For self-confidence – also known as Rebecca Lucy Taylor – Glastonbury is where it all began. “It was Gary Lightbody!” She told Alexis Petridis in the second of the Guardian’s stage interviews with musicians on the William’s Green stage. “I was in school, he was in some of [Glastonbury] footage and he did a cover of Bright Eyes. ” She made a new musical discovery and was inspired to go her own way as a musician.
It was a long time: after a decade in the indie duo Slow Club, Taylor left to start Self Esteem. She released her debut solo album Compliments Please in 2019 to receive quiet recognition, but only last year’s bold, relentlessly self-exploring Prioritize Pleasure phenomenon Self Esteem really started. It was the Guardian’s album of the year, and her live concerts – which she brilliantly describes as “a kind of terrible church” – have almost become places of worship, especially for adult pop fans who want to hear their real-life experiences reflected in them. .
At first, however, Taylor said, she was “too scared to say I would go alone.” I started Instagram under the name Self Esteem and started posting pictures and poems. I felt huge for me. ” She speaks candidly about her current job in order to try to get rid of the self-awareness and pleasure of the people who characterized her first experience in the group, in order to be more true to her own desires. “As a woman, I feel like I want too much, I’m looking for attention,” she said. “It’s easy to go: ‘I’ll keep it safe and easy and I’ll like it.’
If you can’t be yourself, you go crazy in every aspect of life. Well-being
As an avid pop fan, life in an indie band has become stifling, she explained. “If you can’t be yourself, you go crazy in every aspect of life. I know it was just a band, but I went crazy, I couldn’t be myself. It’s hard to be from Rotherham and say that, but I’m an artist, I wake up every day and I want to make art. I had to make art through someone else’s lens. “
It was a series of ruptures that launched the Self Esteem project, she explained. She had broken up with a longtime partner, left London, and would do any work. “I took a job as a fairy in a panto,” she explained. “It was very unpleasant. I liked being paid, but it was two shows a day, six days a week. I was parting with my partner and I was going to leave the phone and pick up my wand. “Meanwhile, she approached her new music as if it were” like a full-time job. The goal was just to exist at all, and that’s fucking wonderful. It turned out in proper laughter. “
It was important for her that Self Esteem had a different style, she said. “At Slow Club, I struggled with the fact that there was no manifesto, aesthetically – it was just the opinions of two people. I don’t think that’s a good way to make art. ” Part of this trademark comes from Taylor’s outspoken lyricism about her own shortcomings – and the things her men tell her she is.
Self Esteem with Alexis Petridis on the stage of William’s Green, Glastonbury Festival. Photo: Alicia Canter / Guardian
“People say to themselves, ‘Should it be cathartic?’ And I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s hard, but I’m excited, I’m so uplifted. And I think that’s because in my life I never say what I mean … In the songs, people don’t ask me what it’s about, and that safety makes me say what I mean, and that’s what I get out of it. . I wonder if one day I’ll just be able to write songs about being in love, you know how Ed Sheeran just writes a song about his girlfriend. “
When Taylor wrote her breakthrough single, last year’s I Do This All the Time, she knew she was fine, she admitted. At Slow Club, she always tried to write hits and failed. When she first came out solo, she explored the world of cowwriting with other songwriters and hated it. “With Prioritize Pleasure, I was forced to be alone because of the pandemic. I wrote it without seeing an end and that’s how this album turned out. And, of course, once you stop trying, the universe [hands you a gift]. Not everything is “laughing live, love”, but “laughing live, love” is important, isn’t it. “
The music gave Taylor a full-throated expression that she had always sought and struggled with in her personal life, she said. “It’s more me than making a cup of tea.”
She also talks honestly about the realities of being a musician and what needs to change in the music industry. Her negative experience with sound engineers prompted her to hire her own technicians, “which means I take less money home … It’s so unregulated and you have to spend a lot of money to make sure you get better. This is the main thing for me. This is not a well-paid job, you have to do it. But there may be changes, so I don’t pay so I don’t have a terrible time. “
Taylor had ideas for her third solo album, she said. “It’s interesting to go into the next moment – this is my day in the sun, in which there will be more” yes “than” no “and I should make the most of it. I want to fulfill it to its full potential. “
Although not quite yet, she stressed. “I want to milk Prioritize Pleasure dry!”
The Guardian’s last live interview was with Angelique Kijo at 10:20 a.m. on the stage of William’s Green on Sunday.
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