By Libby Driscoll

Clementine is a Leeds-based artist who has just released her first single, ‘Alexandra’. This week, I caught up with her to talk about influences, future plans, womanhood and much, much more.

Last month you released your debut single Alexandra as Clementine, could you give us some background on the inspiration behind the single?  

Yeah, so I was wanting to go down a more electronic route because a lot of my work before was very singer-songwriter, but I started working with some different people and different producers to help me make it sound a little bit more electronic. I was listening to a lot of James Blake, Bon Iver stuff like that so just wanted to create a different kind of sound. I wanted to create really rich kind of textures and stuff, so that was kind of my main starting point with the song.

Tell me about the recording process for the single, was it something you did yourself or did you work alongside session players?

So, I started doing a kind of demo version. I programmed everything and recorded my vocals, then I completely re-recorded it. I tried to re-record the vocals, but I couldn’t get them to sound the same way, so I kept the original recording and I worked with a producer to record some real bass and drums, and then kind of layered all of that in with the programmed stuff, and the rest is just synths which are all programmed.

So, is Alexandra the first line of singles you’re going to release, or do you have an EP or album in the works? 

Yeah, at the moment I’m going to focus on releasing singles. I’ve got a few lined up and a few things I’m working on that are close to being ready so yeah, I’m really excited to get those out there, I’ve been working hard!

Have you got a date for these releases or are they still in the works?

Yeah, they’re in the works, but I’ll be announcing soon when I’ve got a few dates lined up, and hopefully gigging. I’ve got a gig in Leeds in July, fingers crossed, and I’m going to try and get some more in the diary for over the Summer.

Oh nice! Where abouts are you playing? 

It’s at the Verve bar, I don’t have a confirmed date yet but I’m getting on it. It’ll be so nice just to get back playing, playing with real people and seeing real life people in the audience- it’ll be amazing. I’ve missed gigging so much.

Oh, absolutely it’s definitely something to look forward to. So, on that note, it’s impossible to talk about anything without bringing up COVID now, so I’ve got to ask, has lockdown affected your relationship with music? Whether that be from a listening standpoint or as a composer yourself?

Well at the start I was like “yeah I’ve got so much time! I’m going to write so much music!” but obviously it doesn’t work like that. I just kind of felt really overwhelmed with everything and all this spare time, so I didn’t actually do anything for months. Then in September I didn’t have much work because of COVID, obviously, so I decided to do a master’s in music. I’m doing that at Leeds conservatoire, and I met so many amazing musicians and producers and people to collaborate with so at the moment I’m doing a lot more with music than I have been for a while which is definitely different.

After studying music academically, have you found that it’s affected your relationship with music or your perspective when writing at all? 

Yeah. I think because the master’s course is creative musicianship, (laughing) it’s like, the most selfish course ever you’re just looking at yourself and the performance, but it’s been so helpful. You’d never think to do that yourself, just off the bat, so being told to just focus on yourself and analyse your own music, your own writing process and your own inspirations of the people who view your music has been really interesting, helpful and really inspiring actually.

Oh, wow yeah I can imagine! So, looking back at just before the masters when we entered our first lockdown, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

I would tell myself to put less pressure on myself. When you’re telling yourself, you need to do this and you need to do that, you can’t have that build up ‘cause you just get a mental block. Just allow yourself the freedom to you know, write if you want to and if not, step back and maybe just listen to music and absorb everything that’s going on and it will come, eventually.

Absolutely. I think there’s been a huge pressure that people have felt themselves to you know be productive and ‘I need to use this time to further my career and develop my interests’ but at the end of the day, we’re living through a pandemic, just surviving is a challenge of its own!

Exactly! I just think we need to be a bit easier on ourselves ‘cause it has been really hard.

It really has. Okay I’ll move away from the COVID questions now and you briefly mentioned this earlier. Obviously musicians are constantly developing themselves, so I’d like to know where was your first ever performance and how has your music developed since then?

I think I was about thirteen. I grew up in Dorset so it’s a small town and I heard a local musician who was in need of a support artist so I went along and I did that with the three songs I’d written on my guitar, and I was so proud of them! I played that at a local arts centre, and I was like “wow, okay this is what I want to do” which was really fun. Then I just started gigging around my hometown, but I was listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan so was just playing acoustic guitar and singing and I think since then I’ve began to experiment a bit more and listen to different music which helps with inspiration and changes your sound.

So, would you say the music you listened to had a significant part to play in how your sound has evolved over the years? 

Yeah I think so, you kind of pick up on everything around you. Also, when you’re growing up you don’t really have that much to write about you know I’d just make up stories and stuff but now my life is a little bit more eventful. Not that much more eventful but enough. (laughing) I’m always like “yes!” when sad things happen to me ‘cause I can just write a song about it.

Would you say it’s more sad events that spark inspiration for your song writing then? 

Yeah I think it is. I don’t really write happy songs ‘cause I use music quite cathartically, so if I have an issue I’d probably just write about it and that’s my way of processing it. At the moment I’m exploring different themes like womanhood and what it means to be a woman, which is something I’ve started doing quite recently and will hopefully shine through in my upcoming singles. I mean, I think it’s really important right now. Especially with everything that’s going on, there are things that need to be talked about.

Was it ever your intention to delve into deeper and more political themes in your lyrics?

It’s not something that I ever set out to do, but like I say it’s my way of processing things. A few weeks ago, where there was the big case of Sarah Everard I was really upset and was just thinking “this is awful”, which made me feel like I’ve always had these thoughts, but it kind of validated them for me? I guess I kind of wanted to explore those feelings and ideas and that happened naturally.

Yeah it definitely ignited something amongst us all and it’s a shame it took such a tragic event to do that. I don’t want to say ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ because that completely demeans the situation, but it’s certainly made a lot of people reflect on their actions and sparked a lot of conversations that needed to be had.  

Yeah I mean just opening a dialogue about it as well is important because I don’t think a lot of people know that their behaviour can be problematic. I have male friends that do things which, to them, would never seem like an issue. You know, little things like walking your friends home if you can, which I don’t think a lot of men would think about doing unless they’ve explicitly been asked to, and I don’t mean this with any malice. But yeah, it’s just important to talk about these things and get them out into the open.

Yeah like you say just sparking these conversations can do so much. Especially with male friends, it’s just unbelievably important.  

So, I’m going to sway away from the more serious questions and ask a few light hearted ones to finish off. What is one record that you can’t live without?

Oh god that’s so hard! Okay, let me have a look on my Spotify. I’m a big, big fan of Radiohead, so maybe OK Computer. It was the first Radiohead album I ever listened to. I found my uncle’s stack of DVDs from the nineties when I was like fourteen, and I think sparked my interest in Radiohead. Yeah, OK Computer, let’s go with that one!

Ooh that’s a strong answer. Okay, what song is your guilty pleasure?

I really like Justin Bieber’s Peaches. I’ve started listening to that recently. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s a guilty pleasure but I kind of feel bad for listening to Justin Bieber! But it’s a great tune, who cares.

What artist would you love to collaborate with?

I love Tame Impala I think that’s be amazing, it’d be so cool.

Who is the best artist you’ve ever seen live?

Um, The National I think. In saw them at the O2 and they were just amazing. The energy was incredible, and they had another singer with them, I can’t remember her name, but she was amazing too. I’d love to see them in a smaller venue, like Brudenell or something!

Ah, I’m so jealous! Okay so just to finish up, if you had to recommend any artist at the moment who would you recommend?

 I think Big Thief, the vocals are incredible. Masterpiece is amazing.  

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Listen to ‘Alexandra’ on Spotify