Speaker 1: He couldn't say, you just go out the pace of
Speaker 1: the lyric. He just had to say, like it was psycryptic.
Speaker 1: Hold your own was the first one. When he heard that.
Speaker 1: He came in and he listened just to saying that
Speaker 1: I had in my nightbook and downplaying the boats, and
Speaker 1: he was like, that's it. So that was the first
Speaker 1: one where we were like, okay, he wants me to
Speaker 1: just do poetry. We were like, what's the biggest rap
Speaker 1: producer of all time? He's telling me to stop rapping?
Speaker 2: Even me, Everyone, and welcome to episode seventy six of
Speaker 2: the podcast Greg Here. This is the second episode of
Speaker 2: a brand new run of Midnight Chats, ten new conversations
Speaker 2: coming in total, arriving every Thursday at midnight, and we've
Speaker 2: given everything a lick of paint, a small freshen up,
Speaker 2: so we hope you like it. We kicked off this
Speaker 2: new series of episodes last week with Karen O from
Speaker 2: the AA Years, and tonight's guest is equally as incredible.
Speaker 2: It's Kate Tempest. It's good timing as I saw Kate
Speaker 2: perform at a festival just last week and still reeling
Speaker 2: from that. She plays dates this autumn, so do go
Speaker 2: along if you can, as lots of you will know,
Speaker 2: it is an experience that goes way beyond your average gig.
Speaker 2: We recorded this episode a while ago in the middle
Speaker 2: of the summer June time, just before the Glastonbury Festival,
Speaker 2: which Kate played, around the time that her latest album,
Speaker 2: The Book of Traps and Lessons came out. Of course,
Speaker 2: she's not just a musician, but an award winning writer, novelist, poet, producer, playwright.
Speaker 2: We get into all of that, and from our point
Speaker 2: of view, it's not a stretch to describe Kate as
Speaker 2: one of the most important and relevant British artists out
Speaker 2: there right now. So basically it's a pleasure to have
Speaker 2: her on as this evening's guest. And don't forget you
Speaker 2: can support this podcast by subscribing to Loud and Quiet magazine.
Speaker 2: All the information is at Loud and Quiet dot com
Speaker 2: forward slash subscribe, sign up and we'll post you on
Speaker 2: next nine issues for as little as three pounds per month.
Speaker 2: I try and listen to as an any podcasts as
Speaker 2: I can, and I've had a number of favorites recently,
Speaker 2: and You've been on a couple of episodes that I've
Speaker 2: really loved one, which was from a long time ago,
Speaker 2: I think with James O'Brien that you did right, probably
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago now, I think, And in
Speaker 2: a recent one with DJ Sentex Who We Be and
Speaker 2: his podcast, it was a really really good conversation. Do
Speaker 2: you enjoy doing podcasts? And also, like just generally you
Speaker 2: somebody that listens to podcasts much, do you check them out?
Speaker 1: I actually don't listen to that many of them. When
Speaker 1: I'm recommended good ones from people that I checked this out,
Speaker 1: then I've listened to them and I've really loved them.
Speaker 1: I haven't like investigated them on my own terms that much,
Speaker 1: but they're kind of the perfect thing when you're especially
Speaker 1: if you've got like long traveling hours and things like that,
Speaker 1: it feels a bit more nourishing.
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but it does feel like a more.
Speaker 1: Nourishing way of listening to stuff when you're passing time,
Speaker 1: doesn't It feels like it's kind of better for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like eating your greens is healthy like that.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like the whether I enjoyed them,
Speaker 1: I definitely much prefer sitting down and having a chat
Speaker 1: and it's like a bit more relaxed and the chat's
Speaker 1: free to go, you know, wherever it ends up going
Speaker 1: than doing like an interview like print into print journalism,
Speaker 1: I find like I have found it a bit uncomfortable
Speaker 1: in the past. We're just sitting on a sofa a
Speaker 1: photograph of Justin Bieber.
Speaker 3: I can see you up there.
Speaker 2: It's gaty to face on the cover of al and
Speaker 2: Quiet Everything. Can I give you one tip if you
Speaker 2: listened to George the Poets podcast.
Speaker 3: I haven't actually know so.
Speaker 2: It won a lot of awards at the end of
Speaker 2: last year. It's just fantastic and it goes to that
Speaker 2: point you just said about how they feel quite nourishing
Speaker 2: and quite I think they're really They can be really
Speaker 2: intimate when they're done very well, and really innovative because
Speaker 2: they use sound in clever ways. And George's podcast is
Speaker 2: just incredible. Yeah, you feel educated by it as well.
Speaker 1: But he is a fantastic educator, isn't he. He's so
Speaker 1: committed to his knowledge and to getting his mind around things,
Speaker 1: and like getting that articulated. I think I could imagine
Speaker 1: that being amazing, actually cool.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely chell it out You've.
Speaker 2: Just released your new album, The Book of Traps and Lessons.
Speaker 2: Just before the album came out, you marked it by
Speaker 2: playing a show in Catford, which is kind of your
Speaker 2: it's local, right, played a local theater to debut the
Speaker 2: new album and play all of it. Is that right?
Speaker 2: How was that experience playing basically somewhere so close to home?
Speaker 2: Was that a nice way to launch this new chapter
Speaker 2: if you like?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was beautiful. It was a really beautiful experience.
Speaker 1: The theater itself is like a couple of hundred years old.
Speaker 1: I'm literally just made it up. That's probably wrong. I
Speaker 1: don't Maybe it's not that old, but it's one of
Speaker 1: those kind of beautiful I think they built it when
Speaker 1: Pianos Organs used to accompany pictures cinema, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think it was built as a kind of picture house.
Speaker 1: And usually what's on there is like panta, so there's
Speaker 1: sometimes comedy on there. And yeah, it's in my neck
Speaker 1: of the woods. It's like just really close to where
Speaker 1: I grew up and where I live, and I've always
Speaker 1: dreamed of playing there again. It was just such a
Speaker 1: cool thing to do. This was the first time since
Speaker 1: it's come out that we played it all the way through,
Speaker 1: but the way that we recorded the album was like
Speaker 1: there's one live take kind of thing. So I have
Speaker 1: performed it in full like loads of times, but that
Speaker 1: was trying to get the right take for the album.
Speaker 3: If you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I felt like a really grounded and profound way of
Speaker 1: launching because it's like you say, it's homewards and it
Speaker 1: made me feel just so full of love really, and
Speaker 1: it's such a positive way of walking out onto stage,
Speaker 1: just all this love in me for where I'm from
Speaker 1: and who's there and.
Speaker 2: Lots of friends and family and stuff supporting you.
Speaker 1: That night, the pub across the road put a banner
Speaker 1: out of their window saying we love you, Kate Pub
Speaker 1: across the This is why it's deep, because it's like,
Speaker 1: if you're from there, it's so powerful that to feel
Speaker 1: that coming at you from your home.
Speaker 2: The local pride, like that's beautiful, mane.
Speaker 1: It was like it made me cry that I couldn't believe.
Speaker 1: I could not believe that. I just thought, wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just felt really overwhelmed and felt really really happy
Speaker 1: to be able to do something that made people go
Speaker 1: like yeah, cool.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: And the theater said that they've had loads of contact
Speaker 1: from people that you know, I didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: them being there, and lots of interest from people and
Speaker 1: all their kind of social media followings have gone up,
Speaker 1: and they're dead happy with that, and like they were
Speaker 1: being really nice and saying thanks for doing this here
Speaker 1: bonkers amazing at night.
Speaker 2: And talk a bit about the recording of the album shortly,
Speaker 2: but in terms of the writing of it, just tell
Speaker 2: me a little bit about that because you worked with
Speaker 2: Dan Kerry again, he's done the music for it, and
Speaker 2: you worked on it in Stretton, which is a place
Speaker 2: where you've worked on your material for a number of
Speaker 2: years as I understand, But what eventually has ended up
Speaker 2: on this album they've been pieces of work that you've
Speaker 2: been putting together for a number of years. Or did
Speaker 2: you sit down and kind of attempt to try and
Speaker 2: write it in one go with sessions with Dan or
Speaker 2: how did it come about that way?
Speaker 1: The writing is so the writing of the album actually
Speaker 1: was motored by the process really that Rick was helping
Speaker 1: us to find and discover this whole album unlike anything
Speaker 1: we've ever done before. Because what happened was Rick Rubin
Speaker 1: saw me on a TV show about five years ago
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, or maybe it was early twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: and I was performing an extract on my poetry on
Speaker 1: this show and he'd seen it and he gave me
Speaker 1: a call and.
Speaker 2: Said like, hi, hey, hey, Rick, and no number.
Speaker 1: And he had been really moved by the performance, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to make a record because what he saw
Speaker 1: was a poet. He didn't know that I was also
Speaker 1: a rapper that I hadn't you know, musical ambitions or
Speaker 1: anything like that. He didn't know about me. He just
Speaker 1: had seen this poet and he thought, well, I'd love
Speaker 1: to work out how this could be with music, you know,
Speaker 1: make an album. He saw something and the intention there
Speaker 1: that he wanted to pursue. At the time, I was
Speaker 1: extremely busy. I was about to put out everybody down.
Speaker 1: I was touring Brendny Ancients, I was doing rewrites and
Speaker 1: Wasted and Hopes he devoted, was about to start touring
Speaker 1: just two plays that I'd written. I was also working
Speaker 1: on my novel, which was really hard, and I was
Speaker 1: working on my.
Speaker 3: Poetry collection Hold your Own. There was like loads of
Speaker 3: stuff was going on.
Speaker 1: So he was just extremely patient and we just kept
Speaker 1: communicating slowly. Right, All this to say is such a
Speaker 1: long way of saying it. All this to say that
Speaker 1: the first week we actually managed to go there and
Speaker 1: do some writing at Rick's place. Dan and I, you know,
Speaker 1: a year probably went past, but we'd been talking. We've
Speaker 1: been talking, and this process that he was interested in
Speaker 1: had we'd begun to talk about what it was. But
Speaker 1: basically he'd said like loads of cryptic stuff that we
Speaker 1: didn't understand because he couldn't tell us what he wanted.
Speaker 1: He could just tell us when it wasn't quite right.
Speaker 1: So we said we made him demos in stretum, like
Speaker 1: you say, we sent him to him, and he was like,
Speaker 1: it's not quite right, it's not this. And then he
Speaker 1: was like, look, I don't want any drums. We were like, what,
Speaker 1: I don't want any drums? And then so we made
Speaker 1: like about ten like folk songs with a guitar, you know,
Speaker 1: like like really bizarre. That shows you how willing we
Speaker 1: were to like just follow his guidance and just do
Speaker 1: what do what we could, like throw ourselves out there.
Speaker 3: When we could.
Speaker 1: Anyway, we went out to Malibu to his studio in
Speaker 1: Malibu's incredible studio called shangru La, which is like paradise.
Speaker 2: Is it like paradise? You walk through and it's like
Speaker 2: beautiful setting, like the bus studio. This a legendary bus
Speaker 2: studio there obviously that Bob Divin's old taught us. But
Speaker 2: then like it looks like a green oasis like the
Speaker 2: pictures I've seen. And Rick Ruben's like padding around in
Speaker 2: the garden without any shoes on and just looking totally zen,
Speaker 2: waking up and eating grenoda and doing yoga. He just
Speaker 2: looks very identic. Is that really a reality? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Amazing, It's unbelievable, very different to what we know, you know,
Speaker 1: to how we used to reality being Suddenly it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is a new reality that we're very happy to
Speaker 1: be involved in.
Speaker 3: For a little bit of time. We like, we went
Speaker 3: out there with this kind of bag of folk songs.
Speaker 3: We didn't know what we were doing with.
Speaker 1: He started this process and it's like Rick, he kind
Speaker 1: of wasn't really around, and we were just like, what
Speaker 1: We've come all this way and he's not really here.
Speaker 1: And then basically we had to get our heads around
Speaker 1: what it was that was going to start happening.
Speaker 3: And what it was is that he would come in
Speaker 3: for about an hour in.
Speaker 1: The late afternoon and he'd listened to whatever it was
Speaker 1: that we'd made, and he talked to us.
Speaker 3: About it, and then he'd go away and we'd keep writing.
Speaker 1: And then he'd come back in the early evening for
Speaker 1: half an hour an hour, just listen again to whatever
Speaker 1: else we'd made, have another chat with us, and then
Speaker 1: he'd leave us to our own devices all night to
Speaker 1: turn those things around that he had said about the demos.
Speaker 1: So we just basically we must have made like a
Speaker 1: one hundred demos for this album. So all this to
Speaker 1: say is that some of those songs that are on
Speaker 1: this album did begin their life some years ago. Hold
Speaker 1: your Own the poem began life as a note that
Speaker 1: I wrote to myself because I was struggling to work
Speaker 1: out what I wanted to Hold your Own the poetry
Speaker 1: collection to say. And hold your Own the poem was
Speaker 1: me instructing myself. It was never intended for anyone else
Speaker 1: to hear it. It was like my way of getting
Speaker 1: my head in order about what I wanted my collection
Speaker 1: to do. And that's why I wanted it to do
Speaker 1: Like that was you know, I was talking about gender
Speaker 1: and sexuality and shame and all this stuff, which is
Speaker 1: what that poem is basically telling me to do.
Speaker 3: Anyway, So we got to.
Speaker 1: This point where I was we were so desperate to
Speaker 1: try and find ideas. We were really clutching at stores.
Speaker 1: We didn't know what it was that he wanted us
Speaker 1: to do. And I was just going through my notebook
Speaker 1: and I just tried that out, just tried reading that
Speaker 1: out while Dan played these chords on the bass, and
Speaker 1: we were getting to the point where it was like,
Speaker 1: I think actually that was the first time because Rick
Speaker 1: had been like, I don't want you to listen to
Speaker 1: the music. So I was like recording the lyrics outside
Speaker 1: intentionally not listening to Dan, because as soon as I
Speaker 1: heard a beat, I would start keeping to the beat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know, spent fifteen years learning how to stay
Speaker 1: on a beat. Like it's actually a really hard thing
Speaker 1: to hear a beat and not get on it. Like
Speaker 1: I just it just had never occurred to me that
Speaker 1: when there was music that I wouldn't be in time
Speaker 1: with the music. But Rick's thing was like, go at
Speaker 1: the integrity of the pace of the lyric. But he
Speaker 1: couldn't say you just go out the pace of the lyric.
Speaker 1: He just had to say, like it was so cryptic.
Speaker 1: Hold your own was the first one. When he heard that.
Speaker 1: He came in and he listened just this thing that
Speaker 1: I had in my notebook and downplaying the base and
Speaker 1: he was like, that's it. So that was the first
Speaker 1: one where we were like, okay, he wants me to
Speaker 1: just do poetry. We were like, what's the biggest rap
Speaker 1: producer of the little time? He's telling me to stop rapping?
Speaker 2: So Ricky could have just said that, Well.
Speaker 1: It's like he couldn't just say that because also the
Speaker 1: thing is, he can't just tell you what. You've got
Speaker 1: to find it. You've got to discover, like the process
Speaker 1: you've got to find out. Also, he doesn't know. He
Speaker 1: doesn't know any more than we know. He's just looking
Speaker 1: for this thing all the time. He's trying to strip
Speaker 1: away everything that's unnecessary, all the convention, everything that's like
Speaker 1: stabilizers or you know, security, Just get rid of that,
Speaker 1: get closer to the essence. That's not an easy instruction
Speaker 1: to give. It's a process. You have to just keep
Speaker 1: making demos. That was a really long winded way of
Speaker 1: saying that the writing process happened slowly over many years.
Speaker 1: But then once we finally had the shape and we
Speaker 1: had about six songs that he Rick could some of
Speaker 1: these are great, five or six of these are exceptional,
Speaker 1: and we took those six and we were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: these are really working. And then I wrote around those
Speaker 1: six to make it into a cohesive piece. Even as
Speaker 1: I was doing that, I had to fight the temptation
Speaker 1: to like narrativize and link too much, because Rick wasn't
Speaker 1: interested in that. He was like, you know, that's more
Speaker 1: stuff that gets in the way of the meaning. Put
Speaker 1: the meaning front and center, put the words at the front.
Speaker 1: You don't need to you don't need like narrative device,
Speaker 1: because it should just be there, like a real sort.
Speaker 2: Of hands off form of guidance that he provides actially,
Speaker 2: just comes gently, maybe nudging you in directions to make
Speaker 2: your own decisions about things. Maybe a little bit unnerving
Speaker 2: by the sound of it that he's not there nine
Speaker 2: to five forensically listening to the stuff you're doing, but
Speaker 2: sort of just popping in and just being like, have
Speaker 2: you thought that?
Speaker 3: Do you know what?
Speaker 1: But it's even better that he does it that way,
Speaker 1: because that's what he needs to do to be able
Speaker 1: to listen. If he was there all day, then his
Speaker 1: ears would get as tired as ours are getting, and
Speaker 1: he would you know, It's like, what would he be
Speaker 1: doing all day? Actually, Like the whole thing that he
Speaker 1: offers you is his ability to really listen. It's extremely
Speaker 1: rare for someone to listen that intently to your work.
Speaker 1: I've never experienced it before. I think that definitely some bands.
Speaker 1: I've spoken to other people that have worked with them,
Speaker 1: and definitely people are thrown at first by that thing
Speaker 1: because you're used to a producer being in the room
Speaker 1: with you, rolling up their slaves and getting stuck in.
Speaker 1: But he's just that's not what he's about. So Dan
Speaker 1: Kerry and I did we did the writing, We did
Speaker 1: the recording with an engineer, great engineer called Sean Opley,
Speaker 1: and he was just the ears. You know, he's just
Speaker 1: this like presence at the helm.
Speaker 2: It sounds like there's a lot of material, well ninety
Speaker 2: odd songs that didn't make the album. Perhaps you just
Speaker 2: you've got there that's been created. Do you think you
Speaker 2: will put those together into a collection at some point?
Speaker 2: They feel like they belonged to that time and that
Speaker 2: was that.
Speaker 1: I have this idea. I might be wrong about this,
Speaker 1: but I just don't think you should go backwards like that.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of writing towards a project. So
Speaker 1: for example, my novel that I mentioned and probably wrote
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand words that towards that novel that I
Speaker 1: cut that didn't make it. You know that it's you
Speaker 1: could call it. It's like demos. I made all these
Speaker 1: demos towards that final cut.
Speaker 3: If you allow.
Speaker 1: Yourself to be too attached to things that you've cut,
Speaker 1: then you're trapped. You're absolutely not able to move forwards creatively.
Speaker 1: And so there's a part of you that has to
Speaker 1: accept and acknowledge and enjoy the fact that, like, you're
Speaker 1: going to write a hell of a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: a lot of it's going to be no good, and
Speaker 1: the actually the decision to not use it is extremely liberating,
Speaker 1: and it's like such freshness free. It means that you
Speaker 1: can keep going. Because I associate the idea of like
Speaker 1: mining old material with an element of not believing I
Speaker 1: can create new material right now. That's like, that is
Speaker 1: the fear that makes me go back and mine old material.
Speaker 3: Why don't I just write something new? Why don't I
Speaker 3: just start from here. There's a story about like Hemingway.
Speaker 3: Who was it?
Speaker 1: I think it was Hemingway or one of those kind
Speaker 1: of like one of those kind of writers.
Speaker 3: I think it was.
Speaker 1: And basically he got to like twenty five and he
Speaker 1: had a briefcase with all of his notebooks that he
Speaker 1: had been carrying around all his life. You know, he
Speaker 1: wanted to be a writer, but he hadn't written anything yet.
Speaker 1: He wanted to be a writer. He had this briefcase
Speaker 1: with all his notes and his manuscripts. Obviously, back then
Speaker 1: there was no that was it. If you had your manuscript,
Speaker 1: that was your manuscript drags somewhere. Yeah, And there was
Speaker 1: a fire and he lost it all and it all burnt.
Speaker 1: And then he said that it was the best thing
Speaker 1: that ever happened to him, because suddenly he was free
Speaker 1: to actually write, actually write from now new You get
Speaker 1: so attached to old ideas you carry them around, you know.
Speaker 1: So right now, my feeling is, I'm really really happy
Speaker 1: that we made the decision to not use those demos,
Speaker 1: and I'm really glad that we had the ability and
Speaker 1: the time to write them and decide to discard them.
Speaker 2: Sounds like it was a surreal at moments being out
Speaker 2: at Changri La Yea. Even the day when Rick Ruven
Speaker 2: turns up with jay Z and brings him into playing
Speaker 2: your music. What was that experience?
Speaker 1: Like crazy, but like stuff like that was happening all
Speaker 1: the time. It's loads of crazy, crazy things are happening.
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to tell you, like the amount
Speaker 1: of just bizarre things, Like me and Dan were just
Speaker 1: there like what is this place? Like it's like what's
Speaker 1: going on? Like crazy stuff happened. And the guys that
Speaker 1: worked in the studio there's like really nice bunch of
Speaker 1: people that work as Shangry Light as well, like really
Speaker 1: cool bunch of people that work as technicians and assistants
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and they were all like, this
Speaker 1: is mad Rick doesn't do this like often, like just
Speaker 1: bring j up and like, you know, I just want
Speaker 1: it just happened all the time. But they were saying
Speaker 1: that it's a sign that he's excited about the project,
Speaker 1: which is really cool.
Speaker 2: I read some quotes from Rick saying that jay Z
Speaker 2: it really got into jay Z's head what he heard
Speaker 2: and it affected what he wrote for the next album
Speaker 2: that he made.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if it's true or not, but
Speaker 1: I definitely I remember him listening and and he was
Speaker 1: really moved, and then he was like, you know, can
Speaker 1: I play some of my demos?
Speaker 3: I was like, you just go out of his phone
Speaker 3: the whole time.
Speaker 1: It's like you're trying to like, remember, I mean, just
Speaker 1: a conversation between two creative people about creativity, like you've
Speaker 1: got to balance it somehow. There's a part of you
Speaker 1: that's like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: But then you have to just.
Speaker 1: Be like, come on, like why are you being like this?
Speaker 1: This is just the persons who loves language like like
Speaker 1: I do. And how exciting to be able to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with him about his lyricism or about mine
Speaker 1: or about music. But obviously he's learned. He's got so
Speaker 1: much he's learned in his life. All I could think
Speaker 1: about was like, I'm one step away from Beyonce. I
Speaker 1: think about to honest, I was just like, man, I
Speaker 1: suppose she's like almost she's more like a goddess, isn't
Speaker 1: she than him? He's like, she's like completely unbelievable, just
Speaker 1: such power. And that's that's I didn't mean her.
Speaker 2: Jay Z. This is great I'm really enjoying speaking to you.
Speaker 2: But I don't suppose that in the car, is shee?
Speaker 2: Because I've really liked to meet Yeah.
Speaker 3: I didn't mean that. It's just like a funny thing,
Speaker 3: isn't it. It's like a different, different world, different universe.
Speaker 1: It was magnificent that Rick felt good enough about our
Speaker 1: music to play it to someone so important as jay Z,
Speaker 1: And it was really cool that he came and listened
Speaker 1: to the demos.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I ever if I ever saw
Speaker 1: him again, I don't know if he'd remember me or
Speaker 1: it's not like we're mates.
Speaker 2: Did you and Dan feel self conscious in that situation?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Dan, When Jay left the room, Dan was like, God,
Speaker 3: look like jay Z.
Speaker 1: Basically, I just to put it in context, right, So
Speaker 1: we're really jet Like I hadn't like i'd got out
Speaker 1: of bed, I don't know, about four or five in
Speaker 1: the morning, Like we weren't really sleeping, and the stupid
Speaker 1: we were staying in these rooms opposite the bus, the
Speaker 1: bubbling talk Abou's where we were writing, and like I
Speaker 1: just got up.
Speaker 3: I hadn't really like had a shower or anything.
Speaker 1: Because it was like Oh my god, I think I
Speaker 1: understand what it is that Rick's been trying to tell us.
Speaker 1: I had this epiphany that he just wants poets, just
Speaker 1: me to do poetry flow, there can be a beat.
Speaker 3: I'd had this epiphany.
Speaker 1: So me and Dan we were like, I I got
Speaker 1: straight out of bed and got into the studio. I
Speaker 1: had on like a dirty shirt, you know, like I
Speaker 1: don't think I was wearing any shoes of socks.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, it sounds kind of gross to say it,
Speaker 1: but I was. I was not prepared to meet like,
Speaker 1: you know, anybody. I was. I was going into the
Speaker 1: studio with Dan to try and work out this bonkers
Speaker 1: thing that we were trying to do in this bizarre place.
Speaker 1: So when he came in, all I could think was like,
Speaker 1: did I brush my teeth properly?
Speaker 2: Like? Did I just sneak to jay Z with bad bread?
Speaker 3: I hadn't had a show anyway.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of embarrassing thing to admit, Like I
Speaker 1: rushed my teeth every morning. Everyone needs to know that.
Speaker 1: But like, just in that situation when suddenly you're like,
Speaker 1: hold on a minute, am I am I decent?
Speaker 2: Like isn't there lots of different kind of remnants of
Speaker 2: recordings and people that visited the studio, like Eminem's got
Speaker 2: a grapefruit tree and like various I know that's Slipknot
Speaker 2: and Black Sabbath to place recorded there and left different
Speaker 2: items of equipment and stuff. Did it feel like a
Speaker 2: place full of history? Did it have like an aura?
Speaker 1: It definitely has an aura, like one hundred percent got
Speaker 1: an aura. I mean, Rick's got an aura. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like you're just it's just an amazing place. So
Speaker 1: much attention is paid to creativity, either that it just
Speaker 1: feels like a church or something. You know, It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there is this kind of hush about the place, which
Speaker 1: is in contrast to all the noise that gets made
Speaker 1: in there, because everyone's just like so reverent about it
Speaker 1: because it's all about the music and it's like really
Speaker 1: amazing music. And also loads are kind of crazy pop
Speaker 1: stuff happens in there as well.
Speaker 3: It's just bizarre. I don't know, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, like I've never really had any contact with
Speaker 1: that that well before, so you know, like before I
Speaker 1: ever went to Dan Carey studio, I'd never seen a
Speaker 1: studio like that. I've just seen Like what when we
Speaker 1: said I'm going to the studio, it just meant go
Speaker 1: into your friend's bedroom. But where I had like a
Speaker 1: duv tapped up over the wall. Everything was always broken.
Speaker 1: And it's still like the best thing.
Speaker 3: In the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something like this that we're recording.
Speaker 3: This maze that zoom is like, that's a step up.
Speaker 1: We like shout out to create Bays who I spent
Speaker 1: my formative years like working with. It still felt like
Speaker 1: going to an amazing place, just going to my friend's
Speaker 1: bedroom and trying to make a track with no equipment.
Speaker 1: And then when eventually I got to Dan Carey's studio,
Speaker 1: the first time I looked around there walked in, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. I could not believe, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's like for a musician, for someone with an aspiration
Speaker 1: to be a musician, I wasn't a musician. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be all my life, I wanted to be a musician,
Speaker 1: but I was not able to do it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: get a record deal, I couldn't find a producer. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any money. Like it was like I couldn't
Speaker 1: have It was like I was a poet because out
Speaker 1: of necessity I had to. I had needed an outlook
Speaker 1: for my creativity. But what I wanted to do is,
Speaker 1: you know, be a recording artist. So then when I
Speaker 1: saw Dan Studio and saw that desk, He's got crazy
Speaker 1: desk and he had his first instrument is guitars. So
Speaker 1: he's got like guitars from all over the world. They're
Speaker 1: all hanging up around the studio and it's all one room,
Speaker 1: and he records the drums and the guitars all together
Speaker 1: in the room. But he's got all these clever ways
Speaker 1: of like using mics for different It was it blew
Speaker 1: my mind.
Speaker 3: It was like, wow, I want to be here.
Speaker 1: I want to be here to be honest, Like the
Speaker 1: amount of writing that we've done in that studio and
Speaker 1: Dan Studio.
Speaker 3: We wrote all of Everybody down there.
Speaker 1: We wrote we wrote out the meat Kale Stair, and
Speaker 1: we wrote the majority of traps and Leesson's there at
Speaker 1: Dan's and then like then going to Rick's place.
Speaker 3: It's just like.
Speaker 2: A bit of a step change. Crazy with this new album,
Speaker 2: you are obviously going to go out and play it
Speaker 2: at various festivals. I saw you a few weeks ago
Speaker 2: at Premia Various Sound in Barcelona and then in the
Speaker 2: autumn you're going to be doing in a UK tour.
Speaker 2: What are the moments like before you go on stage?
Speaker 2: How do you sort of prepare yourself psychologically took out
Speaker 2: and perform. Do you take a bit of a quiet
Speaker 2: moment away from Dan or whoever you performing with that night,
Speaker 2: or do you put some music on? Do you distract yourself?
Speaker 2: What are you doing in those moments before you go
Speaker 2: out and perform?
Speaker 1: Two or three hours before stage time, your body starts
Speaker 1: to feel it, even if your mind is fine. Your
Speaker 1: body starts to pre empt the adrenaline that's about to
Speaker 1: be unleashed. I have felt like really exhausted. You get
Speaker 1: really exhausted and you're like whoa, Suddenly you get really tired.
Speaker 1: You get nerves. I get crazy nerves for the Catford show.
Speaker 1: I was nervous from about four o'clock the afternoon before,
Speaker 1: couldn't eat, couldn't sit still, Like, I get crazy nerves.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't get them as bad as other times,
Speaker 1: but I always get them. So then what becomes important
Speaker 1: to manage those nerves and also for the shows when
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily feeling particularly present because you've been on
Speaker 1: tour and things are tiring or you don't get.
Speaker 3: A lot of sleep.
Speaker 1: On tour, You've got to be on it all the time,
Speaker 1: and it can grind you down a little bit. So
Speaker 1: it's also important to have those rituals for those days
Speaker 1: when you're not feeling particularly ready or aware of what's
Speaker 1: about to happen.
Speaker 3: A couple of hours before showtime.
Speaker 1: I've got my habits that I've formed with who I'm
Speaker 1: playing with at the minute. She's fantastic and she's been
Speaker 1: playing with me since everybody down and she's like an
Speaker 1: extremely grounding presence. We have some things that we do,
Speaker 1: like some meditations that we do, Like little things help.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I do listen to music. I listened to music,
Speaker 1: but an hour before stage time, I can't listen to
Speaker 1: any music two hours or three hours before I can.
Speaker 1: So I might listen to music for about an hour.
Speaker 1: I do some stuff, might do some general exercise or whatever,
Speaker 1: like read.
Speaker 3: I've got to read.
Speaker 1: I'll just chill out, try and try and stay cool,
Speaker 1: trying not to drink any alcohol before going up.
Speaker 3: Got to be careful about when you eat.
Speaker 1: Crazy things like that, like better to be hungry on stage,
Speaker 1: always better to be hungry than full up. Never good
Speaker 1: to be full up on stage. And this must sound
Speaker 1: really boring to everyone else, but.
Speaker 2: I don't at all know. I think these the preparations
Speaker 2: are going to because it is such. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: intense to be in the audience. It must be to
Speaker 2: fix yourself into that mindset night after night. I'm not
Speaker 2: surprised to hear you say that you need to go
Speaker 2: through a bit of a process to get that, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy, you do.
Speaker 1: Like there's certain stones, certain things that we can do,
Speaker 1: like that clear has introduced me to that encourage certain
Speaker 1: intentions by in a candle like I just try and
Speaker 1: get ready. It hits me about an hour before, so
Speaker 1: I have to I just basically I prepare for the
Speaker 1: hour before. Then the hour before comes and it hits
Speaker 1: me and it's like whoa, okay, and you feel it
Speaker 1: and things get a bit like it's like woozy. You
Speaker 1: get woozy, you get like you're kind of drifting around,
Speaker 1: You get kind of light headed, like you feel like
Speaker 1: you are I don't know, like moving somewhere.
Speaker 3: Something's happening. So yeah, I do things.
Speaker 1: I warm up my voice, I put my stock, put
Speaker 1: my clothes on that I'm gonna wear on stage. That's
Speaker 1: something helpful because I never used to give a shit
Speaker 1: about war on stage. And then I met this amazing
Speaker 1: guy called Harris Elliott, and he helped me understand that
Speaker 1: even to not make a decision about what you wear
Speaker 1: is a decision about what you were people like at
Speaker 1: some level, people are like they're reading it even if
Speaker 1: you're even if you wish they wouldn't, they still are.
Speaker 3: So that's been really cool.
Speaker 1: He's helped me work out how important it is actually
Speaker 1: to just have a shirt that you put on, and
Speaker 1: then you put it on and it's like right, one
Speaker 1: step closer then and then eventually when you get to
Speaker 1: the actual back of stage, then I have to do
Speaker 1: some stuff like I have to touch this. They have
Speaker 1: my little rituals that I have to do, and then
Speaker 1: you walk out and that's it. Like energy work, getting
Speaker 1: ready for the getting ready for what's about to happen,
Speaker 1: getting yourself in the right place.
Speaker 2: Not to wish ourselves too far beyond the album that
Speaker 2: you just released. Just the other day it was announced
Speaker 2: that you are going to be making your debut at
Speaker 2: the National Theater. He is twenty twenty. Twenty twenty sounds
Speaker 2: like a year that's made up because it's just somebody.
Speaker 2: It's like, twenty twenty. I think we're all going to
Speaker 2: be like in flying cars by that point. We're not.
Speaker 3: I'm just going to be dead.
Speaker 2: Possibly, Yeah, somebody would have Donald Trump would have nuked Iran.
Speaker 2: And so I mean in twenty twenty, you're going to
Speaker 2: be making your debut at the National Theater with a
Speaker 2: play called Paradise, Right, what can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2: If you started work on that, how far ahead of
Speaker 2: the preparations or something like that begin.
Speaker 1: I've been working on that play for about three years.
Speaker 1: Amazing how it works out, isn't it? Like people don't
Speaker 1: realize once a piece of work comes out, you've already
Speaker 1: been like traveling through life with it in your mind
Speaker 1: and body for ages years before it comes out. Usually,
Speaker 1: this fantastic theater director called Ian Rickson who directed famously
Speaker 1: directed a great play called Jerusalem, which I went to
Speaker 1: see not knowing who he was or not having met him.
Speaker 1: With my friend Even Manning, who's a fantastic theater maker.
Speaker 1: Big up Commonwealth, that's a fair company. Anyway, we went
Speaker 1: to see this play like years and years and years ago,
Speaker 1: and it absolutely blew my mind, changed my life. It
Speaker 1: was one of these rare moments where you're like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: what is this? This was I think before I was
Speaker 1: even writing theater, before I even wrote plays. I went
Speaker 1: to see that with her. Anyway, So this guy, I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to meet him. He came to see
Speaker 1: Brandow Ancients and we started to talk and there was
Speaker 1: immediately like obviously deep respect, and we've kept in touch
Speaker 1: and he's always been very generous with his advice about
Speaker 1: my stage show and my stagecraft. And then he just
Speaker 1: approached me with this project. It wasn't attached to any theater.
Speaker 1: It was just a project. He was like, look, I'm
Speaker 1: interested in this old play Philoptetes. It was the final
Speaker 1: play that Sophocles wrote. He'd just been like ten years
Speaker 1: in the Peloponnesian War as a general and they'd come
Speaker 1: home and he had built a shrine in his garden
Speaker 1: to peace, I think, and he'd written this play about
Speaker 1: essentially it's about PTSD really and victimhood and having a
Speaker 1: victim complex and fatherhood and sonship. And it's very male
Speaker 1: really because obviously all those plays were they were played
Speaker 1: by men. But traditionally the thing, you know, the themes
Speaker 1: that it investigates are very are themes often given to
Speaker 1: male characters.
Speaker 3: Anyway, we started this.
Speaker 1: Process with like a room full of wounded ex military
Speaker 1: men and women, because this player is about a wounded soldier,
Speaker 1: ex soldier who's a bandon on an island with a wound.
Speaker 1: That was the first time I'd ever really read this
Speaker 1: play was in this room full of these people reading
Speaker 1: it who'd served either in Northern Ireland or Iraq or Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Really interesting bunch of people that had like so much
Speaker 1: valuable stuff to feedback about this play and how they
Speaker 1: read it and what it meant certain aspects of it,
Speaker 1: what it meant to them. And this is a play
Speaker 1: that's over two thousand years old. That was really mind
Speaker 1: blowing for me to think about the nature of what remains.
Speaker 3: You know, it.
Speaker 1: Took ages from me to like process any of my
Speaker 1: thoughts about it because I was at the same time,
Speaker 1: I was touring and I do other things. But Ian
Speaker 1: linked me up with this fantastic woman called Helen who
Speaker 1: wrote me a literal translation of the play.
Speaker 3: So like literal like in the Greek.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't say Iland, it would say see surrounded land,
Speaker 1: because that's how they said it. And she knows everything
Speaker 1: about ancient Greece, and she can like speak ancient Greek,
Speaker 1: and she's crazy.
Speaker 3: She's an amazing women.
Speaker 1: So she gave me this real literal translation. And I've
Speaker 1: just been slowly working on drafts and drafts and drafts,
Speaker 1: trying to set the play free from Sophocles, trying to
Speaker 1: set myself free from the burden of trying to do
Speaker 1: a cover version of a song that is so fantastic.
Speaker 1: You know, Sophocles is obviously the great, great tragedian, and
Speaker 1: this version that will open at the National Theater, which
Speaker 1: is unbelievable, by the way, in the big room there
Speaker 1: as well the Olivia. It's unbelievable. That's like a crazy
Speaker 1: ambition that I had that I didn't believe. I didn't
Speaker 1: even tell anyone that I had that ambition, and now.
Speaker 3: It's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And so basically the play is very different in many
Speaker 1: ways to the original, but it's true to its essence.
Speaker 1: One of the main changes is that I've introduced a
Speaker 1: chorus of women, and that the players playing the male
Speaker 1: parts will be women because it makes the construction of
Speaker 1: these gender roles even more apparent when it's women playing
Speaker 1: men playing men, you know, because these characters really are
Speaker 1: playing men, like the soldier of the General.
Speaker 2: Got Leslie Sharks performing in it right. Magnificent actor who
Speaker 2: I was first introduced to via the full Monty Wow.
Speaker 2: She was in that. More recently she was in Three Girls.
Speaker 2: If you saw that, I did see that incredibly powerful
Speaker 2: bit of TV making. I thought, if you started rehearsals,
Speaker 2: people started into the players, yet start later down the line.
Speaker 1: We haven't started rehearsals, but what we have been doing
Speaker 1: is throughout this process is that every now and then,
Speaker 1: when when I have a draft that's ready because of
Speaker 1: the caliber of director Ian is because of the power
Speaker 1: that he has, Like he has been able to get
Speaker 1: us in a room with a bunch of actors so
Speaker 1: that I can hear what these lines actually actually sound like.
Speaker 1: Because it's all very well writing a conversation between nine people,
Speaker 1: but until you hear that, you've got no idea if
Speaker 1: anyone else can follow it, or if it's working or
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So we've had like a
Speaker 1: few workshop days and the actors have just been incredible.
Speaker 1: It's just been like for me, it's like a revelation
Speaker 1: obviously to suddenly have.
Speaker 3: You know, the orchestra there and they're just it's amazing.
Speaker 1: There's playing, they're singing this stuff, this text, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can follow it. It's like, Okay, that needs to change.
Speaker 1: That needs to change. Leslie came and she read the
Speaker 1: part of Philip T's and my partner, who's like obviously
Speaker 1: seen this play since its very beginnings when I started
Speaker 1: to write it made her cry. There's this performance just
Speaker 1: in a rehearsal room. You know, that's how powerful an
Speaker 1: actor she is. Also, my partner's pretty sensitive, so.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see it, really excited. We've obviously
Speaker 2: heard you talk a little bit about the work that
Speaker 2: you've done musically, the poetry books that you've written, the
Speaker 2: novel that you've written, the plays that you've written and
Speaker 2: now adapted, and things like that. Of all of the
Speaker 2: disciplines that you're involved with, when you look back at
Speaker 2: any of those things that you've done, have any of
Speaker 2: is one been particularly challenging? You've found that's really kind
Speaker 2: of wrung you out as a process that you found
Speaker 2: was just the most difficult thing that you've done.
Speaker 1: I definitely would say that the novel that I wrote
Speaker 1: was like it was extremely invigorating, but it was extremely challenging.
Speaker 1: I think also because of the time constraints that I
Speaker 1: was under, like I had to fit in like the writing.
Speaker 1: It would be like, right, I've got two days I
Speaker 1: come off tour. Here, I'm going back on the road. There,
Speaker 1: I've got two days and I've got to turn around
Speaker 1: like another forty thousand words. So it was like, so
Speaker 1: being up against that was like, okay, obviously in my life,
Speaker 1: like my actual life just disappeared, and I threw myself
Speaker 1: at it, and it was incredible, Like I was learning
Speaker 1: so much about a form that I have loved my
Speaker 1: whole life, you know. I mean, it's taught me so
Speaker 1: much more about the novel trying to write one. Getting
Speaker 1: to the end of writing one, I thought I knew
Speaker 1: a lot about novels because I read so many.
Speaker 3: Actually, I mean, like having an idea even.
Speaker 1: That like merits to form. It was like that was
Speaker 1: the most invigorated thing. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this idea is big enough. And during all these maps
Speaker 1: and like the first draft that I wrote that I
Speaker 1: sent around to the publishers, like I didn't even have
Speaker 1: any punctuation in it, really because I didn't properly. I'm
Speaker 1: not very good at grammar. I'm just I'm not, like
Speaker 1: I never have been. My dad's really dyslexic, so it's
Speaker 1: my sister.
Speaker 3: A bit might be. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel really comfortable with words, so I don't think
Speaker 1: it's that. But maybe I'm just a bit done with Grandma.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, I just can't. I don't get it.
Speaker 1: So it's like the first draft of the novel. Like
Speaker 1: the publisher she didn't know. She didn't know who I was.
Speaker 1: She didn't know that I was like a poet or anything.
Speaker 1: This is ages ago when she signed the novel up.
Speaker 1: She just thought I was a writer, and she was
Speaker 1: like I love it, but you know, I really you know,
Speaker 1: this is what a speech mark is and like this
Speaker 1: is what an end.
Speaker 3: Ash is for.
Speaker 1: And I just thought I was writing this, like, you know,
Speaker 1: cool experimental novel, because like most of the novels i'd
Speaker 1: red had been like experimental and how they laid out
Speaker 1: speech or whatever. But I realized that you have to
Speaker 1: know the rules to break them.
Speaker 2: The final couple of things, because I don't we've got
Speaker 2: too much more time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been talking loads, don't.
Speaker 2: I podcast absolutely.
Speaker 3: Thank you for giving me space to talk about my world.
Speaker 2: Our pleasure. Thank you for sharing all of your experiences
Speaker 2: that made it sound like a counseling session, which isn't
Speaker 2: quite kind of isting on a couch, Yeah it is
Speaker 2: a bit Yeah for people listening, we are just sat
Speaker 2: on it. There's no there's no windows in this room.
Speaker 2: It's just a couch in the corner. But it's fine.
Speaker 2: It's nice and quiet. By the time this goes out,
Speaker 2: glass and brief as all all you have happened. You're
Speaker 2: performing there this year, yep. But exciting is that Stormsy
Speaker 2: is one of the headliners, which feels like a really
Speaker 2: exciting moment for British wrap for like the culture that
Speaker 2: surrounds Stormsy and everything needs achieved the last few years.
Speaker 2: I just I can't wait. Basically, it's going to be
Speaker 2: really great. You're a big fan of hip hop generally
Speaker 2: and rap music, you know very much kind of like
Speaker 2: your beginnings kind of came in that area. So is
Speaker 2: that significant kind of symbolic moment do you think and
Speaker 2: are you excited. It sounds like you're probably looking forward
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing that. I think
Speaker 1: he's a fantastic artist. I think he absolutely deserves to
Speaker 1: be on that main stage, headlining that festival. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see what he pulls out the bag. I
Speaker 1: imagine it will be a really groundbreaking performance for sure.
Speaker 1: I think, like British music, British lyricism is in a
Speaker 1: really good place.
Speaker 2: Who else do you really really like?
Speaker 3: So many people?
Speaker 2: My favorite, one of my favorite alms of the years
Speaker 2: so far, it's Little Sims.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great album.
Speaker 2: Recent record is fantastic.
Speaker 3: It's a great album. She's fantastic.
Speaker 1: I love her commitment as I perceive it to her integrity.
Speaker 1: I really perceive that she's somebody who's extremely committed to integrity.
Speaker 3: I really respect that.
Speaker 1: And I think her lyricism is like I think it's
Speaker 1: like she's powerfully talented.
Speaker 3: You know, she's got powerful talent there. I love her flower.
Speaker 1: I like the way she sticks with the flow, like
Speaker 1: she like sticks She sticks with the flow, like the
Speaker 1: whole way that all the way through, she stays on
Speaker 1: it stays on, it staysn't it.
Speaker 2: Are there any achievements that you've still got your eye
Speaker 2: on down the line? I mean you've been involved. You know,
Speaker 2: you mentioned the National Theater and what thrill that's going
Speaker 2: to be to be able to have have Paradise on
Speaker 2: there next year. Is there anything else that is splitting
Speaker 2: around in your mind that you just sort of think
Speaker 2: I would love to do that.
Speaker 1: Well, Basically the thing about the National is that, like
Speaker 1: years ago, and I was touring Brand New Ancients. I
Speaker 1: think it's okay for me to say this because it's true,
Speaker 1: and so I'll say it. But years ago, when I
Speaker 1: was touring brandw Ancients, they said, would you like to
Speaker 1: come and do Brand New Ancients in our temporary structure
Speaker 1: that we're building outside the theater called the Shed? And
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, you're up for taking a risk
Speaker 1: by programming new work by a poet, like you know,
Speaker 1: it's different kind of stuff than what normally goes on,
Speaker 1: but you're not prepared to take the risk fully and
Speaker 1: program it in your main space. You want to put
Speaker 1: it in the shed outside And I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not really up for that, but you can put me
Speaker 1: in the main house. I definitely want to tell this
Speaker 1: story in the main house, like for sure, especially that
Speaker 1: particular story. You know what I meant and what it
Speaker 1: was about and who it's about. And then so I
Speaker 1: was like, thank you, but nah, I'm not up for
Speaker 1: being in the shared Actually I'm not really up for that. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, five years later, seven years later, even it
Speaker 1: was twenty twelve, it would have been seven years later.
Speaker 1: It took seven years of me just continuing to work
Speaker 1: and now okay, yeah, okay, now you can be in
Speaker 1: the main house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Now this play that I've written, which is I feel
Speaker 1: like the characters in it similarly, I want their stories
Speaker 1: to be heard in a huge space. I want these
Speaker 1: stories heard in a big space. These are big stories.
Speaker 1: So I mean, the reason the fact that I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I was an ambition. It was only an ambition because
Speaker 1: they'd said, oh, come and be outside. So that's why
Speaker 1: I had this urge to see if I could convince
Speaker 1: them that this kind of storytelling belongs in these big
Speaker 1: spaces that were built for language to be spoken and
Speaker 1: you know, for rhythm and right, like this is what
Speaker 1: these theaters are built for. Design is based on Epidavos
Speaker 1: the Olivier Theater, which is one of the old Greek
Speaker 1: theaters anyway. So you ask me about ambitions, but I
Speaker 1: don't really have specific ambitions. I've just got these kind
Speaker 1: of reflection ambitions, the things that have happened or come
Speaker 1: into my path. What I will say is that I absolutely,
Speaker 1: I absolutely hope that I'll continue to be creative.
Speaker 3: That's my main ambition.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that I think about, and I pray,
Speaker 1: you know, I really pray for Like, I just want
Speaker 1: to continue to mate work. I hope that I have
Speaker 1: got lots more albums to make in me, and I
Speaker 1: hope that I continue to finish fired. I definitely would
Speaker 1: love to write another novel. Basically, I would love to
Speaker 1: live a life which is always full of creativity. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily believe that it will be my work forever,
Speaker 1: like I'm very aware that that's not the case for
Speaker 1: most artists. But I hope I'll continue to be able
Speaker 1: to mate work for sure.
Speaker 2: Thanks coming on our podcast, Katie. It's an absolute pleasure
Speaker 2: having you on. Wish you all the very best with
Speaker 2: this album obviously, but also all of your work on
Speaker 2: the Players hitting the National Theater next year. Thanks much,
Speaker 2: nice one.
Speaker 3: Thanks everyone for listening.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: Good Night, H