IN CONVERSATION: Fenne Lily 3

IN CONVERSATION: Fenne Lily

Fenne Lily isn’t just a ridiculously talented songwriter she is a fascinating human being. Over the course of our chat about her fantastic second album BREACH we touch on everything from Instagram, mental health issues, existentialist theories, to being accidentally naked online, her friendship with Lucy Dacus, alternative cannabis therapies and how she has carved a place for herself in the world. It was one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever done, by the end it was like she was giving me therapy.

The Bristol born twenty three year old releases her wonderful second record BREACH this September through Dead Oceans. At times an intensely personal, reflective and frequently sardonic record at others propulsive, dreamy and infectious. BREACH grapples with the philisophy of being human and the catharsis of entering your 20s and trying to find peace while being alone.

Vaster, more layered and more intricate than Fenne’s debut, On Hold, which was a streaming success, it offers a more urgent streak to her songwriting in places, yet houses a clever empathetic intimacy that peers at the tenuous nature of life. Ripe with her effortless unfiltered tone that’s at points like a sighing breath on your neck at others stops you dead in your tracks, Fenne’s voice is at once knowing, soothing and weighted with the depth of the duality living. Wrapping itself around you as the subtle swelling instrument sweeps that envelop you in clipped percussion, lucid guitar lines and bittersweet melodies. If you are looking for rough comparisons then the diaristic and redemptive sound of early Daughter or the brittle melancholia of Elliot Smith might be a shorthand but it’s all just Fenne Lily. Its a wonderful record and one of the best I’ve heard in 2020 so far.

Fenne kicked off her Wednesday evening IG Live interview series, “The Bathtime Show,” a few months ago. Guests thus far have included Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Christian Lee Hutson, Matthew Maltese and SOAK. Keep an eye here for future guests joining Fenne in the tub (from afar).

So how’s lockdown treated you generally?

Fenne: Its generally been pretty good actually, apart from a pretty disastrous lapse of inspiration. I haven’t been making anything particularly recently. I started painting pottery and doings some crafts, its been alright. How has yours been?

Not too bad, I started a podcast that’s about the most constructive thing I have done in Lockdown.

Fenne: You and literally everyone in the world, not that that’s a dig, but I feel like podcast has become like the new breathing.

It has really hasn’t it, I have got a bit of a history in radio, but it was just something to do at the time.

Fenne: But also if you’ve not got any distracting shit to get done then you start thinking deeply about stuff, I think everyone has become more interesting. So maybe its not a bad thing that everyone’s started a podcast at their most interesting.

It’s been quite quiet here too.

Fenne: There was like a week where nobody was out it was like a ghost town really spooky.

Is it unlocking where you are?

You can go to a restaurant now but you have to prebook and everyone is spaced out apart. We went to the pub for the first time the other day, we chose not a chain pub because the chain pubs are completely anal about cleaning and stuff which is probably safer for everyone but not as relaxed as a indie pub. You still see people not wearing masks in shops even though its now meant to be completely illegal not to do so.

I stopped going to shops for about three months as I went to Lidl once when this all started and people were walking into me and I was like “oh my god I am going to get it”, I was terrified so I just left.

Fenne: I’ve noticed though now that we all wear masks, people are being way more lax with distance rules.

People think it’s like an invincibility cloak!

Fenne: Totally, its like people think they’re a shield or something.

Where did the idea for bath time come from?

Fenne: Basically from doing a lot of talking from friends on facetime and realising that we are a lot more interesting than we thought we were. I got the podcast hunger and I thought ‘maybe I will start a podcast‘, but it seems like visual live stream stuff feels more chill, less permanent. The name is a pun, on the half time show, fewer fire tricks and Beyoncé moves.

But we did have a nightmare on the last episode of Bathtime I was doing it with my friend Matt Maltese and we were joking about if your internet dies your screen isn’t two halves anymore its literally just a whole screen anymore, I am ligitametly naked in the bath every time we do it, and we were joking about that happening and then it fucking happened and my boobs were online and I had to edit it out. It was a nightmare, I got home I was like I wonder if my boobs are up, and my boyfriend was like “oh yeah they fully are.” And I had to call my manager and I was like, I never thought I’d say this but I think there are nudes of me online, somebody deal with my tits they’re on display!(chuckles).

So I suppose that’s handy, sometimes artists can complain about management controlling their socials but that’s actually the benefit of it I guess.

Fenne: Oh completely, Holly was like ‘do you want me to help you with this’, but I was like ‘oh no I am totally on top of everything‘.

I saw Nadine Shah tweet recently about the Mercury Prize, saying that her management had deleted her tweet about Mercury Awards shortlist.

Fenne: Have you seen all that crazy Wiley stuff? Wiley has gone on a crazy anti jew rant and it begs the question whether he should have someone monitoring everything he says. I don’t have a lot going on at the moment so if someone took Instagram away from me, I would like have literally nothing left to do.

Before I was happy in my actual life, I would definitely use Instagram to make myself feel worthy. But I’ve actually been going on it and posting less because, I’ve got actual people around me that I actually want to be around now. But was a bit of a crutch for a while it was like “If I put up a picture of myself, I’ll feel good for an hour.”

FenneLily2000x1270 696x442 1

There is a thing about Instagram and social media, where you can create an image of yourself, but its kind of a idealised version. Your internet self.

Fenne: Completely, I was watching the video on YouTube, I don’t know why it was suggested to me but the title of the video was ‘why you’re ugly.’ And I was like ok well I’d like to know that! It was this girl who used to doctor her face and body in pictures. She wanted to be like a SIM character because she would see all these perfect pictures of people online. It gets to the point where you’re doctoring your photos, she wanted to get people to say she was hot or something, and she was like anytime people said “body goals”, she would feel shitter because it wasn’t real. So it can be a really insidious situation where you can actually shoot yourself in the foot and you end up feeling worse.

I used to put more personal stuff on Facebook but after I got a lot of music people on there some of whom I don’t even know that well, I decided not to put as many personal pictures up as often.

I noticed you’ve got Lucy Dacus on the album, how did that happen?

Fenne: I went on a few tours with her one in Europe and one in the States. We recorded the album in Chicago and she was there so she came down and did some harmonies (on ‘Berlin’). I started touring with her before I met her. I bumped into her in Green Man, I had just dropped a pill and she texted me and was like do you want to hang out, I was like ‘oh my god I am just coming up and I am going to meet Lucy Dacus and I am going to make the worst impression’ but luckily it was all OK, and I was fine. But I’ve loved her music for way longer than I knew her, and it was that awkward situation where can I be a fangirl or can we just be friends? But I think we have found a good middle ground where I can quietly adore her but it doesn’t affect our friendship.

I wondered what the time period over which you wrote this album was because you had the two singles before it didn’t you? How did you decide what would fit on the album?

Fenne: For the first album I didn’t have a lot of songs to pick from. For this album I started writing it when I got into writing about a year ago, ‘Berlin‘ was the first song that made it onto the record that I’d written for this record. I went away for a month after the first tour to start to write in earnest on the record and actually sit down with a guitar and not get distracted. I recorded everything on my phone and my phone died when I was flying back from Berlin so that precipitated an period where I just didn’t want to write as I was just too sad about that.

I released two singles before the album, ‘Hypochondriac‘ and ‘To be a Women Part Two‘, I felt they didn’t fit on the record because the subject matter was quite different and they were written at the end of the sessions. I almost feel like the songs that I write at the end of a process for an album are almost suggestive of the next album. But I was like, these don’t fit, but I don’t want to commit them for the third album so I was like I am going to chuck these out before the album and the label were fine with it they said they love pre-release bits. I hadn’t released anything for a while for a number of reasons, so I wanted to slide back into releases a bit slower, it was a year and a half between releases which doesn’t sound like a long time but it is these days because people are just chucking up albums willy nilly.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek was saying recently ‘that musicians can’t wait three or four years between releases’ anymore, I was like who are you to say that. Although I know what he means and streaming has changed things.

Fenne: Totally, unless you have got a real cult following that are always going to be there, fans are transient and fickle and I think especially as a consumer I feel like I need constant stimulation.

Yeah, you’ve gotta keep that momentum up…

Fenne: Especially right now when there is no touring, there is a pressure to remind people that you exist, the album is out this September and it was already finished before quarantine. But I have missed out on three big tours and there’s a feeling that you have to remind people that there will be more things to come, and that there is a structure to your career and there will be stuff to come but the timing of everything is just fucked.

That’s it, like you have to plan your whole year really, which is why its frustrating when this shit happens.

Fenne: Totally and I know that people have fucking died but it has affected everyone and I think the music industry has taken a big hit. It’s just so strategic and so plan based, and like exactly exactly six weeks on the dot between singles, a tour is planned before a single release. Also because I did the first album unsigned, I know all of the work and all of the weird behind the scenes shit that goes into releasing. So when this all started happening, I knew every area that would be changing. I’ve got no plausible deniability, I almost knew too much.

Yeah I’m the same, I do some PR and I can see the mechanics with music which is a bit bad when you just want to enjoy music. There are some releases now where I can see the marketing, I can still enjoy the music but I can see the marketing more. But like sometimes a lot of effort goes into making it seem like not a lot of effort has gone into it.

Fenne: Certainly, have you seen those Oatly oat milk ads where they’re really chatty and its the most aggravating thing, you’ve got eight or nine people to make it that annoying and that chill. I stopped buying it because it was like ‘fuck you and your annoying chatty language!’

So you recorded the new album ‘Breach’ in stages? 

Fenne: I got back from Berlin then I had a few months before I started recording again.

It’s got quite a intimate sound to it…

Fenne: That’s what I wanted to borrow from the first record, without it being the same record. I wanted it to be similar in flavour but not a carbon copy.

We recorded it in two chunks we were recording it around tours, we went out to record in Chicago then we did a tour in the states, we did the Andy Shauf tour in the winter did some recording then went back out for a Lucy Dacus one and recorded some of it then.

Then we were meant to mix it in Bristol with Ali Chant who I mixed the first record with and who I really enjoy working with and I really trust his instincts. But as soon as I got into the studio with him I wanted to add more stuff, because I don’t know when to stop, so I did all the vocals at home and then a little bit with Ali.

But we did try and record all the vocals in two nights in Chicago, Brian Deck the producer in Chicago just set me up in a little room with logic in a little room, so I just stayed up all night with coffee and recorded the whole album and all the vocals with all the harmonies in two nights but then we brought it back to the UK and listened back and I was like ‘ok I clearly sound knackered I need to do this again‘, we were working up to Christmas Eve on it so it was officially finished on Christmas eve.

That’s quite good in a way you had a foundation to it so you could build on top of it. That is something I notice compared to the first album, I can hear more layers on this album…

Fenne: It was more a case of cautiously adding than taking away. I was quite scared to change the way I saw the songs, on the first album I wrote them on my phone recorded them and sung them into my phone and then took them to the studio then recorded them.

For this one I mapped out all of the songs myself on garageband and had more of a say over instrumentation I had a little bit of an idea how I wanted it to be produced, so it was more a case of layering stuff and taking it away rather than adding stuff and feeling bad about it. I’d like to think it was more elaborate in terms of the stuff that’s on it.

I think there’s a comment on the song ‘Berlin‘ that says “this is the most instruments I’ve ever heard on any Fenne Lilly song” and that’s exactly what I wanted people to be like ‘oo there’s stuff going on’.

It swells up really well at the end.

Fenne: Yeah, a lot of the songs have been shaped by the way that we play them live especially ‘Berlin‘ I wrote it as a two minute song but when we were playing it live I was was like ooh maybe we should let it go on for another minute and all those layered vocals were us doing them live and thinking this is a brilliant end to a set. Playing live is the favourite part of what I do and I wanted to make an album that would lend itself to being more able to be played live and watch in a live situation.

So, would you say playing live and touring has matured you as a songwriter?

Fenne: I don’t know if its matured me but its definitely made me think about the way I play my songs. I haven’t got regrets about the first album about how It turned out, every time I play bits of the first album especially with the people I’ve collected to play live with me they play in math rock and post punk bands so they know that its best not to whack a load of bar chords on, so they have an ear for melody.

I don’t know if its matured me but its definitely changed the way I go into recording now I’m conscious that I don’t want to go into the studio and just play a bar chord for a whole song, I’d like an opportunity to actually play my instrument and a opportunity for my bandmates to play their instruments too because I think I’ve underused them for a long time as they’re really great musicians. So for this album we thought lets put in bits, that you will actually look forward to playing and put in bits that you will enjoy playing live.

Yeah there are some really cool bits of guitar that are quite surprising at points..

Fenne: My favourite song on the record is a song called ‘98‘ which is just literally just me and my guitarist sitting noodling and a little bit of home recording from when I was like one, we were just sitting figuring out a different song and Brian had all the mics set up and he pressed record and we didn’t know he was recording. That was just a completely off the cuff unplanned thing. Looking back on it now it makes me realise that not only is Joe a brilliant guitarist, but we have some instrumental chemistry. Because I thought I was just giving him some parts and I was playing my parts but it was just nice realisation that its becoming more of a collaborative process now, it takes the pressure off me and it lets me work to my strengths and let others take the reigns in the areas that they are strong.

So letting go a bit..

Fenne: Totally, which its hard for me as I’m a complete control freak!(laughs) I don’t see any point of doing this unless its the way I want to do it. Its always been this is what I want to do when I want to do it, not in an ego way but in a this is my one job and my one opportunity to say what I want to say, that I don’t allow anyone to fuck with or compromise in any way but I have now got people I trust to work with that’s a really nice position to be in. To be like I don’t know what to do, do you and do you and trusting them because they often have a better understanding of me than I do.

Is ‘Alapathy’ about using cannabis to help yourself cope with mental health issues? It’s becoming more popular with CBD use compared to traditional medication, is that what the song is about?

Fenne: Yeah, its about trying to find a cure for feeling wrong. And I think, I was in a position at the end of the first touring stint for the first album where I didn’t have any expectations for how the album was going to turn out, it was almost a shock, a positive shock but I almost felt undeserving about everything that was happening, and it got in my head and I almost get an imposter syndrome about everything that was happening. I started smoking when I was 15/16 at that point it was definitely proving to people that I wasn’t a nark. So, I reintroduced it to myself in that low period just as an opportunity to think differently to stop this cycle of ‘you’re brilliant, you suck, do you even exist?”

Weed definitely helped me escape my self hating mentality for a while and it allowed me to see links between stuff I didn’t see before. So for Alapathy I was thinking a lot about how pain is inherited and how a lot of shit you grow up around that maybe isn’t your direct experience can influence how you develop as a person. Both my parents had difficult childhoods even though, despite the fact that my childhood was brilliant by comparison and we love each other very much, that pain and distrust of stuff that my parents carry with them has influenced how I see myself and other people. So Alapathy is a made up word and is kind of a combination of apathy and alapathic which is a form of medicine that deals with the symptom of something and not the cause so I really wanted to look at why I feel shit and not just take a pill to feel better.

If you go to the doctors they just want to give you a drug…

Fenne: Yeah and they don’t ask you about what your diets like what your friends are like what time you go to bed.

Yeah, I know all about that I had that experience nearly twenty years ago…

Fenne: And it makes you feel worse it makes you feel mental or you think I must be crazy so I better take this Temazepam. I’m not saying depression can’t be cured with chemical balancing, but for me it didn’t seem like the right path and weed definitely helped.

Everyone is different, but I do agree anti depressants can cause as many problems as they help with in some ways..

Fenne: Totally and you can use it as a crutch some people don’t want to feel normal. Everyone’s mental health issues are different and like a snowflake, some people have bipolar and everyone’s situation is different I just thought I feel a bit shit…

That’s a thing about the mental health system it just doesn’t treat the whole person…

Fenne: They see a gap in a chemical combination and think we can fix it..

Its like parking you really, here are some drugs go away and I don’t want to hear from you again, or I’ll put you on a six month waiting list and you never hear from us again….

Fenne: Or you will be spoken to by a student psychiatrist who doesn’t know what they are doing or doesn’t know at all anything about you..

Its a terrible situation a lot more money needs to be spent on mental health services in this country. I mean over the years various mental health professionals have said certain things to me that I have internalised but others may do something more drastic if they were told, which is not what you want therapeutic treatment to be.

Its a good song as well, catchy, the video is funny as well!

Fenne: Thanks! I liked making that video. I filmed it in Bristol, it was directed by Ben Brook he does stuff for Crack magazine. What I wanted for the video was something light and not pretentious, I wanted something that just a very easy reflection of being by yourself and being fine with that as that was the experience I had when I was making this album. I was quite lonely and I was kind of ok with that as I knew at some point I wouldn’t be lonely and everything changes. Also I had someone in my life who was quite far away feeding me writers like Alan Watts and Richard Brautigan and loads of writers who made me feel less alone being alone that’s what I wanted to touch on.

That’s kind of what ‘Berlin’ is about too isn’t it? Its about as well having that acceptance that you don’t need someone else but maybe once you get that acceptance maybe you can find the right person then.

Fenne: Completely, its cheesy to be like you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else but yeah its true. That’s what we were touching on with Instagram before, Its easy to think you don’t mean anything if you don’t mean something to someone else, and you need validation for that. And being in Berlin for a month, I realised I am pretty good company for myself. And even though I don’t text people back very fast, I am a good person and I don’t need relationships to make me feel that way.

When you read self help manuals they always say love yourself repeat that mantra, but I just don’t feel its realistic to go from feeling bad to that in one step but its sort of accepting that is one stage..

Fenne: Its oscillating, there’s ups and there’s downs. I don’t want to say with this record, I finally know how to be be myself and love that. Its always going to be something that’s temporary but that’s ok, but for a while I there was no possibility to be on my own and be ok, so its at some point knowing I will be a fully formed human and can just chill. But its always up and down, its always changing daily.

You’ve got a song with a great song title on the album, ‘I used to hate my body now I just hate you’ that’s quite dark

Fenne: Lyrically on this record I wanted to speak about things in less of a guarded way, that song I wrote I had a fever I just got garageband and at that point I was playing around with a country vibe garage band sketch going on and just sung whatever came into my mind, and at that point I was ending a situation with someone, who was making me feel like absolute shit. And instead of writing a song about missing them as much as I would have three years ago, I was like no I don’t miss you and as much as I do see the good points of the relationship, I am glad its over. As much as it is like you’re a piece of shit or garbage, at the end of it is I don’t wish you ill but maybe think about what you’ve done.

Its one thing to be sad one thing to be angry, but I feel like sometimes its commonly assumed that you like you can only be sad or cross with the person, but in this situation I was both and I was also both, happy that it ended but I was happy I met them. But its important to recognise that not everything is black and white and I do feel a lot of low level anger all the time and I don’t know why. Its important not to pigeonhole yourself and I didn’t want to be that girl who wrote about guys who had left them a lot.

Yeah what’s that stupid phrase ‘sad girl’ and that idea of writing about when you split up with someone in a certain way..

Fenne: Yeah, I think a lot people saw that first album as a break up album, and in some ways it is but its very simple language for something that is complex. I wanted to allow myself move away from that whist not disregarding that I do have relationships and heartbreak so I don’t know if I will ever not have that as part of my songwriting, but with that song title I was just like that sentence is too good not to use aswell.

unnamed 2020 07 21T210044.514 1595379680

Tell us about your new single ‘Solipsism’, what does the word even mean?

Fenne: Solipsism is the philosophical idea that yourself is known to yourself, and the only thing you can rely on, that feeling runs through the whole album. Sonically I wanted to make every song its own outfit whilst having a similiar through thread where I am speaking about how I do have these crazy thoughts about whether I do really exist or whether I’m in a weird simulation like the Truman show or something. But solipsism is a word I heard in a Pinegrove song he said something about solipistic something so I thought ‘ooh that’s a nice juicy word lets look it up’. If you do read about it, it can send you into a headspin, maybe its best not to read about it if you are feeling a bit wobbly..

Sometimes its important to have an ego in the world…

Fenne: When you are feeling crap you become so introvert that you start thinking about you are the most important/least important person on the planet. I think thats why people like going go to beach and seeing the sea because you are like ok there is ‘ok there is one side of me that isn’t surrounded by stuff’ and it goes out further out than I can really imagine and in comparison to that I really don’t really matter, but also I really do matter because where there’s me there are ten of me somewhere else. So getting perspective on things and realising how small and insignifcant they are and also how connected they are to the world. Perspective is an important thing to come to terms with.

Books have really helped me to tap into that or escapism like Camus where he has literally written a book about being outside of your own body. Getting perspective on other peoples lack of perspective is an important but complicated thing to get yourself into. Maybe that’s what doctors should prescribe a good book! I think the weed smoking has made me think about that side of stuff more too..

You have a song on the album called ‘I Nietszche’ too was that after the theorist?

Fenne: So I was scared about putting that on the album it makes me look like I read Nietszche and that I think I’m a big shit and stuff but I actually wrote it about a boy I was seeing who read a lot of that kind of stuff but he was the least empathetic most psychotic person I’d ever in my whole life! That weird combination of being book smart but the most emotionally dead person I’d met he’d kind of only read books if someone was watching him read books.

Also I listened to Sparklehorse or Bright Eyes songs that have lyrics that speak about not serious stuff but they present it in a serious frame. I like that combination of being quite self effacing and being aware that you are being quite pretentious but being able to pass it off, but at the end of the day what is there is to write about that is not about you? Sometimes you’ve got to step out of yourself and write about stuff that is not you sometimes step out of yourself and not write about how you feel so that’s what I was trying to do with that song. Like make characters or make yourself into a character sometimes. Alex Cameron is good at that in extreme stuff. I almost thought I’d make this album into a load of characters, like you are singing a book. Also singing about stuff you care about on a nightly basis can be quite draining so its also nice to sing about stuff where you won’t think about it enough to cry later.

You’ve got to make you happy as well haven’t you..

Fenne: There is a scary possibility that you can become a mouth piece for pain. You become someone else’s way of seeing their pain in a better light, but that makes you feel like a vechile for pain sometimes…

I think you’ve got a soothing voice and it could just be the sound too..

Fenne: Sonically I’d like to think its not hard to listen to. Lyrics can be cathartic for the writer and the person who is absorbing it. The most satisfying part of the album was getting messages and letters and meeting people after shows who said I had this issue and you provided the soundtrack to that and a way out of it. To be that person to someone else that another musician was for me. And that’s really cool.

It was spooky timing that you released ‘Hypochondriac’ around the time the pandemic broke out it was quite apt.

Fenne: Yeah I was like I was really bummed that the pandemic is wiping out most of the old people in the country but also this will be brilliant for my streaming count!(laughs) it did look like I was patient zero or something that was really strange timing.

It builds into some epic, with a sweeping Fleetwood Mac vibes at the end…

I am so glad you said that the harmonies at the end I just refrenced Fleetwood Mac I was like we could go for a basic fifth or we can go for a Woodstock vibe vibe as well. A key change was something I was scared of doing for a long time, but I fuckimg love a keychange too, I love Pinegrove and unashamaed acoustic led songs that make you want to take your top off and throw it at someone.

Maybe live one day…if ever live shows come back…

Fenne: I did a show in Austria and I said I’ll only take my sunglasses off if people take their clothes of and three or four people streaked, and a guy got naked and came and kissed my cheek it was epic!I would love it if people want to get their tits out to my music but I am not sure if its the right vibe,

Maybe one upside of socially distanced gigs is people will be two metres and more free to get naked!

I was thinking it might be less transmitable outdoors.

Fenne: Yeah, you could get a wind machine blowing germs left and right.. which is why I think there should be festivals this year, playing live is the favourite part of my job.

This is a nice interview as I am getting a sense of who you are and not just the other way around. We are craving that after months of speaking to like three people, so I am totally down with this realm of interview…

Yeah for sure, me too!

Fenne: Already people are asking me if I am writing a third one and its like give me a second to breathe!

Sometimes when you are promoting a record it can be quite old for you by the time you are releasing it

Fenne: Its weird when I finished the first record I was immediately ready for something else, for a forty minute record there has probably been forty hours gone into each song. I don’t think you realise until you get it, how its going to be a really long and painstaking process to get it out, unless you are Frank Ocean and you can chuck it out..

It must be a bit frustrating sometimes…

Fenne: I like the machinery around it, you know that those are the steps and you’ll get something good out of it the end. The day its out I feel completely empty and its like when a card tower falls and when it comes out people want to know when the next one is coming out. I am already thinking what I am going to do to treat myself when it comes out, I am going to go on a sky dive I think. I am so scared of everything I have to just throw myself into it. Like literally throw myself out of a plane!

Yeah I don’t like trains I have a bit of a phobia after some panic attacks on travelling on trains so for the last few years. So, I have had to build up to it. Its mainly these high speed ones my head goes and I have to get off its like any fear its something you decelop in your own mind…

Fenne: Yeah like I hate flying so so much, mind over matter for sure for a lot of things.

Do you have any more home sessions lined up?

Fenne: There are opportunities now we can meet up as a full band, so there may be some more online stuff. But I really feed off the energy of a show and that immediate gratification of aplause, and that’s something a zoom stream doesn’t satiate that need, but I admire the industry for keeping going with live streams.

But I am almost like a real show is better than a fake show, so I might as well save save my shit until we can play again. We should be touring in the new year, politics permitting. I have made a conscious effort to make a band record so I would really love the opportunity to get back to touring. I had to turn down a show in Germany actually because I wasn’t sure if we would get our shit together and I would be liable if we had to pull out.

Hopefully we will get through it!Lovely to talk to you.

Fenne: I hope you can get a train soon!

That’s what I was going to say I went to Bristol last year on a train and spent some time in the market in Brisol.

Fenne: Yeah we have a cool market! Maybe see you here soon..

Yeah I’d love that, thanks take care Fenne!

Fenne: Bye

BREACH is released on the 18th of September, pre-order here.

Fenne Lily Tour Dates:

Fri. April 30 – Brussels, BE @ Grand Salon

Sat. May 1 – Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet

Mon. May 3 – Hamburg, DE @ Nochtspeicher

Tue. May 4 – Copenhagen, DK @ Ideal Bar

Thu. May 6 – Berlin, DE @ Frannz

Fri. May 7 – Munich, DE @ Mila

Sat. May 8 – Zurich, SE @ Exil

Sun. May 9 – Milan, IT @ Magnolia

Tue. May 11 – Frankfurt, DE @ Das Bett

Wed. May 12 – Paris, FR @ Le Pop Up

Mon. May 17 – Leicester, UK @ The Cookie

Tue. May 18 – Liverpool, UK @ Phase One

Wed. May 19 – Dublin, IE @ The Workman’s Club

Fri. May 21 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club

Sat. May 22 – Glasgow, UK @ King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut

Sun. May 23 – Birmingham, UK @ Dead Wax

Tue. May 25 – Manchester, UK @ Deaf Institute

Wed. May 26 – London, UK @ Omeara

Thu. May 27 – Cambridge, UK @ The Portland Arms

Fri. May 28 – Bristol, UK @ Thekla

God is in the TV is an online music and culture fanzine founded in Cardiff by the editor Bill Cummings in 2003. GIITTV Bill has developed the site with the aid of a team of sub-editors and writers from across Britain, covering a wide range of music from unsigned and independent artists to major releases.