FEATURE: Spotlight: She Drew the Gun

FEATURE:

Spotlight

She Drew the Gun

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THIS is another occasion where…

I feel I have covered an artist before. I have checked through the archives and I have not put She Drew the Gun in a Spotlight feature – the best of my recollection anyway! Hailing from The Wirral, they are fronted by singer/songwriter Louisa Roach (the full band are Louisa Roach - lead vocals, guitar, Sian Monaghan - drums, percussion, Jack Turner - bass, lead guitar and Jenni Kickheffer - keyboards, synthesiser). I really love She Drew the Gun. I am especially a fan of Roach’s vocals. One of the most expressive and individual leads out there, we are all looking forward to the release of the third studio album, Behave Myself. Due for release on 24th September, it is an album I will be sure to check out. As there have not been too many recent interviews with She Drew the Gun – I guess there will be more around the time of the new album coming out -, I am taking it back to when the band released Revolution of Mind. I would recommend people to check the band out on social media (links are at the bottom). Check out news regarding tour dates, as She Drew the Gun are hitting the road later in the year. I want to include a review for the previous album. Be sure to pre-order Behave Myself if you can.

There are a few interviews Roach conducted that I want to draw attention. The National Student spoke with her in 2019. We learn more about the recording process of Revolution of Mind:

“Louisa explains how the recording process of her latest album Revolution of Mind differed from 2016’s Memories from Another Future and how the songs evolved from rough, home recordings rather than going into the studio and building the tracks from scratch. 2018’s record “was quite different from the first one. [With Memories] I met James Skelly from The Coral […] we started writing together and then that turned into the first album. We’d record the guitar and vocal and build the track around what I had. This time I made demos before we went into the studio”.

Both She Drew The Gun studio albums incorporate spoken word and spoken word influenced lyricism. This is also an element the band weaves into live sets. Louisa delves into some of her inspirations from performance poetry and the world of hip-hop:

“I think 2 Pac would probably be my favourite rapper from back in the day […] And then with spoken word I guess in recent years, Kate Tempest and artists like Toria Garbutt; I listen to that".

The lifestyle of a touring musician, however, was not the career path Louisa originally envisaged and she discusses figures and moments that motivated her to become a songwriter for a living comparatively late in life: “I’ve always loved music and there are certain things that I remember that really inspired me to pursue it, one of them is when I heard ‘Working Class Hero’ [John Lennon] for the first time". Lousia also mentions Malvina Reynolds who "was a folk singer who decided to pursue music in her 50s [...] she became a protest singer. I’ve just decided I don’t care what age I am, I’m just going to do it.

Louisa's university education seems to have had a positive impact on her approach to songwriting. She says that she “just read a lot of interesting stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise, like philosophical thinkers". In particular, she mentions how she "liked the critical side of psychology, criticising psychology as an institution. I got drawn towards sociology […] Psychology can tend to look too much at people at an individual level and ignores power structures that are operating on individuals".

Even writing essays seems to have been beneficial in helping Louisa craft the compelling narratives that find themselves all over She Drew The Gun's two studio albums - "It was a bit like a song really, it’s got a beginning, middle and an end – it’s there to persuade someone. I think doing those things helped me to become a better songwriter, helped me to be a songwriter even.”

We close the interview by talking about the political message of the latest album and what Louisa thinks it is important to “resist”, which as well as being an anchoring concept on Revolution of Mind, is also the subject of a forthcoming spoken word piece she will likely work into the band's live set. "Looking after your own state of mind is part of resisting what’s going on all around us at the moment is the first one. I think for a start you’ve got mental health, which is a bit of an epidemic at the moment […] People are struggling, and I don’t think that’s down to individual problems. It’s hard at the moment".

Lousia elaborates on why she thinks people seem to be becoming more isolated and unwell as a result; she specifically blames government policy, "I think austerity is a tool; it’s not a necessity, it’s a political choice. I think you’ve got to resist the narrative that comes out of the media […] I think the media is a massive part of the problem. It’s too easy not to care and to kind of be a bit like, ‘Well as long as I’m all right, it doesn’t matter about anyone else’”.

It is amazing to think how far She Drew the Gun have come since they won the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent competition in 2016. I can imagine that, like most artists, they miss the buzz of Glastonbury! When they do get to tour later in the year, it will be a chance for new people to discover the group. When she spoke with Northern Life Magazine, Roach discussed the influence of Liverpool bands on her songwriting:

“The political psych-pop poetry of Louisa Roach’s She Drew The Gun first became known to me when they won the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition in 2016. Three years later, with an amplified, genre-bending second album and touring record to match – I want to know if her northern roots got her to the sonic and ideological position, she closes 2019 in:

“Liverpool bands [influenced me] in a big way. Going back, The Coral, The Las, you know, The Beatles. It’s very much part of the musical heritage. Yeah, it’s a boss musical place – especially the North West of England, considering what it is on the world map. It’s produced a lot of the best ever music. My favourite artist ever is John Lennon. I just think all my favourite artists have got that political side to them. Everything they do might not be about it but, they speak about the bigger picture sometimes.”

This element of social commentary that glows outward of She Drew The Gun’s discography began when Roach wrote Poem a song with the provocative and evocative lines: ‘What it’s not enough to just pretend that you don’t see him / You can’t stand the sight so you’ve got to disappear him’: “That was the first one that I did. saw a newspaper article about [how] they were moving homeless people off the street because they wanted to make way for tourists. I think there was a big event going on. That just started me off and it turned into a massive rant about like, everything.

“I performed that as a spoken word piece, and then I ended up thinking: ‘why don’t I just turn it into a song? I think it would give it more power. It doesn’t necessarily give it more power when you perform it because people often stop and really listen to a poet, whereas sometimes with music a lot of the lyrics get lost. But, as a thing to put out in the world, a song has got a bit more legs. A song’s got more chance of taking off in the public consciousness a bit more.”

Given her lyric-heavy style, it makes sense that Roach’s music originated as poetry and spoken word, and it still forms part of her methodology when she approaches songwriting: “Sometimes I’m really pissed off about this, or there’s a subject that I really need to write about’ so I’ll write a poem and sometimes that becomes a spoken word part that’s in the set, and then sometimes that becomes a song.”

She also finds herself inspired by the work being created around her:

“Sometimes I just hear someone say something, or on a film someone will say a line and I’ll like that, and I’ll just use that to start off with, and then see where that goes; see if that turns into a song. Do you know what I find sometimes as well? Going to a gig and watching a gig, sometimes I end up writing loads of notes on my phone. I don’t even go to enough gigs – that’s another thing that I need to do once we’ve finished this tour”.

Not to look back on the previous album too much - but, as I say, there is more press available for Revolution of Mind. It gives us a chance to chance to revisit one of the finest albums of 2018. PRS for Music interviewed Louisa Roach about themes and inspirations behind the album:

“What’s the thinking behind the new LP Revolution of Mind?

It’s about everything from personal relationships to the global war industry, resistance, depression, love, solidarity, capitalism, the human reward system, outsiderness, the things that have been on my mind. I like to critique the systems we live in, but to write with hope that liberation struggles can be won. The thinking being that the only way we can ever really have a revolution - the only way we can achieve the vast changes necessary for our species to survive and to reverse its destructive traditions - is in the way that we think. It’s like Rosa Luxembourg said: ‘The strike doesn’t cause the revolution, the revolution causes the strike’.

How and when did it come together?

I’ve been writing the songs mostly throughout the last 18 months or so between touring. Me and Jack had time to work on demos beforehand and then we recorded in a few stints with James Skelly and Chris Taylor at Parr Street Studios. I think it took nine studio days in total but most of it was put down over a week in May 2018.

What was inspiring you most at the time?

I like interesting writing in whatever form it comes. I’ve been drawn to a lot of feminist poetry recently. A lot of the time I just write to make things clearer for myself, to play around with subjects that have come into my life in one way or another.

What have you learned about making music since you first started out?

That I’m not here to just churn out songs, I’m going through a process to write them. That I love to write, it keeps me sane. That it’s just a ride”.

It is worth getting to a review of the Revolution of Mind. There was a lot of love for the band’s second album. This is what URBANISTA remarked when they tackled the album:

“We all know about the social issues around us. It’s all we ever hear. And the more you see the homeless, the less shocking they become. So we revert. Back to our screens. Back to tequila. Back to a blackout piss-up or Love Island on the tele.

“Paradise, there’s trouble on the green, there’s nothing to believe, you’ve got everything you need.”

And like Roach, we know there’s trouble on the green. We know there’s nothing to believe in. And we know we’ve got everything we need. Or so we think.

“I know the night has other plans, but there are things to understand, so arm yourself with me, we have just words to make us free, and in my chest I know this beat, my heart will never know defeat, my song is unity, liberty, romance, so let’s dance dance dance dance dance.”

The final track, Human, is the most similar to what we’ve heard from the band beforehand – dusty, folksy, reminiscent of Buckley and Dylan. So is earlier track, Between Stars… for about 20 seconds.

Then, like a foghorn from the Mersey, the bass kicks in and we’re off again – a grungey beat, punchy percussion, a shit-tonne of reverb. Over which sits Roach’s scouse accent and her stream-of-consciousness styled spoken verse.

There’s plenty here about lack of connection. About tension. About bruises. About earth-wide rigor mortis. But always, the positive notes creep back.

“You’ve gotta keep your head up, find a good heart.”

The album feels bi-polar. There’s self awareness. There’s world awareness. But there’s always the temptation to get lost. To have a smoke. To grab a pint. To swerve the fact there’s food banks. To walk past the homeless. To ignore the ever bigger gap between rich and poor. Who can be arsed anymore?

We thought we’d sorted it all when we bounced round Prenton Park chanting for that fella who called the numbers at Bongo’s last month. Well it clearly didn’t work. Or, it takes longer than anybody ever fucking realised.

Roach talks about being tired of the talking, about wanting to fly away. We can definitely connect. She’ll grab your attention with this common interest before hitting you with the facts.

For an album of it’s time, Revolution of Mind is completely on key. We don’t wanna be told about what’s wrong with the world. We already know. We don’t want it to continue but how the fuck do we stop it? It’s easier to sack it all off and just dance dance dance but we’ve got to make a change.

The first step? Sharing tracks like this. Art makes a difference when it comes from the ground up. We’ll get fuck all from those with their suits and their tax havens, so it’s down to the likes of Roach and She Drew The Gun to help change the script. Sound like something you’d be interested in? Take a listen. Get angry. Tell ya’ nan”.

Go and follow She Drew the Gun if you have not done so already. With an album and tour later in the year, there will be fresh attention the way of the northern band. If I have covered them before, it has been a while. I wanted to revisit a favourite of mine. On the basis of what we have heard so far from Behave Myself, it sounds like it going to be…