Demanding Your Company - Lonelady

When Lonelady’s CD dropped through the Gigwise letterbox a few months ago we were, to say the least, pretty impressed. Not only did it contain all the teeth-grinding grit of Paul Weller in all his post-punk pomp, but it had all the simmering melodies of The Cure as well. Suffice to say, it was a delicious concoction which triggered one simple question – ‘Where can we go and see this band?’ That was our and a lot of people’s, first mistake. Lonelady is actually just Julie Campbell – a 27-year old Mancunian out to prove that you don’t need to be “four skinny white boys” to be capable of grabbing people’s attention. In fact, you don’t even need to be one skinny white boy, or even a boy for that matter.

It’s 11am on a spring infested February morning that Gigwise chats to Lonelady. Birds are chirping, daffodils are shooting and… well, we’re not Bill Oddie but you get the picture. Not that Lonelady cares, however. Our ‘early’ phone call has meant that she’s “had to do some quick waking up.” Mutual apologies shared, we carry on regardless.

Although she might be lying in this morning, she certainly hasn’t been making a habit of it over the last two years. While it’s the release of her fantastic third single, ‘Army,’ that’s really struck a chord, Lonelady’s been recording visceral tracks since the middle of 2005. In that period of time (which has seen the release of her debut single ‘Hi Ho Fear’ and the ‘Have No Past EP’) she admits that her sound has already evolved considerably – even if not many people have actually heard its transformation yet. “It’s become a more lean, efficient machine. I’m excited about continuing down that path really, with the songs being really tight and energetic.” Although it’s not remarkable for an artist to confess that they’re in constant flux, most artists aren’t in the same position as Lonelady.

To date, all of her recordings have been made on a four track recorder in her home studio – a Manchester tower block. While it’s not the environment you’d see her more famous Manchester compatriots recording in, for her it’s been a unique and inspiring place to build her career’s foundations. “I think working in this style means that the song itself has to be really good and really tight, so I find that it’s a useful tool in that sense. It pushes me to make the song as good as I humanly can - which I do try and do.” Although her releases have included other instruments, it’s the guitar that plays the dominant role in all of her songs. “I like there to be some space in the songs. I think people drown their songs with loads of instrumentation and I’m not really interested in that.”

If Lonelady’s approach sounds a little ‘independent woman,’ and almost 21st Century ‘girl-power-esque,’ then that’s because it is. Julie Campbell wasn’t born into a musical family where Fender-Stratocaster’s hung in every room, so her artistic passion for making music is very much her own thing. In fact, art in general is a very prominent subject. An art degree at University is actually the main reason that she didn’t build on her early interest of playing air guitar to Nirvana and Pulp records. “I’ve always been involved in art and writing poetry. After I left university I spent two years getting involved in exhibitions and having work published,” she confesses. Although, unlike countless other graduates, she achieved success following her vocation, music was always a niggling underlying ambition and something that she admits she now feels the more strongly about.

Most people in their mid-twenties- as much as they’d love to - wouldn’t be willing to take this gamble. It’s exactly this that separates Lonelady from the rest. Up until July last year, she took to the stage by herself, armed with a handful of songs, a guitar and a drum machine. Understandably, she was a little reluctant to take the first steps initially because “I was just enjoying making the recordings.” Since stepping over the threshold, however, she’s not looked back. Fortuitously, her intrepid early live shows also introduced her to a record label that shared her raw, unnerving desire to succeed. Filthy Home Recordings, like her, was also in its embryonic stages and operating on a low to no money budget. As she talks, you can tell it’s been the perfect marriage. “Yeah they kind of evolved at a similar time that I was evolving you know? It was just more of a mutual conversation really like, ‘I’ve made this thing and what can we do with it?’ We have kind of evolved together really.”