SHE DREW THE GUN: “GET READY FOR A FEMINIST REVOLUTION!”
VOCAL GIRLS writer and mental health nurse, Claire Rothwell caught up with Louisa Roach, front-woman of ‘She Drew the Gun, to chat about mental health, imposter syndrome and what we can expect from their recently announced third album and tour.
It’s been an exciting week for She Drew The Gun fans after the band announced their highly anticipated third album, ‘Behave Myself’, due on 24th September via Submarine Cat Records - and an accompanying Autumn tour! Recorded in Sheffield alongside producer Ross Orton, ‘Behave Myself’ was developed throughout lockdown, taking inspiration from the social, political and neoliberal issues that Roach’s writing has become known for.
Starting as Louisa’s solo project, She Drew The Gun evolved after she was spotted by James Skelly (of The Coral) and signed to Skeleton Key Records in 2015. A year later, She Drew The Gun released their first album, ‘Memories of the Future’ and were named as winners of Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent competition.
Since then, they’ve released ‘Revolution Of Mind’ in 2018, completed sell out solo tours and released ‘Trouble Every Day’, an EP which includes a reworking of a Frank Zappa original that was updated to reflect the troubles of the modern world – a song which seems even more poignant today.
She Drew The Gun first caught my ear when I heard ‘Resister’ played on BBC 6Music; a catchy psych pop sound, peppered with a chorus that called for women and sisters to speak out and resist against systems of oppression. It’s the kind of music we all should sit up (or dance around) and listen to!
I recently had the pleasure of catching up with Louisa; we chatted about lockdown, mental health and what we can expect to hear from SDTG’s newly announced third album. We also got to meet each other's pets, thanks to the power of Zoom!
So, I’m nervously sitting in front of my laptop when Louisa pops up on the screen of our Zoom meeting. She is somebody who is immediately likeable, and it’s easy to admit that I’m a novice. Possibly out of kindness, she tells me that this is also a good opportunity for her to get “back in the zone”, after the hiatus that the last few months has provided. We have the inevitable conversation about lockdown, and how she has been managing, “It’s been such a long thing hasn’t it? I was left to my own devices for a while. We did go a little bit insane, we turned the conservatory into the rave cave and had a dance! I’ve been writing, so that’s probably the thing that’s got me through - to have some kind of normal. I’ve been walking down to the River Mersey and that’s been good for my mental health.”
“Mental health is not an individual issue, it’s affected by the systems that we live in.”
The pandemic has, unquestionably, put the spotlight on mental health issues and, given my profession as a mental health nurse, I can’t help but ask Louisa her thoughts on it: “I think there’s probably quite a lot of collective trauma isn’t there? I think a part of what I write about in my tunes is how mental health is not an individual issue, it’s affected by the systems that we live in. A lot of people have been expecting there to be a mental health epidemic haven’t they? I don’t think we’ve seen quite what has become of that.”
“We could end homelessness tomorrow if we really wanted to, we could end austerity. It doesn’t have to be like this. It’s become an important part of what I write about.”
Louisa’s music is a clear reflection of her understanding of the difficulties faced within society and the frustration toward the political structure which so often fuels it. I ask her about one of her earlier songs, ‘Poem’, which particularly strikes a chord with me. As the title suggests, it originally began life as a poem, before forming part of the debut album. The lyrics were created after Louisa read a newspaper article that pressed for homeless people to be removed from the streets because their presence was off-putting for tourists: “That’s so upside down. The pandemic has shown [us] that homelessness is a political choice - everyone was put in hotels. We could end homelessness tomorrow if we really wanted to, we could end austerity. It doesn’t have to be like this. It’s become an important part of what I write about.”
In fact, many of Louisa’s songs have been adapted from poems, which have been written in response to her feelings generated by the circumstances in society, “When I first started, it was very much an emotional outlet. I think I was writing about what was going on in my life; what was going on with me. I only started writing songs in my late 20s; I started using poetry that I’d write about things that had gone on in the outside world and [would] turn them into songs. I don’t think there’s any one way of writing.”
The fact that Louisa came to songwriting a little later interests me, as there is so often a vast amount of pressure on young people to achieve things and know what they want to do by a certain age: “I heard someone say that that if you’re an author, you don’t usually start until you’re 40...Why has a songwriter got to be 18? I think for some people, you have to get the life experience and then find out however you need to express yourself.”
In spite of this, music has always featured in her life and she learnt guitar as a teenager, “It was always there, but I think I'd given up that I was an artist. After I had my son, I ended up writing a song and thinking “that’s not that bad” and then I carried on writing a few more.” Louisa makes reference to the support and encouragement she received from her partner to pursue her musical talents. The wonderful description of her relationship being “nourishing” shines a light on how being each other’s cheerleader can truly pave the way,“ [going] from the “I can’t do that” to just putting yourself out there.”
Like so many of us, Louisa is no stranger to dealing with imposter syndrome: “As an artist, you end up looking at yourself and thinking, who am I? What am I doing? And how the world is gonna accept you? It is testing on your mental health... Some days you think ‘I’ve got this; I’m flying.’ Then other days it’s like – ‘what am I doing here? How have I blagged this?!” I’d imagine that this is a thought process that we have all been able to relate to at some point, through the challenges of battling our own inner critic.
The impact of lockdown on the music industry and its contributors and creatives has been unquestionably tough, in part due to the uncertainty that has surrounded it. I asked Louisa for her reflections on this - “I think in some ways, it’s been a bit scary because we didn’t know (and we still don’t) what the music industry is gonna be like on the other side. It’s a precarious industry anyway – you don’t know what’s going to happen next; are people going to like the next tune you put out? So then [not knowing] what the future's gonna be like on top of it was scary. On the positive side, it did give [us] a bit of space and a moment to breathe and go ‘what am I doing next?’ – you don’t usually get that.”
Later, we reflect on female representation in music and Louisa proposes an interesting idea: that there should be a test similar to the Bechdel* for the music industry, as a measure for how many songs sung by women are about men or being in a relationship with a man. It’s thought-provoking to reflect on the songs I’ve loved and listened to growing up, and how many of them have indeed been focused around men. With this in mind, it's inspiring to see more female artists breaking that formula by replacing it with important influential statements and making sure their voices are heard.
Although there has been lots of positive progression in recent years, we are all aware that the music industry continues to be largely male dominated. I asked if this was something that has created any barriers for Louisa, or impacted her in any way: “You don’t think about being a woman, you just are a woman, but there is probably unconscious bias there all the time. Everyone in the patriarchy internalises the patriarchy. I think people put you into categories because of your gender; those ideas have never gone away, they’re absorbed into society. They’ve got better but there’s a lot of hard work still to be done.”
She Drew The Gun are booked to play Long Division Festival in Wakefield this September, and Louisa tells me that the festival has become an associate of Keychange, a movement which pledges to promote more equal representation within the music industry.
“When you see those [festival] posters that take out all the males and there’s about 3 bands left - Wow. There’s loads of great women out there making music, so there’s no reason to not have them!”
With this in mind, we consider the prospect of live gigs again “The idea of being 10 people deep at a bar – it feels like that will never happen again doesn’t it? British queuing is probably going to go off the rails!”
The band did play one gig back in October at Future Yard in Birkenhead, during the brief period of eased lockdown restrictions, and I imagine it must have been difficult to return to lockdown reality after the adrenaline of playing live again. “The crowd were all buzzing because they’d not been to a gig in ages. They were all in separate pods – which was different, but everyone was so into it, it didn’t matter. Just the one random gig and then lockdown again.”
“Being in a venue, seeing the crew, seeing everyone behind the scenes and how the wider team are involved in bringing a show together was emotional. I think if I go and see someone [after lockdown], I’ll just be sobbing!”
So, with the announcement this week about their new album and tour, how is Louisa feeling about getting back to gigs? She tells me that pre-lockdown, the band were seeing lots of dads bring their daughters to SDTG gigs, which is an image I love - “It’s good to get a little resistance on the go... It means a lot when people respond to what you’ve put out. That’s what’s been missing when you go to a gig – that two-way thing. Putting these ripples out that touch people on the other side of the world reminds you why you’re doing it. If it’s a big mountain and we're looking for the next base camp, it will be getting this new album out into the world.”
We don't have too long to wait to see SDTG live again and hear the new tunes debuted, with the tour starting on 6th October and spanning twelve UK cities. ‘Behave Myself’ is set to delve into the themes that Roach is known for expressing through her writing, including mental health and the socio-political factors that the pandemic has brought attention to. In preparation for its release, Louisa is ensuring that she is ready to discuss and challenge these issues, but she assures us all that “the main message behind it is quite positive – get ready for a feminist revolution!”
Further news and information about tour dates, how to get tickets and where to buy the album click here
Click here to pre-order ‘Behave Myself’ and get access to pre-sale tour tickets from 21st April 10am BST. General sale Friday 23rd April.
Twitter: @shedrewthegun
Instagram: @shedrewthegun
Facebook: She Drew The Gun
*The Bechdel test was created in 1985 by American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, and is used as a marker for identifying gender inequality in fictional films. There are three basic rules: (1) the film needs to have at least two women in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something besides a man. If it’s something you weren’t already aware of, apply it to the last few films you watched and prepare to feel pretty saddened by the results. If you’re not, then I want your film recommendations!