Hey Brocarde!
How are you? How has lockdown been, do you think it has affected your creativity?
I’m slowly suffocating, I feel like a panther in captivity, who’s just chewing on the cage bars, pacing frantically, waiting for Boris Johnson to set me free. It’s made me a creative melting pot, I’ve never had so much to say, probably because there’s less I can do. I try to channel my creative energy is the best way I know how so at least my frustration has a greater good, I’ve been writing every day and filming constantly, the good, the bad and the ugly, and my perspectives have changed a lot because 2020 is a year of not taking anyone or anything for granted.
Your music and fashion cross over frequently, how do you go about doing this?
I feel that fashion and music have always been so closely aligned for me, what you wear and how you present yourself is an extension of your inner character. Every song I release has a lyrical theme and agenda and I transfer that to the clothing I design by embroidering lyrics and sketches that echo the meaning of my music. It’s almost like creating a uniform that is unapologetically me, each song has a capsule collection with it so it’s hard to see where the lines crosse and end.
Your lyrics often talking about growing up a misfit and an outcast, how did you deal with these feeling when growing up and how do you channel this into your music?
To be honest I don’t think I did deal with these emotions very well growing up, not knowing where my place in the world was caused a lot of heartache. It was only when I started properly writing and exploring what I was feeling that I understood how therapeutic being an artist actually is. Having that outlet has saved me in many ways, multiple times over and you’ll often hear me saying that I don’t know where I’d be without music.
And what is a favourite lyric that you have written and why?
I have loads but from the tracks I’ve released, this one sticks out….“Screaming in silence, Aurevoir belongs to me, there’s no freedom in free speech, choked with hypocrisy.” - It’s from my first single “Last Supper” and I think it just perfectly sums up my inner turmoil and the identity struggles I was facing when I wrote it. It was the first song I wrote on my voyage into my kind of music so it will always be special and I just had so much to get off my chest at the time.
You originally started out in pop music before ultimately breaking into rock, what was the decision behind this?
I feel it was more of an evolution than a decision. When I first started recording music, I was young and all I wanted to do was perform and write and be on stage, I didn’t necessarily know who I was, or if I did I certainly didn’t have the confidence and conviction to be firm about it. I would always write such dark, emotional lyrics, but in the studio I was pushed to go in directions that just didn’t work for me, I always had so much passion to create but those around me were just obsessed with creating a replica pop star, so I found myself constantly watered down and I found my image was controlled to the point where I didn’t recognise myself. It all echoed those teenage feelings of not fitting in and not being allowed to be myself so I got destructive and ended up taking a little time out to find myself. It’s a nasty clique but I had to start my life over almost and now I’ve reached a place where my music is 100% reflective of who I am inside and out.
