Loud and Quiet Presents Midnight Chats. We never set out with a particular mood in mind for how each one of Midnight Chats turns out. Not all of these episodes of our podcast series are feel good conversations, but it just so happens the last couple have been. The most recent episode with loyal Kana was not just because he was a pleasurable guy to spend time with, but he also had this sort of restless compulsion to help other people.
Whether that was as he was explaining in the chat, giving his mum a hand with an IKEA shelving unit or running his annual cooking school for young adults with ADHD. He just had this really uplifting, generous, infectious energy, and this new episode certainly left me feeling pretty optimistic too. In the middle of twenty sixteen, my guest Lucy Rose left London on a two month journey, having made two
albums done the major label thing. She was, in her own words, in a moment of doubt and a bit disillusioned with the music industry and how things were going, and she was left questioning whether making music was really for her, whether she was doing the right thing at that time and given. She toured like most other musicians and artists in the past, the usual venues, processes, places, and conventions. What she did next was kind of radical.
She spoke to her fans in South America via social media and said, I'm coming to see you, please, can you book a space for me to play a free show and let me stay in your house, in your spare room, on your sofa, and off she went. A lot of these places were well off the traditional touring brid the gigs, the people, the experience didn't just have a profound effect on Lucy but also on those fans she went and stayed with. And you can see it all in the short film she's made about it, the
documentaries on YouTube. It's called Something's Changing, which is the same name as her new album. And I think in the conversation you're about to hear that emotion really comes through. You can hear it in Lucy's voice when she talks about it all, and it's all just quite uplifting. So if you're sick of the constant barrage of bad news, hopefully the next forty minutes will be some kind of
temporary cure. Just finally, thank you to all of our subscribers, everybody who's rated this podcast so far as long as we've been doing it, giving us a short review on iTunes or wherever you're listening, sends a tweet about it, or just spreads the word somehow. If you keep enjoying them,
will keep making them. They'll be online at midnight every other Thursday so on, with Episode thirty one then recorded in our offices in East London just last week, Lucy Rose talking about everything from festival set lengths to why she hates birthday cards, the joy and difficulty of managing herself and taking selfies with Keith the Sutherland from twenty four and of course the life changing trip that I've already mentioned.
This is Midnight Chats. How have you been you will?
Yeah? Really good? Nice and busy, which feels good at this time.
Yeah, you've had a busy day. You've already been to BBC six Music today?
Yeah. Done my laure la Verne session this morning, which is it's always so good. I feel like that show is quite iconic, isn't it to play law la Verne? So I was really thrilled to do that, and then went and did a weird panel for the Brits about festival set lens, sort of discussion about whether festival sets are too short and whether they're cramming in too many artists. Right and I'm here, which is very exciting.
What's your view on that is that? Do you think they're too short?
I've just been talking about it.
It's good.
My view is, well, yeah, I think for me, the thing the problem with sometimes like set lens is the change over time between artists. I think maybe behind the scenes a bit of when you've got twenty minutes is the shortest I've had before, but it's just impossible and
it's really stressful. That band has to get all their gear off, You have to set all your gear up, check it all, get your monitors sounding okay, and most of the time you come off stage so stressed and they're like, you've got thirty second sometime you need to go on, and it's just it's hard because the amount of artists I've seen a festivals of any technical problems which has just come from not having enough time to set the gear up properly.
And check it all.
We've had people on the podcast before we've been quite open and honest about saying like festivals sometimes are just a necessary thing that they have to do and it's their least kind of favorite of really all the shows. Like Admittedly, the thing that people often say is they enjoy playing to an audience that's necessarily theirs, which I
totally take that point. Good opportunities to expand your fan base and things like that, but the actual scenario can be quite as you just explain, a little bit stressful, quite pressured.
Not that it makes me feel so much better, because that's how I feel, and I just feel that there's something wrong with me that I for not enjoying myself more.
But I think it's okay to say that though. Isn't it like if it at festivals that you have a preference of playing other types of shows, And I think it's.
I think it's so dependent. But the stress part of it all, and it's such a way sometimes for half an hour or something, you drive six hours in a van, turn up, it's just all go in this sort of hour slot you have where it's doing the changeover, setting
anything up, then playing and not running over. There's a big clock on the stage, don't go over, so then you think I'm not going to talk at all or say anything, so I can play the songs that I want to say, and then it feels harder to make the same connection to the crowd, and you sometimes worrying about people coming in drifting out the ten You can see people leaving as they're going to go and watch
something else. You know, they come and watch a couple songs of yours and some people leave and you think, oh god, they hate it, and you know I'm boring them, and they're going to go watch someone better and who someone else is on and all that sort of stuff. So I think there's a lot going through my mind, and I often just don't play the songs that I like the most, which are my quieter ones and my more acoustic.
Songs, because it does the occasion.
Yeah, and especially if people are chatting and having a good time and everything. But actually going to a festival as a punch, it's so much fun, and I think I'm just sometimes jealous. You feel so disconnected to that fun that's happening. When you're performing.
Sometimes you're pretty much not exactly fresh. Were like ten days on now, but you were a glass to me this year. Yeah, playing just after or just before Keifer Sutherland.
Just after Keifer Sutherland.
Yeah, that's a cool thing to say, right, very cool.
I was desperate for it. I was like, I'm going to get a selfie. I've got to.
It's Keith Sutherland. It would be such a shame not to. And then when he was there, he was quite you know, stern. He had like a fag hanging out of his mouth, and cowboy boots on, big cowboy hat, a lot of security and stuff, and I was like, oh, I just can't. I've got to play it somewhat cool.
Yeah, I was.
Hoping to watch his set, but it was all closed off and the stage was closed off for his set, right, and we were all moved. We couldn't be, no one could be sort of behind the scenes. Even though we were ready to go and put our stuff up, set up, we had to be all moved so that when he came off stage.
He doesn't like people looking at him.
Apparently when he was coming it was like the Hollywood treatment then, right, Yeah, it was.
It was definitely, and he had his own mixing desk. I just felt, you know, we just turned up with our sort of half working gear, you know, and it was like, there's insane thousands of pounds worth of gear that he had.
What's your policy generally on going and getting selfies with people that you admire or that you just want to get, like a photo with.
Always wish I had, you know, I never do.
I bottled it in the last minute.
Always I always bottle it.
And then the problem was my sister was there lesson and her friend came back in the dressing room, was so smug and to check it out, and she had a proper selfie with Keeper Sublan.
I was like no.
And also Lissie was playing before Keeper Sutherland. She got a great SELFI and.
I was like, why do I do it? And I just can't bring myself to do it in any way.
It's just and also I'm just generally, I think, quite awkward, so it would just be I'd be awkward and sarcastic and confusing for them.
I think, did you stick around at Glastonbury? Did you go and see some of the stuff? Did you make a weekend of it? What did you do?
Wish?
I mean, I had these gigs in Italy the same week as Gastonbury, so I went to Rome and COONa and ConA, and I only flew back in the day before Mastonbury, So I just drove up on the Sunday and then it's so boring, No, what's to know these things? But because I'm managing myself and everything, I'm probably more involved in things. But if I stayed then I'd have to keep the van and then I'd have to pay an extra one hundred and fifty quid on keeping the van the next day.
So just sort of just headed straight back.
What was it like when you manage yourself like because you do then have to be involved in the day to day the spreadsheets, the balance in the books, the booking of things, being conscious of things that a lot of other people, a lot of other artists in a similar position, would effectively have done for them because they'd be employing a manager. Do you find it a liberate experience to be in charge of all that stuff or do you find it adds another layer of complexity?
I really like it personally. I think sometimes it would be difficult. When you look at sometimes when other people are organizing things or sometimes sorting things out, I always go, I wouldn't have done it like that, you know, I wish we hadn't organize it like that. But then it's hard because you have to employ people and just let them do what they do and then have their best judgment of what those decisions are. But for me it was really good because I think I do like things
a certain way, and I don't know. Often sometimes it just feels like it's an extra messenger. I think some people find it hard that I'm managing myself. I don't think it's normal for some parts of the team to talk directly to an artist about finances and things like that, and some people find it a bit awkward. But at the same time, it is the artist's money at the end of the day, and it kind of frustrates me.
It's like, oh, you should really be thinking about this, and it's like, but it's coming straight out my bank account, So why should I not be thinking about this or worrying about this. This is, you know, my money at the.
End of the day.
So with something like Glastonbury, presuming he didn't get a chance to stick out and see so if you're there on a Sunday Ed Shearing.
Headlining, unfortunately not, I would have really loved to.
Okay, cool, because didn't you play like a gig with Ed in the early days or.
Yeah, Edie like Eddie. I didn't just call him Eddie. Ed He used to play like open mics, is it? But it sounds like Eddie, But it's not Eddie. It's not some weird nickname I've given him Ed. He used to play open Mics at the same time as me and just knew it from there.
And I think, for what, you know, for.
Artists like me, he's a huge inspiration for someone that I spent you know, years on the same open Mics circuits him doing the same things, and watching him with those songs more and more people get into it, and watching his projection into being one of the biggest superstars in the world now headlining Glastonbury.
It's quite astonishing.
This week is a big week for you because you're releasing your new album. Something's changing on Friday. So in a week like this, how are you because presumably it's a lot of kind of interviews, press engagements, radio sessions, filming, et cetera, et cetera. Is it exciting being involved in the week up before and I'm released or is it hectic stressful? How do you find the process the sort of moments just before it's kind of everybody gets to experience it.
I think it's big ups and downs for me. And I think because you have all these exciting things where you're live on radio and you're thinking, I can't believe I'm.
Here and everything, and then probably.
Tonight when I'm going to sleep, I'll be thinking, no one wants my record and it's coming out, and what
happens if no one likes it? And I think that voice that's in everyone's head sometimes can get a bit annoying in this week, but I think I'm learning, especially this time, being my third record that's come out, to ignore it and really concentrate on the fact that, yeah, things are busy, but how amazing is that I could be putting a record out and no one wanting to be talking to me about it, or no one asking me on their shows. Now, that would be really scary.
So really, I just mind over matter. When it's busy, it's just think good about it. Think it's positive.
One of the interesting things that you're doing this time as well is that, along with the recent release of the album, you've made a documentary. Because last year in twenty sixteen, you traveled to South America in a very kind of unique tour set of shows where you appealed to your fans and said I want you to book my shows and I want to come and stay with you. And you set off there and you did that for two months and travel all around South America and you
made a documentary about it as well. Tell us a bit about the countries that you visited during that period.
Well, we flew into Quito, Ecuador, never been there before, like most of these places. And then when to prove a fan, took me to match you Pichu as well.
Which did you use a trek to.
I was like, oh, we did sunggate the trek in the morning, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean we got the bus up to the gates.
And then takes a couple of days otherwise.
Right, Well then, yeah, it took two and a half hours from once you're in the gates of Matchi Picchi to get right to the top of Sungate. So we did that around five thirty or something and got there just before sunrise. And oh it was extraordinary, It was so amazing. I'll ever find the words to describe how great that was. And the trips I went through Peru and Chili. I need to make sure I get this all right, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and then up to Mexico.
So yeah, the fact that the documentary's coming out tomorrow, I think, not that they're more excited than the record, but it's different.
It's totally different than the record. Musically.
I know that the record some people love it, some people might not like it, but I think with the documentary it feels in many ways broader that hopefully I can't you know, I'd hope that someone could watch it, even if they don't like my music or anything, and still take something, get something out of that, because I think it's such an amazingly important story.
And thing that I learned.
And the fact that I think that we've put it into this short film, which shows how amazing people are, really restore your faith in humanity, in the goodness and kindness of people, and also in music.
I think if you.
If you're not even just you write music or you perform, or you work in the industry in any way, but if you love music and you feel like your passion, I think it's important because it shows why music is important, really important, and sometimes I think that can get forgotten. An artist can think I certainly did. Oh, I don't know if there's any point anymore, if anyone even cares. And there's this amazing thing of social media, but it also can be a barrier sometimes of actually not getting
to know anybody ever. Spending three days with you know, forty different people and really getting to know them, their stories, why they like music was so amazing.
I'm fascinated by the practical details of what you did, particularly in the first few days. So how did you feel the night before you jumped on that plane to go to ecardor knowing that you were embarking on this big unknown Ultimately? Were you confident in what you were about to do or were you were you?
Yeah, okay, I think so I was. I was with my husband, so I think that was a big sort of security barrier. I wasn't getting on the plane on my own. I think that would be quite different if I was, but he was. Then I kept thinking, Oh, worse comes to worst, I'll just check myself into a hotel. I've always wanted to go to these places, I've always wanted to visit them, so you know, I'm still going to go and have an incredible experience. Whatever happens. I
think Will found it with my other half. He found it tricky because he's my tor manager, so normally he's always organizing everything.
And we were on the planes, like, so, who are who are Who's picking us up from the airport? And we were on the plane.
I was like, oh, Sarah was picking us up and he's like, who Who's Sarah? And I don't know anything about her. It's like where does she live? I don't know who does.
She live with? I have no idea. It was oh my god. So I think he was more stressed, but I liked it. I think some horrible part of it actually enjoyed that thrill.
Yeah, the thrill of it all, and especially if he was stressed, I was like, this is hilarious.
Yeah.
And so you got to Ecuador there was the kind of first stop on this this this journey across South America. But the when you're staying with fans, like they were inviting you into their homes, very personal experience to do that. So you're there in like, who's the first fan that you met? For example, Yeah.
Sarah was the first one that picked us up, and yeah, they invited us into their homes. The thing I didn't realize at the time is how nervous they were about me coming to in their houses and how much they're worried that their home wouldn't be enough and I wouldn't like it, you know, coming from the UK and then traveling to countries which are still you know, developing countries, Third world countries, they were very nervous, some of them that I wouldn't like their house and their home. That
makes me so sad even saying that now. But they were more basic than you know, anywhere else I've ever stayed. But it was such an amazing experience because you really understand somewhere better when you're living with someone locally. Yeah,
completely different cultural experience you experience. You know, we stayed with someone who had two kids, two young kids, so we're staying within a family of four, and for breakfast with them and right took them to school in the morning, like pushing the pram in Lima to school with someone I met the day before. Like this is madness, and
really get getting thrown into different people's lives. And I think as a songwriter that's important because it's important to have a grasp on reality and sometimes you don't if you're just touring and writing songs and playing shows, I think you can sometimes lose perspective on reality, on normal people's lives. And you know, I think one of the most inspiring things ever is I once bumped into Laura Marling.
I hope she doesn't mind if I say this before.
She quite great, and it was we were doing it a give for Africa Express and we all had like meal vouchers in this restaurant right by the venue where we were playing Granary Square, and I saw her on the other side of the room and she waved, oh, go say I like it, Laura is there, and I went over and I was like, are you playing as well at Africa Express. She's like, now, I work here, And what do you mean you work here? Jack, I
cook the lamp on the lamb chef. I'm there serious And I was like, no, you can't be serious.
She was like, I'm in.
Between album campaign, so I've got a job, you know, And it's just like and then the hostess walked past. It was like, Laura, you need to get back to work. And I was like, do you even know who you're talking to to?
I don't.
This is what I was thinking in my head the hostess who told her off. And then a couple of days later I saw Charlie Fink and he was just like, no way, it's all working as a lamb grilling lamb.
And I was like, I'm telling you, I saw her there.
And then he texted me saying, I just text Laura, and you're right, she's got a job working as a lamb chef. There's something that's just about just going and cooking lamb, you know what I mean. There's little normality of it, Like most people can never dream of having a radio show or you know, learning about digital music industry and things like that.
It's still quite far fetched.
The thing was like, actually, I'm going to go and cook lamb, or I'm going to go pull pints and actually chat to people. I always think if I have time off, I'm just going to pour pints, because how much you would you learn about people's lives over just the bar. People just open up, don't they about It's like being a taxi driver, learning that thing that's slightly deeper than.
You would have a normal world.
And I think that was about the trip, which was amazing is I went deep, quite deeply into people's lives and how they felt. And I felt a bit, maybe I felt a bit like I was interviewing them all the time because I was just all they felt like. I was just so interested in their lives and the political systems there, what it was like to be a woman in these countries, you know, having kids, opportunities, the
class system, you know what I mean. There's so many things in every country which is different, and if you go and throw yourself into those situations, you learn not just a lot about them, but yourself as well.
When you're making when you're doing this trip and you're making a documentary, did you do anything else? Did you like, keep like a diary or a notepad, like, because presumably there's a lot of stuff that couldn't even some of the things you just explained you probably could only really touch on in the documentary, but never touched on it.
Honestly, so much stuff that's never even been meant. This is not enough time.
So yeah, did you, like, do you take lots of photos? Did you kind of like, have you got like a scrapbook of you in here?
Well?
I did.
I did a blog actually for Line of best Fit. Paul, the editor was amazing. Before we went on the trip, he saw my posts and said, I've seen that you're doing this. Do you want to meet up? Because I lived there for six months in South America, So I was like, yes, please.
Any help, any advice would be good.
And when we first went, I decided to do firstly a post about why I was doing it, and that's what started, which is just to set up this is what I'm doing. I'm going to go live with my fans and explain that I felt a little disillusion from the industry and music and I lost touch really and why I was making music and wasn't happy.
You know.
At the end of the day, That's what it came down to is I didn't feel happy in music anymore. And that was probably the main reason why I was thinking about stopping. It's if I'm not happy doing this, then why am I doing it? I should go and do Life's too short to do anything that makes me unhappy, especially if I'm privileged. You'll have to be doing this music or I need to find a route to do music and be happy. So kind of wrote this piece.
And after I wrote that piece and he published it in Ane of best Fit, then once we started the trip, I just felt like I had a million stories I wanted to tell and message him. He said, yeah, just send me, send me it. So I sort of did a diary online that everyone could read during the experience.
Did you find that you surrendered yourself to the experience straight away once you got there, or did it take some getting used to this new way of living that you'd kind of decided you were going to do for two months?
It was really different in every single place. The hardest thing, which then I got used to, I suppose, was meeting a stranger, having that sort of initial we don't know each other awkwardness thing where it's nice but you don't know each other. Then spending twenty four hours a day together for three or four days, knowing everything about them, feeling like you truly knew them really really well and you actually really cared about them. At the end of
it felt like I had a friendship. And then saying goodbye and then going and doing it all over again quite intense, really hard.
It was.
That was the hardest thing in many ways, But I think once I got used to it, which was I prepare yourself because you're going to be attached to this person and then meet someone you have no attachment to
and you're living with straight away. And there was really two very extreme things from those first, you know, that position of going from one place to the next and just starting again and getting to know the next person and understanding them as a human and understanding their lives and starting from scratch.
It was intense, But.
Yeah, I found that everyone had those common those common things which were music and the type of music I guess that I make made them all quite similar in a world, because I think it's a certain type of music mine which is attracts or it seemed to attract the people that maybe had gone through things, maybe have felt things then weren't scared of putting on music which
made them feel something. A lot of them had said at times they would put on these the sort of music, and their friends like, why are you listening to this depressing music? I don't why you just put something fun on? And they're like, do you not get it? And one of them said to me, I honestly think some of my friends just don't want to feel it. Whatever songs make you feel, they're scared of it and they don't want to feel it. They'd rather put something on which
didn't make them feel those feelings. And that was I'd never thought about that ever before, and that's totally fine. But it's not that, you know, it's their depressing songs or things. It just conjures up different sort of emotions. And then I realized that I was just like them, because all the music I listen to makes me feel that way, and all music I love, going like Joni Mitchell, Bluebing or my favorite records, but it makes me feel
something and it doesn't make me feel like happy. I'm the happiest person in the world when I'm.
Listening to it.
But it makes me understand myself somehow. It makes me think about things I wouldn't have thought about, delve a little bit deeper into who I am, and understand that, and that I think has helped me on my journey in life.
Is that sort of.
Music that's interesting that you can sort of correlate that between all these different people in all in probably vastly different situations across an entire continent, and yet you can sort of join the dots in some way quite fascinating.
It makes you a very similar sort of person. Actually, weirdly out of all the things that you can have in common, I think sometimes music tastes can make you more similar than you can realize if it was going to be maybe I should start some sort of like friendship or dating app where it's always on music, because I think that's really important, because I think if you sometimes if you don't have that connection, it's difficult. I'd
find it hard music. And I'm a huge hippie, you call me that, like, but I think music can heal in a way, in a way that other things can't. You know, when I'm feeling really lost in life and I don't understand things, and I can't make sense of something that's happened, somehow music can make sense. It can make something that makes sense that didn't beforehand, and I don't.
Know how that happens. And there's a real mystery to music and why it does. That.
Tell me about some of the standout moments from you, the memories of playing some of the shows, because from some of the footage I've seen, there were moments where you kind of had to be Okay, let's just sort of go with the flow of this, like and this isn't this isn't your standard bar fly set up. This is something completely different. So that's about some of the highlights.
Some of the first gigs we did because I wanted them to be free entry. That made things really tricky for venues to want to have me play because they can charge for tickets. But I found like, I've paid my flights to be here, my fan is sorting out my accommodation. You just you know, you can take all the money from the bar or anything. You just need to give me a space of some sort. So lots of people were amazing, but they would just higher in
a po which was just on the floor. So I'd walk in, it'd just be all in bits, not put together on the floor.
We're like, is that all right?
And you don't want to kick off and be like, no, it's not all right because and maybe I would have done that as well. I think these are the things I was learning that potentially I would have said this is. I can't work like this, this is And it brought out a different side of me, which was way more easy going, I think, which is like absolutely great. Let me just spend half an hour trying to work out how did you put this pa together?
Instructures in Spanish looking at.
A manual I'm going to do this, and then ended up mixing the support acts like gig could just be like, don't worry, guys, I got this. Never done this before in my life. So yeah, it pushed me into finding out a lot more about myself, yeah, and being more relaxed. Some of the standout moments, I think it was just some of the places were just so unusual. People had done so much as well. Cafes in the Serena in Chile,
it takes you can't fly in there. It was a sixteen hour bus to get their tiny town in Chile. Got off this sixteen hour bus, not just the fan that had asked me to come there, her friend who we were living with her because she didn't have enough space in her house. I was staying with her friend's family,
which who would lovely. But then the whole cafe, the people who owned the cafe, well, the people work for the cafe, all there with banners at six in the morning, and they've gone to such a huge extent of preparation of putting posters up and printing off little free tickets which people could collect from the cafe, and all these and people who never put a gig on ever, had
thrown themselves into it. Played the Launderette, which you may have heard of before, which is that story, which was just an iconic moment in the trip because it just standing on the first floor above a long direct just playing to people on the street and the street closing down. Playing a winery. One of the fans owned a winery and said, please, can you come play my winery? I'll organize it, and he made like haystacks in a field.
He brought a pa in, made it into this, put little lights up and made venues out of nothing, out of just empty fields.
How moved were you by that proactivity and that positivity, because we see in the documentary that it was an emotional experience for you kind of twenty sixteen wasn't the greatest year for many reasons, like you know, politically, socially, etc. And so it actually sounds like in the middle of it all, you had an experience that you created that really did bring out the best in a lot of people that were around you. What kind of emotional affected the whole.
Thing have on you a lot?
I think I couldn't really believe how much people strangers would do for me in exchange of just a few songs or just so that we had a good time when we were staying with them.
How hard they all were, how much they did.
They drove like five hours to take us to a classy falls and then drove five hours back.
Did these just so.
I couldn't believe the kindness total strangers. And I think there's so many moments which aren't in the documentary because there were just too many where I would just have another amazing experience, and two days later to have another amazing experience, and then a daylight to have another amazing experience with all different people, And it just got to a point it's like I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe that I'm being shown all this love
and kindness from people I've never met before. And also I just realized how lucky I was, you know. It was just like the most surreal thing because the people I spent the time with. There's a few real standout moments where when I was leaving the person I was staying with, it would say, these have been the best days of my life, Like, how am I meant to go back to work tomorrow.
Now, How am I?
This has been the surrealest and most crazy moment And I just got to go and sit in my office and go back to normal, back to my life which I don't even really like, and or say, I promise you, I'm going to take these these are the best days of my life. I'm going to take them to my grave with me as the best days of my life. I know I'll never have an experience like this ever again. And people who've never been on a plane before, never left the town, never even seen a live gig before.
And I felt bad in a way because I thought, We've had this incredible moment and then I'm leaving and it's like we've all been there before and we've had a great experience even and you feel how do you move on from this? And how do you get back
to reality? Feels even harsher sometimes than doesn't it afterwards, So saying goodbye to people's seeing their sadness that the experience was over, and then on the other side, I was on to the next best e see you know what I mean, another incredible experience the next day with someone new, and I just there was part of me that felt guilty in a way. It's like this is never rendingly amazing for me for eight weeks and I
could probably continue doing it for so long. And like I said, I want to say it again, I'm not well known. You know what I mean. I'm not a well known musician. I'm not saying this isn't I've got this huge ego where it's like all these people will do this for me. That's what's extraordinary about it is I'm not well known. My music doesn't get played on radio.
No one knows my name. And the fact that even one person in all these places does and the extent that they will show me kindness for someone when I was really doubting whether even anyone cared about me and my music.
Yeah, it was extremely emotion.
Not just the experience that would go and to inform like writing a new record then, but ultimately something that you are always going to remember like forever as a sort of probably defining moment in your life. Without putting
it into two big a kind of context. Happens next is that you've made this new album and you've made the documentary and you're going to take it out and you're going to show it before you perform live and people are going to get to see it, and it will hopefully put those songs that you've written out into
into a context. Do you think like that, what's what's the thinking behind showing what happened and then performing those songs, because presumably that could not have filtered into your thought process when you when you sat down to write new music.
I think it's really important.
I've even seen the odd thing piece of pr which is said, oh, Lucy Rose grabs a backpack and does a trip around South America and writes an album about it, and it just even that's like, no, that's not that frustrates me because I know that's true and I know that's what it is, but it really it isn't about that. It's not about me just like grabbing a backpack and doing a traveling experience and then we'll have the best experience of my life.
It isn't.
And I think the documentary is really important to put the album into perspective as well, and what I wanted to do with the record, and also the fact that I had the confidence to make this sort of record because I know that I'd never have made this record without those people that I met and without talking to them about the songs that mattered to them, and we're going talking about the same thing about how music makes you feel and things.
But we're all.
Looking for some sort of purpose in life and to do something. And it felt like the biggest thing I've ever done was writing those songs that helped people and made those feel made them feel the things that we were discussing earlier, and they're the songs that I love. That's exactly the sort of music that I was writing,
but I just didn't think anyone wanted it. And the fact that I could go and meet people and they would say, please play Shiver, play night Bus, play Gamble, which is like a bonus track for my first record, which was so depressing. Everyone was like, you can't put that on the record. That's way too sad, And that's the second most popular song I have and it's not
even on my record. Understanding that that's why people wanted that, and understanding that's exactly what I want to do as an artist, because there's my heroes have made records like that that matters to me, and having the confidence to believe in that, believe that I could make a record like that meant that I could come home and really commit to that and commit to who I am. It's difficult to know yourself, know who you are as an
artist and not just accept it but embrace it. And I think a lo often I would think, oh, maybe folk music or country music's not very cool and it's not you know, radio one might hate it and all you know, young kid and all my fans, and I was always drawn to being and maybe it's from just singing with Bombay Bicycle Club and being in the indie world, which was you'd think is cooler, you know what I mean. And I know it sounds so stupid, but that's when
I was younger. That's what I felt like. I felt like playing country music wasn't particularly cool, and then actually finding out that's who I am, that's what I want to make a record, And yeah, I guess not just yet accepting it, but embracing that's who I am and feeling proud but that's who I am as an artist only came from the confidence that those fans gave so screening it. I think it is really important and.
I have a huge amount of jealousy when I look down at the places that you're going to do this, screen the film and perform at in the coming months for the rest of the year. In fact, it's taking you to Newcastle. I'm a newcaster supporter, so that's all good. But in all seriousness, it's taking you to Asia. You're going to You're going to go to the Philippines playing Manila. You're going to go back to India, which I think
you've been to before. Yeah, and you're going to get Deli and Bangalore and these wonderful places to play shows in cinemas. So is there something special about playing a show in a cinema you kind of like? Is that something that's still an interesting experience to do for you?
Yeah?
Well, I think mainly the UK of proper, proper cinemas, they can't show films.
We're going in Vibe.
Not everywhere has even got cinemas that I wanted to play, so a lot of them just needed a screening away to screen it. So it's called the world Wide Cinematore. But there's going to be the odd venue which isn't a cinema. They say it could be, but it's again from my experience of touring further Afield, you never know quite what to expect when you walk into a venue, But yeah, I think it's just exciting to be in
new places. And being in India was really exciting because again in these countries, and especially in smaller towns and smaller places even more off the grid when you're talking not even just Delhi and Mumbaiba, going down to Bangalore as well, people don't feel like they're important enough for musicians to go and play for them, and the UK and Europe and the US and then maybe Australia and maybe Japan gets you know, all artists will try and
tour those places. And there's huge proportions of the world which are ignored when it comes to live music. And for me, it was important to start the campaign back in Latin America and go to India and tell people they are important. My fans are important no matter where you're from.
Have you had peers people around you that make music say to you you go into these places that are dangerous or off the grid or a bit unusual. Do they say things like to you, like they say like kind of like, oh god, I don't think I could ever do that, or they ask do they ask like proactive questions saying like, wow, you're playing a show in Chile, or you're playing a show in you mentioned Hanway like
places that aren't on the traditional touring map. What are the types of conversations you have about that sort of thing?
More often than not, if I'm talking to another article, you have to go to India just when it's it's oh, well, what about getting deli belly, I'll be sick or you know it's every place has its myth. You know, I've been twice now, never got ill either time. We're there for two weeks. Each time didn't get ill. Lots of bb talked to. There's lots of myths. It's same as I think when I was doing BBC six round Table, when the other guests were saying, well, what you do
next week? I said, actually, I'm flying gigging Buenos Airera's oh, I'll be careful. My friend got a phone nick there. It's really dangerous. She gotta be careful. I thought, it's not. I was expecting because I've been there and I love it to be. Wow, that's amazing Buenos Areas, that's incredible. And people's immediate thing is fear.
It's so fear based.
When it comes to going and traveling in places which are you know, less musicians go to. I guess well less people go to. And I was like thinking, my sister just got mugged in London last week, she got a phone nicked in London. But we don't think of our home that way, never think our London's dangerous and people shouldn't come and visit London because of lots of different things that are going on. But I think there is a miss conception you've gotta be careful everywhere you go.
But all I consider is my experience. Eight weeks I lived with total strangers. I trusted them, and I didn't have not even one moment I was worried, even just a little bit. I wasn't at all.
Do you collect anything on your travels? Do you bring anything back fridge magnets? No, okay, I'm really Do you ever send post guards or anything like that?
No?
Okay.
I've got issues with with with anything any I can't describe it material, not even materials, anything that's made of a material.
Okay, things I don't want them.
So you're not a fan of like a sort of tourist shop that's full of quite clearly a load of old too.
As my dad would say, too, that's great.
You know, like you're kind.
Of I had a backpack on and it was already hand luggage, and I was being so because I didn't want to bear back at the end of the day. I was being so strict with what I was taken. I didn't even take a hair brush where I was at. And then it's only when I was in the second place, when my fringe was just out of control, like completely wire.
Going a hairbrush.
This is too much. So they bought a hair brush. But I just if I think if I bought something in every single place, my bag would get really heavy.
I know that sounds so stupid.
You've got to think of the practical.
I worry about my.
Back getting broken sometimes, about it not being very strong. And also I think I don't really like waste. I've got another problem with birthday cards. I just hate the idea. I hate waste, even if to give a birthday card, it's something that I would rather not get given any birthday cards. And the feeling when I collect them all off the mantlepiece and just put them in a recycling you know what I mean? That feeling for me honestly
feels like my heart's breaking. This is just waste. This is and I know it's really nice, but I think I could do just someone saying something, you know, on my birth if I meet someone or a message or something. Hate throwing things away, hate it, and maybe it's like a hoarding thing. So I just don't have anything to throw away. I still send them because I know I'm a bad person. I feel bad if I don't send them,
and I should send them. And I think other people really find enjoyment from opening birthday cards, and I think that's great as well. This is just like a personal problem issue with mine.
Have you seen those e cards that you can get that are like terrible sort of they're like singing e cards where you send somebody an email and it opens up and they'd be like a dance. I haven't seen that anger it's like a happy birthday.
I think i'd like that.
Okay, well, if you went quite.
With it due the twenties, you just missed it.
I just missed it. Okay, make a note for next year, we'll send you an E card on your birthday so there's no wastage and.
Get silly and they're silly, they better with me.
Okay, so fine, fine, it's done on.
An Ostrich, me on an Ostrich or something.
Dance.
We can shot your face onto any animal you want, no, properly okay, great love that.
Midnight Chats is a Loud and Quiet podcast production by Emma Snook Music courtesy of gold Panda.
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