When you tour with other musicians, you feel a certain camaraderie. What was it like with Snow Patrol?
Getting to tour with Snow Patrol was such a full-circle moment in many ways. I grew up listening to their music as a kid, which always feels surreal when you then get to share a stage. They were also a huge inspiration for my recent album and featured on many of my sonic reference playlists. I’ve always loved how their songs build until they explode. I love those moments so much. Gary, Johnny, and Nathan were incredible on stage and off. We all felt so welcome on their tour and it was great to meet them.
OMG, Stevie Nicks, please tell us about that experience.
Supporting Stevie Nicks was an absolute dream come true! She is such an icon in many ways and a total legend. I loved watching her set every night. Her voice has never sounded better. I also love how she’d kept all the old capes she wore on certain album covers and shows back in the day. I felt even more inspired by her music and style after the tour.Who are some other musicians you would love to tour with?There are so many… but the first that come to mind are Hozier or Mumford & Sons. I saw Mumford have a tour coming up later this year and I definitely want to see it! Huge fan of both.
Give us a dream festival lineup; it can be dead or alive: 🙂
Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Bon Iver, Taylor Swift, Whitney Houston, Imogen Heap, The Cranberries, The Smiths, Coldplay, Mazzy Star, Bruce Springsteen, James Blake, Kate Bush, Sigur Rós… I’m probably forgetting loads but this is a start! What’s been inspiring you lately outside of music?I love creating, really. I’m really passionate about cooking. I love trying to recreate recipes from places I’ve visited. I feel like some of my best ideas for music come when I’m cooking because it feels like a part of my brain switches off. I’m also trying to write a fictional book just for fun. If I think it’s good when it’s done maybe I’ll think about putting it out, but it’s unexpectedly providing a lot of inspiration for my future music and I’m learning a lot about myself in the process.
Is there a specific song from Mountain Music/Mountain Music (The Summit) that feels the most vulnerable to you?
The whole thing!! It really does feel like I’ve ripped off a piece of me and put it out there into the world — which is kinda daunting. Every song on there is really important to me and captures a really difficult time in my life. Writing Mountain Music was such a healing journey and has provided more comfort to me than anything else. I’m so grateful to be able to process my life through songwriting. Your songwriting has always been deeply personal.How do you decide which experiences make it into your music?I took a while to write Mountain Music because of this… I felt like everything was so deeply personal and as I’ve grown older I’ve become less comfortable sharing my personal life with the world. The way I make it work is, if something feels off limits to talk about or isn’t my business to share, I can still write about how it made me feel. You can either write about the situation in detail or simply just how it made you feel. I think our feelings are always valid to share because they belong to us. I also think it leaves the song more open to interpretation and people can take it into their own lives however they want. But this is something I’ve definitely had to work out.What would be your dream venue to play?The OVO Hydro in Glasgow… or Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver— such an incredible venue.
