EP.241 - CMAT

Adam talks with Irish singer-songwriter CMAT, about modern gig etiquette, being a young weirdo, her conflicted relationship with the internet, the fury provoked by her Brit Awards bum-crack dress in 2024 and the advice Charli xcx gave her that changed her life. CMAT also performs two songs from her forthcoming album Euro-Country and in the outro, Helen and Olly from the recently returned Answer Me This podcast pick a couple of uplifting films. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE Conversation recorded face-to-face in London on March 24th, 2025 Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and conversation editing. Podcast illustration by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/ PRE-ORDER 'I LOVE YOU, BYEEE' https://lnk.to/ILoveYouByeee by Adam Buxton - 2025 NORD VPN EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal https://nordvpn.com/buxton Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! PLEASE DONATE TO STAND UP 2 CANCER Are you able to spare £30, £20 or £10 to help advance life-saving cancer research? Text THIRTY, TWENTY or TEN to 70404 to donate to @SU2CUK. Text costs £30, £20 or £10 +1 standard rate txt. 16+, UK mobs only. Query? Call 0300 123 1022. Ts&Cs: channel4.com/terms http://channel4.com/terms ANSWER ME THIS PODCAST ADDRESS FOR QUESTIONS [email protected] mailto:[email protected] ANSWER ME THIS QUESTIONS ARCHIVE https://answermethispodcast.com/questions/ PICS AND CMAT LINKS https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts/rhwkafw2z2x3xe6-6ysb3-pfp9n-6xxa2-jnpn5-2cacw-6cz8f-gx8fb-nkb87-c6mae-bd5zy-yby4r-6392t-jf5tm-ph55s-cktl3-dsw49-r8ccg-sj9we-wzpe5-nzgjl-hn42k-r46sa-bp623-t4w8l Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Adam Buxton?

  I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buckston, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

• 0:31Adam Buxton?

  Hey, how are you doing, podcats? It's Adam Buckston here. I'm reporting to you from a cold but very beautiful evening farm track out here in the Norfolk countryside towards the beginning of April 2025. Beside me is my best dog friend, Rosie. Oops. That was one of the bird scaring guns, which Rosie does not like. And that has set her all a quiver. I'm sorry, Rosie, don't worry though, it's gonna be fine.

• 1:14Adam Buxton?

  Oh, she doesn't wanna go any further because of the gun. I don't wanna drag her along against her will, but that is a shame because it's such a lovely evening. All right, I'll report back to you in one second. Hello, I'm back. Rosie's at home, safe and sound. Sorry that she's not joining us for the whole walk. It's a shame because over the weekend, we had a lovely walk to the pub. And it was gun free and everyone was skipping and dancing and telling jokes, including Rosie. Lot of shaggy dog stories. How are you doing anyway, podcats? Hope no one's setting off any loud explosions too close to you. I'm okay, I'm quite cold.

• 1:58Adam Buxton?

  I'm underdressed, I was fooled by the sun and the blue sky. Now, look, before I tell you about my guest for this week's podcast, may I remind you once again that I am appearing on mainstream television this weekend as I speak, Sunday the 6th of April at 7:40pm on Channel 4. I'm on Bake Off, you'll have to tune in to discover how I did. And there is a link in the description. For donations to stand up to cancer in order to accelerate life-saving cancer research, if you're able to make a donation, which you can do by text, it's very quick,

• 2:40Adam Buxton?

  I would be very grateful. And if you're feeling flush and keen to make an investment in your future happiness, why not preorder my book, I Love You Bye, is the name of the book. I know, it sounds a little bit like I'm announcing my imminent demise, but no, I'm not. I'm wanging on about my ludicrous life a little bit more, reminiscing about working with Joe on TV and on radio and in podcasts in the nineties and thereafter, talking about my mum, my own family, you know, the sort of thing. Link in the description to preorder the book, which will be out on the 22nd of May in physical or audiobook

• 3:24Adam Buxton?

  form, or both. I recommend both. Okay, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 241, which features a rambling conversation and musical performance from Irish singer-songwriter Kira Mary Alice Thompson, aka C-Mat. C-Mat, facts, I asked her if she preferred being called Kira or C-Mat, and she said, in a showbiz context, she prefers C-Mat. So that's how I will refer to her. C-Mat was born in Dublin in 1996. After a childhood spent in the small communities of Clonie and Dunboyne in County Meath, hope I'm pronouncing those

• 4:08Adam Buxton?

  correctly, C-Mat moved back to Dublin to attend Trinity College and moved to Denmark for a little while. That part of her life, her late teens, college years, et cetera, was marked by an eating disorder and an addiction to painkillers. That I don't think we touched on in our conversation, but I have heard her talking about it on another podcast, Annie McManus's Changes. There's a link in the description. I thought it was a really interesting conversation. But yes, quite a different one from the one that I had with Seematt. Anyway, despite those struggles, Seematt remained focused and determined when it came to her songwriting ambitions. As you'll hear, one important piece of the puzzle in those early days was the advice she received

• 4:53Adam Buxton?

  from English artist Charlie XCX. But Seematt was also canny when it came to using the internet to get her songs noticed. Her debut single, Another Day (KFC), was released in 2020. And a couple of years later, her debut album was released, a collection of country-inflected indie pop called If My Wife Knew I'd Be Dead. By that time, Seematt had built up such a loyal following in Ireland that her debut entered the Irish album charts at number one, as did the follow-up, Crazy Mad For Me, released in 2023. In addition to Mercury Prize and Ivan Avelló Award nominations over the last couple of years, Seematt was nominated

• 5:38Adam Buxton?

  for International Artist of the Year at the 2024 BRIT Awards. And though fellow nominee Scissor ended up taking home the award, it was Seematt who seized the headlines, thanks to her choice of outfit for the evening. I quote now from Grazia: "From the front, there was nothing immediately shocking about the dress. Still, it was by no means your standard little black dress with its ruched detailing and exaggerated puffy sleeves. But when the 28-year-old turned around, it exposed another side of the dress and, well, the singer. The back featured a huge backless panel from the neck down, the edges of the

• 6:20Adam Buxton?

  cutout lined with fluff and exposing the top half of Seematt's bum." Anyway, Seematt intended the dress to be just a bit of a lark and a playful gesture about fashion and female beauty standards. But it was met in certain corners of the internet with, and this may surprise you... Outrage bordering on craziness. We spoke a little bit about that incident and other possibly more weighty topics in our conversation, which was recorded just a few weeks ago in March 2025. C-Mat also performed a couple of songs from her third album, Euro Country, due to be released later this year.

• 7:04Adam Buxton?

  Oh, and by the way, this episode features strong language, including the old C-word, and I don't mean C-Mat.

• 7:14Adam Buxton?

  I'll be back at the end with a bit more waffle and a couple of uplifting movie picks from two highly esteemed figures from the podcasting world, but right now with C-Mat. Here we go.

• 8:06Adam Buxton?

  You haven't read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, have you?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  I haven't.

• 8:10Adam Buxton?

  Are you aware of that book?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:12Adam Buxton?

  I think it came out a couple of years ago. And it's all about just the epidemic of poor mental health for Generation Z or Zed, and linking it to the use of smartphones and social media.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:26Adam Buxton?

  In a way that is controversial, I think, for some people. I've read a few reviews where they say, well, a lot of this evidence is correlative rather than causative.

• 8:36Adam Buxton?

  But it's hard to deny there is some connection.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Oh, one hundred billion percent. I think about it all the fucking time. I mean, I think that. I mean, this is a pretty crazy thing, and I was talking about it yesterday. I think that the scroll, the scroll.

• 8:54Adam Buxton?

  The scroll.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  The scroll is, and this is, this is quite a testy thing to say, but I think that the scroll, not porn, but the scroll. Is eliminating like horniness and lusts and like animal instinct from the younger generation. Because I don't know if you're aware, but there's a huge rise in like sexual conservatism amongst like people under twenty five. Like a really good example was like. Bad Bunny, the musician, has just like had billboards all over New York of him in a tiny, tiny pair of Calvin Klein underwear. And it's extremely explicit and like, you know, ooh, like little sexy time. And there's like teenage girls going on TikTok and filming videos of themselves.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Doing think pieces about why that's not appropriate, why it's not okay and why it's icky. And I was just like, what? Like, he's just, he's a fucking underwear man. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, he's just having a little horny time. That's the whole point. But I think that the constant attention. And the constant, like, your brain does not ever get room to think. Or to be longing, or to be yearning, or to kind of ruminate over anything. So you've eliminated a pretty big and important like animal instinct from your psyche. Which I think can turn into depression. And there's just a lack of like palpability. Culture wise, because people aren't going out and doing things so much that doesn't have an explicit set of rules.

• 10:15Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  I feel weird about the fact that live music now is like more popular than it's ever been. And people in. England, Ireland and Central Europe are spending more money and spending more time going to live musical concerts than they ever have. Because there's an explicit set of rules. If you go to a concert. Doors open at one point, then there's a support act, then there's a main event and you drink a certain amount of beers and then you go home. And it's like really like you can go by yourself and there's a very explicit set of rules to do this, but you can still on some level feel like you're having a real experience, which is nice and all, but then you should go also to the club. Where there's no set of rules and you go in and you have to just figure it out for yourself and you talk to other people. I worry about the fact that people at gigs don't talk to each other.

• 11:01Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  And I feel like people used to meet up at gigs and like hang around outside for ages and ages and like chat to each other and like have all this kind of thing. I mean, I tried to promote that with my like fans. I'm like, is everyone hanging out? Is everyone talking to each other? Like, let's get together. Like, don't just be going with your friends, watching the show and then leaving again without like talking to anyone around you or interacting with anyone around you.

• 11:21Adam Buxton?

  Right. I haven't been to a lot of shows recently, but the last one I went to was in the Palladium, the London Palladium. So that's a different kind of show because that's a seated venue and there was a bit of friction between some of the middle aged guys there. It was a very middle aged guy gig.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  What was the gig?

• 11:37Adam Buxton?

  It was Frank Black.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, checks out.

• 11:40Adam Buxton?

  Lead singer of the Pixies, although he was playing his album Teenager of the Year, solo album, second album, my favourite record of all time, I think.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Really?

• 11:49Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Big statement.

• 11:51Adam Buxton?

  Do you know that record?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  No, I don't know that record at all.

• 11:53Adam Buxton?

  It's really good. You know, you were, we were talking before about Sparks and you were saying how much you love them. I love them too. But you were talking about a certain kind of art rock when it gets a bit too arch. The soul goes out of it a little bit and you're just left with the nuttiness and the experimentation. Yeah. And what you want is you want, I'm sort of assuming this is what you want, is like um experimental, crazy artiness, but also some real heart in there and some great tunes and something that'll stick with you. That's what Teenager of the Year is.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 12:28Adam Buxton?

  It's it's more that, I think, than Pixies albums even.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  I'm going to add that to my title.

• 12:34Adam Buxton?

  It's so good. If you like Sparks, I would be surprised if you if you didn't like.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  I also do like Pixies, I should say, because I did go to see Pixies last year and I knew all the words to every song.

• 12:43Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  But I I'm so. Well versed on music and indie music that to say that Pixies are like my favourite band. They're pretty low down the list because the people who are high up the list, I'm absolutely a fucking nut job about. You know, that kind of way.

• 12:57Adam Buxton?

  Sure.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  But I do, I do like Pixies.

• 12:59Adam Buxton?

  Anyway, we were at the Palladium watching Frank Black play Teenage of the Year with the original lineup. All the white haired old blokes on stage.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:08Adam Buxton?

  And then all the white haired old blokes watching him. Actually, there was a younger contingent of sort of blokes approaching middle age, but it was pretty beer-y. And the music is, it gets, it gets pretty rocky, see, Matt, let me tell you. And, and you do wanna stand up and you do wanna jump around. But on the other hand, I was very happy sitting down.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:30Adam Buxton?

  And I had a nice seat and I wasn't drinking that night. And I was thinking, this is fun. I'm not drinking, I don't need to go to the loo every 10 minutes. I'm just enjoying it in my comfortable seat. I've got a good view, the sound is just right, not too loud.

• 13:47Adam Buxton?

  But then everyone got over excited. The guy in front of me started standing up, throwing shapes. I think he was maybe taking drugs and he kept on going off to have more drugs and then coming back and throwing more elaborate shapes. The guy behind me started getting pissed off with him and throwing cups at the guy's head.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Oh, no. Oh, no. You can't be doing that. See, you all have to make friends. You have to live together, guys.

• 14:11Adam Buxton?

  It was all kicking off at the Frank Black Show. And then in the last 20 minutes or something, it was just anarchy. There were whole sections standing up, people behind them getting pissed off. No one really knew what to do because it's like, well, this kind of feels like a standing up show, but everyone's supposed to be seated. And then at first there were attendants going around going, can you sit down? Can you sit down? Can you sit down? Can you put your phone away? Put your phone away? Put your phone away? Because you're not supposed to film.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:38Adam Buxton?

  But by the end, it was just joyful indie anarchy.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  That sounds absolutely amazing and makes me really happy to hear.

• 14:44Adam Buxton?

  It was very good. Do you feel though that people behave differently? Have you noticed people behaving differently at gigs since you've been playing?

• 14:52Speaker 01

  It's, there's like a really notable, and like people talk about this a lot in the indie music scene. The, the Gen Z's don't know how to act at a gig. They just don't. Like, I was supporting Sam Fender around Europe just there. And there was. At a couple of shows, I was playing my support show slot and there was people quite far up in the queue that were sitting on the floor and like watching things on their phone. Because they were just waiting for Sam to come on. I saw that at like one show, to be fair, but that is a very famous thing that like, people will be hoarding the barrier row, but they will not watch the support acts because they need to put their headphones in and have a scroll beforehand and

• 15:37Speaker 01

  there's like a really big trend of Gen Z and younger teenagers being a little bit,

• 15:48Speaker 01

  I don't wanna say inappropriate, but just not aware of people around them because this is a thing is like the community and the living amongst each other. People is like more of a foreign concept to the younger generations because of the phones. Mitski, the artist.

• 16:01Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Stopped touring for a while because she would get on stage and she has a very young fan base and they would just scream mommy mommy fuck me mommy.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Which is all well and good. It's fun every so often, but they're doing it the whole time and she can't hear herself and she can't play live.

• 16:21Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  And she also, I think she in particular found it uncomfortable. She wasn't comfortable with that kind of behaviour. Me personally, I love that shit. I don't care. I'm like, yeah, let's go mommy daddy. Let's whatever shout whatever you want at me. I'm good. But she wasn't comfortable with it, so she took herself out for a while. And then she came back with a show that I saw last year. I actually saw it twice last year. She basically reworked all of her music to be like slow, sad, country jam. And the band is at the back of this like plinth and she's doing like choreography. She's doing this like set piece choreography. So the show is exactly the same every night. And it is completely devoid of any audience interaction.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  And you have to sit down. They were all seated shows, all sitting. So she's like, if I'm gonna tour, I need to create an environment where no one is shouting at me. Or getting wild or getting raucous because when they do, they make it sexual and then I become very uncomfortable. All of this is totally understandable. But it's sad that she's had to kind of do that in order to get people to behave.

• 17:21Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  And that is, it is just a thing. Like there is just people. That don't know. I think, I think like because of the phone, because of the phone and you're looking.

• 17:30Adam Buxton?

  Let's just blame the phone for everything.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  You're looking at the phone and you're looking at yourself in the phone all the time.

• 17:35Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  These young people are very, very, very self-aware. They cannot let go. They cannot get loose. They do not really do drugs. They do not really get drunk because they're too scared of losing control in a public setting because they think everyone's watching them all the time and filming them all the time because they are.

• 17:49Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  And so it's a weird, it makes me really sad. So I love to hear of a show like The Frank Black Show where people are just going nuts.

• 17:56Adam Buxton?

  That's yeah.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  I want people to go nuts like.

• 17:58Adam Buxton?

  It's, it's the, it's the old Gen Xers. They still can remember a time where you went to a club and staggered around and bumped into people and sloshed beer over each other and shouted and screamed. I mean, that was, that was, it was fabulous in a way, but I have to be honest and say that I really did enjoy the, uh, sitting down version. That was pretty nice. But I was thinking, I, I went to a funeral a couple of years ago, around a time when I was thinking a lot about social media and I, I had friends having a difficult time on social media and going slightly crazy with it. So it was in my head when I went to this funeral and the priest read out the love chapter from Corinthians. Are you a Bible person?

• 18:43Speaker 01

  I'm actually not a Bible person. I was really Catholic growing up, but my mom and dad weren't Bible-bashy really. And everything was Oscar as well because we went to an Irish language church. So I don't really remember a lot like that.

• 18:58Adam Buxton?

  I mean, I am not a Bible person, but I was familiar with this. It's an absolute banger from St Paul's Corinthians thirteen.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Class.

• 19:07Adam Buxton?

  And it is him talking about love and the importance of love. And every time the priest said the word love, I was thinking social media. And how would Corinthians thirteen sound if you replace the word love with the word social media? So the, the real version is love is patient and kind.

• 19:30Adam Buxton?

  Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:47Adam Buxton?

  So I was thinking, whoa.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Social media is that, but exactly the opposite.

• 19:50Adam Buxton?

  Exactly the opposite.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Exactly the opposite. It is not patient, it is not kind, it does not rejoice. It does not, yeah.

• 19:57Adam Buxton?

  Arrogant, rude. And it's all, it's all about just like focusing on and, and maximizing the absolute worst of what human beings are capable of.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:07Adam Buxton?

  I mean, I'm sure there's some nice bits as well.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I don't wanna rag entirely on social media because I am born of it. Like, I started using Twitter every day when I was like fourteen years old and I had a Tumblr and everything. And I was on the internet every day because I was a kid that grew up in a village. Where no one really liked me because I was really fucking weird. And I didn't really have anything, by the way, friends and like, my family weren't particularly nice to me that time. Like, my two sisters were like, you're a fucking freak. And.

• 20:38Adam Buxton?

  Were you the youngest?

• 20:38Speaker 01

  No, I was like the middle. So I have two older sisters and then I have a little brother. And I, I did just, I did get a hard time from them when I was a teenager, but I was weird. Fair enough. And I got, I got a bit.

• 20:50Adam Buxton?

  What was weird about you?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  So my first day of secondary school in Dunbar County Meads. I had been thinking in my head about the fact that I was starting secondary school and it was gonna be this big moment for me. And that it's gonna be a character building, defining moment. So I spent weeks ahead printing off black and white pictures of film actresses from the nineteen forties. Because I used to have a little film diary and one of the free channels on our telly was Turner Classic Movies. So I used to watch them all and then like write down a list of what I had watched. Because I was really pretentious and I thought that made me cool.

• 21:29Adam Buxton?

  I think that does make you cool.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  I think it did make me cool, but also I was really pretentious for someone that came from a fucking village. Where like everyone plays gar and no one else is really doing that kind of thing. Anyway, I go into school. And I'm wearing a bumpet in my hair, which is a piece of plastic that you put a beehive over, basically. So I have a beehive.

• 21:49Adam Buxton?

  Oh, wow.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  I have fake lashes and I have like.

• 21:52Adam Buxton?

  And you're fourteen.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  No, I'm twelve.

• 21:54Adam Buxton?

  Oh, you're twelve.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  No, I'm twelve and I swagger in and like, we get lockers and I've been like, in America, on the telly, when you get lockers, you put pictures up inside it. So I'm gonna do that and then everyone will know I'm cool. So I'm like putting all these pictures up inside my locker and this guy comes over and he's like, uh, what are you doing? And I was like, hi, so nice to meet you. My name's Kieran Thompson. I'm actually just putting up pictures of nineteen forties film actresses inside my locker because I just wanna be inspired by them every day. And he was like, are you Roisin Thompson's sister? And I was like, yeah, I am, I am. And then he like stood up and the hall was like very full of kids and he like stood up and turned around and like announced to the whole hall.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  And I'm not gonna say the slur, but he did use a slur and he essentially went, here lads, Roisin Thompson's sister is a lesbian.

• 22:47Adam Buxton?

  Oh.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  And then I was ruined. For like two years I was ruined. And then after that it was fine. Kind of everyone just was like, yeah, that's Kieran Thompson. But it was like day one, day one I got marked and.

• 22:58Adam Buxton?

  Was that just a terrible, terrible day? Did you go home and just think, well, how's this gonna work?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I was like, oh, I thought people were gonna admire me because I'm a genius.

• 23:09Adam Buxton?

  Was there anyone, did you have any allies at all?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  The teachers, teachers loved me. Um, my, my geography teacher, Miss Woolhead, loved me. She thought I was a little weirdo. I had a really lovely art teacher, my music teacher, very important person, Pat Morris. She, I had her for all six years of secondary school and she, when I was thirteen, was like Alana, which is like my love in Irish kind of, Alana, Alana, Alana. You need to listen to Dory Preven. And she gave me all this freak folk CDs when I was thirteen and I was like, what is this? This isn't the Beatles. She loved the McGaragall sisters as well and it was through all this kind of freak folk that she knew about that I ended. Ended up discovering Judy Sill when I was like sixteen.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  And that, that was it. I have a big tattoo of Judy Sill on my arm. I have like a portrait of Judy Sill on my arm here. She like changed my life, single handedly. Like that was, heard that music when I was sixteen through a really shitty download off of YouTube. I think the first song I ever heard, I, I know the first song I ever heard was The Donor and I listened to it on my laptop in my bedroom and I was like.

• 24:15Adam Buxton?

  How does that one go?

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Eh, I'll chase them to the bottom till I finally got them, dreams fall deep. It's the one, Kyrie A'le is on, and it's like eight minutes long and it has like a sixty piece. Like tape choir. I love Judy Sill so much. She really, really spoke to me immediately.

• 24:35Adam Buxton?

  Is she still around?

• 24:35Speaker 01

  No, she's, she's absolutely dead as a door now. Um, my favourite genre of anything is. Nineteen seventies, nineteen eighties, woman, musician or director. Who made one or two things in her life and then was crushed by the world of sexism. Judy Sill is an example of that. She made two records and she was like an addict as well and she. She really, really, really pissed off David Geffen and then he buried her career. And kind of rightfully so. I think she like was a bit homophobic, but she was also bisexual herself and she was, she sounds like. I've spoken to Bob Harris about her a lot because I know I made my mission when I moved to London to make friends with Bob Harris.

• 25:20Adam Buxton?

  Whispering Bob.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Whispering Bob. I made friends with Bob Harris as soon as I fucking.

• 25:24Adam Buxton?

  And he's whispered to you about Judy Sill?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, we talk about Judy a lot, um.

• 25:28Adam Buxton?

  Did he know her?

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she did, um, she did loads of sessions on Grey Whistle Test and not all of them still exist. But the only footage I think we have of Judy is on the old Grey Whistle Test and he had her over loads and she did like, um. A really big session for the BBC. That's like one of her most famous kind of like anthologies, but yeah, he was like, she wasn't pleasant.

• 25:48Adam Buxton?

  Oh, okay.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  And I was like, no, she wouldn't have been. She wouldn't have been because that music was like that. It was absolutely like. It's kind of the same song over and over again for the two albums, which is her begging God for mercy and forgiveness for being such a terrible cunt. Which is basically all of my music as well, all the time. And, and I don't know if it's that I listened to Judy Sylv and then started down that path, or if it's that I listened to Judy Sylv was like, oh, this woman is me and then continued to do the same thing, but.

• 26:17Adam Buxton?

  Is that the way you think about yourself?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  A little bit, a little bit.

• 26:20Adam Buxton?

  Really?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm pretty like, I'm older now, so I had that thing where I had that baseline instinct of everyone in this room hates me and I'm a loud, obnoxious cunt and everyone hates me. And then it's sandwiched with, I'm a genius and everyone should love and respect me because I'm so talented. And then on top of that is, stop thinking all these things about yourself all the time and just be nice and normal.

• 26:47Adam Buxton?

  That sounds like a fairly standard artist profile.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, so in my, in my dark moments, which is where the music comes from, I'm like, I'm a cunt and I need help to not be a cunt. That's, it's a lot of this is on my new record, particularly on a song called The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station.

• 27:06Adam Buxton?

  Wow.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:07Adam Buxton?

  Tell me about the Jamie Oliver petrol station.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  So the Jamie Oliver petrol station is a song on surface level, it is a diss track about Jamie Oliver because.

• 27:18Adam Buxton?

  What's Jamie done?

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Don't know. I don't know. It's such a thing of like, you know, you pick a celebrity and you're like, oh, I hate them for no reason.

• 27:26Adam Buxton?

  He's someone that winds people up, but I would say in the scheme of things, he's trying to do his best.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, 100%. So on the surface, it reads as a diss track of Jamie Oliver because every time I see him, he kind of annoys me and I was touring extensively, I've been touring extensively for the last three years. And there's all these Jamie Oliver branded shell delis.

• 27:47Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  So you pull into a petrol station and there's a big poster of Jamie Oliver there. And I was just like, fucking hell, not another Jamie Oliver petrol station, that guy.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  And the whole point of the song is that I'm like, actually, my annoyance and tolerance and hatred of other people serves absolutely no purpose in my life and is a really bad instinct that I have that I need to try and get rid of. Because it's turning me into a cunt and I need to try and so it's actually a love song by Jamie Oliver, if you think about it. It's me being like, don't be a fucking bitch and like, just stop judging people for like annoyances.

• 28:22Adam Buxton?

  You are not going to play Jamie Oliver Petrol Station?

• 28:25Speaker 01

  No, I'm not.

• 28:26Adam Buxton?

  But will you play something from the new album?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  I will. I'll play a song called Running and Planning.

• 28:32Adam Buxton?

  Okay, beautiful.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  If it sounds good.

• 28:35Adam Buxton?

  What is running and planning about?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  I was at the end of a relationship where I realised that I was in it because it was the thing to do as opposed to actually

• 28:49Speaker 01

  being in romantic love and like having this thing that serves me like spiritually and emotionally. I was like doing it because it's the thing to do. And that that in general is a thing that I see amongst my peers and friends.

• 29:04Adam Buxton?

  How do you mean it's the thing to do?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Cause we're told that for security and emotional security and like everything, you get a partner. You just get a partner. And then you crack through life together and then you get married and then you have your kids and it's all, you're just kind of going with the flow of what everyone else around you is doing. But I was like, I think I'm always doing these things to feel more normal because I feel like such a freak all the time in my little head. And that this is also particularly women, like I just have friends that are in long-term relationships. That are like, oh, I'd love to move to New York. And I'd be like, why don't you move to New York? Oh, because my fella's here.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  I hear this so much, particularly now because twenty nine is that weird thing of like, you're in between the, are you going to continue being a pisshead for the next ten years or are you going to get married and like get a real job and like do normal things? Me personally, I'm in the pisshead route, but um. There's just, I just think there's a lot of weird societal pressures and constraints. And a lot of the time you don't even realise. I think a lot of my friends who I see them in like bad relationships or relationships that are not serving them in any way. They don't even realise because they're like, we're just doing the motions, we're going through the motions. Alright. Let's do it.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  I call you my baby, but it calls a line. I call you my angel, but you've caused some harm. And there's nothing to you, you're really not a man. You're just a vision, yeah. Some girl once had, some girl in a bedroom practising guitar. Youtube tutorials only go so far. And she prayed to God in school for a perfect friend.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  And he looked just like you, wonder where and when. I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah. I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah. I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah. I keep on running, planning, yeah. I'm on the underground, you're in the bus. I'm lagging after you, but you can't turn back.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Or I turn to read again Woven in the lamp That Jeremiah will buy for us If I take your hand Then I'll rip the head off ya Give it a new name Buy it at Nintendo And get it all the games And I'll make him dance for us Doing all chewing Find it a girl to love Who will cuddle you Oh, I keep on running Planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running Planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running Planning, yeah It runs along as it's true It runs along on a loop Along the bottom of the news That I'm not good enough for you And I can't take care of anyone Cause all I have is smoking guns Therefore, Emma, Diana's gone God bless my mouth and ginger my

• 33:31Speaker 02

  I keep on running Planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running Planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running Planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running Planning, yeah Woo!

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.

• 34:25Adam Buxton?

  Oh, good.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  I know I kind of briefly touched on it earlier on. I love this podcast.

• 34:30Adam Buxton?

  Oh, thank you so much.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  I've listened to the Kazuo Ishiguro episode like three times in my life.

• 34:35Adam Buxton?

  That was one of my favourites.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  It's so good. It's so good. I mean, I love his book so much, but like, I just loved him. I loved him. I just found him so utterly endearing and like, I loved how much of an artist he was. You know, some people, it's just out and out. They're like, this is all I've been doing the whole time. And I loved the vulnerability of him being like, I wanted to be a singer, but I couldn't be a singer. So I did something else. I think that was amazing.

• 35:00Adam Buxton?

  People do want to be singers.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  People do want to be singers.

• 35:03Adam Buxton?

  I do think it's a special, magical thing. You know, I love filmmakers and I love painters and writers. And all those people are great, but there's something so direct and magical about playing and singing.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:19Adam Buxton?

  That is different. It just forms a kind of instant connection that doesn't really compare to anything else. I don't think.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  It's just such an old thing.

• 35:32Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  It's so ancient, like, and even now it feels ancient, I think.

• 35:37Adam Buxton?

  Seematt's teeth, Seematt's teeth. What's that sparkling on Seematt's teeth? Seematt, please tell me, but keep it brief. What you got sparkling on your teeth?

• 35:53Speaker 01

  It's an aurora borealis.

• 35:54Adam Buxton?

  Oh.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Crystal that is stuck on to my tooth with the thing that you put braces on with.

• 36:00Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  And it should not have lasted this long because this is the cheapest version of this kind of thing that you can do. And it's been on for about two and a half years and has become my trademark. So if it ever falls off, I have to immediately go and get it again.

• 36:11Adam Buxton?

  So there's no orthodontic reason for that to be there. That's purely cosmetic.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Purely for the crack, yeah.

• 36:17Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Purely for the good times.

• 36:20Adam Buxton?

  In fact, it comes with some crack.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wish.

• 36:25Adam Buxton?

  And um, and then what do you have further back there?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  So I have another one in the middle that's a little tiny diamond. And then I have at the back, a green love heart.

• 36:34Adam Buxton?

  Oh.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  For Ireland.

• 36:35Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Cause I love Ireland so much that I was like, yeah, green love heart, man, Ireland. And what's funny is obviously I got the YouTube comments then from the dads being like, uh, she looked lovely if she didn't have that shit on her teat. And I'm like, I did this for you.

• 36:50Adam Buxton?

  So that's where you're, you're looking at YouTube comments, are you?

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. I would love to be like, no, I don't read the comments. I totally do.

• 36:58Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  I can't help myself.

• 37:00Adam Buxton?

  But you weaned yourself off Twitter. You're no longer on.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  No longer on Twitter and I'm no longer on TikTok because TikTok is where the bad people really came out. Like,

• 37:10Adam Buxton?

  Really?

• 37:11Speaker 01

  I had an incident last year where the, I performed at the BBC Radio One Big Weekend. And the BBC had to turn the comments off of any video of me, video and picture or whatever of me that they posted. Because one of the videos racked up 2000 comments in like, four hours of people just calling me fat and hideous and disgusting and gross looking and like, who's this elephant on the fucking stage? And this kind of language that they were using, like, vomit emojis and saying I look disgusting and she should go to prison. And she's fat and ugly and I hope she dies. And I was like, cool.

• 37:47Adam Buxton?

  Who is that doing those comments? I mean?

• 37:50Speaker 01

  No, I don't know. It's really difficult to pinpoint. Cause it's the general population, I guess. You can't like, you know, not everyone has been exposed to the many cultural references that I've been exposed to. Like, not everyone is like, all the B52s are the best band in the world.

• 38:08Adam Buxton?

  Do you think those are people that have followed your career at all?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  No, no, this will be the first time they've come across me.

• 38:14Adam Buxton?

  Right. And they just don't like the look of you?

• 38:15Speaker 01

  That's what happens is someone who has come across me for the first time. Generally will have an immediate bad reaction if I'm not wearing enough clothes for them, or if the clothes that I'm wearing are too weird or too revealing.

• 38:27Adam Buxton?

  Well, the other thing that I was gonna say about your appearance was the bumcrack at the Brits.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, which also went down like a lead balloon on TikTok, but I kinda wanted it to because I thought that was cool.

• 38:40Adam Buxton?

  So was that before the BBC Big Weekend thing?

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, it was. And what was annoying, I guess what's annoying about the BBC Radio One Big Weekend is I was just wearing clothes that other people were wearing, like other people were wearing that same amount of clothes.

• 38:54Adam Buxton?

  Most people like being nappies.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Love, loved them. They were like white hot pants and I thought they looked cool. Um, I guess with the Brit Awards though, we kinda knew, like I knew we were gonna get a rise out of people and I just had the idea. And I thought it would be so funny. So me and Mia and the designer Sophie Lincoln worked in it and I was touring. So there was like one night backstage in Brussels where my poor sister had to get on a Zoom call and do very specific measurements of my arse. Like I was not wearing any clothes. She was like measuring my bum in every way, shape and form, because in order for that dress to work structurally, it required a lot of effort. Sophie's an amazing, amazing seamstress. Cause obviously when you wear clothes, the back is there to keep it up.

• 39:38Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Especially on a dress, you know, you zip the back up and then it like goes to the body. But in order for it to work the way that it worked, we had to do a lot of really specific measurements. And then I was covered actually underneath that dress in duck tape. So I wasn't like wearing any underwear, obviously. Um, so it was covered in duck tape and then there was double sided sticky tape on the duck tape. And then we fleshed it to the dress and the body. And then that's how it kinda looked the way it looked. I still think that's the best thing I ever did. Um, but people hated that.

• 40:04Adam Buxton?

  And the idea in your head was let's create an unconventional cleavage. Let's sort of troll the idea of a woman's front cleavage.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:14Adam Buxton?

  By giving it a bit of back cleavage.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't, I didn't think it was gonna go as far as it did. I will say that. Like, I just thought we were gonna get on the Daily Mail worst dress list and that would have been an honour. And I was, and I also was this year when I went to the Brits again. They put me on the worst dress list. I was like, class. Yeah, I didn't think it was gonna go as far as it was. People, people really, really don't like someone being confidently stupid. They really don't like it, like someone doing something confidently that is in poor taste.

• 40:43Adam Buxton?

  I do think people find. It hard when it's a woman still.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. When a woman is being like loud and obnoxious and, you know, having fun and being giddy.

• 40:55Adam Buxton?

  Do you, you know, because you've had, you've had your struggles with your mental health in the past. You've been up and down. You've been public about it. You've written about it.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:06Adam Buxton?

  And do you worry about the pressures of life in the spotlight and the effect that that has when you were talking about those people trolling you before online after the BBC thing? Does that knock you back or are you able to rationalize it?

• 41:26Speaker 01

  That one, that one's actually okay. When people fat shame me or whatever, which is just such a mental thing to do in general, but that one's actually so mad that it doesn't really bother me because I'm just like, it's just so abstracted from anything to do with me. Like, I can't take it personally because it has no bearing on me or who I am or what I do. It's just the way I look.

• 41:50Adam Buxton?

  To any of those kinds of messages online?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Not, not directly.

• 41:53Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Just by being like, didn't realise it was illegal to have a fat ass boys, like, you know, I'll do something like that, but no, never directly because I just don't really care about them interacting with me at all. But, yeah, I am, I'm really looking forward to festival season because I love festival season. I love festivals. I feel like I'm a festival artist. I love the fact that my job has allowed me to go to every single festival in the UK and experience it intimately. Like, that's cool. Because I go to see bands every time I do a gig.

• 42:27Adam Buxton?

  Are you at End of the Road?

• 42:29Speaker 01

  I was last year and it was my favourite, favourite show of last year. I loved it so much. I went to End of the Road as a punter in twenty twenty one. I was playing solo on like the garden stage at like two P M on the Friday. And that was in the era where I wasn't that busy. So I was like, sick. That means I can stay for free for the weekend and just be at the festival for the whole weekend. And that was amazing. I love End of the Road. I think End of the Road is so underrated as a festival. I think it's so amazing. But I'm really, I'm really looking forward to festival season because I love it. And we've got a really, really big slot at Glastonbury.

• 43:04Adam Buxton?

  Oh, you're at Glastonbury?

• 43:06Speaker 01

  I'm looking forward to that more than anything I've ever looked forward to in my life. Cause the last time we did Glass Spirit, it was amazing. But yeah, I can't lie, like every time I release an album, I become more famous. And it throws up more problems. But also, good things.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  So who knows? And also, at the end of the day, I just kinda want to be able to keep having people give me money to write and record albums. Cause I've done like three in a four year space. So clearly I just enjoy making albums. They do send me fucking west. They make me mental. The last one in particular. Kinda had to check in with my manager at one point to be like, if I told people what was going on with me right now, I do have a fear I would get sectioned. He was like, yeah, maybe just keep it under wraps until the album's done. I was like, yeah, cool, we'll do.

• 43:52Adam Buxton?

  What was going on with you though?

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Hallucinations.

• 43:55Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Which I, I will talk about properly at some point, but essentially, long story short, I was, my frontal lobe was so occupied with how to make this the best album of all time, constantly. That I actually just started hallucinating things that weren't there, such as insects crawling on my skin.

• 44:13Adam Buxton?

  Oh man.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  And I broke out in like stress hives. And then I went to the doctor and he was like, I thought they were insect bites. I was like, the insects are biting me. And he's like, that's a stress rash and the insects aren't real. And I was like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. And like auditory hallucinations and stuff like that, which I get quite bad. But that's from lack of sleep and like overstimulation and stuff as well. Cause my job is constantly listening to music all the time. So then when there's silence, it just keeps going.

• 44:40Adam Buxton?

  What do you hear when you get auditory hallucinations? That's scary.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  There's like a man and he says the word stones over and over again sometimes.

• 44:48Adam Buxton?

  Is it Mick Jagger?

• 44:49Speaker 01

  It's not unfortunately. I wish it was. It's Dublin accents and it's like stones like that. And it will happen. And because I became aware of it, then if I'm falling asleep and I haven't eaten nor slept properly, I'll be falling asleep and I'll just hear it a bit and I'm like, oh. Shut up.

• 45:06Adam Buxton?

  Oh man, was that scary the first time you heard that?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  I think this has always happened to me. I think I've always had auditory hallucinations and not been able to put a name to them. Or not realise that everyone else doesn't experience them. But, you know, I have to kind of take the David Lynch approach with these things, which is, I really love songwriting, I really love singing, and I do it for my job. And there's kind of no way that I can be as good at it and enjoy it as much as I can without being programmed wrong in some way. Do you know what I mean? And then also songwriting is like a muscle that you have to flex. And the more songs I write faster and quicker, the better I've gotten at them.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Because my albums, I think, have gotten just like better and better and better. And this record in particular, I think is the best thing I've ever made. But in order for me to get there, you have to keep flexing the songwriting muscle. And I'm sure that when you build up that muscle, the auditory hallucinations and the hallucinating muscles also get flexed and get brought up to the front and get worse and worse. Because you are living in your imagination the whole time. And you're working your imagination so hard all of the time that it's just inevitable that you will get these kind of side effects.

• 46:23Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:13Adam Buxton?

  We're all in it together.

• 47:22Adam Buxton?

  What was the advice you got from Charli XCX? So explain how you came to be in the court of Charli XCX in the first place.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  So I was living in Manchester. I was working in TK Maxx and was also working as a sexy shots lady in the nightclubs of Deansgate Castlefield.

• 47:39Adam Buxton?

  Love it. When was this?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  This would have been two thousand and seventeen or two thousand and eighteen. I was like twenty one. I had moved over to the UK to try and be a songwriter. I didn't want to be an artist at that time. Cause I just fucking was miserable and I didn't think I could do it. But I knew I was a good songwriter. So I was like, I'm gonna come over and I'm gonna do writing sessions. I'm gonna be a writer. I just had this whole thing. So, but I was living in Manchester because I couldn't afford London. She put up a thing on Instagram being like, I'm gonna invite fans to come and listen to my unreleased music and give their opinions of them. So if you wanna come, write a review in my inbox of my unreleased leaked demos that you've definitely heard, like give me a review of my unreleased leaked demos, which obviously I've heard every single one of them.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  So I wrote a review of the first song and then she immediately replied and was like, yeah, you're in. You seem like you know stuff about music. So it was like a fan event run by Spotify and I was in the room with all these other super duper Charlie XCX fans. And I am a super duper Charlie XCX fan. I'm a lifer. I've been there since two thousand and thirteen. I'm in this room and everyone is maybe younger than me or is an older gay man. And I'm like, cool, cool, cool. And she's like, here's a song. What do you think of it? And everyone else in the room is kind of being like, yeah, I love it. It's like a funky vibe. Yeah, I love it. It's great. And I'm like, I think the bridge on this one doesn't really work because it's not really giving us an intuitive transition into the chorus.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  And I also think maybe you shouldn't be starting on a concert. I'm doing the thing that I do. I'm being really, really specific about songwriting. And at one point she plays a song and was like, I don't know if I should release this song or not, because I don't know if it's very me. And she plays the song. And I was like, don't release this song. It's not good. I was like, you're literally an innovator. Like you are famous for constantly pushing the envelope. Why would you release a song? With this title and like these lyrics and stuff, when it's like, sounds like something you would made sixty years ago. And it's something that other people at this current moment in time are copying off of you from six years ago.

• 49:45Adam Buxton?

  What were the other people in the room doing when you were giving her these blasts?

• 49:48Speaker 01

  They were staring at me as if I was insane. I wasn't blasting her. I was like, I was, if anything, I was trying to uplift her more.

• 49:55Adam Buxton?

  Truth blasts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Trying to be like.

• 49:57Adam Buxton?

  No, I'm sure you were doing it charmingly. And she was, I mean, it must have been.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Hard to know. Hard to know. I was on a lot of drugs at the time. Um, I was a bit of a mad one.

• 50:05Adam Buxton?

  Recreational or psychiatric?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Uh, recreational, not like, well, you could say psychiatric. No, I was smoking loads of weed and doing loads of coke at the time, all the time. Uh, so I was a bit of a nut job.

• 50:17Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Um, and.

• 50:20Adam Buxton?

  But she was able to see that you were a big fan.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:23Adam Buxton?

  And.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  I think she fully copped it. Yeah.

• 50:25Adam Buxton?

  And you also knew what you were talking about.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So she pulled me aside afterwards. So her managers were like, we want to hit. I was like, who cares? It's about the music.

• 50:33Adam Buxton?

  Oh, I see. I thought you were saying they wanted some of your drugs.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Well, I wouldn't have had any despair, to be fair. I was quite broke at the time. But so she pulled me aside afterwards and was like, what are you doing? Like, what's going on with you? And I was like, oh, I'm a songwriter, da, da, da, da, da, live in Manchester. And she was like, why are you living in Manchester? And I was like, um, because I wanted to move to England, but I couldn't afford London, so I live in Manchester. She's like, but where are all your friends? Like, who are you making music with? How can you be working hard enough if you don't have friends around you to like, uplift you and like, hold you to being a maker? And I was like, I don't know. And she was like, right. So I think like, either you need to bite the bullet and find out a way to move to London and be in the scene.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Or maybe you should like go back to Dublin, where your friends are and where you've made music with people before, if that's something you can afford to do because really the only thing that matters is that you're making stuff all the time. I think she was like, do you have a boyfriend here or something? And I was like, yeah. And she was like, well, just maybe consider moving back to Dublin. And I got on the mega bus back to Manchester and the whole time I was sitting there I was like, I have to break up my boyfriend, I have to break up my boyfriend and move back to Dublin because Charlie XCX told me to. And I did, I literally did, moved back to Dublin eventually, moved in with my mom and then moved back in with my nanny and grandad, who I'd lived with for a lot of years before I moved to Manchester. And was doing this thing where I was like posting videos of myself riding and singing on YouTube.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Every week, like once a week, like every Friday or something.

• 52:04Adam Buxton?

  Are they still up there, those videos?

• 52:05Speaker 01

  No, they're down, they're in unlisted, they'll go up on something eventually, but I can't quite look at them because I'm crackers in them, I'm like so mental and so miserable in them because I'm like back living at home after trying to make it in England, but still think I'm doing the right thing. Anyway, I'm posting these, they're getting maybe four hundred, five hundred views. It's like the same people from Ireland are watching every week and being like, well done queen, proud of you and like, thank you. And it was a nice time, like people were being really nice.

• 52:32Adam Buxton?

  But it wasn't crossing over yet.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Well, that's how my manager met me, my current manager. And he's the reason that Seema exists. He's like, single-handedly came in at that point and was like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm fixing coffee machines. And he was like, right, well, you need to be a musician, so I'm gonna find you loads of money and you're gonna go to New York and you're gonna record your first five songs and then we're gonna release them at the start of next year. So I went to New York and I recorded the first five songs. The first single was gonna be a song called KFC, which is to be released on the seventh of March, twenty twenty. Now, if we cast our minds back to the seventh of March, twenty twenty, I was working as someone fixing coffee machines over the phone in an office. And I went in to the office the week that I was supposed to release Another Day KFC and everybody was crying.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  And they're like, we all have to go home because of this disease. And we'd filmed a music video and had it all ready to go and stuff. Obviously couldn't release it that week because of the news. And me and Barry kind of debriefed him and was like, right, we have two options. We can either wait about six weeks or eight weeks for Covid to be over.

• 53:37Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, it'll be over by Easter.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:40Adam Buxton?

  Trump said.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  It'll be over by Easter, girl. Um, wait the six to eight weeks for Covid to be over. Or we release it in two weeks while everyone is locked at home and get their full attention.

• 53:50Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  We went for the two week plan and I became a national treasure overnight in Ireland. That was how that happened. It was fucking crazy. It's so lucky. Cause I didn't have an in, I didn't have a leg in, I didn't like, I literally didn't have any press. I didn't have any tools at my disposal. I had nothing but a new song and a new video that was different sounding and the entire population of Ireland locked at home going on their phones. And then they see this video of this girl like dancing around a blue screen and sing a song about KFC and like, you know, breaking up with her boyfriend or whatever. And people fucking loved it. They literally like, everyone in Ireland just loved it immediately. Within three months, I was like a magazine cover girl, like on the front of the like culture magazine in Ireland. Like it was so

• 54:35Speaker 01

  crazy. It was so fast and so crazy. It just happened immediately. And we had the backlog of like the five songs. And then the third single, which was released in October twenty twenty was I Wanna Be A Cowboy Baby. And that was when this shit really fucking kicked off because then it was England as well. Like that whole period of my life, when I think about it now, is just like so mental because I was literally fixing coffee machines. And then I was locked into my nanny and grandad's house for like a year. And then when I came out, I played a solo gig to like five hundred people, two nights in a row or something in Dublin and had like this really, and those tickets sold out in like five minutes. And it just kept kind of happening that quickly and it was mad.

• 55:20Adam Buxton?

  Did you? Love it.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  I loved it. I loved it. It was sick. I loved everything about it. But it was all directly. Charlie XCX said, go home to Ireland. And I said, okay. And I would not have this career if I did not go back to Ireland at that time. But a lot of people say that if you want to be a successful musician from Ireland, you have to leave Ireland in order to break out and have Irish people take you seriously. And obviously I live in London now because it's very, I mean, Dublin's very expensive. There's a huge rental crisis. None of my friends really live there anymore. And the business is here, but it is definitely possible to like have a career and like break out from your hometown. Do you know what I mean?

• 55:57Adam Buxton?

  Sure. I wasn't aware that music artists did the kind of thing that Charlie XCX was doing of having, of bringing fans in to have these sort of listening events and to get direct feedback in that way. That's amazing.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  It was amazing. It was really, she's an, she's an artist.

• 56:15Adam Buxton?

  Does that happen a lot though?

• 56:16Speaker 01

  No, I don't know anyone else that does that. I mean.

• 56:19Adam Buxton?

  I mean, you've really got to be tough to do that.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I mean.

• 56:23Adam Buxton?

  I would think.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  A lot of fans are just going to be like, this is great. Love you so much.

• 56:26Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Cause they're in the room with you. But I think the fact that I did what I did and then she responded well to it instead of being like, get this crazy bitch out of here.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  It's just so amazing. And I haven't, I haven't met her since. I mean, I've been in the same room as her multiple times, but she's obviously now become the most famous person in the world, which by the way is the best thing.

• 56:46Adam Buxton?

  Well, I mean, it's clear that she takes the whole process seriously and wants it to work.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. She probably has written like 500 songs already.

• 56:55Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  If not more that are released, like she, cause she features on everything. She writes so many songs for the people. She's writing. It's crazy.

• 57:02Adam Buxton?

  As someone who has tried to write songs over the years and dreamed of writing a quotes proper song. You know, I'm just, one of the many things I'm in awe of when it comes to someone like you is how you hone your instincts for writing a song. How do you know what happens in a song? And how do you mix humor in there without it tipping over into something silly or like a novelty? I mean, obviously the thing that separates a lot of what you do from what someone like me could do is you have an innate talent in your voice as well. But then there are all the. Things that you're doing with the songs that are really interesting. So you're gonna play another song for us, right? From the new record.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:48Adam Buxton?

  And this is Coronation Street.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Coronation Street, yeah.

• 57:51Adam Buxton?

  Is that named after the soap?

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I was living in Manchester, another weird job that I had was like accommodation manager. But I was like, working technically in an office, but I was going into all these really cheap new build apartments in Media City. But one of the apartments and one of the apartment blocks that I used to go to was overlooking the set of Coronation Street. So I was like twenty three at the time that I first started writing this song. And it's taken a while for it to kind of percolate and like, get to where I think it's actually a good song now, which is only instinct to answer your question. It's like. You can't ask anyone else, is this a good song? It's like, do you think it's a good song? Yes or no? And if the answer is fully yes, then it's time to go and just release it.

• 58:35Adam Buxton?

  What are the things that make you think it's not a good song or not good enough?

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Honestly, a lot of the time it's like structure. I can't get the structure. So I have the bits. I have like the bits all floating around. But I can't figure out how to line them up in a way that's instinctive and feels good and is pleasing to the ear and is beautiful. I really care about beauty. When I love a songwriter, but hate some of their output, it's because they've tried to make something too weird or too cool. Or too angular or something. And I'm always just like, I actually just want to be bowled over by something. But as I was saying, in this apartment, you could see. The back of the set of Coronation Street, which is fascinating because you see the real front of the house. And then you see that the back is just like a pillar that's standing up. It's like. Just this skinny bit of the front of the house and there's nothing else. So it's like a fake town and a fake village.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  And when I was twenty three, I was working all these terrible jobs and was trying to be a songwriter so badly and nothing was landing. And because I had no money, I was never going out. And so I used to just like. Stay in my apartment all the time, smoking absolutely loads of weed all the time, watching the same video of New Order over and over again on my fucking telly. Like, I was not normal, like, I was not going to the club. I should have been going to the club, like, but instead I was doing weird stuff. And I really, at that time, was like, how does anyone get a real life? That was something that I really struggled. I was like, how's everyone like going out and like making friends and like dating and like doing all these interesting, cool things with their life? Like, I have absolutely no ability to do that. I don't know how you do that.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  And so I felt like my life was very fake. And then I saw Carnation Street. I was like, Carnation Street is fake. And it just kind of, and that's usually how it happens for me, like the germination of an idea is like, I'll be feeling something bad, there'll be some problem in my mind, there'll be some insecurity that I have about myself and who I am. And then I'll see a piece of visual media or like I'll read a Wikipedia article about a town in America, because I'm obviously fascinated by America, or I'll think about something visual, I think, is what I tend to go for. Like, I don't really put a lot of like conversational pieces in. I'm always like image, image, image, reference, reference, reference, describe a room, describe a room.

• 1:00:50Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Um, in order to then descri- because I think you have to stay in abstraction in order for something to be good. So if I'm trying to pin a feeling, because feeling is thin air, and how do you describe a feeling? It's pretty hard. So I use like images that you put them together and you line them up a certain way. Basically, when I think a song is done, is if I've successfully described the feeling that I'm trying to tell you about. I'm just always trying to get people to understand me, I think is the thing. I think that's the only job that a songwriter has is like, please understand me, please listen to me.

• 1:01:22Adam Buxton?

  And so you would never go, you'd never go directly for the feeling itself. You'd never say, why can't I go out and just have fun like everyone else? Not with that tune necessarily.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Well, that's actually so close to the chorus of this song. It's really funny. Because the chorus of the song is I'm twenty three and everyone is having fun except for me.

• 1:01:41Adam Buxton?

  Oh, there you go.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  That's so.

• 1:01:42Adam Buxton?

  Nailed it.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  I try not to, because I prefer to stay in abstraction, because I think it cuts deeper. Like my song Cowboy, where the chorus of the song, I wanna be a cowboy baby, is me describing a Vine meme video from the internet, but also describing the feeling of being frustrated at my lack of freedom as a woman in the world to go off and be a fucking pisshead without the constant threat of violence, right? And if you manage to do those two things at the same time, you get people immediately. I think people, I think a lot of songwriters today really underestimate their audience. Like, I've worked with songwriters and they're like, you can't use the word palate in a song, because no one knows what a palate is. It's like, yes, they fucking do.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Like, what are you talking about? I've had that conversation before where someone's like, don't use the word palate.

• 1:02:32Adam Buxton?

  I suppose maybe what they're getting at is don't make the language so specific that it yanks the listener out of the song, perhaps?

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is the complete opposite of my belief.

• 1:02:43Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Because I think the more laser focused specific you get, the more honest you get and the more people are able to read what you're putting down.

• 1:02:52Adam Buxton?

  Right, because I thought that when you made the reference to the Nintendo.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:57Adam Buxton?

  In the other song.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  I think the more specific to your own experience you get, weirdly, the more universal the message becomes.

• 1:03:03Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Like, I've always said, like, the worst song ever written is We Are The World.

• 1:03:07Adam Buxton?

  Ah, yeah.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Because it, we are the world, we are the children. Trying to capture that many people on purpose doesn't fucking work, because you have to get into the details.

• 1:03:16Adam Buxton?

  It's true, we make a better day, just you and me. Have you seen that doc?

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Adam Buxton?

  Oh, it's beautiful.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Bob Dylan.

• 1:03:22Adam Buxton?

  Bobbles.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  Bob Dylan is so good.

• 1:03:24Adam Buxton?

  Getting told how to sing like Bob Dylan by Stevie Wonder, that's the best.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  So funny. I love Bob Dylan so much, obviously, but yeah, I've obviously a lot of theories, opinions, facts and figures on songwriting that I've built up over the last twenty years, I guess. I've started writing songs when I was like ten, and I could talk about it for a very long time, but I probably should just sing a song.

• 1:03:47Adam Buxton?

  Okay, well, let's hear the song. I love it, though, it's fascinating.

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  Holy smoker, I'm such a joker's bet All the money on things that keep me tied And give me bingo wings that cannot fly But keep me up all night What's another dirty dough to doughs Whose life just hasn't started yet? I'm twenty-three and everyone is having fun Except for me Eee

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  I'm too tired to make my dinner And I think I'm too tired to fall asleep I think my boyfriend hates me If I'm being honest, that's not deep I don't really care about him I can't care about anyone but me There's a missing part inside me I'm misplaced while going for ice cream Eee

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  Ice cream

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  All I do ever is try to figure out what I'm missing.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  My thoughts can act like a pile of dust in the corner. But the room where I spend all my time, I eat and sleep by me man, pine for the life of terror. Any kind of power at all. Holy smoker, I'm such a joker. Spent all my money on things that keep me tied. And learned to hate the wings my mother gave me. Oh, Lord, what a life.

• 1:06:53Speaker 02

  I'm just a bad maid with no lines that lives on Coronation Street. I'm twenty-three and everyone is having fun except for me. I'm twenty-three and everyone is having fun except for me. I'm twenty-three and everyone is having fun except for me.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  She's got such a great voice. Thank you so much.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:07:54Adam Buxton?

  This is an ad for Squarespace. Okay, we'll return to the AI apocalypse in just a wee, wee moment, but first I wanted to talk about Squarespace. Do you know about Squarespace, Steve? Uh, yes, Monty. I think I might even be a little bit more tuned into modern tech, websites, et cetera, than you. I don't know, just guessing. Oh, Steve, I love this dynamic. I'm old and conservative and you're young and progressive and that's what makes the Newswind podcast such great listening. But yes, you're right, I must admit, I didn't know much about Squarespace. But because my new grumble book, Hell in a Handcart, is out this month. And I look forward to getting enraged by that. So I should hope. Em, um, em, um. Anyway, the publishers, Bluestar and Dogwhistle, made a beautiful website for the book using Squarespace. I know, I got the newsletter that you sent out using Squarespace and the website

• 1:08:36Adam Buxton?

  does look great. Videos of you airing your views, members' areas for your mad fans. You've even got a merch store, I see. That's right, a Union Jack top hat is a big seller. But they constructed it all so fast with Squarespace. They did most of it over one lunchtime, Steve. Well, you wouldn't want to spend much longer on it, would you? Shut up, Steve. But here's the thing, anyone listening to this can start a free trial right now at Squarespace.com/Buxton and see how easy and versatile Squarespace is. And when they're ready to launch a new website or domain, they can save 10% off their first purchase by using the offer code BUXTON at checkout. Right, well, maybe I'll visit Squarespace.com/Buxton and start a new website just to refute all the nonsense in your new book. Oh, don't do that, Steve. I will. Oh, shut up, Steve. Uh, shut up. Now, back to more depressing matters on Newswind.

• 1:09:33Adam Buxton?

  Hey, welcome back, podcats. That was C-Mat there. And I'm so grateful to her for making the time. And thanks as well to Dan and Fay from her record company who came along and helped arrange things.

• 1:09:49Adam Buxton?

  Much appreciated. There's links in the description of this podcast to a few of Seematt's music videos and her website where you'll find details about the release of her album, Euro Country, tour dates, etc. You'll also find a couple of links to one of the best loved shows from the first wave of podcasting in the UK. I'm talking about Answer Me This, hosted by Helen Zaltzman and Ollie Mann. I'm sure many of you are familiar with that show and were fans from its inception in 2007. The format was brilliantly simple. Listeners would send in questions that were sometimes silly, sometimes more serious, and Helen and Ollie

• 1:10:33Adam Buxton?

  would do their best to answer them with a combination of research and friendly waffle. Here are some random questions that were answered on episodes from the early 2010s. Brendan from Cork asked, "What the fuck is up with unicorns? Who the hell thought they would be good for little girls to play with? They're horses with horns. Wouldn't they kill them?" Jamie from Milton Keynes asked, "I go to a boarding school. Does that mean that my parents don't love me?" Hannah from Bridge North with loads of exclamation marks asked, "Me and my friends wanna know, is big dick, big feet true?" Five question marks.

• 1:11:18Adam Buxton?

  Gareth from Ipswich asked, "Why are turkey eggs not sold commercially? Are they a lot bigger than chickens' eggs? Or are they unsafe to eat?" And David from Sterling asked, "Why the hell are the adverts for that 'ped egg' thing always on during dinner or when people are eating? I don't want to see those shavings while eating." Yeah, that's something I don't miss about those days. Those ped egg ads. Anyway, all those questions and many similar ones were dealt with by Ollie and Helen on Answer Me This, which ran from 2007 to 2015. They returned with a one-off special

• 1:11:58Adam Buxton?

  in 2023, but as of January this year, it's back. And to celebrate their return, I asked Helen and Ollie my own, in no way boring and predictable question, what is your favourite uplifting movie?

• 1:12:13Speaker 03

  Hey, Adam. Helen and Ollie here from Answer Me This. We've each chosen a film that uplifts us. Helen, what's yours?

• 1:12:20Speaker 04

  I'm gonna choose, Ollie, My Cousin Vinny.

• 1:12:22Speaker 03

  Oh, what a classic.

• 1:12:23Speaker 04

  It's it's one of those films that if it's on TV, I can't stop watching it until the end.

• 1:12:28Speaker 03

  So good.

• 1:12:28Speaker 04

  One of the things that I find uplifting about it, even though it is about a very serious crime.

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  It is. It is about a very serious crime.

• 1:12:36Speaker 04

  You get full closure.

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, you do.

• 1:12:39Speaker 04

  All ends tied up, and you get a magnificent courtroom scene.

• 1:12:43Speaker 03

  I also think because of the era that it was made, it's allowed to deal in cliche in a way that you just couldn't now. But in the case of that film and that lightness of touch is actually quite liberating.

• 1:12:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, no one is really like addressing the trauma of what would it be like if those things really happened to you. It's just like, what a hoot.

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, the film that I've chosen that always uplifts me, Helen, is of course The Muppet Christmas Carol. I realise this is not a seasonal pick. Although, as they say in the film, wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.

• 1:13:11Speaker 04

  Depends on your attitude towards Christmas. For some people, it's not a positive festivity.

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  Right. Wherever you find someone chucking a jar at the wall and having an absolute fit, it's Christmas.

• 1:13:19Speaker 04

  Wherever you find someone having three ghosts visit them to teach them a damn lesson, well, technically four ghosts, it's like Christmas.

• 1:13:27Speaker 03

  Hmm. For me, it's not only the best adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

• 1:13:32Speaker 04

  Strong agree.

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  With Michael Caine and excellent Scrooge, even if you take the Muppets out of it, it's actually also the best Muppet movie. And I suppose I find it uplifting because it is actually weirdly quite faithful to Dickens's novel. It's not that clever with it, is it?

• 1:13:45Speaker 04

  They also take a lot of the dialogue directly from it. And that book is great. Real ripper.

• 1:13:53Speaker 03

  Dickens knew what he was doing.

• 1:13:54Speaker 04

  I do have some questions about whether Scrooge goes back to his old ways once January hits, but that's for the sequel that was never made.

• 1:14:01Speaker 03

  I would love that. In fact, now Disney Plus exists, it's only a matter of time before there is a Muppet.

• 1:14:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Damn, I regret even manifesting that. Now I'm down lifted. Damn it.

• 1:14:11Adam Buxton?

  There we are, uplifting movie picks from Helen Zaltman and Ollie Mann, the hosts of Answer Me This, which has returned to the PodSphere as of January 2025. I've put a link to their question archive in the description of this podcast, as well as the email address to send them new questions. Oh, my hands are so freezing. I'm holding the recorder with my left hand and my phone, which has my notes in my right hand. And I have forgotten to bring gloves because I got all cocky and thought spring had sprung. All right, that's it for

• 1:14:51Adam Buxton?

  this week. Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for all his incredible production support and conversation editing. Thanks, Seamus, much appreciated. Thanks once again to C-Mat. Thank you to Helen Green. She does the artwork for this podcast. Thank you very much indeed to everybody at Acast. But thanks most especially to you. Thanks so much for listening right to the end. What would I do if you didn't? Uh, I suppose I'd have to go and get a real job, wouldn't I? I don't know what that would be at this point. Anyway, let's not think about that just now. Just keep coming back and it'll all be fine. Thank you. Oh, look, we're coming up to the bird scaring canon

• 1:15:35Adam Buxton?

  again. I'm gonna walk in a large semicircle around it. No, I totally sympathise with Rosie. It really is alarming. The Portek scatterbird. Gotta run away from it.

• 1:15:58Adam Buxton?

  Okay. All right, huggles. Eee, how are you doing? Good to see you.

• 1:16:06Adam Buxton?

  Oh, my hands are cold. Until next time we meet, take great care, because it's crazy out there. And for what it's worth, I love you. Bye! Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like and a thumbs up. I shake a pan when me bums up. Give me like and a thumbs up. I shake a pan when me bums up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe.

• 1:16:50Adam Buxton?

  Give me like and a thumbs up. I shake a pan when me bums up. Give me like and a thumbs up. I shake a pan when me bums up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.