Videos

Lotte Mullan – Can't Find The Words

• 5th Jul 2010

Lotte Mullan will release her debut album, Plain Jane, through her own label Raindog Records on August 2. It will be preceded by the single ‘Can’t Find The Words’ on July 26.

Lotte spent her early years trying to sing exactly like Tom Waits: a resulting throat problem and an enforced-singing ban quickly saw her change tack. Finding her own voice seems an apt metaphor for her debut album Plain Jane, which was inspired by two key events. Firstly, the record collection her Dad left behind after her parents divorced when she was four years old: it contained gems from the likes of Rickie Lee Jones, Bobbie Gentry, Kirsty Macoll and The Beatles. Then, at secondary school, Lotte spotted a strange boy with big headphones who would walk around the school in silence. A curious Mullan desperately sought out the music he listened to (old blues and folk from the 30s), falling in love with both the artists and the boy himself.

Plain Jane is an album about growing up, and is intended to sound, Mullan says, “very much like a First Record. I wanted there to be a certain naivety to it, like a first dance, slightly awkward but enthusiastic”. 'I'm alright With Me’ is emblematic of this approach, written to those who don't 'fit'; a musical pill to remedy the feeling of awkwardness. “It’s the one songs that everyone gets” says Mullan, having road tested it by gigging relentlessly round the country, playing for everyone from old men in folk clubs to a much younger crowd when she undertook a 50 date school tour.

Elsewhere, the intricate ‘Fire In My Soul’ soundtracks the refusal to compromise, whilst ‘Wicked Way’ – a cover of the Ben Taylor song – is transformed, describes Lotte, “from this sleazy, Rohypnol anthem into some sort of feminist statement. It wasn’t intended as such, but it shuts everyone up when I open my live shows with it.”

Mullan was determind to make the recording process as painless as possible so recorded and mixed one song a day “with no safety net… me and the band were in the studio for two weeks and we did it mostly live, including the singing. I read somewhere that The Animals recorded ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ in 1 take, so thought I would use that as my yardstick”.

Over the last year, Lotte Mullan – twenty-five – has skirted round the edges of the music industry, searching for a break. Talks with major labels began in earnest and were stalled, so, in the mean time, she went to work for one instead, to find out how they worked. Mullan consequently became a PA, then a radio plugger, and a tour manager (booking herself support slots in the process). Whilst no one was looking Mullan would pen lyrics underneath her desk, beavering away on her debut record. She has since formed her own label ‘Raindog Records’ in conjunction with running her own night at The Bedford in London, and will play the following dates in support of the album’s release:

Tour Dates:
3 July – Oxfordshire – Cornbury festival
8 July – Italy – teatro galleti
9 July – Italy – teatro galleti
18 july – London – the Elgin
25 July- London – the Elgin
31 July- Norwich gay pride
4 August: ElectroAcoustic Club – London
18 August: Bedford’s bar – Norwich
19 August: Green note – London
30 August: Bullhead – Barns, London
3 September: Grub Café, Surrey