London born and Newcastle raised, singer/songwriter Lizzie Esau is…well, one to watch and then some. Here, give this a listen-
| How good was that? There’s the melodious flow of Dessa with the growling indie guitar of Wolf Alice or She Makes War and a touch of pure pop to put a smile on any face. And it’s getting her increasingly noticed, with her name added to BBC Radio One’s Artists To Watch 2022 and over 700k views of her Bitter Weather video on TikTok I got the chance to ask her some questions after seeing her frankly excellent live set in Newcastle, supporting Baby Queen. You come from an artistic family, were you always going towards a musical career? L.E – Yeah definitely, I think from the age of around 5 I was writing little rhymes and songs and I never really stopped. It’s just always been something I’ve done as a part of life and have always loved above everything else. I think being from a creative house and always having music around definitely influenced this and the older I got the more it has taken over my life and I can’t wait to see where it all goes! How did the pandemic affect your music plans? Was it frustrating to be starting out and have that block on playing live? I started playing some little open mics and intimate bars by myself on keys just before the pandemic and managed to form a band around the gaps in the lockdowns. I can’t imagine not being part of a band now, its definitely informed the musical direction and I feel the music is there most honest and true to itself it’s ever been. I’ve only really played shows as part of the band post pandemic and we’ve been having just the best time and been given so many amazing opportunities. Because of this, playing live wasn’t really something I could miss in lockdown as I hadn’t really had much experience before but now I can’t imagine what I’d do if we had to take a break from it haha! In terms of writing I feel like it gave me time to reflect on things and work remotely with more people which let me explore my sound more for sure. Who would you say were your biggest influences and if you could wave a magic wand and work with anyone tomorrow, who would it be? My biggest influences right now are Wolf Alice, Fontaines D.C., Beabadoobee, Little Simz as well as the classics like Amy Winehouse, Joni Mitchell and Radiohead which I’ve been going back and listening to a lot of right now. I think if I could work with one artist tomorrow it would probably have to be Avril Lavigne because I think my 12 year old self would be in heaven (and current self really)! You’ve done toplining work for other people, how does that differ from writing for yourself and does it ever feed back into your work? I think it’s quite different as normally I think more along the lines of storytelling or along a particular theme rather than looking introspectively which I do a lot with my own writing. But I would definitely like to add more of what I do with toplines into my own songs as its good to keep thinking of new ways to be creative and talk about things I think are important. What’s lined up next, both for releases and live shows? The next single ‘The Enemy’ comes out on the 13th of May, it’s about growing up in the north east of England and definitely one of the more political songs I’ve written. Cant wait for people to hear it! In terms of live shows we’ve got lots of exciting festivals lined up including Radio 1’s Big Weekend, local festival A Stones Throw and many more which we can’t wait for! https://linktr.ee/lizzieesau With thanks to Nina Sebastiane at Yinyangmedia.co.uk |
