Music > Interviews

She Makes War

by Pavlis

15/02/15

Following well received supports for Drugstore at NAC, Glenn Matlock at Voewood and the Levellers at the in the last 15 months, She Makes War will be coming to OPEN on 21st March, with third album Directions of Trouble due later in the year. Pavlis discussed her varied endeavours with the multi-talented Laura Kidd.

You’ve recently completed a lengthy tour around Europe with The Levellers. How was it?

I had a wonderful time thanks! Last year was the year of long-ish tours for me. I did three weeks around Germany in March then two three week tours stuck together in October and November. The first half was Germany and Belgium on my own and the second half was with The Levellers around Europe and the UK. They were so friendly and welcoming, it blew me away that they had become fans of my music and were being so supportive and it was a treat to play to a new room of people every night. It's often challenging but never boring, and so many people have stayed in touch since the gigs that I’m hopeful some of them will come and say hello on the twenty date tour I have put together myself for this March.

As well as your music as She Makes War, you've worked with a number of acts, either live or in the studio, including Tricky, Viv Albertine, The Penelopes, Duncan James, Young Punx and Michael Gray. Any favourite moments?

Playing bass and singing with Viv is a lot of fun, she's such an individual and we got to do some really cool shows together. Supporting Siouxsie Sioux at Meltdown with Polly Harvey and Peaches watching us from the Royal Box has to be up there as one of my favourite moments ever, I got to meet and chat with Peaches afterwards as well and she was super friendly and very interesting as you'd imagine. When I was playing with Tricky I had some brilliant adventures too, the day after we played Mexico City I travelled on a coach up to the ancient city of Teotihuacan and climbed the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. Travelling to play music is all I’ve ever wanted to do so I'm grateful for such ace memories.

In addition to your music, you are a photographer and film maker, gig promoter and write posts for a tech site. How do you find time and balance those demands?

I’m not entirely sure myself. Recently I’ve been spending way more time on my own music which has been lovely, but there’s always going to have to be a balance between what I'd love to do all the time and what pays the bills. I stay up very late and do minimal housework, that certainly helps.

Before first seeing She Makes War at NAC, I fell in love with the live performance of "Scared To Capsize" shot at the Half Moon that is on YouTube. At NAC and Voewood, you got the crowd to participate but not so much at the UEA. How do you decide whether you will get the audience involved? Any chance of a walkabout at OPEN?

I love including audience participation in my set but the context isn't always right. On The Levellers tour I had a very strict 25 minute set length so I wanted to make sure I got my fairly eclectic range of songs across in the best way to an audience who didn't know me yet. Sadly that didn't allow any time for wandering around with a megaphone and climbing on stuff, two things I love to do when I have a bit more time. At the OPEN show I get to play for an hour so there will be a few surprises, definitely!

You're now based in Bristol but you spent some time in Bury St Edmunds. From what you've said on stage, Bury doesn't hold happy memories for you. Is that true?

I don’t remember what I said on stage about Bury but I think most people want to leave the place they spent their teen years, especially if they felt like an outsider like I did. I didn’t have a very good time at school as a teenager. It only really got bearable when I started my first band actually and even then I was excited to escape to London at the earliest opportunity! I rarely go back to the town now because my parents moved to a nearby village 10 years ago, but I don’t hold any grudges. I just think at the time it wasn’t the place for me to blossom in to an artist.

You were in Miss Black America towards the end of the band. It sounds a turbulent time. Did anything positive come of it? Have you kept in touch with MBA's Seymour, now in Horse Party?

We’re in touch yes, Seymour and I were very close friends at school and he was in my first band Billion Dollar Brain. When I left for London he started Miss Black America with a couple of BDB fans and I'm very proud of him for being such a prolific writer - he was a big inspiration to me when I started writing my own stuff. He and Ellie from Horse Party first started collaborating back in the BDB days but then she went off to uni as well, so it's great to see them making music together finally. The last MBA tour was great. The reason I agreed to do it was so Seymour could have fun and we had some good adventures.

The new album is being crowd-funded through Pledge, as was previous album Little Battles, and you don't sanction physical sales through Amazon. Would you sign to a label, be it major or indie, or do you value your independence too much?

I do value my independence, of course, but I want my music to get to as many people as possible and to be able to work on it as much as possible. My albums are available as a download from Amazon, iTunes and other online stores but I don't have physical distribution so I can only sell my CDs through Bandcamp - I prefer to send people to my Bandcamp page for downloads as well because the sound quality and user experience are way better plus you can browse and find other artists easily. I'm very interested in exploring ways that I could get some help and support while retaining my creative independence and not losing the things about the project that resonate with my fans. I get dubbed "The Queen of DIY" a lot, which is flattering, but perhaps unhelpful at times. I do things myself because I have to and because I don’t want to wait to be told by so-called experts that what I’m doing is good enough for the world, but I'd ike the project to progress and grow and that would ideally mean working with other people.

Your music is described as "gloom pop". Your songs seem very personal and based on your own life. Is this the case or is there an element of story-telling and poetic license? Live you are very warm and good-humoured and far from gloomy!

I invented the "gloom-pop" genre in early 2010 when I was starting to think about how I was going to describe my first album in press releases. I really didn’t want people to call it "indie" and make it sound boring! My songs are like diary entries, yes, they’re all based on real scenarios and people with some poetic license of course. You do only get to hear my side of the argument but I think there’s a healthy mix of self-doubt and self-loathing as well as blaming others, for fairness' sake. I am a really cheerful person but I think I’ve blossomed in to that more since being given the opportunity by my fans to share my doubts and fears and melancholy through my music. It’s a very special feeling and I’m very grateful.

I've seen comparisons to everyone from ELO to Bikini Kill via Kristin Hersh, Cat Power, My Brightest Diamond and Nirvana. I'd add PJ Harvey, Slits and Poly Styrene. Who are your biggest influences or what comparisons are you most comfortable with?

Melodically and harmonically I'd say I’m most influenced by ELO, Blur and the weirder Beatles stuff. I get really bored when people lazily compare female musicians to other women, though I do listen to female voices more than men because I find their perspectives a lot more fresh and varied than a lot of the man bands. I really love Radiohead, Queens Of The Stone Age, Carina Round, Kristin Hersh, Tanya Donelly, My Brightest Diamond, Jesca Hoop, Bon Iver…I’m not interested in sounding like any of them but I listen to them so much I’m sure some of it is trickling through in to my songs.

Will you be bringing backing band the Olympians (not to be confused with Norwich’s own Olympians) with you to the OPEN gig in March? If not, is there any chance of a full band show in Norwich?

I’ll be playing solo at the OPEN gig. I very rarely play with a band but would like to bring a few musical guests with me when my new album Direction Of Travel has been released. I hope to be out and about touring the UK again in the autumn.

Pavlis

Following successful gigs at the Arts Centre with Drugstore in 2013 and the UEA with the Levellers, She Makes War will be bringing her one woman show to OPEN on 21st March, with her third album Directions of Trouble due later in the year. Pavlis discusses her varied work with the polymath that is Laura Kidd.

You’ve recently completed a lengthy tour around Europe with The Levellers. How was it?

I had a wonderful time thanks! Last year was the year of long-ish tours for me - I did three weeks around Germany in March then two three week tours stuck together in October and November. The first half was Germany and Belgium on my own and the second half was with The Levellers around Europe and the UK. They were so friendly and welcoming, it blew me away that they had become fans of my music and were being so supportive and it was a treat to play to a new room of people every night. It’s often challenging but never boring, and so many people have stayed in touch since the gigs that I’m hopeful some of them will come and say hello on the twenty date tour I have put together myself for this March.

Playing bass and singing with Viv is a lot of fun, she’s such an individual and we got to do some really cool shows together. Supporting Siouxsie Sioux at Meltdown with Polly Harvey and Peaches watching us from the Royal Box has to be up there as one of my favourite moments ever, I got to meet and chat with Peaches afterwards as well and she was super friendly and very interesting as you’d imagine. When I was playing with Tricky I had some brilliant adventures too, the day after we played Mexico City I travelled on a coach up to the ancient city of Teotihuacan and climbed the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. Travelling to play music is all I’ve ever wanted to do so I’m grateful for such ace memories.

In addition to your music, you are a photographer and film maker, gig promoter and write posts for a tech site. How do you find time and balance those demands?

I’m not entirely sure myself. Recently I’ve been spending way more time on my own music which has been lovely, but there’s always going to have to be a balance between what I’d love to do all the time and what pays the bills. I stay up very late and do minimal housework, that certainly helps.

I love including audience participation in my set but the context isn’t always right. On The Levellers tour I had a very strict 25 minute set length so I wanted to make sure I got my fairly eclectic range of songs across in the best way to an audience who didn’t know me yet. Sadly that didn’t allow any time for wandering around with a megaphone and climbing on stuff, two things I love to do when I have a bit more time. At the OPEN show I get to play for an hour so there will be a few surprises, definitely!

You're now based in Bristol but you spent some time in Bury St Edmunds. From what you have said on stage, Bury doesn't hold happy memories for you. Is that true?

I don’t remember what I said on stage about Bury but I think most people want to leave the place they spent their teen years, especially if they felt like an outsider like I did. I didn’t have a very good time at school as a teenager - it only really got bearable when I started my first band actually and even then I was excited to escape to London at the earliest opportunity! I rarely go back to the town now because my parents moved to a nearby village 10 years ago, but I don’t hold any grudges - I just think at the time it wasn’t the place for me to blossom in to an artist.

You were in Miss Black America towards the end of the band. It sounds a turbulent time. Did anything positive come of it? Have you kept in touch with MBA's Seymour, now in Horse Party?

We’re in touch yes, Seymour and I were very close friends at school and he was in my first band Billion Dollar Brain. When I left for London he started Miss Black America with a couple of BDB fans and I’m very proud of him for being such a prolific writer - he was a big inspiration to me when I started writing my own stuff. He and Ellie from Horse Party first started collaborating back in the BDB days but then she went off to uni as well, so it’s great to see them making music together finally. The last MBA tour was great - the reason I agreed to do it was so Seymour could have fun and we had some good adventures.

The new album is being crowd-funded through Pledge, as was previous album “Little Battles”, and you don't sanction physical sales through Amazon. Would you sign to a label, be it major or indie, or do you value your independence too much?

I do value my independence, of course, but I want my music to get to as many people as possible and to be able to work on it as much as possible. My albums are available as a download from Amazon, iTunes and other online stores but I don’t have physical distribution so I can only sell my CDs through Bandcamp - I prefer to send people to my Bandcamp page for downloads as well because the sound quality and user experience are way better plus you can browse and find other artists easily. I’m very interested in exploring ways that I could get some help and support while retaining my creative independence and not losing the things about the project that resonate with my fans. I get dubbed “The Queen of DIY” a lot, which is flattering, but perhaps unhelpful at times. I do things myself because I have to and because I don’t want to wait to be told by so-called experts that what I’m doing is good enough for the world, but I’d like the project to progress and grow and that would ideally mean working with other people.

I invented the “gloom-pop” genre in early 2010 when I was starting to think about how I was going to describe my first album in press releases - I really didn’t want people to call it “indie” and make it sound boring! My songs are like diary entries, yes, they’re all based on real scenarios and people with some poetic license of course. You do only get to hear my side of the argument but I think there’s a healthy mix of self-doubt and self-loathing as well as blaming others, for fairness’ sake. I am a really cheerful person but I think I’ve blossomed in to that more since being given the opportunity by my fans to share my doubts and fears and melancholy through my music. It’s a very special feeling and I’m very grateful.

Melodically and harmonically I’d say I’m most influenced by ELO, Blur and the weirder Beatles stuff. I get really bored when people lazily compare female musicians to other women, though I do listen to female voices more than men because I find their perspectives a lot more fresh and varied than a lot of the man bands. I really love Radiohead, Queens Of The Stone Age, Carina Round, Kristin Hersh, Tanya Donelly, My Brightest Diamond, Jesca Hoop, Bon Iver…I’m not interested in sounding like any of them but I listen to them so much I’m sure some of it is trickling through in to my songs.

Will you be bringing backing band the Olympians (not to be confused with Norwich’s own Olympians) with you to the OPEN gig in March? If not, is there any chance of a full band show in Norwich?

I’ll be playing solo at the OPEN gig. I very rarely play with a band but would like to bring a few musical guests with me when my new album “Direction Of Travel” has been released - I hope to be out and about touring the UK again in the autumn.

Thanks, Laura. I’m looking forward to seeing the show in March.

Pavlis