After a recent past that has included support gigs for Jake Bugg and Miles Kane, festival spots at Reading and Leeds and a spot on the London Evening Standard’s Power 1000 alongside Disclosure, Rudimental and Sir Mick Jagger, you would think that charismatic rocker Natalie Findlay might have some time for a break. Wrong.
“We were in France and Switzerland last week,” told the artist, who performs under the abbreviated title of ‘Findlay’. “I’ve not had a day off in about three weeks or something horrendous but it’s all part of the fun. Better that than working in fucking McDonalds.”
Certainly, the electric artist has barely had time to sleep never mind take a day off recently, with her latest EP Greasy Love released late last month and a string of British tour dates quickly following. Findlay had only finished a hectic rehearsal session when she took to the phone for this particular interview, yet the artist seemed characteristically vivacious throughout the conversation – a trait which carries through to the assertive nature of her rock n roll work.
Indeed, in Greasy Love we see an urgent, empowering sound develop around fuzzy, blaring vocals, while in FakeBlackHeart a slow, circling guitar riff morphs into a boisterous backing dominated by the distinctive and delightful Findlay. Black Cloud Single Lining meanwhile, the final song on the record, slows the pace down, highlighting the originality and versatility of the artist’s work.
She continued: “I’m working on another EP just now and I’m still experimenting with which sound I want to commit to for an album. I will probably have done about three EPs by the time the actual album comes out but I’m still trying to find the sound that I want. I’m going to keep messing around and see how certain things sound and work with different producers.
“For Greasy Love I recorded and rerecorded and it became a kind of labour of love to get it finished. FakeBlackHeart I had had for a little bit and I thought that those two tracks went together well. The B side Black Cloud Silver Lining I wrote a couple of months ago about a break up – I played the track to the guy and he didn’t get it and then a week after I recorded it I left,” Findlay laughed. “The song was actually the demo and I didn’t want to fuck with the sound of it because it was so raw and we did it all in one take.
“My writing is constantly evolving though. For Black Cloud Silver Lining I knew what I wanted for the subject matter since it was so close to my heart, but that made it easy and difficult at the same time because you’ve got to be really honest with yourself which kind of hurts.
“It was a relief to get that emotion out and it was quite a painful one to write but I thought that the tracks seemed to fit together well, and the remix as well. We had a couple of remixes done of Greasy Love and the TYTHE one was my favourite so we put it on the EP.
“[The EP] was really a struggle for me. I wanted to release it on vinyl as well but I didn’t want to push the release date. It was just a fucking palaver to get it done but it’s out there now which is kind of a relief.”
It wasn’t just the music side of things that Findlay was worried with in the run up to the release of Greasy Love either. An electrifying music video accompanied the release of the title track, and the artist was keen to remark on her positive time with director Ruffmercy, with whom she worked to construct the emotive, supernatural-esk production.
“I’ve been a massive fan of the videos of Ruffmercy for ages,” she continued. “He’s been doing videos with Danny Brown and Blue Daisy and I just thought ‘fuck, wouldn’t it be cool if he did a video for me’, but I’m not the kind of artist he would usually go for. I sent him the track though and we met up a couple of times and he was really cool and said ‘yeah, let’s do something’.
“We shot it over September and it was fucking freezing. It was a really long and cold shoot but the results were great so I’m happy with that.”
With the Greasy Love EP now done and dusted the quirky artist admits she will be glad to get back out on the road, remarking casually on her pre-show rituals of listening to Return of the Mack and slamming ‘a few shots of whiskey’.
The hard working artist will have a lengthy list of plans that are ready and waiting for the turn of the year too, and if she continues to impress with her fresh brand of music, it could well be a future that will prove even more busy and even for bountiful for the talented Natalie Findlay.
Stuart Kenny
As published originally at: www.brignewspaper.com
“We were in France and Switzerland last week,” told the artist, who performs under the abbreviated title of ‘Findlay’. “I’ve not had a day off in about three weeks or something horrendous but it’s all part of the fun. Better that than working in fucking McDonalds.”
Certainly, the electric artist has barely had time to sleep never mind take a day off recently, with her latest EP Greasy Love released late last month and a string of British tour dates quickly following. Findlay had only finished a hectic rehearsal session when she took to the phone for this particular interview, yet the artist seemed characteristically vivacious throughout the conversation – a trait which carries through to the assertive nature of her rock n roll work.
Indeed, in Greasy Love we see an urgent, empowering sound develop around fuzzy, blaring vocals, while in FakeBlackHeart a slow, circling guitar riff morphs into a boisterous backing dominated by the distinctive and delightful Findlay. Black Cloud Single Lining meanwhile, the final song on the record, slows the pace down, highlighting the originality and versatility of the artist’s work.
She continued: “I’m working on another EP just now and I’m still experimenting with which sound I want to commit to for an album. I will probably have done about three EPs by the time the actual album comes out but I’m still trying to find the sound that I want. I’m going to keep messing around and see how certain things sound and work with different producers.
“For Greasy Love I recorded and rerecorded and it became a kind of labour of love to get it finished. FakeBlackHeart I had had for a little bit and I thought that those two tracks went together well. The B side Black Cloud Silver Lining I wrote a couple of months ago about a break up – I played the track to the guy and he didn’t get it and then a week after I recorded it I left,” Findlay laughed. “The song was actually the demo and I didn’t want to fuck with the sound of it because it was so raw and we did it all in one take.
“My writing is constantly evolving though. For Black Cloud Silver Lining I knew what I wanted for the subject matter since it was so close to my heart, but that made it easy and difficult at the same time because you’ve got to be really honest with yourself which kind of hurts.
“It was a relief to get that emotion out and it was quite a painful one to write but I thought that the tracks seemed to fit together well, and the remix as well. We had a couple of remixes done of Greasy Love and the TYTHE one was my favourite so we put it on the EP.
“[The EP] was really a struggle for me. I wanted to release it on vinyl as well but I didn’t want to push the release date. It was just a fucking palaver to get it done but it’s out there now which is kind of a relief.”
It wasn’t just the music side of things that Findlay was worried with in the run up to the release of Greasy Love either. An electrifying music video accompanied the release of the title track, and the artist was keen to remark on her positive time with director Ruffmercy, with whom she worked to construct the emotive, supernatural-esk production.
“I’ve been a massive fan of the videos of Ruffmercy for ages,” she continued. “He’s been doing videos with Danny Brown and Blue Daisy and I just thought ‘fuck, wouldn’t it be cool if he did a video for me’, but I’m not the kind of artist he would usually go for. I sent him the track though and we met up a couple of times and he was really cool and said ‘yeah, let’s do something’.
“We shot it over September and it was fucking freezing. It was a really long and cold shoot but the results were great so I’m happy with that.”
With the Greasy Love EP now done and dusted the quirky artist admits she will be glad to get back out on the road, remarking casually on her pre-show rituals of listening to Return of the Mack and slamming ‘a few shots of whiskey’.
The hard working artist will have a lengthy list of plans that are ready and waiting for the turn of the year too, and if she continues to impress with her fresh brand of music, it could well be a future that will prove even more busy and even for bountiful for the talented Natalie Findlay.
Stuart Kenny
As published originally at: www.brignewspaper.com
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