LGBTQ+ Podcast Lost Spaces

How would you describe your music in one sentence?
One sentence??! Eek! Right, how about ‘confessional singer-songwriter with a large dose of irony and a bit of a resigned shrug’?

Who are your major influences?
I grew up listening to chart-friendly pop radio, and only got into ‘real’ music in my teens. But, by ‘real’ music I actually just mean female singer-songwriters (I used to completely avoid male singers!) – think Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco, Jill Sobule and Liz Phair. My taste has expanded somewhat by then, and I’m a bit of a magpie with different references… I love the Brill Building and Motown sounds of the 60s, the folky sound of the 70s, and the synthesisers of the 80s.

A lot of your music is extremely personal. What advice do you have to emerging artists thinking about drawing on personal experiences for their work?
People have really good bullshit detectors. If you’re going down the singer-songwriter path, and you aren’t writing songs that have your authentic voice running through them then people are going to see through you immediately. To me, there’s no point writing a song if it is bland and faceless. But, having said all of that, it’s also important that you think about exactly how much of yourself you’re willing to share – it’s one thing for me to sing about wanking to alleviate boredom, but you may not want the whole world to know that about you.