds, and I wanted obviously, poetry is
Speaker 2: like my first love, so I wanted to combine that
Speaker 2: in some way and get all these kind of KOOKI
Speaker 2: margate characters and get the sea. I always wanted to
Speaker 2: shoot by the sea.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 3: It was Is it called folded gold not gold, not gold,
Speaker 3: notted gold. It's great. It's it's got that great opening
Speaker 3: shot of you on the balcon is it the war pole,
Speaker 3: the woletel and there's the people playing bowls. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: has got a real way Anderson. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wanted it to feel, you know, with those very
Speaker 2: like specific color schemes like in Morelli's with the pinks
Speaker 2: and the reds, and I wanted it to feel yeah,
Speaker 2: a little bit surreal. But I also wanted to involve
Speaker 2: like the people who just lived in market, like the
Speaker 2: Bulls team, which is such legends like they just they
Speaker 2: were just so down to just like play their bowls
Speaker 2: and be the intro.
Speaker 1: It's really cool.
Speaker 3: And it ends with you chucking a Gucci bag in
Speaker 3: the sea. Did you actually chuck it in the sea?
Speaker 3: Is there someone down there catching that bag?
Speaker 1: It was it was another bag, was it?
Speaker 2: Because you know, we wouldn't be chucking one thousand pounds
Speaker 2: worth of Gucci material.
Speaker 3: And I was going to say that is decadent. That
Speaker 3: would be very decadent to do that. And it ends
Speaker 3: that video. I'll put a link to this in the
Speaker 3: description this podcast. It ends with the bag kind of
Speaker 3: floating out. There's a hand coming out of the sea. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So who was that unfortunate person who was under.
Speaker 2: The ways Tom Dream who co directed the film with me.
Speaker 2: That was his girlfriend and she just put a wet
Speaker 2: suit on. It was it was cold, she just.
Speaker 1: Got in there.
Speaker 2: I really commended her bravery because I was shivering and
Speaker 2: I was not even in the water. But yeah, she
Speaker 2: had to fully duck underneath with wet suit and hold
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 3: It's a great final shot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wanted it to be like a message because you know,
Speaker 2: there's a there's a period, there's a point where I
Speaker 2: like scribble something down, put it in the bag and
Speaker 2: like almost like you know, a message in the bottle,
Speaker 2: like putting it at sea. But yeah, that was that
Speaker 2: was It was like my first experience doing anything like that,
Speaker 2: and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: So this new one you were doing in Rome, is
Speaker 3: that like a follow up to this to this one?
Speaker 1: No, it's actually a different thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a way for like the new collection
Speaker 2: to be showcased in a way that's kind of a
Speaker 2: little bit left of center. So it's basically seven episodes.
Speaker 2: There's like a cameo in each one. So there was Me, Harry,
Speaker 2: Stars Elish and a few other people just kind of
Speaker 2: thrown in into the into the narrative. And my episode
Speaker 2: is in this cafe and it's kind of inspired by
Speaker 2: Andy Warhol's Naked Lunch and like and yeah, Gus founds
Speaker 2: Out was directing it and Chrystil was the dop He's
Speaker 2: done a lot of the Wan films, which was amazing.
Speaker 1: I would say star struck. I was like, because I
Speaker 1: had to act. I was like.
Speaker 3: Acting, so you got lines in it?
Speaker 1: No, I didn't. That's the thing.
Speaker 2: I had to improvise. I had to improvise my lines,
Speaker 2: which is the hard bit, because you know, I had to.
Speaker 2: So Sylvia was the character that I was playing opposite,
Speaker 2: and I would speak in English and she would speak
Speaker 2: in Italian, but we had to pretend as if it
Speaker 2: was like a normal conversation. Obviously I didn't understand what
Speaker 2: she was saying, but I had to be like.
Speaker 3: Ha ha ha, like yeah, great, do you do Do
Speaker 3: you feel like you nailed it? Did you get did
Speaker 3: you get to see any of it back? Okay, sure
Speaker 3: it's not I'm sure it's good. And what does it?
Speaker 3: What was gus Fan sound like?
Speaker 2: He was a very kind of quiet, sensitive, confident presence,
Speaker 2: Like he was quite subdued, but he knew exactly what
Speaker 2: he wanted. And Chris was more kind of like explosive,
Speaker 2: like he taught me how to play pinball and we
Speaker 2: were just like laughing the whole time. So it was
Speaker 2: amazing to have those two like quite juxtaposed presences, but
Speaker 2: both like icons of cinema.
Speaker 3: Yeah, have you done any acting before at all, like
Speaker 3: at school or anything.
Speaker 2: I did like a few bits at school, not really,
Speaker 2: but you know, in some of my videos, like for Eugene,
Speaker 2: I was acting alongside this actress and media, and you know,
Speaker 2: obviously we had to pretend to be like to have
Speaker 2: known each other forever, and it's something I really enjoy.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting, like putting on that mask and like
Speaker 2: being somebody else for a little bit.
Speaker 1: I really like it.
Speaker 3: Nice. I love that you've just gone straight from zero
Speaker 3: row to gus Van sand Fagucci.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In Rome, Yeah, during lockdown? What was the lockdown situation
Speaker 3: like that?
Speaker 2: It was pretty literally at the day we arrived, everything closed,
Speaker 2: So everything I think was closed from like five or
Speaker 2: six for example, So I only I was staying in
Speaker 2: the hotel, so I wasn't allowed to leave. All I
Speaker 2: did was make beats in my hotel room and read
Speaker 2: my book, and so it was literally hotel to set
Speaker 2: to hotel. So I saw the Colisey of like from Afar,
Speaker 2: but didn't really get to see that much of Rome.
Speaker 3: Your film had like it, as you said, had like
Speaker 3: a Wes Anderson vibe to But you're also a horror
Speaker 3: film fan, right, Yeah, what, okay, let's talk about horror.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of the opposite of a horror foror fan.
Speaker 1: Are you you're not into it, I.
Speaker 3: Can't, but but tell me about what's your foot when? Okay,
Speaker 3: what horror we talking about? What's your kind of thing?
Speaker 1: What's my thing?
Speaker 2: Okay, So it kind of depends, right, So I really
Speaker 2: like the kind of hitchcock like Psycho.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: We So I like the more kind of stylistic violency ones.
Speaker 2: I do like the kind of psychological thrillers as well,
Speaker 2: Like I mean I recently watched Hereditary and like you know,
Speaker 2: Midsimar and stuff, like they're in a similar kind of vein.
Speaker 2: And so I like the ones that are like slightly
Speaker 2: kooky or you know, really old ones where the special
Speaker 2: effects are terrible. I don't like zombie ones. I'm not
Speaker 2: really down for that. I like the science of lambs
Speaker 2: kind of like Cycloa.
Speaker 3: That's where I'm at. So, yeah, I do like something.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen, you know, things like Friday the
Speaker 2: thirteenth and all of that. I watched the Human Science People.
Speaker 2: It was a terrible mistake and I don't know why
Speaker 2: I didn't add to myself because it was just all
Speaker 2: it was just gross. But I like ones where there's
Speaker 2: like a storyline and you're a little bit on edge
Speaker 2: rather than it's just like someone getting like hacked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're not.
Speaker 2: Well, I've seen it, but I just didn't really vibe
Speaker 2: with it, Like I didn't find it enjoyable. It was
Speaker 2: just a bit like jury, Yeah, you're enjoying it exactly
Speaker 2: exactly the eye.
Speaker 3: Okay, So yeah, I mean that type of stuff. I
Speaker 3: like the thriller side of things and stuff. Are there
Speaker 3: any of those films that you've watched that have stuck
Speaker 3: with you?
Speaker 2: I think the first time I watched Science of the
Speaker 2: Lambs definitely, because like Anthony Holk, I was I was
Speaker 2: just very taken aback by how good he wasn't playing
Speaker 2: that role and like you know with the like that
Speaker 2: sound he makes when he's talking.
Speaker 1: About the beans and stuff. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I think what I really liked, like Psycho. I feel
Speaker 2: like the twist at the end was like I don't know,
Speaker 2: I found it super inventive and like progressive like for
Speaker 2: the time, like I didn't expect that at all. I
Speaker 2: definitely think my favorite films are the ones that just
Speaker 2: like have stuck with me forever and ever.
Speaker 3: The one that haunts me of recently, He's get Out. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I've not seen us, And part of the
Speaker 3: reason I've not seen us is because get out just
Speaker 3: I was talking to a friend about this other day.
Speaker 3: I still think about it every now and then, like
Speaker 3: it's one of those things that are just just the
Speaker 3: premise of.
Speaker 2: It that's much more horrific then sore or you know,
Speaker 2: I'm with you, because it is that sense of like
Speaker 2: when there is that little grain or kernel of like
Speaker 2: reality or possibility, like the fact that that could actually
Speaker 2: you know, that's what makes it scary, because if it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, some kind of supernatural like you know I
Speaker 2: saw like Anna Belle or like those like Chucky and stuff,
Speaker 2: and it's a bit like, you know, that wouldn't happen.
Speaker 2: But when things like get Out where there is that
Speaker 2: sense of like of tension, like the tension is established
Speaker 2: so expertly.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's so slow the reveal of what's going on.
Speaker 2: I know, when he's like crying, oh, it's horrible things.
Speaker 3: And the bit where they reveal what's going on where
Speaker 3: he's the picture of him is on the easel and
Speaker 3: the auctioning him and it's just so that like the
Speaker 3: camera he's been taken off for a walk, to cat Oh,
Speaker 3: that moment of realization.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, that the premise of that film, that is
Speaker 1: an excellent.
Speaker 3: Thing, absolutely stuck with me. I mean, when did you
Speaker 3: get into have you always liked the see?
Speaker 1: Okay, this is the story.
Speaker 2: When I was eight or nine, I saw Coraline and
Speaker 2: it terrified me to the exam that I never watched
Speaker 2: a horror film again until I was like sixteen. That's
Speaker 2: not even a horror film, but I was absolutely terrified
Speaker 2: of I didn't like dolls, I didn't like the buttons
Speaker 2: on the eyes. I was very traumatized. And then when I.
Speaker 1: Was sixteen, I watched I can't remember what I think,
Speaker 1: it was like the Shining or something, okay.
Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, Like, even though I wasn't
Speaker 2: that taken by the Shining controversial opinion, I liked that
Speaker 2: sense of tension. And then I watched things like seven
Speaker 2: and just kind of got into the more like psychological
Speaker 2: side of things. And then I thought, you know, why
Speaker 2: not watch some of the groy ones. I just didn't
Speaker 2: do that much for me. Yeah, what I mean, I
Speaker 2: just want it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, They're kind of good to laugh at if you
Speaker 3: watch it with a may and you're just like, yeah, laughing,
Speaker 3: how absolutely absurd.
Speaker 1: It exactly exactly, That's.
Speaker 3: Kind of where that's at. So we're currently in well,
Speaker 3: I don't even know what the date is anymore, November.
Speaker 3: We're in November time for anyone listening in the future,
Speaker 3: in November time again, untiwards the end of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Your album comes out in January.
Speaker 1: January.
Speaker 3: You are currently well and truly in promo mode, right,
Speaker 3: You've been super busy, Yeah, but you've actually had I
Speaker 3: was thinking about all the things you've been doing over Lockdown.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that the album, which we have talked
Speaker 3: about in a bit, but you wrote that during Lockdown one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of it a little bit before and a
Speaker 2: little bit after.
Speaker 3: Sure, But there's loads of things you've done whilst a
Speaker 3: lot of us have been locked in. Really. You played Glastonbury, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and obviously there was no Glastonbury this year. For anyone
Speaker 3: who was not worth of this, there was obviously no Glastonbury.
Speaker 3: But a few people went and played and they had
Speaker 3: like a little bit of coverage and it looked amazing
Speaker 3: on TV because it was you in front of the
Speaker 3: Pyramid stage. There were cows there. Yeah, the pyramid was
Speaker 3: just like a skeleton. Look beautiful. It's a lovely day.
Speaker 3: It looked weird to see Glastonbury have some grass on
Speaker 3: the floor. That was bizarre. How how was the experience
Speaker 3: because you went to Glassenbury the year before to play
Speaker 3: when it was in full swing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was your first Classton b Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean that was my first festival.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Okay, this is a theme you just go
Speaker 3: you're just going straight for.
Speaker 2: Straight in the defense. But yeah, that was amazing, especially
Speaker 2: you know, the sun was setting. I was singing black
Speaker 2: Dog was a really important song to me, you know,
Speaker 2: on the TV, like my parents were watching from home,
Speaker 2: and it felt like it was very surreal. It was
Speaker 2: kind of bittersweet because you know, I remember being Glastonby
Speaker 2: last year and running around and playing all these shows
Speaker 2: and you know, seeing Tim in Parlor live for the
Speaker 2: first time and all of that. But it did like
Speaker 2: the actual ground has so much energy, Like actually being
Speaker 2: there just reminded me of like the possibility of festival's
Speaker 2: next year and like how special live music really is.
Speaker 3: Sure was there? What was the crew situation? Where's a
Speaker 3: lot of people there? It looked really sparse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there weren't there weren't that many people there, honestly,
Speaker 2: probably like ten or.
Speaker 3: So, Wow, that's kind of creepy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really. It was eerily quiet as well.
Speaker 3: And were there because a few other people playing, hand
Speaker 3: full of like new artists were they were they there
Speaker 3: when you were there?
Speaker 1: No, they weren't.
Speaker 2: There were no it It was literally just me, my
Speaker 2: manager and my guitarist and someone from Transgressive Mic.
Speaker 1: So that was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was nice to like, you know, have a
Speaker 2: little road trip down. But I remember last year, you know,
Speaker 2: we were listening to like Princess Nokia and like shouting
Speaker 2: in the van, like so excited.
Speaker 1: So it was definitely a big contrast.
Speaker 3: So when you went last year first festival, did you
Speaker 3: the whole thing? Did you just stay the whole Yeah?
Speaker 2: I was playing. I played four times. I've no experienced
Speaker 2: anything like it. Yeah, because it's weird, like all these
Speaker 2: different kinds of people just in this kind of bubble
Speaker 2: of music, Like everyone just kind of is in a
Speaker 2: good mood because everyone's in the sun. Especially it was sunny,
Speaker 2: thank god, it's almost too hot. But yeah, it just
Speaker 2: kind of ignited my love of festival. It's not my
Speaker 2: love of camping, though definitely not a camping no.
Speaker 3: Me neither and gastinories. I've not been the customary for
Speaker 3: a good ten years. But every time I watch it
Speaker 3: religiously on TV. Yeah, and every year, I'm kind of
Speaker 3: thinking I really miss out. I feel I'm really missing out.
Speaker 3: I always want to be there and I always intend
Speaker 3: to go the following year, and I was going to
Speaker 3: go this year, but obviously it was canceled. How are
Speaker 3: you with Fomo?
Speaker 2: I feel like at the beginning when everything kind of dissolved, obviously,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, I was.
Speaker 1: Supposed to be going here, they're doing this that.
Speaker 2: But then I kind of just like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: as we were saying before, like it's amazing what people
Speaker 2: can get used to. It was like, oh, well, I
Speaker 2: guess it's not happening, so it might as well just
Speaker 2: like write some songs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's kind of felt, all right, isn't it
Speaker 3: that we're all at least we're all miserable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be fair, it's like a collective collective.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, I mean I am missing out, but
Speaker 3: so's everyone. You're kind of not missing out in anything
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. It's so weird though, how the world
Speaker 1: just shifted like in a few months.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy. So you were saying that you rented
Speaker 3: an air b and be kind of close to hear
Speaker 3: down the road in Hoxton to was it to you
Speaker 3: recorded there as well? So you set up a little
Speaker 3: studio in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it wasn't It wasn't much of it
Speaker 2: was literally a mic guitar, bass and like one of
Speaker 2: these little Midi keyboards in a computer and that was literally.
Speaker 1: What the whole record was made on.
Speaker 3: What that's mad?
Speaker 2: So we made yeah, I would say we made like
Speaker 2: five or six of the songs that during that period
Speaker 2: of time. And then afterwards I made one of the
Speaker 2: tunes in the Church with Paul Upworth and then he
Speaker 2: helped me like develop one of my demos, which is
Speaker 2: another one of the songs, Portry four hundred, and then
Speaker 2: Bad Sounds down in Bristol helped me work on Bluish.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but it was mainly made in apartments, which
Speaker 2: I love. I'm definitely not that much of a studio person.
Speaker 1: Like I like my.
Speaker 2: Comfort and my tea and my windows.
Speaker 3: Right, and I suppose there's no pressure right when you're
Speaker 3: in a I mean when I go to if I
Speaker 3: ever go to a recording studio to institute some or
Speaker 3: whatever I've been to. I went to pull Up Works
Speaker 3: to do a podcast with him, and it is I
Speaker 3: do get quite. I do get really excited being in
Speaker 3: that room and seeing the big desk. I'm like a
Speaker 3: child in there. But I can imagine there's a pressure
Speaker 3: because there's a time limit. Like you know that this
Speaker 3: is costing money. It's costing someone money definitely, and you're like,
Speaker 3: I need to get some results out of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right. It is so hard.
Speaker 2: Like when I was writing the album before, like I
Speaker 2: had this definitely this sense of like stress and expectation,
Speaker 2: and like I was just like I need to make
Speaker 2: this good.
Speaker 1: Like there are people like.
Speaker 2: Not relying on me, but like you know, I'm signed
Speaker 2: and like all these people working on a project, Like
Speaker 2: I need to make this good. And I think that
Speaker 2: desire to make something because you know, I listened to
Speaker 2: out the albums that I love.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're listening to like in Rainbow, it's
Speaker 1: done me all of this stuff. I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I need to make something like groundbreaking. And
Speaker 1: I was like I'm like nineteen years.
Speaker 2: Old, like I can't make I can't make to PM
Speaker 2: Butterflo on my first album, you know. And I think
Speaker 2: once I let go of that sense of pressure that
Speaker 2: I was putting on myself, then it just kind of
Speaker 2: came flowing out. You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you kind of got you've got to leave
Speaker 3: yourself somewhere to go as well. You're right, you know,
Speaker 3: and hey, it's great, the record's great. We were just saying,
Speaker 3: I've heard it, I've played it a lot, and it's
Speaker 3: one of those records sound like I'm on Radio one now.
Speaker 3: It's one of those records that it's really instant. It's
Speaker 3: it's like it's like instantly, it's like a no brainer record,
Speaker 3: Like yeah, like this is all great, and it's so
Speaker 3: melodic and lovely. I think that's maybe one of the
Speaker 3: reasons I'm surprised it was written in lockdown, because I mean, obviously,
Speaker 3: some of the stuff on there is kind of heavy
Speaker 3: and serious stuff and it's super personal to you, but
Speaker 3: there's a kind of breeziness to it and the tunes
Speaker 3: of it and the pace of it.
Speaker 1: No, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: I think the reason why is that those songs on
Speaker 2: the record, Like most of them were written in terms
Speaker 2: of like the melody and the lyrics in like under
Speaker 2: an hour, like in like thirty minutes. I always just
Speaker 2: I don't know when I when I hear some chords
Speaker 2: or whatever that I'm taken by, I just literally just
Speaker 2: sing the melody into my voice. Not it's almost in
Speaker 2: one go, and I just write all in one go,
Speaker 2: Like I have a little notebook where I wrote all
Speaker 2: the notes for the album, and often it is just
Speaker 2: written just like straight down as it as it was
Speaker 2: in the final song. That sense of like writing off instinct. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just an impulse and I just follow it and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I guess it's quite good.
Speaker 3: And does that come from? Because poetry is a big
Speaker 3: love of yours. Were you writing poetry way before you
Speaker 3: were writing songs?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I started off with writing short stories when
Speaker 2: I was like eight or something. I just always loved words,
Speaker 2: and then I went to poetry when I was thirteen,
Speaker 2: and then lyrics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what were your short stories about? As an ace?
Speaker 1: It is so funny. I unearthed one the other day.
Speaker 2: It was one of them was like kind of like
Speaker 2: Bonnie and Clyde vibes like it was called like the
Speaker 2: Highway Kids or something, and it was like these two
Speaker 2: kids who were like highway robbers and they were like
Speaker 2: running from the law. But then and then I don't
Speaker 2: really understand because I loved words, so the plots were
Speaker 2: like not very good. It was mainly just me opening
Speaker 2: the saurus and just adding massive words I didn't really understand.
Speaker 2: But there was a lot I guess about like escaping
Speaker 2: and running around, running around and like going to other countries.
Speaker 2: And like, I think it's because as a kid, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I live in like West London kind of
Speaker 2: out of the way. Not that I was bored, but
Speaker 2: like I was kind of craving that sense of adventure
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, and so all my stories
Speaker 2: were like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I loved those stories that kids, right, because kids
Speaker 3: just have no rules at all. They just do whatever
Speaker 3: they want. I've mentioned this on this podcast before, but
Speaker 3: my wife used to write stories as a kid, and
Speaker 3: but her thing would be she'd get bored very quickly,
Speaker 3: so she'd just kill everyone in the story. All her
Speaker 3: stories end up everyone dies.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow, I'm sure there's some deep psychological issues going on
Speaker 3: there underneath that. But she says, it's just because she'd
Speaker 3: get bored like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can definitely relate to that. Like my
Speaker 2: attention span is very short. I think that's why I
Speaker 2: moved onto poetry, because I couldn't really follow a thread
Speaker 2: for like pages and pages, Like I would get to
Speaker 2: the end of like two pages and that I'd be like, well,
Speaker 2: I kind of had enough of this now, so I
Speaker 2: would just like finish it really quickly, like in a
Speaker 2: way that didn't make sense.
Speaker 3: Just get it done, do you. I'm going to drop
Speaker 3: a name here because this happened recently to me, so
Speaker 3: that's fresh in my mind. It is relevant, I promise.
Speaker 3: I interviewed John Cooper Clark and we were talking about poetry, obviously,
Speaker 3: and he was saying he was telling me about how
Speaker 3: he was taught poetry in school and it was a
Speaker 3: big thing, and all the guys, he said, in his
Speaker 3: class would kind of use poetry as a bit of
Speaker 3: a show of that mat show their manliness to try
Speaker 3: and get to try and get the girls in the class.
Speaker 3: This is in so he's seventy one. Now, this is
Speaker 3: in sixty five, he said, So back then they were
Speaker 3: all go to poetry classes in his school, which is
Speaker 3: just a state school. He'd be taught all this poetry
Speaker 3: and then they would write poems and try and like
Speaker 3: kind of bat like almost like rappers, you know. And
Speaker 3: I was like, that's kind of crazy because my school
Speaker 3: and when I was like, you know, fifteen in the nineties,
Speaker 3: we did know poetry. What is the deal now, Like
Speaker 3: when you were at school, which is you know, like
Speaker 3: five years ago, last year?
Speaker 1: Yeah, last year was last year?
Speaker 3: When what was the curriculum? Is poetry a thing or
Speaker 3: was this just off your own back of like this
Speaker 3: is my thing?
Speaker 2: Well, when I started, when I was like young, like
Speaker 2: thirteen or whatever, then we weren't really taught it that much.
Speaker 1: But as I got.
Speaker 2: Older, it was definitely a part of the curriculum, but
Speaker 2: it was more kind of you know, Shakespearean's sonnets and
Speaker 2: like romantic poetry like Byron stuff. And we did some
Speaker 2: modern poetry as well a little bit, because I studied
Speaker 2: English at a level. But it definitely wasn't the poetry
Speaker 2: that I learned at school. Was definitely not the poetry
Speaker 2: that I gravitated towards and that I was inspired by
Speaker 2: when I was writing. When I was younger, I would
Speaker 2: read a lot of like the beat poets, so like
Speaker 2: Gregory Corso and Alan Ginsburg all of that, and you know,
Speaker 2: Sylvia Plath and all the kind of other confessional poets.
Speaker 2: But we were taught it was quite a rigid thing,
Speaker 2: you know, with the rhyme schemes and all of this.
Speaker 2: But I just didn't really like that. It wasn't good
Speaker 2: at that.
Speaker 3: When was the first time you performed poetry to people?
Speaker 1: Oh, as in like on stage or like just yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, has that only ever been at your shows? And
Speaker 3: since being a musician, did.
Speaker 2: You go for a period of being a yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: I was never like a spoken word, but no, no,
Speaker 2: I think I was too.
Speaker 1: Nervous for that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's very.
Speaker 2: To listen to as well, but like you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: it's a little bit like I think it's about execution,
Speaker 2: right like other headline shows. I would like write a
Speaker 2: poem that day about the city, and it was like short,
Speaker 2: you know, thirty seconds, and so it's like a nice
Speaker 2: little interlude. But sometimes you know when it like goes
Speaker 2: off like fifteen minutes and it's just like a monologue,
Speaker 2: just like shouting, yeah that's.
Speaker 3: Not that's not you. So the record as I say,
Speaker 3: super personal, very poetic, and like a big thing. A
Speaker 3: big thing that you love is nostalgia. Yeah, I'm really
Speaker 3: nostalgic as well. Do you feel you've got a handle
Speaker 3: on your nostalgia?
Speaker 1: I definitely think I did.
Speaker 3: That's good. I sometimes question why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know, I the way that I
Speaker 2: approached nostalgia, it's not necessarily you know, the idea of
Speaker 2: like looking at the past through a rose tinted lens.
Speaker 2: For me, it's more like, I mean, this whole album
Speaker 2: for me was about almost like processing the past and
Speaker 2: discussing the traumas and the joys. But like I tried
Speaker 2: to do it in a way that wasn't kind of
Speaker 2: tainted by hindsight, which of course is impossible, but I
Speaker 2: wanted to kind of reconjure up how I felt in
Speaker 2: that moment. And also because I was in lockdown, you know,
Speaker 2: I wasn't really nothing was happening in the present. So
Speaker 2: and I always wanted my Debbie album to be like
Speaker 2: a time capsule of other things that affected me and
Speaker 2: moved me and hurt me, like throughout my adolescence.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of how I looked at it.
Speaker 3: King Crawl, I was going to ask you about that
Speaker 3: was for you, right, like a bit of a light
Speaker 3: bulb moment to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2: So six Pep Beneath the Moon came out when I
Speaker 2: was thirteen, and it was a moment where the stars
Speaker 2: kind of aligned for me creatively. I heard this voice
Speaker 2: that was literally like gravel and grit and like dark
Speaker 2: London skies, and I heard this like poetry and this
Speaker 2: rawness and the fact that the instrumentals will often like
Speaker 2: quite kind of stripped down and simple, but there was
Speaker 2: this sense of like pure emotion to me and.
Speaker 1: I just loved it.
Speaker 2: I think it was the first time that I discovered
Speaker 2: an album made recently for myself that I was completely
Speaker 2: obsessed with. There was also this album called I Thought
Speaker 2: I Was an Alien by Soco, which was around a
Speaker 2: similar time. I think I just discovered like the idea
Speaker 2: of like super emotional music that I didn't really know
Speaker 2: could be executed by, you know, like people my age
Speaker 2: and in that way, and that was just immediately like
Speaker 2: this is what I want to do.
Speaker 3: And it's such a like it It's such an important thing,
Speaker 3: that moment when you discover music for you, but like
Speaker 3: when you're not living off of someone else's golden era.
Speaker 1: Exactly, you know, exactly.
Speaker 3: So how did you Was it the thing that everyone
Speaker 3: was listening to at your school? Can you remember how
Speaker 3: you came across that record?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: So. The way that I discovered it was that there
Speaker 2: was this cool girl in my in my class who
Speaker 2: had like cool taste, Like I just remember thinking that
Speaker 2: she was like the cools thing ever, and she introduced
Speaker 2: me to Loyal Kanana and King Cruel and she was like, oh,
Speaker 2: you should listen to these guys. And I was really
Speaker 2: taken by by both of them. And we had to
Speaker 2: give a presentation in school about an artist that we liked,
Speaker 2: and I was like, OK, I'm gonna do King Cruel.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: And I remember putting it, like, you know, putting all
Speaker 2: this work into like the research and stuff, and then
Speaker 2: like playing like baby Beal or something, and everyone in
Speaker 2: the cast like didn't get it, and they were like
Speaker 2: what is I don't really I don't really understand this.
Speaker 1: And I think at that moment that.
Speaker 3: Was what were they choosing for their I don't know
Speaker 3: what they were.
Speaker 1: They were picking like kind of noble or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it was just not I realized that I
Speaker 1: was in a slightly different way. You know.
Speaker 2: It's like a lot of fall Out Boy and a
Speaker 2: lot of I mean I did like that as well,
Speaker 2: But for me, it was a moment where I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: not everyone is going to like what I like. Not
Speaker 2: everyone is going to like what I do, so I
Speaker 2: might as well just kind of follow my taste and
Speaker 2: do my thing.
Speaker 3: So you were kind of out on your own with
Speaker 3: with the cool girl. She was into it as well. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: but you were like in the minority at your school
Speaker 3: in terms of your taste.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I mean I didn't really you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't really talk about music with my friends. Like
Speaker 2: I only actually encountered other people who loved music in
Speaker 2: the same way that I did when I was about
Speaker 2: sixteen or seventeen when I was at college. But at
Speaker 2: the beginning, music was very much my own kind of
Speaker 2: personal little it was only my person world. Like writing
Speaker 2: was this private ritual that I did at home, Like
Speaker 2: I would look up on YouTube, like find new songs
Speaker 2: and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I never really told anyone about it. Yeah, even
Speaker 1: my family. I just kind of did it by myself.
Speaker 3: Thing can you remember what your first song was?
Speaker 1: I remember it, but I have no idea what it
Speaker 1: was about.
Speaker 2: I remember just like thrashing on the guitar I think
Speaker 2: I listened to I listened to like something by Slow
Speaker 2: Dive or something like that, and I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: like I need to just like make something emotional, and
Speaker 2: it was just the lyrics were I don't remember the lyrics,
Speaker 2: but I remember at the time I was.
Speaker 1: Like, this is like, this is groundbreaking.
Speaker 3: I've got something to say and I'm saying it.
Speaker 1: Well literally literally. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So what did after King Crawl? What did that open
Speaker 3: up for you? Once you went from him? Where did
Speaker 3: you go after that?
Speaker 2: Honestly, there were I went to a million different places
Speaker 2: at once, so I went. I got into like the
Speaker 2: Pixies and the students and stuff. I got really into
Speaker 2: Slowing the Family Stone, got really into like Elliott Smith,
Speaker 2: John Martin, Nick Drake. I also explored the more like
Speaker 2: soul Roots and Nina Simone and Minnie Riperton, and then
Speaker 2: I found Porta's Head and the whole kind of trip
Speaker 2: hop like Massive Attack, Tricky and stuff, which was so
Speaker 2: eye opening for me. People like DJ Shadow. I got
Speaker 2: really into electronic music as well, so like AFX Twin
Speaker 2: and Joy Orbison and stuff. So honestly, I just went
Speaker 2: everywhere at once.
Speaker 3: It went through. It's like opened this portal to possibilities exactly.
Speaker 3: It's great, isn't it that like one thing can just
Speaker 3: do that for you? And actually I think it probably
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that necessarily everyone does that. I think
Speaker 3: some people might have heard King Crawl and then stuck
Speaker 3: in that world. Although maybe King Crawl is the key
Speaker 3: to it, because he's a guy that is just like
Speaker 3: Encyclopedia of music himself, and you can kind of tell
Speaker 3: that in his music. It definitely, even though he's got
Speaker 3: a very definite sound that he if you'd discovered i
Speaker 3: don't know, just a guitar aisle, just just a rapper,
Speaker 3: then maybe you would have just stuck in that lane.
Speaker 2: I think for me it was the way that I
Speaker 2: approached it was, Okay, I've discovered something that's unlike anything
Speaker 2: I've ever heard, and it makes me feel really good
Speaker 2: to know that there's something other than what I've already
Speaker 2: heard out there. So I wanted to kind of keep
Speaker 2: reincarnating that feeling, keep finding that in other places, which
Speaker 2: is why I just kind of went super broad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're a Radiohead fan. Oh my god, you're
Speaker 3: a big radio Head fair right. I say that because
Speaker 3: what makes me think that was there's just a few. Well,
Speaker 3: and what I love about your songs is there's like
Speaker 3: references and little name drops of things that I like.
Speaker 3: And I think it's in the in the Gucci film,
Speaker 3: the first Gucci film where you mentioned kid A. In
Speaker 3: that you mentioned Tom.
Speaker 1: York closing Tom York. Yeah, good, Yeah, I love them.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So that came. That came after.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that came after I think I was like sixteen seventeen, okay,
Speaker 2: And that was actually a really beautiful time in my
Speaker 2: life because that was when I really found my people
Speaker 2: in terms of finding other creatives. Like I went to
Speaker 2: college and there were people who wanted to be painters, directors,
Speaker 2: and my best friend Matthew showed me Weird Fishes and
Speaker 2: obviously I knew I knew Radiohead, but after that I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, it like listening to songs
Speaker 2: like Nude. It just changed the way that I saw music.
Speaker 2: It was like a seismic shift. And then I got obsessed.
Speaker 3: So is in Rainbow's You're that's your Radiohead.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I enjoy all of it, Like I
Speaker 2: really like Hail to the Thief, and like The Bends
Speaker 2: for like a certain mood as well.
Speaker 1: And obviously Idiotech is like one of my tops.
Speaker 2: But in Rainbows, if I had to pick just one,
Speaker 2: like as my favorite, just like the warmth of there
Speaker 2: and the guitars. Oh, it's just I listened to it
Speaker 2: every day. I'm serious.
Speaker 3: You great, Yeah, I love that. That's great. I like
Speaker 3: it when someone's got an album that they just still
Speaker 3: can't get over, like they're still fascinated by it and
Speaker 3: love it. I love it Rainbows and the Bends. I'm
Speaker 3: a sucker for the Bends. Yeah, that's the one that
Speaker 3: Radiohead fans aren't meant to say they like it.
Speaker 1: No, I like it. I don't care.
Speaker 3: I love It's good, right, it's good. You and Phoebe Bridges.
Speaker 3: I was watching your cover All Faint Plastic Trees for
Speaker 3: the BBC. Where was that film that was like in
Speaker 3: a big church?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was filmed in a church. I can't remember
Speaker 2: what it was cool now, but it was like a
Speaker 2: church in North London. Sure, and we filmed that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we filmed that over a few months.
Speaker 3: Ago. That was Phoebe came on the podcast a few
Speaker 3: weeks A few weeks ago. We had actually had to
Speaker 3: do it twice because I forgot to press record. It's bad,
Speaker 3: isn't it. That's really bad? And I think it would
Speaker 3: have been actually probably just before or you did that thing,
Speaker 3: because she was when she was here. She's very funny. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she's fun Have you known her for a while, like
Speaker 3: or did you just meet her for did you meet
Speaker 3: her then?
Speaker 2: Well, so we had kind of chatted on Instagram and
Speaker 2: you know, she had said she was a fan. Obviously
Speaker 2: I'm a massive fan, Like Stranger in the Alps was
Speaker 2: one of the albums for me in terms of specifically
Speaker 2: in terms of the lyrics, like that sense of hyperspecific
Speaker 2: and that wittiness I could even though it was very
Speaker 2: kind of there were moments where it was very somber
Speaker 2: and heavy, like there was that sense of like cutting
Speaker 2: wits that I could ascertain. And then we had met
Speaker 2: up like a little bit before to like hang out,
Speaker 2: and then we rehearsed and then we played the session.
Speaker 3: We did it. It sounded great. Albums out in January.
Speaker 3: How are you feeling about it?
Speaker 1: Nervous?
Speaker 2: Very nervous, excited, slightly apprehensive. I'm just gonna go through
Speaker 2: all the adjectives I think. I'm just I'm excited. I'm
Speaker 2: excited for it to be out in the world. But
Speaker 2: then there is that sense of like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: like maybe I should have just put one more song,
Speaker 2: or maybe I should take that one off, or did
Speaker 2: I say everything? Or is that lyric even any good?
Speaker 2: Like I think when you have it finished, so easy
Speaker 2: to like unpick it. But I definitely think that I
Speaker 2: put as much of myself into the album that I
Speaker 2: possibly and physically could. So I hope people like it
Speaker 2: because I love albums, that's the thing, and like and
Speaker 2: obviously there's that sense of like I want to create
Speaker 2: something that has like value and meaning and that's going
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: Important to people.
Speaker 2: But no, you never know, like maybe I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: get maybe it will be terrible, it would be great.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be great, It's gonna be great, and then
Speaker 3: I guess next year. You don't really know, right, It's
Speaker 3: like it's going to happen next year exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely taking it like one day at a time,
Speaker 2: just because it feels like everything can shift, like within
Speaker 2: twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I guess we'll see.
Speaker 3: Well, hopefully the new vaccine's going to arrive, We're all
Speaker 3: going to be cured. Donald Trump will leave office. Everything's
Speaker 3: going to be fine. Your album's going to come out.
Speaker 3: It's going to sell millions.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm loving this premise.
Speaker 3: And you'll make a movie with. Who would you most
Speaker 3: like to make a movie with?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Where's Anderson?
Speaker 3: Where's Anderson? Will cast you in his new film, starring
Speaker 3: alongside That's.
Speaker 1: So Hard, starring alongside Robert DeNiro, Perfect.
Speaker 3: Twenty one, Your Year?
Speaker 1: Love it
Speaker 2: Anyway, good night,