INTERVIEW: She Makes War

Bristol-based artist She Makes War (aka Laura Kidd) has been busy creating music that fuses fun and freedom over the last few years. Her buoyant attitude and blistering guitar riffs have seen her build a loyal following across the UK, and with the release of her new album Brace For Impact just around the corner (October 5th), it seems this following is set to multiply further. We caught up with Laura to talk about her new record, her upcoming UK tour, the good & bad sides of social media, and why it’s worth giving DIY recording a shot…

Your new single ‘Devastate Me’ is a total banger. Can you talk about the inspiration behind the track?
Thank you! I’ve always written music about the dissonance caused by living a digital life in an analogue body, and for me that’s really increased in the last few years. Social media has enabled me to build an audience, but even as someone who is aware of its negative effects and strives to keep a balance, it has had an increasingly terrible effect on my ability to concentrate, and I hate that I spend too much time scrolling and too much time reading stuff that I don’t need to read.

‘Devastate Me’ questions the intention behind our obsession with sharing – it’s not that I don’t think we should share at all, but I’d like us to ask ourselves why we’re doing it. I see reflexive photography everywhere – people not even giving themselves a moment to see what’s in front of them before snapping it. I think learning to be present is so important, and being on your phone when spending time with loved ones is the height of rudeness.

All that is why the video is a bouncy tribute to analogue communication and community spaces – the local postbox I send all my merch orders from, an old red phonebox turned into a book swap and food bank donations hub, a wooden boat in the kids play area of my local pub garden and St Nicholas Market, all in Bristol.

You’re due to release your new album Brace For Impact on October 5th. What can fans expect from your new record?
An exhilarating, riffy journey through my thoughts on love, loss, grief, body image, self confidence and mindfulness. Chunky guitars, beautiful strings and heartfelt lyrics.

That sounds great! I read that you overcame a broken foot in order to write this record?
Yes! Everything was going really well with the release of my third album Direction Of Travel, I was happy, I was running long distances, I was getting booked to play exciting gigs and festivals and then BAM! I had an accident and was struck down. That was a really tough summer. I’m very proud of this album because it’s a result of me working through a reasonably deep depression and lethargy caused by shock, physical pain and resentment at my situation, working super hard to regain my mobility through near-daily yoga and making myself sit down and write the songs amidst all sorts of financial concerns.

Once an album is finished and I get a bit of time and space away from it I can slowly start to view it as something separate from me, and each one has its own distinct character. Brace For Impact is the most expansive album I’ve ever made, it’s kind and big hearted and urgent and strong and beautiful.

It’s great that you took something so negative and turned it in to something so positive! Do you have a favourite track on the album?
I love them all very much, but at the moment my favourite song is ‘Strong Enough’, which I wrote about two specific peoples’ experiences, but is a message to anyone going through a mental health crisis. All of the new songs are stories from real life that have a more far reaching message of care for all concerned.

‘Love This Body’ is another favourite – the riff is so grinding and intense and the lyrics are about how devastating it is to me that people – women in particular – spend so much time worrying about what they look like. The song is about myself; I’ve had issues about this stuff from a young age and only recently have started to come to terms with the fact that my body shape is nothing to be ashamed of or to hide. People can be very cruel. We live in a society where airbrushed semi-naked female bodies are in our faces all the time via advertising, and band photos regularly depict the male members fully clothes and the women crouching down in hot-pants and platform heels. What are we supposed to do with all this information?

You’re embarking on a tour to promote the album, with our favourites Dream Nails and The Menstrual Cramps joining you on a couple of dates. What is it you like about these bands? How did you come across them?
Their energy, their freedom and the fact they care so much about spreading their message. Music has to be far more than some pretty noise coming out of some pretty faces to hold my interest. I’d been hearing about them online for ages, so when it was time to put together a bill for the album tour it was obvious who to ask. I’m just lucky they were available! The tour spreads across three weeks so on the first leg I’m joined by Eliza Rickman, an incredible artist from the US, the following week is with Dream Nails and the last four shows are with The Menstrual Cramps. I can’t wait!

What are your anticipations for this tour?
I love performing live, and while I find it impossible to write and record around gigging, it’s frustrating having to miss out on that audience connection for long periods of time when I’m making albums. I start feeling like I’ve disappeared! A lot of the venues on the list are old favourites, so it’ll be great to return with my incredible live band and knock peoples’ socks off around the country.

You record in your own bedroom studio in Bristol. Would you recommend this DIY approach to other girls or women who are looking to record their own music? What are the pros and cons of this method?
I write and demo all my songs at home, yes. I write while recording actually, so as not to forget anything but also to be able to easily play around with arrangements and parts. Once a rough demo is done I go back and do a “posh demo”, where I write and record all the parts – drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, lead vocals, backing vocals…then when the time comes I take all this into affordable studios to re-create them bigger and better with the help of my brilliant engineer.

I love working in this way because I can be as creative and take as much time over the initial writing and production as I like, without having to explain to anyone why I want another five vocal tracks or whatever, and carefully craft every note in the arrangement for maximum emotional resonance. It saves a lot of expensive studio time, because I know what I’m going to be recording, but also means the end result sounds exactly how I want. Of course, extra ideas will pop into my head when I’m in the nice studio, but they’re just the icing on the cake because the main work is done.

I’d recommend to people of all genders to learn to record themselves, whether that’s in a really simple and basic way or more involved. Anyone can learn to do simple multi-track recording, and it’s always better to have at least a little bit of technical knowledge when you’re working with someone else so you can explain to them what you’d like to achieve. More than anything though, I’d like to see people admitting that they don’t know everything, and realising that’s ok! What’s the point in staying quiet and pretending you know something because you think you’ll embarrass yourself in front of someone else? If that person is rude because you admit you don’t know how to do something, find someone else to work with. It’s better to learn by doing.

What’s the Bristol music scene like? How does it compare to other cities you’ve played in?
I hear about this elusive Bristol music scene a lot (usually from interviewers!), but I’ve never really seen it…there are a few artists who are doing their own thing very well, and perhaps there are micro scenes localised to friendship groups, but unfortunately we don’t have many small venues for people to come up in and start gathering an audience together from, so I’m really glad I started my project in London. Having moved here from Herne Hill six years ago, Bristol still feels tiny to me. It’s definitely my home, and I love living here, but musically I think of it as my creative HQ and my jumping off point to travel everywhere else. It’s always lovely to return though, and it’s worked out brilliantly that the big hometown gig is happening on the last night of the tour. It’s going to be a big party!

Your visuals seem equally as important as your music when it comes to your performances. Is this part of your “make art in every day life” ethos? Can you talk about the inspiration behind this?
The music is by far the most important thing when it comes to my performances, but I made the decision a long time ago to use the opportunity to dress up and create something different from the everyday for my shows, something that matched the drama and glitter of my songs. It’s not a different character – it’s the real me, just…more! I do try and lead as creative a life as possible, on and offstage, it makes everything feel more meaningful and satisfying. I struggle with unanticipated dips in mood like everyone else, and I find it’s those little things that really help centre me again and give me focus. I write in a diary most days, I draw and I try to take beautiful photographs.

Finally, As a new music blog, we’re always looking for recommendations about new bands and artists we should be listening to. Who are you listening to at the moment?
I’m excited about upcoming albums from Marissa Nadler, Cat Power and Suede, the new Breeders album is INCREDIBLE and I find myself returning again and again to both Marika Hackman albums, Memories Are Now by Jesca Hoop (the rest of her albums are stellar too) and my beloved Nirvana, Pixies and Blur.

Huge thanks to Laura for answering our questions!

Pre-order She Makes War’s new album Brace For Impact here.
Grab your tickets for one of her tour dates here & follow She Makes War on Facebook for more updates.

Photo Credit: Ania Shrimpton

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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INTERVIEW: Queen Kwong

I arrived at Rough Trade East on Friday 27th July a gross mess, dripping in sweat, hoping the thunderstorm I’d just walked through was a decent excuse for my sloppy appearance. I was there to interview Queen Kwong (aka Carré Callaway) and to see her perform live for the first time. After being introduced, we sat in a corner of the record store, and fortunately for me – when I asked Carré how her support slot with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club went at The Forum the night before – she seemed to understand the discomfort the temperature caused: “It was hot. Really, really, hot. I guess they don’t have any air-con or filtration or anything here?”

When I asked if the heat affected her performance, she provided an unusual insight: “It gives more desperation I guess. There were definitely some points in the set where I was like “I’m gonna pass out right now” – but I’ve played a lot of shows like that, so I should be used to it. I’m used to misery”. We laughed at the quotability of her last sentence, before I changed the subject to her recent support slots with Nine Inch Nails in Las Vegas. She played three consecutive nights with them, and I asked how the shows went, and how they compared to the time she played with the band in 2005 & 2009:

“Well to be honest, I thought that it couldn’t get worse than when I opened for them in 2005. I played by myself with a guitar I borrowed from Trent. I didn’t really even have songs, so it was really stressful, really hard, and people were throwing stuff at me. It was crazy. I was only a teenager at the time, and I was like “Okay, if I can live through this, I can live through anything…” and then it got worse in Vegas…

The drummer I’d been using for a year basically went crazy and had some kind of mental break down. He ended up having to be removed by security because he was on the floor of the dressing room face down, crying. That was the second show in, then he disappeared and I didn’t know if he would even come for the third show. I thought I was gonna have to play the third show as an acoustic set because I thought he’d actually left town. Then he showed up, played the show, and it was really rough – I don’t think he played one song correctly – but we pulled it off. I fired him as soon as we got off stage, and he just laid on my floor and cried. It was a very, very bizarre situation.

So…that was pretty stressful! But in terms of how the actual shows went and how it was received, it was better than ever. I was surprised actually. It’s crazy because I’ve been lucky enough to open for NINs so many times, but they’re always the most stressful types of shows. When I opened for them as a teenager, it was first show they’d played in years – many, many years. And then, I opened for them for the last shows of their Wave Goodbye Tour, so these shows were both very exclusive, limited ticket shows with the most hardcore NINs fans ever. So, in Vegas I wasn’t expecting anything good, but we ended up making some new fans, so that was great”.

Her musical baptisms of fire are pretty full on, so I voiced my own awe at her ability to push through despite these setbacks. I asked her about her anticipations for the headline show she was set to play at Rough Trade in a few hours: “I’m just trying to keep an open mind because I’ve never done an in-store gig that’s actually, literally in the store. I’m curious to see how it goes because our set is pretty loud and aggressive, and it’s kind of funny when it’s in this setting. You feel like you should tone it down, but we might as well turn it up. Go from one extreme to the other”.

I broached the subject of her latest album, Love Me To Death, which she was in town to promote, and asked what she was most proud of on this record: “It’s actually one of the only records I’ve really been proud of because it was a challenge for me. I wanted to make a record that pushed me in terms of my own personal goals. My first record Get A Witness was all improvised and a concept record. Nothing was pre-written or edited, it was just like – record, release – which made it very hard to listen to. For a debut EP, I think I drew a pretty hard line in the sand. I wanted to take more time on this new record and make sure it was a bit more polished. People were like “Can you even write a chorus? Do you even know how to write a song?” – I never really cared about that stuff – but I was kind of curious to see what I could do as a songwriter, and to see what I was capable of. I think all the goals I set for myself, I reached, so this record is definitely the most well-rounded record I could’ve made. It represents every facet of who I am and what my interests are”.

I briefly interrupted to ask what her favourite track was, and why: “My favourite song is probably ‘Sun of Life’ which we aren’t playing tonight. It’s the least listener-friendly song, and it was the last song I recorded on the final day in the studio. It took about thirty minutes, and it was like my first record because it was improvised and heavy, but we’re not playing that tonight because our drummer that we’ve only just met (Sara from The Pearl Harts) only knows so many songs because we literally just met her, and ‘Sun Of Life’ is a really hard song to play if you’ve never played with us before.”

I asked about her new video for single ‘Raptures’ which features Carré running through a dimly-lit corn field. She explained the process that brought the footage to life: “I wanted to do a video of just one continuous shot of me running, with the camera tracking me. We needed to find a place where there was enough space for that in New York, so we went up-state and found this place that was a Halloween maze. I come up with concepts that really test people’s patience. I was like “this is gonna be great!” and everyone was like “No-one is going to be able to sit through this”. But I thought it was really cool, so we tried it, but the Director couldn’t keep up with me when I was running and it was really cold, and I had this whole contraption strapped to my chest which was shining light in front of me. The whole “one shot” thing didn’t really work, it ended up being a real disaster and it took me months to edit it. I had to be really creative with it because there was actually not enough footage, so I used a lot of tricks. I really do like the video, but it definitely strayed from what I wanted it to be. I think for the song it’s really appropriate and fitting. But as per usual, it didn’t go as planned”

We both laughed, and I asked her if this was a common theme when it came to her ideas and how they materialized: “Yeah, It’s a thing. I’m used to things never working out. I’m very accepting of it now”

I moved away from questions about her own music and asked who she was currently listening to: “Everything I listen to is the super opposite of the music I make. I’ve realised I really love Billie Eilish. She’s a 15 year old pop-singer who is amazing. I feel like I’m kind of a creep because I’m way older than her and super obsessed with her music. I’m like her biggest fan, so if she ever comes and plays in town, I’m not sure if I can go to her show… there’s gonna be a bunch of kids with their parents there, and then there’s just me…” Carré laughed at the prospect of this. “She’s super talented, and she seems to have a great attitude. She’s gorgeous, but she dresses in clothes 20 sizes too big. I’m in to that! I listen to The Weeknd a lot too, but aside from that all the stuff I listen to is pretty old. Swans are my favourite band – Oh wait – I’m really looking forward to the new Spiritualized record actually”.

Before she left to begin sound-check, I asked what the rest of 2018 held for Queen Kwong. Carré said she had “no idea”, which prompted me to ask if that was code for “I have an idea, but it’s not going to work out the way I want it to”. She laughed and replied “Why even talk about plans when they’re clearly never going to happen? Hopefully something good will happen though. I was thinking about releasing an EP next year”. I jokingly asked if she’d have time for a holiday: “Maybe? Do you know what, that’s great for press – “Hey, I’m quitting for a while to go on holiday, thanks for the interview, I have no plans to continue this bullshit!” she laughed before setting off to tear up Rough Trade’s stage as the inimitable Queen Kwong.

Huge thanks to Carré for answering my questions.

Love Me To Death is available to order here.

Follow Queen Kwong on Facebook for more updates.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Interview: Leah Dou

Leah Dou has firmly established herself as the face of China’s alt-pop scene with her work receiving nominations at China’s biggest annual Film Festival awards, 53rd Golden Horse Awards and the 36th Hong Kong Film Award. Having grown up under the musical guidance of her pop royalty parents, Leah exudes self-confidence within her genre-defying style which she showcased recently at The Great Escape Festival as part of her UK tour. We caught up with Leah ahead of her sell-out performance at Birthdays… 

How was playing the Great Escape over the weekend as an experience?
I don’t really have anything else to compare it to, I’ve never really played a festival that’s been on such a big scale! I’ve played festivals with a big crowd but with this covering a whole town – that’s really amazing. I don’t know how they (the festival organisers) do it as I hear there’s about a thousand bands playing there.

Do you find there’s much difference in the culture which surrounds the live music scene in the UK compared to China?
Oh yeah, definitely! The live scene in China is not as flourished as the one over here. I think it’s something in China which is still building, or it might just be the way people aren’t used to things.  There aren’t that many venues in China to be honest, so this is like heaven to me!

As a child, you travelled with your parents on tour. Did that help shape you as a musician?
I’m sure it did as I don’t know any differently.

Do you feel that as you were touring with them at such a young age that your career was written in the stars so to speak?
I felt like as a kid a lot of people were anticipating that I go on the same path. For a while I struggled with that. When I was a teenager, I was really starting to think through these things – I was wondering if I wanted to do that (follow in her parent’s footsteps) as it was the obvious choice. Then I came to the conclusion that I’m doing it because I love it. I’m not trying to impress or not do something because people are anticipating me to do it. Once I was able to figure out what mattered the most to me, and what I care about, then I was able to be more clear minded and pure about music.

Do you have any creature comforts or routines which help you deal with the pressures of tour life?
Not so much just when I’m touring, but in life in general, I find it important to have time to meditate. It helps you to slow down a little bit. Taking a break from technology as well – you’re online 24 / 7, that brings me a lot of anxiety.

Do you feel technology and social media is a platform for change for musicians or too consuming?
I think the whole thing with social media is that it really depends on you, how you treat it and what your take on it is. It’s a wonderful thing in a way it creates platforms for so many young artists. It’s really great, but if you go overboard than it consumes you.

Lastly, what can we expect from the songs you’ll be working on this year?
I think for the next project, it’s going to be very different from the previous record. A lot of different sounds and it’s spread across a pretty wide range of genres and styles. It’s certainly not going to be a singular sound.

Huge thanks to Leah for answering our questions! 

Nicky Lee-Delisle 
@Nicky___Lee

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Interview: Hannah Peel

Hannah Peel is a musician who very much marches to the beat of her own drum, or rather more fittingly, the beat of her Moog synth. Always diving head first into whichever project or two she has going, always pouring in a sense of discovery and wonderment, creating her own unique blend of sound.

We caught up with Hannah to talk about her recent touring, creating the sound for a musical adaptation of Brighton Rocks, as well as the story behind her upcoming remix album Particles In Space.

“Dipping my toes back into the theatre for Brighton Rocks was brilliant for me as I could express a lot of things. I had a lot of freedom with the director and the creative team to explore what I wanted to. They were really up for pulsing, dark synths.”

But how did she cope with the pressure of the interpretation?

“The most interesting part of that discovery is the book – when you go back and read it from a musical point of view there are hundreds of references to music in there… One of my favourite films is David Lynch’s Blue Velvet – you’ve got this classical kind of you know… ‘Blue Velvet’ (she sings down the phone) underpinning it all. In the show there’s a dancehall theme and they go to the cinema. I wrote three songs which were of a classic kind of ilk.”

Storytelling is something that Hannah does best with her albums, and with her most recent Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia, Peel makes use of a colliery brass band and synths to launch Mary Casio (a wonderful, mad space lady) into outer space.

“On paper it looks like something that wouldn’t work, like it may be twee or something. But actually the power of the brass and synths, using the low end of the sub of the Moog fills that whole sonic palate of waves of the brass band. Live, you just get this overwhelming feeling – it just hits you like a force! It has this effect of making you feel like you’re really small… I would put on my glasses and play Casio keyboards, like the tango and rumba beat. Just as a way to alleviate what Awake But Always Dreaming (Hannah’s album prior to Mary Casio) was. I started taking it a bit further but there’s actually a star constellation called Cassiopeia which is the most insane thing – what if she went to space? What if she’s this mad space lady? I’ve been reading up on physics and in one of the books I’ve been reading it said we have a hundred billion neurons in the brain which are as many stars as there are in the galaxy. Reading that just cemented the idea – she’s going to go to space!”



Awake But Always Dreaming was dedicated to the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s disease on sufferers and their families. Something which Hannah dealt with first hand with her own Grandmother. Mary Casio, however, lives in the world of lost memories.

“At the very, very end of the album my Grandfather sings on the ‘Planet of Passed Souls’ and that’s him from 1927 as a 13-year-old boy. I kind of imagine that she got to this planet, stepped out of her spaceship, and has gone out and seen all the wind and rain, but the planet itself was sort of a place that might filter the rain out of the atmosphere, all the memories and sound and what you might remember. Take them off and put them into the air, swirl them around you… That is the end of the whole thing. After that I couldn’t write anymore anyway as it felt like that was the end. But maybe this was just her waking up in her garden, maybe this somebody passing into the realm of a different life. Maybe she just went there?”

With such a magical story behind the album, what was the thought behind inviting others on board for Particles In Space?

“I wanted to see how other people would interpret synths and brass bands, see what they would do with them…. I’m very honoured a lot of people have done the mix for me. I wanted to call it Particles In Space because of all these new stars that are being born and the atmosphere. All the people on there are UK based and that’s something I really wanted – to be a nod to the radiophonic workshop. I would say about 80% of it is female. Everything has its time, now seems to be the analogue, synth revival – I don’t think I’ll ever change out of it, I like it way too much!”

Huge thanks to Hannah for the chat and answering our questions!

Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia is out now and Hannah Peel is playing at BBC Music Biggest Weekend today in Belfast.

Nicky Lee Delisle
@Nicky___Lee

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