MUSIC:Lonelady, whose debut album is a very fine collection of hook-heavy 1980s-inflected guitar pop, is shy in interviews but not short on opinions. She shares her thoughts on everything from Madchester and Michael Stipe to dull performers with SINÉAD GLEESON
I CAN COUNT on one hand the amount of musicians who have confessed to liking interviews. For the majority, publicity is an obligatory albatross to be endured in the hope of selling some records or filling a venue. Technically, people who get up on stage and play for a roomful of strangers shouldn’t fear a one-to-one encounter, but if you’re naturally shy it can be a nightmare.
Step forward Julie Campbell, aka Lonelady, Mancunian maker of the very fine debut Nerve Up. "I was thrown in at the deep end with this album. No one can prepare you for the attention, or explain to you what that's going to be like. There's an assumption that if you make a record, you're automatically as enthusiastic about talking to a lot of people about it.
“It’s assumed that you want to be a public figure, which really isn’t the case for me. It’s part of the process, but the next time around I’ll be able to deal with it better.”
Campbell is quiet-spoken, deadpan even, but not short on opinions. Her Manchester accent is broad, and she is prone to pauses. It's a surprise then that, as an artist who likes doing interviews by e-mail, she agreed to let veteran Manc journalist Paul Morley interview her – on camera – for the Guardian.
“Believe it or not, I haven’t actually watched it. I enjoyed speaking with him, but I prefer the memory of it. Writing music and presenting songs in the context of an album is like crafting a different version of the truth, so talking extensively about yourself is unravelling that to some degree. It’s an ongoing struggle to talk about your work and not yourself. I prefer to deliver the record and let it speak for itself.”
And it does, in a language of 1980s-inflected, electro-tinged guitar pop.
There have been comparisons to acts such as PJ Harvey, Tom Vek and Linder Sterling of 1970s Manchester art-rock band Ludus. That last one is primarily based on geography, and the fact that Campbell studied visual art.
Manchester is synonymous with various musical movements, from The Smiths to the Madchester era of the late 1980s. She relates more to the earlier of these two eras, but is wary about defining herself in geographic terms. As a kid, her older brother was listening to The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, but she wasn’t a fan.
“I don’t think it’s right to be self-conscious about where you’re from and adopt a mannered way of making ‘Manchester music’. The old Madchester phase wasn’t a particular favourite period of Manchester music for me.
“It was only in my mid-20s that I started listening to Joy Division. Funnily, my admiration of Paul Morley comes from the books about music that he’s written, particularly the one on Joy Division. He writes about the atmosphere around music, and after he interviewed me I still didn’t know if he liked the record,” she laughs.
“I mostly listened to American music, and I think that comes through on the album. Lots of these songs are influenced by early REM.” It’s a surprising revelation, and yet it makes perfect sense. Michael Stipe always carried off an air of wilful androgyny, and balanced the complexities of being singer and performer.
“I always loved Stipe’s persona, which was his own myth-making.” She neither knew nor cared about his sexuality, she says. “It just didn’t even occur to me.
“I also remember listening to Nico’s solo albums a lot, and she made all this really interesting music. It was a different way of seeing her, rather than just being portrayed as the girlfriend prop that she was often made out to be. Her image was very complicated, and we need a bit more of that, where things aren’t quite so easy to define.”
Campbell relates to Nico as a woman in music, and she has faced similar assumptions. Frequently she is thrown into a British female musician tombola.
“From what I’ve read – and I try not to go on the internet too much, because I find it depressing – if you don’t give the record any time or engage with me as a 3D person, you’re just going to get the ‘oh look, she uses some electronic sounds and has short red hair, let’s say she’s like La Roux’. It’s quite infantile, is’t it?”
There are electronic tics all over the album, but it’s very much a pop record. Campbell plays several instruments, but favours guitar. This makes sense for a girl who cites REM as a huge influence. And yet, by her own admission, she has tried to avoid rock seeping into her work. Instead, it’s hook-heavy, infectious pop.
“Pop isn’t a dirty word for me. I love catchy music, and I don’t think it’s a difficult record to listen to at all. There’s a lot of things within rock I don’t like – it’s very male too, and sonically it’s very conservative. It’s about finding a space for myself and the kind of music I play that wasn’t connected to that rock’n’roll history.”
At 15, she taught herself guitar, and by 18 was taking cello lessons. She bought a four-track in her 20s, and it was only when she started recording the songs that they became tangible. Nerve Upwas recorded in just 21 days, with Guy Fixsen, who has previously worked with My Bloody Valentine and Stereolab. Apart from Andrew Cheetham on drums, she played everything herself.
“I like controlling all the elements of a song, I enjoy creating something from the ground up, and I was reluctant about approaching people about playing in a traditional band set-up. I had written all these notes and had a clear idea about what I wanted it to be, but once you start building an album and recording it, everything sounds completely different.”
The live set-up is very similar, but Campbell tries to extend this to performing on stage. For her, music can be a visual thing.
“I enjoy trying to create the right kind of imagery to associate with the music. And whether you like it or not, when you play live you have to consider how you present yourself. It’s great that people like Ellie Goulding are enjoying themselves when they play, but too many people seem to be plucked from stage school – they’re completely at ease with themselves on stage, and I find that quite dull.”
It’s six months since the album was released, and Campbell is glad to be done with the initial flurry of press. She’s now in a rush to release a second album, and is keen to move on and focus on new tunes. “The day your record is released to the public is the day you say goodbye to it. When my schedule allows, I’m chipping away at new stuff, and I’m really keen to get on with it.”
Her label, Warp, is also very supportive. She’s not typical of its roster, but was aware of the label’s reputation. “A lot of the music was unknown to me, but since they signed me I’ve been discovering their back catalogue.” A lot of music released by Warp over the years has been instrumental, but Campbell, despite her shyness, is okay with writing lyrics.
“They’re only a constructed version of the truth, and it’s much more challenging and interesting to do that with lyrics, I don’t want them to be ordinary. I want to move away from ordinariness, because that’s what life is most of the time.”
- Lonelady plays Castlepalooza, Tullamore, Co Offaly on Sunday. Nerve Upis out now on Warp Records
