The latest “Ten with Betty” is with Louisa from Liverpool combo She Drew The Gun.
SDTG have a new single and album due this year and have at least one Scottish date planned (Kelburn Castle Garden Party 30 June – 3 July).
Here she discusses the incredible single ‘Poem’ and other scally-related banter…
1. She Drew The Gun. Who are you and what are you?
Hi I’m Louisa, it started off as me on my own and its grown into a band, everyone joined one by one, first Sian, then Jack then Jenni.
2. The album was released in 2016 – how easy was it to get that done and what are you happy/not so happy about around the record?
It wasn’t hard to get done, everything happened really quickly when we were recording, I just put the vocal and guitars down and we built everything from there. I loved everything about making the record. It was done a bit sporadically rather than in one go, which was a good thing because everything has happened around it too, when I started making it it was mostly just me doing gigs on my own and by the time it came out the band had formed, it feels like there’s been a natural progression. There’s a couple of things I would change but I think you have got to just move forward, maybe more guitar solos though, always more guitar solos.
3. You are quite a singular proposition if you don’t mind me saying so – but are there other bands you feel some kinship with at the moment?
No, I don’t mind that, I’d take it as a compliment. Yeh I definitely feel a kinship with other bands and artists, for one thing I feel like we’re part of something at Skeleton Key Records. Its the same with the other bands that have been part of our journey though, the ones that have taken us on tour, that have joined us on tour, the ones that we’ve met along the way and our Liverpool homies.
4. ‘Poem’ is (again in BHO) is a quite astonishing piece of work – obvious question really but what prompted the creation of this?
Thank you. The song stared out as a spoken word piece and was prompted by a newspaper article that was shown to me about homeless people being moved on from places in London because they were bad for tourism. I was appalled so that’s how I started the song and it just carried on from there, disgust with humanity pouring out I think.
5. Controversial question this, but in Glasgow we have some local cliches (the Buckfast-fuelled rammy, for example) – give us some Liverpool cliches, as we in Scotland would get maimed if we cited them ourselves!
Hmmm, well, there’s a lot of Ketwigs around these days, scallies used to have a skinhead, now its gone full circle with big curly masses of hair, known as ketwigs, I’ve even noticed a few lads getting questionable perms. Cue a harry enfield scouser sketch.
6. BM sees there is a tour planned in some interesting venues in England – what of Scotland, where can we expect to see SDTG in 2017?
Yeh, we’re doing a nice run of dates in England in March, I would have loved us to come back to Scotland this time but we’re hitting places we didn’t go last time so that’s cool. We will definitely be in Scotland over the summer though, we’re doing at least one festival, can’t wait to come back.
7. A terrible question this really but why the name?
I liked the play on words, the idea of drawing a gun, the idea that you can make something as powerful as a gun with a pen, I liked the potential for imagery in it.
8. The last few days have been difficult to watch (nb the questions were posed in v. early 2017, since when things have got even more surreal!), first the Trump inauguration and then the protests – can anything good come out of what appears to be a very slow-motion car crash and can we forgive Johnny Borrell his dreadful egomania for writing ‘Trouble in America’? BM keeps on hearing this song in her head and probably will do the rest of the year at least….
I think the good that can come out of it will be more people waking up and coming together. Although there’s a sense of dread and worry about the future there’s also a sense of togetherness that we’ve seen in the marches and a sense of the defiance that we’re going to need if people are ever going to stand up for each other. I’m not sure but to me people seem to be more willing to talk about whats going on in politics recently, its more acceptable, I think that can only be a good thing. And yeh lets forgive… and forget.
9. How relevant are you finding physical “record” releases in 2017 – do you think the “vinyl revival” is hipster bollocks?
I think people like to collect something physical, it doesn’t quite feel the same to have a great album collection on your spotify does it? I don’t have much of a vinyl collection myself but the idea of just having all of my favourite albums and to keep adding to it is something I’d like to do.
10. And finally can you give your predictions (ok a bit overdue) for this year, good and bad, and what would you want for the band?
I think it will be a good year, although the last one will be hard to beat. I don’t want too much.. I’m happy to stay on the fringe to a point, I feel most comfortable being the underdog, always having the element of taking people by surprise. Having said that what I really want us to be out in the world playing to people, meeting people, having as many eye opening experiences as possible, this is what I crave for the band. Mostly I want people to walk away from our gig and say that it was something different to what they have seen before.
Thanks so much Louisa for taking the time to answer the questions, you have passed the “Ten with Betty” grilling.
More at www.shedrewthegun.com