Music / Get To Know
Get to Know: Emily Breeze
Her glam pop with a side of sleaze and sarcasm has gained her a cult following and, after more than two decades in the game, this year she released her fourth album Rats in Paradise.
Emily Breeze shares her origin story, how she’s ended up making the best music of her life and why we shouldn’t believe she only has one more album in her.
Take us back to the beginning…
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“In the late 90s I was friends with a group of boys who I thought were really cool. It was all Beefheart, Bartok and bucket bongs and I wanted in.
“I used to watch them playing the guitar, but I was much too scared to join in so instead I very slowly started to write strange and spidery songs on an out-of-tune unplugged electric guitar in my bedroom.
“I went out with one of those boys for a while (Luke Cawthra of the brilliant Bristol band the Brackish). His dad’s house was like a cultural mecca. He had VHS tapes of Woodstock and the Old Grey Whistle Test, bookshelves filled with Beat writers and outsider art and an enormous record collection. I ate the lot.
“Then, in my early 20s, I shuffled into a songwriting workshop which was part of the New Deal for Musicians dole scheme. It was run by Bristol legend Patrick Duff (Strangelove) and his belief in me was what got me out of my bedroom and onto the stage.
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“Since then I’ve been asked to go on Radio 4’s Loose Ends with Clive Anderson and hung out with Miriam Margoyles in the Green Room – she is every bit as bawdy and charming in real life as she is on camera.
“The support we’ve had from Radio 6, especially Craig Charles, has allowed us to reach a small but dedicated national audience for the first time, and supporting James and Sleaford Mods gave us a taste for the arenas. But the real standout moments are the Bristol shows, playing to our hometown crowd.”
What drives you to continue?
“I’ve been part of the Bristol music scene for nearly 25 years now so between us grizzled old dogs, the brand new baby bands I teach at BIMM and everyone else in between I can’t leave the house without seeing someone I’m connected to through music. I love it.
“Music is tough and most of us will never quit the day job. We sit in pubs and trade dreams and war stories and share ideas and equipment. Everything is more expensive now and we have lost many venues but the Bristol music scene is unstoppable. Just look at the beloved Croft returning.
“So it’s a combination of stupidity and grit. I try to quit all the time and fantasise about writing a novel or getting a job with a stable income. I keep telling myself: ‘One more album, then I’m out!’ But I’m in too deep. At this stage it’s not what I do, it’s who I am – for better and worse.
“It is also weirdly fun. Dragging ideas out of the ether and onto the stage is exciting. Even dragging drumkits and amplifiers up and down flights of stairs and getting midnight McDonald’s with the band has a strange charm.”
Tell us about the new album…
“I’m far too greedy to stick to one genre – especially with such an amazing band and producer – but my most successful songs usually have a disco beat, post punk guitars and high camp attitude which I populate with anti-heroes, hopeless poets, dreamers, losers and party girls.
“Rats in Paradise is a sort of low art, literary glitterball influenced by Pulp, Lou Reed and Patti Smith, so of course I was thrilled to be described as the “poet laureate of glamorous wastrels”. There is not much difference between the real me and my artist persona at this stage, other than thigh boots and false eyelashes.
“I am incredibly lucky to work with Rob Norbury (guitar), Andy Sutor (drums), Helen Stanley (keys) and George Caveney (bass) and our super producer Stew Jackson who helped me illustrate this world so vividly. It is a no budget affair which they bring a world class excellence to. Check out Helen’s band Sounds of Ursa and Andy’s band Peach.”
What’s next?
“Just one more album, then I’m out!”
Rats in Paradise is available via Sugar Shack Records at sugarshackrecords.bandcamp.com/album/rats-in-paradise
All images: Marie Dutton
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