Photo: Press
Back in March, Lucy Rose flew to Quito, Ecuador, to begin a tour of South America that would take her right through to Monterrey in Mexico at the end of May.
The gigs that she played in those nine weeks were all intimate shows, booked by fans, free entry, and didn’t involve any promoters or booking agents throughout the whole process. I spoke to her on the phone the day after she arrived back in the UK, when you’d be forgiven for thinking she’d be tired, jet-lagged, and lacking enthusiasm for an interview – but she was clearly so fired up by the experience and excited to share what she’d learnt from it that her exhaustion was the last thing on her mind.
Do you think the tour will affect the music that you write in the future, or affect how you write it?
I’m sure it will. I’m sure it’s going to affect me, and influence me and my thoughts, and my views, because I’ve learnt so much during this experience: more about myself, about the world, about other people, and about music. So I’m sure that’s going to influence what I’m writing now, and how I’m writing it.
Also I’ve been playing on just an acoustic guitar for nearly nine weeks, and that’s made me realise that the best thing sometimes to do is just to write a simple song on a guitar, or on one instrument, and build up on it.
Are there songs you were working on while you were away that you’re going to finish now you're back?
Well because we were living with fans, in their houses, there wasn’t really a free moment to myself, ever – often we were in their living rooms, on their sofa beds. They were showing us round the towns, and I had a gig nearly every night, so there wasn’t a huge amount of free time.
I started writing one in Paraguay, on this old Spanish guitar, and the history behind it was quite amazing. It belonged to the uncle of a girl we were staying with – it was his old guitar, and then he had a drug addiction problem, sold it, and then ended up in jail. Then years later she saw it in a second hand shop for sale, and she bought it.
So I was playing this guitar, just playing around with some ideas, and I probably would never have done anything with them – the number of times I’ve just noodled around on the guitar, singing some ideas, and then just left it, and forgotten about them. But the guy we were with, Fernando, was like “Can you keep playing that please?” So I carried on writing the song, and playing it, and then I looked over and he was in tears, crying. I was like, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, what have I done?” and he said, “No, I really like it, please promise me you’re gonna finish that song, even if it’s just for me, because it means so much.”
It’s things like that that are like, wow – I didn’t realise that just playing the guitar could make anyone feel anything like that. So yeah, I was writing bits here and there, but I guess now that I’m home is the time to really collect my thoughts and work out what I want to say.
In the past, have you written with fans in mind, or is it only once the music is finished and you’re performing that they become involved in the process? And has that changed now?
Yeah, that’s a good question. With the first record, I didn’t, because I really thought no one was ever going to hear the songs, especially when I was writing them. I was a teenager, and just thinking I was doing it for myself, with this sort of crazy dream that I was going to win the lottery and be able to make a record – but really, I didn’t think anyone was going to hear them.
With the second record I guess I was trying to push that to one side, because I knew some people were going to hear them then. There was more pressure, so I was kinda trying to forget that people would hear them, because it makes you close up a bit. It was like “oh god, do I want to say that?” if it was a bit personal and I knew that people would hear it. So the whole time I was trying to forget that they were going to hear it, pretend they weren’t, and write from the heart, and write what’s important – which is quite difficult.
But now, more so than ever, there’s been a complete flip, because I’ve met people that my music really matters to. For the first time in my life, I’ve felt like I’ve really spent three days with one person who my music really matters to – it’s not just quickly meeting a fan after a show and having a photo. I’ve never done that before, and I really connected to people that care about my music. I really want to be honest and write songs that really matter, because of them – so it’s the opposite. I’m going to write this record for them, and I’m going to write about things that are truly important to me for them. So yeah, it’s kind of come full circle.
Did you get to watch any other people playing live music while you were in South America, and were you introduced to local music by the people that you were staying with?
I have got, honestly, thirty or forty mixtapes, CDs, people’s favourite records from all their different countries. It’s difficult, because they were asking me, “How do you do it? And how can we do it?” But I just don’t know the answers. The music industry is so brutally difficult to get into, and also in all the countries that I’ve visited I don’t have radio, or press, or a label, and my record’s not even released except for digitally on Spotify or iTunes. But there is this power of internet, which is how all of these people have discovered my music. So I guess the one hope that musicians have is that, okay, even without all of that stuff, there’s still a way of getting your music out there.
It must have been an amazing feeling, travelling around South America and hearing the words that you’ve written sung back to you…
It really is, especially when you’ve been told repeatedly that you don’t have any fans anywhere, or no one wants to book you gigs in these places. But there’s no actual real way of judging it unless you just go somewhere and see who turns up.
I guess the whole thing was quite empowering to be like, “OK, you guys think I’ve got no fans, but I know I do because they’re tweeting me all the time, and someone’s picking me up from the airport.” And even if it was just ten fans, the point was that I wanted to go and thank them for supporting me, and for listening to my music.
So, you filmed the journey?
Yeah, my husband actually filmed it.
It sounds like it’s really enjoyable for the musician as well as the fans…
Oh my god, best nine weeks of my life. So enjoyable. So happy.
I’ve always been a bit of a cynic when it comes to travelling, and it’s terrible, I’ve always thought that it’s really selfish to go travelling, and spend all this money going to find yourself. And I’d never travelled before, so I was like ok, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do something which is you know, admittedly really selfish – I want to spend money to go and see the world and learn more. But I was thinking, if I can do some good alongside travelling, and play some free music while I’m out there, I could do something positive with it.
But yeah, like everything, if what you’re doing is making someone else happy, then it’s going to make you really happy. Doing something like this made me so happy, and so unbelievably grateful that there are people out there who like my music. Because you sometimes sit at home wondering, looking at Facebook, trying to gauge whether anyone cares, or anyone likes it…
I guess it’s difficult with just Facebook, or whatever social media, as a gauge, when it’s often best to get feedback from real people.
Totally, and you hear people’s stories most importantly: about music, and why they are personally connected so much to music. You don’t often sit down with one of your biggest fans and talk about why they love music, and why it’s important. And that is an honour, as an artist, and it’s a real privilege that someone cares.
Lucy Rose performed at the innocent un-plugged festival, a ‘weekend off the grid’ (28th – 30th May) www.innocentunplugged.com
