Arriving at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds prior to my interview with Indie-pop singer/songwriter Kate Nash, it strikes me that venue that appears somewhat less grandiose than what I had previously envisioned. For an artist with a platinum-selling smash of a debut album (2008’s Made Of Bricks) and winner of a multitude of prestigious music awards (Best Female Artist at the 2008 BRIT Awards and Best Solo Artist at the NME awards in the same year, to name but a few), I really was expecting more affluent surroundings. Instead, a group of flatulent older gentleman sit around swilling their pints in the rather outmoded social area, discussing in conspiratorial tones the drawbacks of parsnips on a Sunday dinner to the backdrop of the barking (and ill-trained) guard dogs of the adjoining scrap yard. Despite my diehard devotion to the music of Nash, to whom I have been listening with unwavering continuity for years, the realisation unpleasantly comes to me that perhaps she is no longer the breakthrough sensation she was 4 years ago.
Despite a solid follow-up album that is- in my humble opinion- superior to her critically acclaimed debut, 2010’s My Best Friend Is You was criminally underrated. Even with the wealth of astonishing and downright beautiful material on her second album, Nash’s music was either dwarfed by the sheer ubiquity of Katy Perry as she made her first appearance on the modern musical stage or regrettably lost admit the effluence of trashy pop that is inevitably created as by-product from Simon Cowell’s money-making machine. With a new album waiting in the wings, could the time be ripe for Nash to burst triumphantly back onto the scene? No time for further musings as the tour manager approaches and, after the obligatory niceties, I am escorted into Nash’s dressing room.
Considering this is my first actual face-to-face encounter with someone even remotely famous- my only prior experience of ‘meeting’ a celebrity before this moment was pursuing Duncan Bannatyne through a Debenhams in Middlesbrough- I am more than a little nervous and not entirely sure of what to expect. However, upon entering Nash’s dressing room my nerves are immediately allayed. Helen, Nash’s sister, sits on the floor drawing an amusing frieze of explicit cartoons on the wall while Kate herself sits nonchalantly in the corner of the room, demurely sipping hot water and lemon while chatting spiritedly to her sibling. I am struck by her appearance as we greet each other; while I was expecting the red-haired girl-next-door Kate Nash that I know from 2008’s Foundations music video, instead I find myself shaking hands with a new Nash: black-haired urbanite, indie fashionista and a punk-feminist ‘riot grrrl’ of the 21st Century. After accepting a dairy-free chocolate coin from Nash (surprisingly tasty), we sit to begin the interview in earnest.
From the first question it becomes unmistakeably apparent that, for Nash, her music is everything to her. She really has never wanted to do anything else, and in her own words she could not give a sh*t whether anyone likes her music or not. Her musical origins are delightfully anecdotal- I ask her if it is true that her song writing really took off when she broke her foot and was housebound, to which she affirms: ‘Basically, I was rejected from all the universities I applied to on the same day, and fell down some stairs’. (She doesn’t clarify if this all happened on the same day. I do hope not.) ‘I was working at Nando’s or River Island, a fabulous prospect (here she scoffs sarcastically). I was really bored and wanted to do something creative, so it gave me the spur to do it.’ Unexpectedly, Nash now delivers an erudite little epigram, which turns out to be the first of many in our conversation. ‘I’d rather be scared than bored. I’d always be a songwriter even if I was still working in Nando’s.’
Bravery in the face of the music industry, the media and indeed of life itself seems to be a common theme in Nash’s musings on her career. She believes her studying theatre at the BRIT school from 2003-5 made her a braver person because of the very nature of theatre and performance, and she recalls her first ever gig at Trinity Bar in Harrow (a name she remembers because she made the gig posters for the venue). She remembers being both terrified but (inevitably for Nash) equally as excited, and reminisces fondly that her 2 polish friends- Kasha and Christian- brought her flowers. Here, she urges me to contact Kasha on the grounds that she is amazing- a search which is regrettably still ongoing.
As the interview progresses, I venture into more personal territory- namely, how Nash found, and still finds, the pressures of being in the public eye. Her response is so passionate and defiant, and so loaded with expletives, I find myself grinning and blushing simultaneously. ‘It is a lot of pressure, people slag you off in a personal way, like the way you look. I’ve been called everything you can think of. Worse things happen at sea. You should maintain who you are. Young girls should be able to relate to a normal human, not a botoxed, vajazzled and airbrushed image that you could never look like. Perfection isn’t real. It’s dangerous. Why the f*ck should I change who I am because some d*ckhead at a magazine called me a c**t?’ A sentiment to which I heartily agree.
Moving onto the subject of her approaching album due to be released later this year, I ask Nash about the rather radical shift of musical direction it promises with the release of her single Underestimate The Girl released online in June. Written and recorded in less than 24 hours, Nash reveals ‘I felt a real build-up. I play bass in the band The Receders and [playing bass] makes me feel empowered, makes me into heavier stuff…[The sound is] quite aggressive and angry ‘cos I’ve been feeling that lately. Everyone has different emotions y’know- when I sang Do-Wah-Doo I was happy, and sometimes I’m just like ‘f*ck everything!’’ Indeed, the strident punky sound of Underestimate The Girl elicited mixed opinions from fans and critics alike upon its online release. While some branded it as ‘just noise’, others praised its brazen ‘anti-pop’ and anti-mainstream sound, something which Nash feels is important- as she quite simply puts it, ‘The charts are shit.’
Here follows an extensive off-the-record dismemberment between me and Nash of the state of the current music charts at the moment, with Nash giving voice to a number of unprintably explicit remarks on the likes of Jessie J and One Direction. However, returning to the interview, Nash concedes, ‘Essentially I write pop music. I have influences from punk, and folk from my Irish background. Whatever I like there I put to a pop melody. Charts are sh*t so people think pop is sh*t- but the Beatles were pop. I like the ethics of punk. My music is changing as I get older.’
With the interview at an end, Nash bids me farewell (alas, the dairy-free chocolate coins have ran out) and I depart with both Nash’s autograph and a renewed sense of optimism for the evolution of the popular music artist. Perhaps Nash’s evolution away from the radio-friendly sound of Foundations may not be to everyone’s taste, but what is really refreshing is that Nash obviously does not care. Here is an artist who has a no-compromise approach to music, making music about what she truly believes in rather than being a thrall to the transient glitz of the pop charts. The Brudenell Social Club even seems to have transformed in my eyes during the 20 minutes I spent with Nash. Perhaps it may not be the most luxurious of venues, but the underground clubs that hosted real punk artists rarely were; and to me, that’s what Nash really is- a pop-punk paragon of the 21st Century.