Speaker 1: If you can play me a twenty six track album
Speaker 1: where there's more than four good songs, I'll give you
Speaker 1: a million quid.
Speaker 2: Good evening, everyone, wherever you're streaming this new episode of
Speaker 2: Midnight Chats, welcome and thank you for listening. I'm Greg
Speaker 2: and this is episode ninety of the podcast. Tonight's episode
Speaker 2: was recorded a couple of months ago. It was mid
Speaker 2: January when Ellie Jackson, obviously better known as LaRue, kindly
Speaker 2: invited me to her house in South London. As you
Speaker 2: can hear, LaRue was a little bummed up that day,
Speaker 2: but given she wasn't feeling one hundred percent, she was
Speaker 2: very hospitable and her place was also amazing, a house
Speaker 2: as vibrant, colorful and full of amazing objects as you
Speaker 2: would expect from Larux. For example, there's a giant gold
Speaker 2: painted palm tree in her living room that was a
Speaker 2: stage prop from one of her Glastonbury Festival performances a
Speaker 2: few years ago.
Speaker 3: We weren't alone.
Speaker 2: Kat Calypso was weaving in and out of our feet
Speaker 2: as we had this conversation, and downstairs was the kitchen
Speaker 2: table where she wrote her latest album, Supervision, which was
Speaker 2: her first in six years and that came out in February,
Speaker 2: so do make sure you're go and.
Speaker 3: Check that out.
Speaker 2: As for the chat, it was fascinating to hear her
Speaker 2: reflections on those early experiences of LaRue's exploding popularity. She
Speaker 2: was twenty one years old, new to the industry when
Speaker 2: In for the Kill and Bulletproof became huge hits. You
Speaker 2: might remember she won a Grammy around that same time
Speaker 2: as well. Then a few years on and the release
Speaker 2: of her second album, Trouble in Paradise in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: was a period marred by breakups and fractures of various
Speaker 2: different kinds, and then a little later on the life
Speaker 2: changing emotional realization or breakdown, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 2: which she describes in visceral detail that led to a
Speaker 2: moment of clarity and the beginning of this brand new
Speaker 2: era for Laru. Now, Ellie is a lot of fun
Speaker 2: to hang out with. Sweary and opinionated and funny and
Speaker 2: honest and refreshingly no bullshit. I felt pretty compelled by
Speaker 2: everything she had to say listening back to it. I
Speaker 2: hope you do too. So let's get into it. This
Speaker 2: is Midnight Chat's episode ninety with laru one final mention,
Speaker 2: as everyone is Star Clearware right now. These are uncertain
Speaker 2: times for many people and many independent businesses, ourselves included.
Speaker 2: And you've heard me say this before, but alongside this podcast,
Speaker 2: we also make a music magazine, Loud and Quiet. We've
Speaker 2: recently opened an online store at Loud and Quiet dot com.
Speaker 2: Do take a look in there. Maybe there's something you
Speaker 2: want to buy, including some rare archive issues of the
Speaker 2: magazine that we've put up for sale. It helps support
Speaker 2: what we do, including making this podcas Larie, welcome to
Speaker 2: Midnight Chats.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on not at all, thank you for having.
Speaker 2: Me, and thanks for letting us come to your house
Speaker 2: as well, because this is actually the place where you
Speaker 2: made Supervision, the album that you released recently, So thanks
Speaker 2: for letting us do it here. You just give me
Speaker 2: a little bit of a tour so people can have
Speaker 2: a bit of an idea. You made that album in
Speaker 2: the studio that you've built in the kitchen come basement
Speaker 2: of your of your of your house.
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, I hadn't actually, as I was saying, I
Speaker 1: hadn't actually sort of built it yet then because I
Speaker 1: realized it was the best place for me to make
Speaker 1: music was in my own environment. I really just wanted
Speaker 1: to keep it that way and I felt most comfortable there,
Speaker 1: so I then built the studio there. But actually I
Speaker 1: made supervision on the kitchen table, just on a laptop
Speaker 1: really and like with a keyboard and bass and guitar.
Speaker 2: How long have you been in this area? Have you
Speaker 2: always been South London? Is this just like you've been
Speaker 2: here long time?
Speaker 1: My parents live about five roads away and I grew
Speaker 1: up five roads away. I was born tech Conniclarly eat Peckham.
Speaker 1: But then when I was one we moved tourn Hill,
Speaker 1: but I say Brixton because nobody knows what hearn Hill
Speaker 1: is and it's mildly cooler.
Speaker 2: In terms of the beginnings of twenty twenty, you were
Speaker 2: one of the first people that actually saw at the
Speaker 2: beginning of twenty twenty because I was at home with
Speaker 2: a few of the people and we flicked on the
Speaker 2: TV and they were doing Jiles holland Who to Nanny.
Speaker 2: What was the experience like of doing that?
Speaker 1: It was actually quite a stressful day, but just because
Speaker 1: my keyboard player fell ill that day and we didn't
Speaker 1: know where she was, so it was quite stressful day.
Speaker 1: So we had a stand in almost an entirely stand
Speaker 1: in band for that day. Because it's also really last minute,
Speaker 1: Like they don't tell you weeks in advance. They tell
Speaker 1: you like four days in advance. And I'm not rehearsed
Speaker 1: obviously anything for tours. So it was kind of like, uh,
Speaker 1: this is not ideal, but we obviously really wanted to
Speaker 1: make it work, and we did. We did make it work.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was good in the end. It was
Speaker 1: really good in the end. And we've never actually done
Speaker 1: Jiles Holland atoll before, which seems kind of mad. We
Speaker 1: have been asked once or twice to think, but I
Speaker 1: think I've been ill once, so it was nice to
Speaker 1: finally do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you always consider doing something like that, or
Speaker 2: doing the hutin any specifically as a bit of a
Speaker 2: rite of passage because it is a famous thing to do.
Speaker 2: It's maybe a bit of a sort of tick list thing,
Speaker 2: isn't it because New Year's Eve, everybody thinks what's on TV?
Speaker 2: It's Jules Holland's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a right of passage. I
Speaker 1: think I think to not beyond Jules Holland when you've
Speaker 1: had you know, any kind of substantial music career seems
Speaker 1: a bit weird. And also I think as you get older,
Speaker 1: the likelihood of you going out on New Year's is
Speaker 1: so slim everybody, even though they don't really want to
Speaker 1: admit it. Pretty much most people do just stay in
Speaker 1: and watch Jills Holland and drink wine and then go
Speaker 1: to bed. Let's be honest.
Speaker 2: I hate to break into anybody who still thinks this,
Speaker 2: but like Jules Holand's doesn't actually take place live on
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve, so it's.
Speaker 1: Quite shocking to a lot of people, like as if
Speaker 1: we're all going to give up our New Year's to
Speaker 1: go to Maidstone.
Speaker 2: I think all of the people in that room would
Speaker 2: be even drunker if it actually was taking place like
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: Actually genuinely quite drunk, though I was mildly drunk by
Speaker 1: the time I'd gone on stage, just because you have
Speaker 1: to wait about three hours, so it's mainly bored and drinking.
Speaker 1: But I mean, yeah, maybe you've seen from the internet.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Ainsley Harriet is quite jolly and everyone
Speaker 1: was genuinely quite drunk, like all the audience members in
Speaker 1: the corners of the room. You are really quite drunk.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love how random Chilses Hollins who to
Speaker 2: Nanny Is? We were watching and there's obviously yourself, like
Speaker 2: Stormsy was on there.
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't fit, does it. It's like more it's
Speaker 1: not like they've curated.
Speaker 2: It is always really just kind of the guests selection
Speaker 2: is always a bit wilder than that your average episode Hollands.
Speaker 1: And even your average episode is quite random.
Speaker 2: And it was going from some New Year's Eve. It
Speaker 2: was obviously you played, but then there was like storm Z.
Speaker 3: Rick Astley, Stereophonics.
Speaker 2: You're never going to find yourself in a room with
Speaker 2: those people again, hopefully. And I love how they do
Speaker 2: those segments where oh, Mikayla Strachan was there, Yes, she was, yeah,
Speaker 2: And I was like, I had all about Mikayla Strachen
Speaker 2: since she presented the really wild show.
Speaker 1: I know, right, that was quite weird. That woman from
Speaker 1: Space was there as well, which was.
Speaker 2: Quite Cool's amazing, Jessica. I forget what I was saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she kept pointing at my outfit and I kept
Speaker 1: pointing at her shoes. She had amazing shoes.
Speaker 2: On What was the experience of actually performing like on
Speaker 2: Jills Holland.
Speaker 1: It's weird. I think it didn't help that I was
Speaker 1: having a bit of a strange day, do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Because my keeble playing my keyble players
Speaker 1: like my best friend as well, So I was actually
Speaker 1: quite worried. It was fine. I mean, TV's always weird.
Speaker 1: I think, if people are honest, nobody really enjoys doing TV.
Speaker 1: But it's really important for obvious reasons. But I think
Speaker 1: as an artist and as a performer, it's a quite
Speaker 1: a stale environment to perform in. And it's also it's
Speaker 1: very much on que It's very rare and weird to
Speaker 1: perform one song and then stop. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: you amp yourself up, you get vibed up to do
Speaker 1: something and then it's like, okay, now just be silent,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to go over here. It's just
Speaker 1: quite odd, you know, it's not very realistic. But it's fine,
Speaker 1: you know, it is what it is. It was absolutely fine.
Speaker 1: It was just nice to sing the tunes.
Speaker 2: Really, was there anything else that you take away from
Speaker 2: the experience of doing it? And so you post a
Speaker 2: photo of you and Stormsy on New Year's Day, like
Speaker 2: obviously taken when you recorded it, But you know, was
Speaker 2: there anything where you're like, oh that, that was a
Speaker 2: pretty cool element of being there and doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was nice to meet him. I think he's
Speaker 1: a fellow South Londoner as well, so we spoke about
Speaker 1: that for a little bit. He actually sort of ran
Speaker 1: up to me halfway through the evening and said, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I didn't realize it was you. And I
Speaker 1: sort of thought, I'm not really sure how you could
Speaker 1: not realize it was me, but I'm wearing a pink
Speaker 1: and green petrol outfit. But never mind. But then, yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a really nice chat and he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I sampled you on my first EP or mixtape or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then we had a bit of a chat and
Speaker 1: he said he was a big fan and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: so that's a really nice compliment. Yeah, it's really nice
Speaker 1: to meet him. He's a really nice guy. He's like
Speaker 1: the tallest guy I've ever met, though.
Speaker 2: So I've got to ask on actual New Yars Eve,
Speaker 2: did you watch it?
Speaker 3: You didn't put it on?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I went round to Dan Carey's house, who
Speaker 1: I ended up recording co producing the end of the
Speaker 1: record with, and we had dinner, but his family were
Speaker 1: all quite ill. And then I was just in the
Speaker 1: middle of talking to him saying something. I was talking
Speaker 1: to him and his wife, and he just was looking
Speaker 1: at me really disapprovingly, and I thought, well, am I
Speaker 1: saying that's so awful? And then he just said, I
Speaker 1: think I need to go and be sick. I met
Speaker 1: up with some friends after that for like an hour
Speaker 1: or so, and then I just went to bed. I
Speaker 1: never watched myself back. It's not it's not a good idea.
Speaker 1: I don't read interviews, I don't watch myself back. I
Speaker 1: don't listen to myself. It's just how to hate yourself
Speaker 1: in three easy steps. You know, i'd really rather not.
Speaker 2: Did you do that in the early days? Did you
Speaker 2: kind of learn a lesson of doing that or have
Speaker 2: you always faut that way? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I learned my lass in the hard way. It's just best.
Speaker 1: You know, you'll never see yourself the way other people
Speaker 1: see you. Ever, you'll never hear yourself to other people
Speaker 1: hear you. I'm a massive perfectionist anyway, So if I
Speaker 1: watch something and everybody else says it's amazing, it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any difference, you know, it just makes zero difference,
Speaker 1: I'll be like, oh, but then I looked a bit
Speaker 1: weird when I looked over to the left, and I
Speaker 1: looked uncomfortable. It's like you know yourself too well. It's
Speaker 1: like your mom knows you too well, Like your mom
Speaker 1: will always know if you're nervous, even if nobody else does.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like it's just everything's very transparent, and
Speaker 1: I think you just don't need to You don't need
Speaker 1: to scrutinize yourself to that degree. Like if everybody says
Speaker 1: it's good, just accept it and move on. You know,
Speaker 1: you did the best you could. You can't rewind and
Speaker 1: do it again either. It's not like you can go back,
Speaker 1: so you might as well just move on.
Speaker 2: I just want to ask a little bit about the
Speaker 2: kind of early years when I mean I came to
Speaker 2: see LaRue when you first started out and like we're
Speaker 2: playing shows. I think the Enemy Radar at All was
Speaker 2: maybe the first time I saw you, which I think
Speaker 2: was around sort of two thousand and nine ten something
Speaker 2: like that, and it just occurred to me, and the
Speaker 2: run up to like coming to chat to you today,
Speaker 2: I was like that whole experience of how everything went
Speaker 2: around the first album you were in your really early twenties,
Speaker 2: and it kind of thrust into this much bigger world
Speaker 2: of kind of like obviously the popularity that came in
Speaker 2: the UK, but then you know, off to the States
Speaker 2: you went eighteen months later on a Grammy. When you
Speaker 2: think about that time now, was it as head spinning
Speaker 2: as I kind of imagine for somebody who was, you know,
Speaker 2: in your early twenties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really odd. Whilst I knew that, like
Speaker 1: Bulletproof was going to be big and we all knew that,
Speaker 1: and management had said it was going to be big,
Speaker 1: and the labeler said it was going to be big,
Speaker 1: it's hard to comprehend what that kind of means for
Speaker 1: you as an individual. So you might be kind of like, oh, wow, brilliant,
Speaker 1: I might be number one, or you know, I might
Speaker 1: sol as a record. You know, I have no problem
Speaker 1: with that, but there's a lot of other stuff that
Speaker 1: comes with it. I'm experiencing some of it now, even
Speaker 1: though I'm not having a hit currently necessarily a sun
Speaker 1: you don't you can't really have a hit hit in
Speaker 1: the same way that you could then anyway, not for
Speaker 1: an artist like myself, but just the workload it's so
Speaker 1: intense for a twenty one year old. I found myself
Speaker 1: becoming very, very very scared. Mainly I think I wasn't ready.
Speaker 1: I was ready for success, but I wasn't ready for
Speaker 1: the amount of pressure. So I don't mind, you know,
Speaker 1: millions of people knowing my song. I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: will complaining about that. But and fame wasn't really that
Speaker 1: much of an issue. It wasn't like I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I had any privacy or I
Speaker 1: was getting stopped in the street. That wasn't an issue.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that. It was just the house full on.
Speaker 1: Everything was you know, the traveling and like I said,
Speaker 1: I haven't been doing it for five years now and
Speaker 1: it's all taken me slightly by surprise. But it was
Speaker 1: just being that young, not really knowing yourself and your limitations,
Speaker 1: and also not really being able to communicate them. And
Speaker 1: even if you do, you're kind of just like a
Speaker 1: twenty one year old girl who's like moaning in inverted comments.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? It's like you don't
Speaker 1: really get listened to, you don't get taken that seriously.
Speaker 1: I don't think you had the right people around me
Speaker 1: at that time either, So I think whilst I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I never expected this, This is incredible, it's also really
Speaker 1: really really hard to know how to deal with it.
Speaker 1: Like there's no Millions of people have said there really
Speaker 1: is no instruction booklet, and there's there's nothing I'd even
Speaker 1: say to myself. Now if I looked back, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even go, oh, you could do this better, or you
Speaker 1: could do that, or why didn't you try that? You know,
Speaker 1: because also you're twenty one, you would have first of all,
Speaker 1: you would have said, fuck off, I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And second of all, you can only know that stuff
Speaker 1: later on. You can't. You can't just get it right then,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to get it wrong to get
Speaker 1: it right. It wasn't that sort of amazing time that
Speaker 1: I look back on, But it also just feels like
Speaker 1: it went in a heartbeat. It went in a flash,
Speaker 1: and I didn't get time to enjoy it.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Like if you, I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you is your Grammy Award around
Speaker 2: here somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's upstairs somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because it was happening so like fleetly and so
Speaker 2: like fast paced that in a way. To the outside,
Speaker 2: you're thinking, oh, well, it must have been absolutely incredible
Speaker 2: going to the Grammys and having your weekend there and
Speaker 2: then but you were.
Speaker 1: Which that was actually amazing. I mean, that really was amazing.
Speaker 2: But why was that experience so memorable for you? Well,
Speaker 2: I mean apart from the obvious of going to the
Speaker 2: winning a Grammy, but like, tell me a bit about
Speaker 2: that weekend.
Speaker 1: First of all, I was just in shock. I think
Speaker 1: it means a lot less to me now than it
Speaker 1: did then because I realized that unless you're happy, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what award you're given by somebody else. But
Speaker 1: at the time, obviously I remember the my American A
Speaker 1: and R man texting me. I woke up at like
Speaker 1: seven o'clock in the morning one morning around this time
Speaker 1: of year, and he said, you've been nominated and I
Speaker 1: was like for what, And he's like, for the Grammys,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what were you talking about. You
Speaker 1: know when you wake up to a text message and
Speaker 1: you think I've not read that right, I've read that wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean, just have a cup of tea and I'll
Speaker 1: just wake up and I'll read it again, and then
Speaker 1: I won't read that, and I still read that, and
Speaker 1: I thought, that's this can't this must be an error, like,
Speaker 1: you know, literally, this must be an error. And I
Speaker 1: called him and I was like, what do you mean,
Speaker 1: I don't get this. I said, You've been nominated for
Speaker 1: a Grammy. Obviously, now I know how these awards harmonies work.
Speaker 1: So it's not about me doing myself down or the
Speaker 1: Grammy down, or taking anything away from myself or saying
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean anything to me. But you know, I
Speaker 1: had a huge record label that were pushing for that,
Speaker 1: pushing for that award, and obviously they pushed really hard
Speaker 1: and that they got what they wanted, and I kind
Speaker 1: of got what I wanted, but I never really even
Speaker 1: knew I wanted it. I'd never even dreamt of having
Speaker 1: a Grammar. I wouldn't have even dreamt to dream that big,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? I would have It
Speaker 1: would have scared me to even think about dreaming that big.
Speaker 1: So I think it was mainly just severe shock. And
Speaker 1: as you can see, when I received the award, I
Speaker 1: was like, what the fuck is going on? I mean,
Speaker 1: I was just basically hyperventilating. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with myself because to me, even
Speaker 1: though that was more like the shmammis, you know they
Speaker 1: call it there where you're not allowed in the main
Speaker 1: you're not actually allowed in the main Grammy arena, So
Speaker 1: you're not actually in the main Staples Center bit. You're
Speaker 1: in like another bit with like fold out chairs and
Speaker 1: you get your Clipso get out of the draw. Please
Speaker 1: shut that door because there's treats in there, and then
Speaker 1: she'll just try and get.
Speaker 2: In there.
Speaker 3: The sideboard there, or.
Speaker 1: You can get the treats out and give them to her,
Speaker 1: or she'll just bug you for the whole time.
Speaker 3: Is she angry or is she is she she's.
Speaker 1: Not angry, she doesn't hate you, she really likes you,
Speaker 1: or she wouldn't be anywhere near you, I promise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was that kind of it's in like a
Speaker 2: side room and it takes place that before it's because
Speaker 2: the Grammys lasts about seven hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that was one sort of good thing
Speaker 1: about it was that I didn't have to sit through
Speaker 1: this seven hour ceremony. But at the same time, sorry,
Speaker 1: the cats really amusing me. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you're kind of like, oh, I really wish I was
Speaker 1: in the main Grammys and I'm not I'm in this
Speaker 1: room with fold out chairs with no windows, which is
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, but then near they call your name,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really know what to do with myself.
Speaker 1: And also, I think somebody who grew up in the
Speaker 1: nineties where you're watching MTV and you'd see like MTV
Speaker 1: Cribs or whatever. There'd be like huge, huge rappers and
Speaker 1: like Mariah Carey and people like that, you know, was
Speaker 1: shoving off their Grammys and cabinets and stuff, and you
Speaker 1: just don't ever comprehend that it could even happen to
Speaker 1: a really a British person, because I was just like,
Speaker 1: what am I even allowed to win a Grammy? I
Speaker 1: didn't really get it, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I thought you had to be American for starters. I
Speaker 1: didn't really know much about the Grammys. And second of all,
Speaker 1: I just thought, I can't understand how an album with
Speaker 1: reflections are protection on it is getting it. I just
Speaker 1: didn't make any sense to me, and it sort of
Speaker 1: still doesn't now, you know. I look at it upstairs
Speaker 1: and it's just a bit of a joke.
Speaker 2: Sticking with the same period, Doctor Dre sampled the track
Speaker 2: of yours, and then it was going to be the Detox,
Speaker 2: wasn't it, which never materialized.
Speaker 1: Got CD of it.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, what, Yeah, did it ever materialize?
Speaker 1: No, I don't know what happened. Apparently apparently other weird sorry,
Speaker 1: but apparently the Game and Doctor Dre were hanging out
Speaker 1: watching Oh god.
Speaker 3: What was it?
Speaker 1: Yes, they were watching Entourage and In for the Kill
Speaker 1: was on it, and they both apparently were like what
Speaker 1: is this? Decided to sample it, and then I was
Speaker 1: playing something like V Festival or something awful, and my manager,
Speaker 1: thank god, that doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't, does it?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Thank god? And my manager said, oh, I've got this
Speaker 1: CD of Doctor Dre and the Game and in physicill
Speaker 1: Do you want to listen to it in my car?
Speaker 1: I was like yes, So he went into his car
Speaker 1: and we listened to it, and it had like properly
Speaker 1: of Universal recordings like all over it, like every three seconds,
Speaker 1: so you almost couldn't hear the track. It's really funny.
Speaker 1: It's like watermarking to the extreme. Yeah, it was really funny,
Speaker 1: so you could kind of hear it, and you kind
Speaker 1: of couldn't. I mean, not really a lot happened in it,
Speaker 1: it was basically just like it was basically just I
Speaker 1: don't really remember it. It was, you know, but it
Speaker 1: was just like, this is fucking cool. It had like
Speaker 1: good beats obviously, but yeah, I have no idea what
Speaker 1: happened with that. God knows.
Speaker 3: God knows might make its way onto the internet.
Speaker 1: He never knows.
Speaker 2: So if we fast forward a little bit too sort
Speaker 2: of troubling Paradise era, from what I've kind of read
Speaker 2: and the stuff that you said so far, like it
Speaker 2: sounded like that was a period that was kind of
Speaker 2: fraught with lots of difficult relationships personal and professional, and
Speaker 2: perhaps like after that you could just needed to get
Speaker 2: back here and get away from that. I don't know,
Speaker 2: like I've been putting that in the right terms, Like.
Speaker 1: I don't think I was thinking much. Really, I don't
Speaker 1: think I was really in control of my career at
Speaker 1: that point. Now that I am so sort of in
Speaker 1: control of my career, I think I realize now how
Speaker 1: much I really wasn't then, you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: much more obvious to me now at the time, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think how I felt. I mean, I'd come
Speaker 1: out of a lot of voice problems, and that was
Speaker 1: like my main concern, So I didn't really have a
Speaker 1: lot of focus on other things because I was sort
Speaker 1: of just so worried about my anxiety all the time.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, so many people are anxious
Speaker 1: now that most people understand this. I think it's just
Speaker 1: all you think about is not being anxious. You don't
Speaker 1: really think about anything else, and that's kind of all
Speaker 1: I thought about. And then obviously I did want to
Speaker 1: make another record. I wanted to get another record out there,
Speaker 1: but I'd also sort of slightly entangled myself in another
Speaker 1: sort of relationship. By getting out of one, I'd sort
Speaker 1: of entered into another one. And I don't think I
Speaker 1: realized how obviously unhealthy that was for me personally as
Speaker 1: a creative until twenty seventeen, when I ditched the album
Speaker 1: I ditched and started making this one. I think it's
Speaker 1: unfortunate that sometimes it takes so long to learn a
Speaker 1: lesson that it really is unfortunate. I would really have
Speaker 1: like there not to be such large lapses of time
Speaker 1: in my career so far, but there's also nothing I
Speaker 1: can do about it, because you only learn as quickly
Speaker 1: as you learn, and I'm really grateful that I've learned
Speaker 1: those lessons now and now I've made this record. But
Speaker 1: I think I just felt a bit in the middle
Speaker 1: of everything, in a bit, probably a bit lost, but
Speaker 1: not very aware of my situation, because otherwise I would
Speaker 1: have done a lot more about it. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: have been more proactive. And I think I was just
Speaker 1: slightly in a backseat in my life. If I'm honest
Speaker 1: with you, I think I was letting other people not
Speaker 1: other people, but no one really take the reins. But
Speaker 1: I certainly wasn't taking the reins. I knew that I
Speaker 1: had to stop working with my record label because that
Speaker 1: had really come to a bitter end. They were kind
Speaker 1: of quite rightly as well. They were really fed up
Speaker 1: with me by that point. You know. They were like,
Speaker 1: you've spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds making
Speaker 1: a record that you won't let us listen to or
Speaker 1: have any saying, like, you're going to get annoyed. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? You are going to get annoyed.
Speaker 1: But I was really trying to put push back. I
Speaker 1: was so terrified of being turned into a crap pop artist,
Speaker 1: you know, into just somebody that gets sent to writing
Speaker 1: sessions and you know, has to sound like the last
Speaker 1: thing that was in the top ten and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it. I was just I think I was
Speaker 1: really overly scared about it, because obviously that wasn't going
Speaker 1: to happen. I don't think that was ever going to
Speaker 1: happen to LaRue. It just wasn't going to happen. But
Speaker 1: I was still terrified of it to the point where
Speaker 1: where I kind of pushed everyone away to a great
Speaker 1: extent and didn't really allow them back in. My world
Speaker 1: kind of got smaller and smaller, and they got more
Speaker 1: and more annoyed, quite rightly, and I hated them more
Speaker 1: and more because we just never got on. We never
Speaker 1: agreed about anything. You know. Their answer to all the
Speaker 1: problems with Traveling Paradise Is promotion was like, get such
Speaker 1: and such a DJ to remix the track, you know,
Speaker 1: to get more plays and sales and stuff, and that, obviously,
Speaker 1: I just led to a lot of arguments and a
Speaker 1: lot of shouting, I'm not fucking doing that, etc.
Speaker 2: Etc.
Speaker 1: How can you turn this down, yoursel fish, bitch rohrah.
Speaker 1: You know, those sorts of conversations were going on behind
Speaker 1: closed doors all got quite unpleasant after a while, and
Speaker 1: I think in the end, actually the best thing for
Speaker 1: everybody involved was just to not work with me anymore.
Speaker 1: And they sent me a letter. I received it on
Speaker 1: like the first of January twenty fifteen, just saying you know,
Speaker 1: you're no longer with Universal Records, and I was very
Speaker 1: very happy. I called my parents and I sent them
Speaker 1: out and they were like, oh, thank God for that.
Speaker 1: So it was actually a really good day. It was
Speaker 1: the right thing that happened. And then I realized I
Speaker 1: needed to move away from my management as well, So
Speaker 1: there was just a lot of it wasn't actually all bad.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's really really bad, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was actually all the right moves. And I just
Speaker 1: needed to get away from everything that had happened in
Speaker 1: the last five or six years and the first and
Speaker 1: second record, and needed to build new relationships with myself
Speaker 1: and with everybody else. I needed to go and find
Speaker 1: new working partners, which actually it took me a really
Speaker 1: long time to find. I think even if I'd have
Speaker 1: made this record sooner, it wouldn't have made that much
Speaker 1: different different so at the time that it came out,
Speaker 1: because I still needed to find the right management team.
Speaker 1: I still needed to find the right record label set
Speaker 1: up for me. And actually, that stuff doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker 1: It's taken years.
Speaker 2: Speaking specifically about the music, was there almost a moment
Speaker 2: that you can pinpoint where as you just mentioned you've
Speaker 2: got an album's worth material to follow up to Trouble
Speaker 2: in Paradise ready, and then you're like, no, just doesn't
Speaker 2: feel right and effectively kind of like scrap that repurge next,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna start again. Was it almost in
Speaker 2: Is it like a memorable instant that that happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, it happened overnight. That was the only quick thing
Speaker 1: that's ever happened to me. Everything else like the years.
Speaker 1: This was literally overnight. I was on holiday with my
Speaker 1: ex partner and we were just walking down to the beach,
Speaker 1: down to this like tiny, tiny beach. There's nobody there.
Speaker 1: We were walking down this little gravel path and I
Speaker 1: just remember, I don't really know what said it off.
Speaker 1: Actually I do know what said it off. I was
Speaker 1: talking about the person that i'd been in the studio with,
Speaker 1: and I realized that I was I'd sort of like
Speaker 1: I just let them in way too much, in loads
Speaker 1: of ways, and I realized that I wasn't really acting
Speaker 1: for myself anymore.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel really present in those songs, like you
Speaker 2: didn't feel always as.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't, it didn't. It felt like it was
Speaker 1: going in another direction, like it almost felt like another
Speaker 1: band or something. And I think I'd been telling myself
Speaker 1: because of my fears of being overly possessive or being greedy,
Speaker 1: because I think everybody has those fears, and especially as
Speaker 1: somebody doing this job, it's very easy to make somebody
Speaker 1: scared of basically being a cunt, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And I'm so scared of being a cunt
Speaker 1: all the time that I think sometimes actually I allow
Speaker 1: things to happen to me that are really not okay
Speaker 1: because I'm so worried about the way affecting somebody else.
Speaker 1: I realized that I had gone down that path way
Speaker 1: too far, and I wasn't happy actually with where I
Speaker 1: was artistically. You know, it's not that the music was
Speaker 1: bad or anything like that. It's not like I thought, God,
Speaker 1: there music shit. It wasn't that. It was just what
Speaker 1: am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why am
Speaker 1: I allowing this set up to continue when I'm not
Speaker 1: happy with it, And why am I talking about things
Speaker 1: as if I'm happy with them when I'm clearly not
Speaker 1: happy with them. And when you're talking to your partner,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes things become quite stark. I was just
Speaker 1: listening to myself and I could hear myself sort of
Speaker 1: saying things I didn't even believe in, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't even believe that, but I'm saying it like
Speaker 1: I believe it. And I thought, who's in my head?
Speaker 1: And why are they there? You know? And I basically
Speaker 1: I just literally instantly collapsed and I had a panic attack,
Speaker 1: which I hadn't had for years. So that freaked me out.
Speaker 1: And we were just sat crouched on the floor trying
Speaker 1: to calm me down, and you know, she was like,
Speaker 1: what was wrong? Why is it so bad? Why are
Speaker 1: you so unhappy? What's going on? I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Where's this comas has come from? Nowhere? Because there's no
Speaker 1: warning to this at all, And I just said, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just I think I'm deeply, deeply unhappy
Speaker 1: and I haven't realized until right this second, and I'm
Speaker 1: not happy with what I'm doing I'm not happy with
Speaker 1: the setup. I'm not happy with the amount of time
Speaker 1: it's taking and has taken, and it's not even finished yet,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm not happy with where the studio
Speaker 1: is or how it's set. I just suddenly I realized
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and I was just it just was
Speaker 1: like puking. And then I went and made a lot
Speaker 1: of phone calls. I don't think we went to the
Speaker 1: beach that Yeah, we didn't get an ice cream. After that,
Speaker 1: we went. I think we went back to the villa
Speaker 1: and I had a bit of a debrief with some
Speaker 1: family members and some friends and stuff, and just decided
Speaker 1: to make a big change.
Speaker 2: You know what's great about hearing that and taking like
Speaker 2: all the positives from that is that that moment happened. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you didn't kind of write it off as just sort
Speaker 2: of like like a kind of just moment of upset
Speaker 2: and just kind of be like, Okay, no, we'll just
Speaker 2: get back to it, it'll be fine.
Speaker 1: No, it was really bad.
Speaker 2: Everything that you've built in the last few years came
Speaker 2: from that moment, and you actually, in that moment, in
Speaker 2: the panic, collected your thoughts about what you're going to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I even had to kind of argue because
Speaker 1: I remember I remember calling my mum and she was like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not doing that. You are not doing that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're stressing me out. Now. She was like, you can't
Speaker 1: be saying this to me after three years. You cannot
Speaker 1: be telling me you're about to ditch this whole project.
Speaker 1: You can't be. And at the time, actually I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to be able to take some songs
Speaker 1: and write some new songs and take some bits and
Speaker 1: bobs that I'd done. But at the time it's just
Speaker 1: me trying to, I think, be just trying to salvage
Speaker 1: what I could. But actually that wouldn't have even been
Speaker 1: a good idea. It would have been a mess of
Speaker 1: an album because it would have been coming from two
Speaker 1: different places and it was also just a bit unrealistic
Speaker 1: and you know, just unlikely. But I think at the
Speaker 1: time that that was the way I was sort of
Speaker 1: making it okay. In my head, was like, well, it's
Speaker 1: not all wasted, you know, I can use this and
Speaker 1: I can use this and blah blah blah. But even then,
Speaker 1: you know, my parents were like, are you really sure
Speaker 1: about this. Are you not just having a bit of
Speaker 1: a panic, you know, if you just had a panic
Speaker 1: attack and you just need to calm down, and are
Speaker 1: you going to change your mind tomorrow? And do you
Speaker 1: need to sleep on it? I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: need to sleep on this. I really really don't. I
Speaker 1: never really felt anything so strongly in my life. I
Speaker 1: remember even calling my lawyer in my accountant like within
Speaker 1: hours and saying, change the whole setup I have. This
Speaker 1: has to stop now. I realize what I'm doing and
Speaker 1: it's really it's really wrong, and we and we have
Speaker 1: to stop it now.
Speaker 2: Let's bring ourselves up to the current day, so to speak.
Speaker 2: On reflection of that, that was the starting point of
Speaker 2: basically a new chapter where he wrote this collection of
Speaker 2: new songs that's formed supervision, that you recorded in your kitchen,
Speaker 2: and then you've built a studio at home. It's a
Speaker 2: sort of new era. Really, all of the stuff that
Speaker 2: we've just talked about to this point. Does it feel
Speaker 2: like the experience of going through all that has actually
Speaker 2: giving you some greater clarity than you've ever had before.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like a greater confidence, like a more
Speaker 2: control in what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. I feel like I'm starting my career again,
Speaker 1: but from the place I always needed to start it from. Mentally,
Speaker 1: at least, I could never start my career again, but
Speaker 1: I can. I can do things in the way that
Speaker 1: I want to do them. And it was also interesting
Speaker 1: because actually, even on that day when I had all
Speaker 1: those realizations whatever you want to call them, I went
Speaker 1: through some voice notes. Like the next day I kept
Speaker 1: I had loads of voice notes from the album we
Speaker 1: were making. It's actually overly extensive. When I look back,
Speaker 1: it was quite strange. I've got them still now. You
Speaker 1: think you can actually see how unhealthy the album was
Speaker 1: by how much thinking there was going on. It was
Speaker 1: way too much. It was like way too many harmony options,
Speaker 1: way too many all sorts of things. It was just
Speaker 1: too much. Like it was like no decisions were being made.
Speaker 1: It was just options, options, options, options, which is never
Speaker 1: a good sign. And I but I went back in
Speaker 1: between all those voice notes, and I'd suddenly found realized
Speaker 1: that I'd found, you know, the voice note for twenty
Speaker 1: first Century, a voice note for do You Feel, a
Speaker 1: voice note for some other track that actually didn't end
Speaker 1: up on the album in the end. But I already
Speaker 1: had like a couple of the ideas that formed this album,
Speaker 1: and I think the correct part of me, the right
Speaker 1: part of me, had sort of already already sort of
Speaker 1: been thinking that quite a long time before I made
Speaker 1: that decision, and then when I started doing it, it's
Speaker 1: all just felt so right since and I never would
Speaker 1: have had the confidence when I was younger. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, even when I was making the record
Speaker 1: with Ben, I remember there being uncomfortable conversations with both
Speaker 1: of us about whether it was a solo project or
Speaker 1: whether it wasn't, and me backing down in the end
Speaker 1: and feeling bad because you know, we'd co written so
Speaker 1: many of the you know, most of the songs and
Speaker 1: all the songs really, but it's just because you co
Speaker 1: write songs doesn't mean you're in a band. You know,
Speaker 1: Otherwise every single pop artist out there would be in
Speaker 1: a band, do you know what I mean? But I
Speaker 1: think again, it's slight, even though I'm mouthy and all
Speaker 1: the rest of it, actually backing down quite a lot
Speaker 1: in lots of areas that I wasn't happy with, and
Speaker 1: I just won't do it anymore. And I won't be
Speaker 1: called a bitch for it. I won't. I won't be called,
Speaker 1: you know, greedy, I won't be called anything else. And
Speaker 1: if you think that, you can fuck off right out
Speaker 1: of my life. To be honest, I really can't be
Speaker 1: asked with that narrative anymore. It's just not true. It's
Speaker 1: an easy way for people to manipulate you, to make
Speaker 1: you feel bad about the person that you are, but
Speaker 1: it just isn't true. I know what I'm doing, I
Speaker 1: know why I'm doing it, I am the best person
Speaker 1: to sort of do it. It doesn't mean I have
Speaker 1: to take over everything and I'm suddenly going to become
Speaker 1: like Terence strength Derby, you know, or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's not like that where I'm delusional and I think
Speaker 1: I know best and that's it and you can all
Speaker 1: fuck off. But at the same time, nobody else knows
Speaker 1: how to make LARU records apart from me, you know, like,
Speaker 1: I've never seen anyone else make one. If they go
Speaker 1: and make one and prove me wrong, you know, fair enough,
Speaker 1: but so far it's not happened.
Speaker 2: The result is a record supervision that is really concise.
Speaker 2: It's eight tracks, isn't it, And it's just it does
Speaker 2: feel like.
Speaker 1: One actually said, it is more of an EP I
Speaker 1: nearly punched it.
Speaker 3: I mean it feels like decisive. It feels decisive.
Speaker 1: It was very decisive. Actually it's quite direct.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: And it's also like kind of forty odd minutes long?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: And I think it's like forty eight minutes or something.
Speaker 2: Were you ever attempted to make it longer? Were there
Speaker 2: much more material or was it? Was? It just like, no,
Speaker 2: that's it, that's this. I've made this decision. It is decisive.
Speaker 2: This is the eight tracks that make the new album.
Speaker 1: There was like one other track floating around that was
Speaker 1: like half finished, which I will actually finish. But it
Speaker 1: felt a bit sort of too negative. It was about
Speaker 1: this area and about how it's changed. And it was
Speaker 1: called people around here or people or something. I can't
Speaker 1: remember what it was called. I really like it. I
Speaker 1: had a really good melody. It was like mildly scathing,
Speaker 1: and I just felt like it doesn't belong on this
Speaker 1: album about balance and new bound happiness. Do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Just doesn't make sense. Dan agreed. You know,
Speaker 1: when I played it to him, he was like, I
Speaker 1: think it's a really good song, but I just don't
Speaker 1: feel like it's part of this body of work. And
Speaker 1: we also did There was also a cover of a
Speaker 1: track by this band I keep forgetting their name, done
Speaker 1: it for two years. It's really annoying. Oh wow, that's
Speaker 1: really bad. There's a cover called the Sun by a
Speaker 1: sixties band. It's going to really annoy me that I
Speaker 1: can't remember them, and it's called the Sun. It's like
Speaker 1: a really weird track. It just had this really good
Speaker 1: riff at the beginning of it that I thought sounded
Speaker 1: like a riff from a hip hop song. And originally
Speaker 1: I was going to sample the riff and then kind
Speaker 1: of write a song off the back of that, but
Speaker 1: then actually me and Dan started sort of playing it
Speaker 1: together in our sort of dub style, because we have
Speaker 1: this other thing that we do together that's this sort
Speaker 1: of like mini sort of dub band which we're sort
Speaker 1: of working on behind the scenes, and when we played together,
Speaker 1: it just instantly just sounds like some weird, little squelchy
Speaker 1: dub project. And we started sort of playing that together
Speaker 1: and it just came out in about an hour. So
Speaker 1: we just played it once down made, you know, made
Speaker 1: a little beat, did guitar and bassed together and you know,
Speaker 1: and I sang over it and blah blah blah, it's
Speaker 1: really cool and I will put it out. I'm actually
Speaker 1: planning on doing a dub version of Supervision, But again
Speaker 1: that just was like, why would I put a cover
Speaker 1: on this album? Why would a dub track? It's quite
Speaker 1: authentically dub as well, like it's it's less electronic, it's
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and I just thought it's just gonna
Speaker 1: make it messy and less concise. So there was kind
Speaker 1: of like two other tracks flirting around, but I don't
Speaker 1: believe they were ever ever meant to belong on this record.
Speaker 1: They were just they just happened because I wanted them
Speaker 1: to happen. But I didn't mean that they should be
Speaker 1: on this record personally as well, just from a kind
Speaker 1: of creative choice place. I just don't like long albums.
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but I really genuine this
Speaker 1: is really genuinely feel like when I see a track
Speaker 1: with seventeen albums, I think, you fucking wanker who wants
Speaker 1: to fucking listen to one person for like an hour
Speaker 1: and forty five minutes or whatever. I think it's really weird,
Speaker 1: just personally, after like forty five minutes an hour, I'm
Speaker 1: so done, even with my favorite artists. I just don't
Speaker 1: think you need any longer. I know that there's this
Speaker 1: whole thing with algorithms now and night Spotify and the
Speaker 1: more tracks you have. I just I can't play to
Speaker 1: that game. I cannot play that game. An album should
Speaker 1: be right because it's right, because it's creatively right, and
Speaker 1: nothing else should be thought about in that process. The
Speaker 1: songs sit together really nicely. They're all coming from the
Speaker 1: same place at the same time in my life when
Speaker 1: I felt the same, and that's what an album should be.
Speaker 1: It's a diary from that time, and therefore it's the
Speaker 1: correct length in my eyes.
Speaker 2: It does fill me with a little bit of dread
Speaker 2: when I see like a twenty six track mixtape and
Speaker 2: I just think, I'm not sure the time is right
Speaker 2: for this.
Speaker 1: What is that? It's weird? But you're right.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether it has been the rise of
Speaker 2: that type of thing has just because of the streaming generation,
Speaker 2: or that that I must play a part in it.
Speaker 2: But still I ALWASO think it's this idea.
Speaker 1: That fans want more and more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for some artists. They just they're just ready
Speaker 2: to know. They're happy to give everything. You know, this
Speaker 2: is these are the twenty six tracks that I've made
Speaker 2: in the last twelve months to have it all. He's
Speaker 2: the eight best of the twenty six.
Speaker 1: Track Yeah exactly. I'm like, if you can play me
Speaker 1: a twenty six track album where there's more than four
Speaker 1: good songs, I'll give you a million quid. It will
Speaker 1: never fucking happen. It just won't happen. It's just I
Speaker 1: know I'll never have to give anyone a million quid
Speaker 1: because no, it won't happen. It's just it's not true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just don't get it. And also, I
Speaker 1: feel like self editing is so important. It's like the
Speaker 1: one fall down of prints. Everyone says it, there's just
Speaker 1: so much work. It's like, mate, you don't need to
Speaker 1: prove it anymore. You're a genius. You know it's fine.
Speaker 1: Actually you're making it worse. You're making it seem less
Speaker 1: like your genius. The more music you release, just stop.
Speaker 1: And I really think editing is so important. I had
Speaker 1: it before I write. Some people lead it after they write.
Speaker 1: That's fine, but I could never write a hundred songs
Speaker 1: and then just pick the ten best or whatever I
Speaker 1: only wrote. Like I said, I wrote essentially nine and
Speaker 1: a half songs and I just took one of them away.
Speaker 2: The dand that we've referenced a couple of times in
Speaker 2: this conversation, like he says, Dan Kerrey, who people aren't
Speaker 2: familiar with that name. He is producer and songwriter and
Speaker 2: label boss based in South London. He is probably best
Speaker 2: known for working with like South London bands like Black
Speaker 2: Midi and Black Country, New Road and people like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Kate tempers, of course. So have you known Dan a
Speaker 2: long time? You wrote the collection songs and you were
Speaker 2: they were they all recorded with Dan? Or were they
Speaker 2: recording and then you kind of finessed them at the
Speaker 2: end with Dan?
Speaker 3: How did it well?
Speaker 1: We recorded them all in his studio because even though
Speaker 1: like I wrote and arranged and basically produced it here,
Speaker 1: it is still a kitchen at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: I can make a cup of tea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm still I'm quite a purist. I've never
Speaker 1: known my cat made this much noise. It's hilarious. It's
Speaker 1: like the one time she needs to be quiet.
Speaker 3: Lips has found is that her favorite toy.
Speaker 1: Ye doesn't have a favorite tie. It's the noisiest tie
Speaker 1: she's found, that's for sure. Yeah, we're both quite massive
Speaker 1: purists when it comes to recording. I've always been like
Speaker 1: that about the studio or not so much on the
Speaker 1: first album because I didn't know what was doing. But
Speaker 1: once I knew what I was doing, and you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted my records to sound as good as the
Speaker 1: records that I love, obviously, then that starts to become
Speaker 1: really important. So no, we're both quite funny about how
Speaker 1: things are recorded and what they were recorded on and
Speaker 1: with and all the rest of it. So I would
Speaker 1: never have done it here, but I did write, I
Speaker 1: wrote and arranged, and you know, the sound and the
Speaker 1: feel of the record was all designed here. I went
Speaker 1: to his studio which is down the road and Stretum.
Speaker 1: It's only like a five minute drive away. But I've
Speaker 1: known Dan for years. I first met him on the
Speaker 1: first album because me and Ben I really liked his
Speaker 1: work with bands like Hot Chip and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and we went to actually mix the record with him
Speaker 1: initially in his studio and Strettum, but it kind of
Speaker 1: went further than mixing. It was definitely definitely additional production
Speaker 1: by that point, and uh Me and Dan got on
Speaker 1: so well and both love distortions so much. We just
Speaker 1: took it way too far, to the point where by
Speaker 1: the time we sent the mixes back to the record label,
Speaker 1: they were like, what the fuck have you done? You
Speaker 1: the whole thing for a bit crusher. It was like,
Speaker 1: that's basically what we have done. So yeah, we just
Speaker 1: really went for it. It was like, a it was
Speaker 1: really gnarly. I mean that records quite gnarly anyway, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's really tinny and like jagged, but it
Speaker 1: was really really gnarly. It was like ah all the
Speaker 1: way through. So yeah, that that got shelved. But they
Speaker 1: kind of basically were like, yeah, we think we're going
Speaker 1: to send it to America to like the biggest mixer
Speaker 1: on the planet. Maybe not Dan Garry, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, Dan was disappointed. I was quite disappointed. But
Speaker 1: actually Quicksand on the first album is still Dan's, you know,
Speaker 1: our mix, our mix we did with Dan because nobody
Speaker 1: else seemed to understand Quicksand, which I thought was interesting,
Speaker 1: and he's the only one that managed to capture the
Speaker 1: essence of it mix wise, in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: So Quicksand is still his mix, but everything else is
Speaker 1: mixed by serving Can. We've known each other since then,
Speaker 1: but we didn't talk loads. Over the years. I went
Speaker 1: to a few of his parties. We've always sort of
Speaker 1: stayed We've always stayed in touch, and we always really
Speaker 1: got on and a lot of my friends know his
Speaker 1: friends and people as well, so there's always been a connection.
Speaker 1: But then I think I came out of this and
Speaker 1: I realized that because I, like I said, initially, I
Speaker 1: was going to take the record i'd been doing that
Speaker 1: I ditched and I was going to take parts of
Speaker 1: it and then try and add to it. So I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I need somebody that's going to understand the record I've
Speaker 1: been making and also understands me because I'm now in
Speaker 1: a really vulnerable place. So I called Dan from Holiday.
Speaker 1: All these decisions were very quick looking back, Wow, I
Speaker 1: called Dan from Holiday and I was like, I need
Speaker 1: your help, like now, and I told him the situation.
Speaker 1: And there is other things that the situations well, which
Speaker 1: I don't want to go into publicly or anything, but
Speaker 1: there was other emotional issues and relationship problems, and I
Speaker 1: just said I need your help badly. I'm in a
Speaker 1: really dark place. I felt. I felt like i'd kind
Speaker 1: of been abused as well, and I felt like I'd
Speaker 1: been worn down mentally, and I just needed help. And
Speaker 1: he he was very sympathetic, very understanding, very supportive. He said,
Speaker 1: all right, when you come back, you know, come back
Speaker 1: and we'll sit down and we'll have a chat. And
Speaker 1: I never actually played him that record. He's never heard it.
Speaker 1: He said, I actually don't want to hear it. He
Speaker 1: was like, I don't want to hear it. I think
Speaker 1: you should go and I think you should go and
Speaker 1: write some other songs. Actually, I think it's a far
Speaker 1: better idea. So I went and did that, and then
Speaker 1: I played him like the beginning of Automatic Driver and
Speaker 1: do you Feel And he was just seemed obsessed by them.
Speaker 1: He was just like, absolutely love them. He was like, right,
Speaker 1: that's it, go back home. I'm free in April. This
Speaker 1: is in February. He was like, I'm free in April,
Speaker 1: so just be done by then. I was like, what
Speaker 1: what did you fucking say? Hang on a minute. I
Speaker 1: was like, but everything takes me years. He was like, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't going to take you years, because you haven't
Speaker 1: got years now, You've got to fucking get on it.
Speaker 1: You haven't got years, Ellie. He was like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's now. Whenever you know you've got to turn
Speaker 1: this round. You've got to turn it around now, so
Speaker 1: you just better be ready. And I don't know, he
Speaker 1: just sort of sparked something in me that no one's
Speaker 1: ever really sparked before. And I had this confidence and
Speaker 1: felt supported and I felt believed in I think for
Speaker 1: the first time in my whole career, because everyone else
Speaker 1: had always thought it was Ben or somebody else, or
Speaker 1: an engineer or a mixer or It's almost like they'd
Speaker 1: be willing to give credit to it everybody else that
Speaker 1: was surrounding me, but never me. It was like, it
Speaker 1: can't be her because I don't know why, it just
Speaker 1: it can't possibly be her that's doing all of this.
Speaker 1: She can't possibly be the talent. It's just not possible.
Speaker 1: And I'd got made me so angry over the years.
Speaker 1: I had so much pent up aggression, and I'm quite
Speaker 1: ang person anyway, so it's just getting It was just
Speaker 1: getting too much to bear, and I felt it wasn't healthy.
Speaker 1: And then finally Dan came along and was just like,
Speaker 1: I fucking believe in you. Look what you've just done
Speaker 1: in your kitchen. It's fucking great. Listen to automatic driver, like,
Speaker 1: what's the problem? Go away? Do more come back? I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, what a relief. It was really nice.
Speaker 2: Before we started chatting, you took me downstairs to show
Speaker 2: me the studio that you've built. This is difference, this
Speaker 2: is this happens since you've made supervision. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 2: downstairs in your kitchen at home. Is that going to
Speaker 2: be the place that you foresee yourself writing more Lewis
Speaker 2: records in the future? And also yeah, always now? And
Speaker 2: also it's an impressive setup. Do you ever think you
Speaker 2: would like to produce somebody else's record in there, or
Speaker 2: you know, mix somebody else's record, Like, would you move
Speaker 2: into that area as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I would, Actually, I would really like to do that.
Speaker 1: I need a lot more experience first, I think. But
Speaker 1: you know I've always sort of done those things sort
Speaker 1: of hand in hand with somebody else. Like I can mix.
Speaker 1: I've got really good ears. You know, I've really good
Speaker 1: he is, and I know my music better than anybody
Speaker 1: will ever know it. And you know, I mix really
Speaker 1: well with somebody like Doan or whatever. But and I've
Speaker 1: actually just recently done a cover of Damage Goods by
Speaker 1: Gang of Four because Andy Gill asked me to. And
Speaker 1: that's the first track I've actually mixed on my own
Speaker 1: with nobody else there. And that was nice proof to
Speaker 1: me that actually, you're at a point now where you
Speaker 1: certainly to mix your own tracks. You could almost pretty
Speaker 1: much mix an entire album of your own, which I
Speaker 1: was really really, really really happy to realize and to
Speaker 1: get to that point. That track will hopefully be out soon,
Speaker 1: and then everybody else can judge whether I'm shit at
Speaker 1: mixing or not, but I'm certainly really really happy with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would love to. I'd love to go into that area.
Speaker 1: I think LaRue's not going to be an old person's game.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be sixty five on stage singing
Speaker 1: in for the Kill. It's not my vibe. It's just
Speaker 1: really not I don't want to be doing that to
Speaker 1: anybody else or myself. You know, she's a to Pan
Speaker 1: type character, and i'd like to keep her that way.
Speaker 1: I don't want to ruin her. I don't want to
Speaker 1: disgrace her either, So I think it's really important to
Speaker 1: me that I stop at the right time in order
Speaker 1: to be remembered in the way that I would like
Speaker 1: to be remembered. I can't see myself doing a black
Speaker 1: style moment. I can't see myself being Madonna or Dinah
Speaker 1: Ross like going out doing shows when I'm night seventy.
Speaker 1: I just can't see it. I don't want it either.
Speaker 1: I also really like loads of other elements of like
Speaker 1: normal life, and I don't really want my whole entire
Speaker 1: life to be filled with music industry and management meetings
Speaker 1: and interviews and promo trips, and I just I don't
Speaker 1: think I do. You know, I don't mind talking about
Speaker 1: music for the rest of my life, but I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily always want it to be in the same vein
Speaker 1: where I'm always the artist and it's always about me
Speaker 1: in my life. I think it would be nice to
Speaker 1: actually be able to move into a different realm where
Speaker 1: I can spend, you know, the last thirty forty years
Speaker 1: of my life in my kitchen with my cat mixing records.
Speaker 1: WOULD absolutely love that. It sounds like a dream.
Speaker 2: I would love to hear you producing the record for
Speaker 2: somebody else. I think that'd be really the idea really
Speaker 2: excites me.
Speaker 3: That would be great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would really like it as well. I think
Speaker 1: for me it would be about the right bands. What
Speaker 1: I really noticed from obviously now knowing Dan extremely well
Speaker 1: to the point where he's like my brother, obviously, I
Speaker 1: see the variation of work that he gets involved in,
Speaker 1: and it's it's hard for me to imagine myself doing
Speaker 1: so much varied work because I'm so specific with my
Speaker 1: music taste. I mean, my music tastes really narrow, and
Speaker 1: it's really narrow, I mean for somebody that does what
Speaker 1: I do. And I think that from a production perspective, obviously,
Speaker 1: that's really important that you can kind of apply yourself
Speaker 1: to many different musical guises and genres and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I'd find it. There's nowhere
Speaker 1: I'd be able to produce a band because I haven't
Speaker 1: come from a band background, and producing a band is
Speaker 1: is a whole different ballgame. You know, you need a
Speaker 1: very certain type of studio. You need to have a
Speaker 1: great engineer or you need to be one yourself who
Speaker 1: knows how to record drums really well, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know how to set up a mic, up a drum kit.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and say how to
Speaker 1: do that, because I don't I know how to produce
Speaker 1: electronic records. I come from a dance music background when
Speaker 1: it comes to production, or a pop electronic background. And actually,
Speaker 1: if I look at the landscape today and I think
Speaker 1: about bands that or acts that today, if I tried
Speaker 1: to make a list in my head of acts that
Speaker 1: I could produce, I struggle to think of one. And also,
Speaker 1: I think that the ones that I'd like to produce
Speaker 1: are already well beyond my well beyond my reaches as
Speaker 1: a new producer. So it's difficult, but you never know
Speaker 1: in the future that may open up. I don't know
Speaker 3: Anyway, good Night,