We Chat To Georgia At Her Rough Trade Nottingham Live + Signing Event

How did you start making music?
I started very early on, hearing certain pop music, watching Top of the Pops, utilizing all sorts of instruments that were around the house. When I was about twelve or thirteen my dad bought me a four-track cassette tape recorder, a fantastic little Silver Machine and it gave me four inputs, four options to record. My dad taught me the basics of sound recording, and I just began experimenting in my bedroom. Guitar in one output, microphone in the other one and then some sort of like weird thing on the fourth one.

I began to do covers. It would begin with my interpretations of certain songs and then it just grew into laying down original demos. So, by age thirteen or fourteen, I already wanted to pursue music, and so then that pursuit dominated my decisions of which school I went to. Then after leaving university, I started joining bands and I just wanted to immerse myself in the London music scene and try and make career out of it, but it really did start very early on and I owe a lot to my supportive parents, I was lucky.

What was your song writing process when working on your first two self-produced albums, and has that process changed much since working with Rostam?
Not really, no. With every album, I've sort of grown really and developed. I mean, the first record was very DIY it was me kind of throwing loads of ideas together and trying to make sense of where I could fit within music, so it wasn't necessarily the most accomplished piece of work, it's almost like me vomiting onto tape! I think my songwriting was very basic, then when it came to making Seeking Thrills, I really started to become a bit more disciplined with the songwriting. I had Mark Ralph to help me mix it who I learned a lot from, he's a very accomplished producer/songwriter, and he’d sit me down and start to analyse pop songs and certain sorts of songs of the eighties.

I felt that I needed to work with somebody, learn and collaborate so then it came to me and Rostam, we met in 2019 before Seeking Thrills even came out. We wrote It's Euphoric the first day that we met each other, so that was October 2019, I left that that session in LA and I was just like, wow! We really got on musically and personally, and we've come out of this with a really interesting song, and this is the direction to take it in. I'm really happy with this record, because I do feel like I've accomplished the next stage of song writing, and that was through sharing this experience with Rostam.

What can fans expect from your new album Euphoric?
It's really optimistic, with positive songs, playing on personal experiences, and very inspired by people's behaviours. Each song has a different feel to it, and it’s not necessarily a conceptual record but it has this kind of very energetic vibe running from the start to finish. We wanted to make a record that sounded like nothing else and would inspire people to go for it when they're making music.

You have collaborated with a wide variety of artists, including SuicideYear, Nick Zinner and Gorillaz. Who is on your bucket list of collaborators?
Gosh! There are so many. I would love to collaborate with Haim, I've been on a support tour with them, and I know the girls. I would love to do a track with them, I think they're utterly fantastic and very talented musicians. Danielle, in particular, is an incredible songwriter - very underrated.

You’re currently on tour, taking on the UK, Australia, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. What can we expect from the Georgia live experience?
Well, lots of energy! I've got two other players in the band now, there are two drum kits on stage, one electronic. It's keeping the dance floor spirit alive that we had for Seeking Thrills, but now merging it with live instrumentation. It’s a real show, people will come and see talented musicians on stage mixed with a bit of chaos. I want people to feel inspired coming out of it.

Georgia will tour the UK later this year, starting in November.

@georgiauk