talking straight w/ TAAHLIAH aka tahliah simumba

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1:12Tahliah Simumba:um hi everyone welcome hello everyone welcome audience give it up for the audience guys let me ask the audience oh that dish isn't quite clean yet honey okay thank you thank you uh hi tolly how you doing hi talia good we've got all the bitching out the way yeah about um well we won't say who um yeah oh god how are you doing how's your day how are you generally i don't know why i've suddenly got like really like my heart my heart is gone i'm like nothing has changed that's the straight diva adrenaline yeah that's the way that's the electric current from Behringer Audio. Behringer. Wait, what is it?

1:54It's the Behringer...

1:55Tahliah Simumba:I'm like, oh fuck, what is that? It's the Behringer Euphoria. Okay. It's a new purchase thanks to the... Yeah, like, does anything ever need that many buttons? Well, it's a new purchase because we started having guests. Oh, that's actually really exciting. Why did you start getting guests? Were you running out of stuff to talk about? Pretty much. Yeah, basically. We actually don't like each other. How did you two meet? This is what I'm really curious about. Cause I was kind of on my way over here with like some questions in my head of like, I'm really curious how you two met, whether you are actually straight.

2:31Yes. That's crazy. How gaggy is that? That's crazy. Guys, guys, that's crazy. Who should be arrested for a fucking queer baiting? But we met because we were both doing TikToks at the time and you liked a load of my videos and followed me. And my ex, I was with her. And you were like, oh. Yeah, yeah. And my ex at the time was like, he's trying to fuck you. And I was like, no, he's not. And I followed you back and then we became friends. And then we did a session together. We did music. And then. How was that? It was quite fierce. It was really fun. We used a Sophie sample pack. Okay. Not that fierce.

3:11Not that fierce. Not that fierce. We could not be the last. Your pet just is still alive, guys. You know she'll do it again. By the skin of her teeth. No. At the looks of things. A Zen pic, wake it up. But yeah, and then we, you just messaged me one day. We were like meeting up just like for drinks and stuff. And then you messaged me. At 4 a.m. You up. I'm actually so down. I liked my TikToks because I thought Sue was hilarious. That makes sense. She was hopping on TikTok. And then we went for a coffee. We went to All Press. Yeah. opposite Jolene okay in Shoreditch I look at kind of fuck with is it Jolene or Jolene I don't know Jolene cause is it Jolene Jolene yeah ooh okay why do you surprise when I can fucking sing yeah what the fuck Bill cause you're a man yeah okay yeah we met on Redchurch Street as you do I was still working at a label at the time you worked at a label I did work at a label What did you do?

4:18I've actually worked with your label I don't know if you know this Have you? Yeah Wow Yeah Okay What was your Wait what were you doing there? And what were you doing just like Wait what? What are you doing? Yeah what do you do? Fucking queerbaiter What the fuck do you do? So I used to work for a record label doing Well initially doing brand partnerships Which was Okay And then I got laid off along with all of the brand partnerships team because we didn't make any money. Okay. Then they rehired me to do social media because... And this was the... Not my label. No, no, no. This is a label which I won't name.

4:57Just fair enough. Just for safety. I like that. I love that, Johnny, for you. Thank you. And then they rehired me because they were like, you know TikToks. Yeah. You know TikToks. You made a couple of videos about Iris Law. Yeah, you bullied Iris Law online. you bully people online why do you manage artist campaigns on social media i was like okay sure that sounds great okay and then that did that for a couple years and then they went under and then i went freelance and now i kind of do it freelance and i did it a bit freelance for your label okay and then um interesting and then that's about it and then me and sue just like shagged and then we got through that

5:41we made the room stink wait which one

5:49Tahliah Simumba:it's not good it's not good um okay that's so interesting so very creatively kind of cohesive and like working with it was very much like i was working at a cafe and you dm me like do you want to do a podcast and i was like yeah and it's like weird now that it's like our job And you like smoked a bowl and you were like, what can we call it? Straight Diva. Yeah, I really... You didn't come up with a name. I came up with a name. Do you know, it was that time where everyone was saying Diva before Bro-Bot started saying Diva. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My God, remember that. Yeah, it was like a really good time so we just did Straight Diva.

6:20It was a really good time.

6:21Tahliah Simumba:We were all happy back then. Yeah, a year and a half ago when I had Rise. TBD. But yeah, and then we started doing it like 10 months ago. Right. Which actually reminds me, I haven't asked anyone for Agony Aunt so I might do that right now. Okay. You just talk between yourselves. No, you asking for questions during the recording of the podcast. And a picture. Hello. This is what people like about the Straight Deep Podcast. We're breaking down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very down to earth. It's like so down to earth. So down to earth. So down to earth. No, that's good. That's good. Basically, I just thought Sue was hilarious and I was like, we should do a podcast together.

7:00Okay, funny. Nice. And you have like a really good like kind of listener. is that a word? Yeah, brands don't seem to think so only the sex toy What was the thing you've done with Freeze? Basically we have a Sorry, I just need to answer this Sorry, what did we do with Freeze? What a brilliant question! We have a choke hold on the kind of PR girlies of London and the PR social media girlie from Freeze is a big straight diva fan Now when we got to Freeze I was sensing some maybe hesitation from this social media girlies boss about who the fuck we were why we were what the fuck because the cat dragged in the cat being Sophie literally it was and then we got there and we were taking the piss out of originally we were going to take the piss out of Keith Haring and be like he's this underground gay artist but we realised that we'd probably get in trouble for that he's also dead?

8:05yeah yeah but then he you can make fun of dead people yeah yeah queen though we I know he would have queened out but there's loads of like straight people stood in front of him taking him very seriously now okay which is weird yeah then we made fun of something else and then I don't know how but he managed to get on the social media but there was a video before

8:22Tahliah Simumba:do you get paid? no oh why? we did that one for free because we were like be smart yeah yeah yeah no sorry we did get paid we got paid like four grand like 15k 15 million um but no that's that's us really okay ask me a question yeah yeah so how'd you get into music life are you joking no how did you get here okay how do we okay how did you like it oh well i got the overgrown yeah and then i yeah i actually unfortunately got on a bus as well oh which bus uh the one of sex lovely sorry i let you live in southeast london guys it's not i'm very happy to be like i love i love south london i was actually just thinking on the way here i have not been to hackney in so long that's so good i've just moved here i'm from south i'd lived in eight years i was in new cross yeah yeah okay so i just moved here so now i live in east i'm over the river girls okay I mean, this is lovely.

9:27Thank you. Your situation. Su's situation, everyone? It's the situation. Yeah, so anytime she fucking moans about anything, just remember that she's in her fucking ivory towers.

9:36Tahliah Simumba:I have nothing to say. And I'm saying, sorry, yeah. How did I get into music? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so. You can slim it down. No. You're just the wee bam in Kilmar. I was actually, I was a bit of a bam. I was a bit of a BAM Well I grew up with no money So Okay You can have inherently become a BAM If you grew up working I thought that meant kid I didn't know that was close BAM is kind of like Chav It's like a Scottish chav Okay I would say I thought BAM was just a kid Uh no That's Ben Yeah A ween A ween A ween That's ween BAM She's a pure BAM man Like do you know what I mean I can really turn it on Wait what You don't want to call me a child I didn't want to call you a chav.

10:22A chav. Oh, right. Okay. No, that's fine. No, it's fine. I've like moved up a class bracket now, guys. Yeah, wake it up. Yeah. So I grew up in Gomanach, which is like a very, it's like voted Scotland's the worst town. Is it? Yeah. I'm a diamond from the rough. Okay. Wake it up. Yeah. Shake it up. And then I moved to, well, so basically I was just like very, isolated as a child just through my own like interests and so I painted from the ages of like 10.

11:01Tahliah Simumba:Pathetic. Pathetic. I'm so sorry. Get your head out. Sue can't stop being gay for one second. I'm so sorry. That's so silly. That's weird. No, that's actually quite funny. From the ages of 10, I painted. I wasn't a scar. From the ages of 10. meanwhile i'm talking about the fact that i was like a depressed lonely 10 year old one of the only like black people in komarno and you're like where are the painters i painted my brain is right i'm so sorry i don't i also don't know why i feel like the door should be shut no i'll shut it down Because your poor boyfriend's probably like that. What's all that?

11:49No, he likes it.

11:50Tahliah Simumba:He likes it. He joins in. He fucking loves it. He loves it. Don't you, Bill? Yeah, I see. Is that all right? Yeah. That's all right. This episode is brought to you by Fox One. Watch all 104 matches of the FIFA World Cup live in 4K for just$19.99 a month with three days free. Build your own multi-view, choose up to three streams, and follow player spotlights. Stay on top of every moment with live stats, highlights, and instant replays. The FIFA World Cup, streaming live on Fox 1, offers a subject to change. See fox.com for complete terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome.

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12:57Tahliah Simumba:I was just a walking stick, baby. Who's fucking walking?

13:05Tahliah Simumba:Wait. Then you're okay. Hey, what's up? Sorry, right, it's dreadful. Sorry, carry on. Okay, so yeah, I was a very lonely child. Yeah. And so I drew... Oh, my God. I was drawing and painting and stuff. And then that kind of, like, morphed into me just, like, really, really loving creating. And so I kind of... It was kind of, like, the thing I was best at. was best at art and music and i applied to that school of art and i got rejected and so i went to college for a year uh applied again and i got in and so i moved to glasgow in like 2017 and then from then i just kind of was making work um creating in a lot of different ways but sorry that door keeps moving um but then i think i really struck oh my god it's the car But then I think I really struggled with, so my work was like very much, looking back at it, I was from the ages of like 11, I was painting these kind of like very effervescent, these very like gorgeous vivid portraits of women.

14:21And I think it was a way that I was kind of like dealing with all of my like internal gender stuff and like subconscious way. Cause I never, I wasn't like a poster trans kid being like, oh, let me put on mommy's high heels and like dresses and stuff i was like very i know blissfully unaware of my gender to a certain extent i yeah i um wait where the fuck did i go oh yeah so basically all my work was like very personal and so and like but so when i got to art school and it started getting critiqued in quite a kind of belligerent way i felt very offended i suppose and so in protest i started making music because i was i was i was studying painting let me rephrase i studied and graduated in painting um so then i started making music and yeah just snowballed from there really so you didn't make music before that kind of wow No.

15:21So my first forays into music was, I had just finished first year and over the summer, I bought a controller. And so I'd started making mixes and then putting them on SoundCloud. And then when I came back to art school for second year, just kind of like everyone at art school, everyone's a DJ, everyone's putting on club nights. And so people just booked me for stuff because i was like black and trans i suppose um not only just that i was very talented um but i think that i was like very interested in a particular sound that wasn't necessarily being promoted um in scotland at the time not scotland sorry in glasgow at the time um and yeah it just like really it really snowballed and then in 2019 um i was going into third year and i got accepted to study at the udica which is belen university of the arts so i studied sounds impressive but i've never heard of it i i studied performing the udica that's how that's how like they pronounce it because it's like udk and we're the belen belen university of the arts shake it up um and so and basically because i grew up with no money at all um i got a bunch of like student grants and bursaries to go so I used some of that money to buy Ableton yeah and so I started making music when I was in Berlin so how do you think I mean what a place to make music yeah I know I was fucking off my not let me just like clarify I was partying all the time I actually like had a really kind of like very intense time there um and that like my the experience of it was sort of rounded up with me overdosing in burkine so i like od'd in burkine and that kind of like really kind of i guess reconfigured a lot of um the way that i was looking at partying and yeah it like really really shook me up and so then i kind of like spent the next couple of years still partying but kind of like always having this like real anxiety so i could i would i wasn't necessarily like drinking that much um but i think i was still like very traumatized from all of that so i think that kind of like led to me um i don't know just like really interacting with of my practice in a in a different way coupled with like covid it felt like i couldn't go back to the way that i was before so like maybe i like couldn't go back to painting or couldn't go back to kind of well because you had to deal with this traumatic event or like yeah or just that i don't know what i'm trying to phrase i think that that experience meant i was like holding a lot of trauma in my body which then led to me kind of like really hammering on the drugs um not that i was like a drug addict or anything but i think like me and all of my friends especially during covid were just like fucking mental like really fucking like hammered it um which is kind of like led to me now just like not doing drugs or drinking at all

18:57but definitely more practicing uh sober life with leeway and for like special occasions okay but definitely not like i will always always always always be in bed for like the three okay sorry i don't even know like where that went from there but yeah so basically i started making music in 2019 and then yeah i got when i came back from exchange um oh no this is what happened we're getting there guys i'm great so when in 2019 just before i left i opened for sophie in glasgow wow and so someone my manager my now manager um saw a video of that then got in contact with me and then we were chatting for a couple of months whilst I was making music so anything that I would make meanwhile I'm like learning how to make music anything that I would make I would send him and like ask his thoughts and how he felt about it and stuff and then whenever I would come to London we would meet up for coffee and kind of like chat about things and then when I came back just as lockdown happened I got signed in May of 2020 yeah okay damn so literally like signed as covid kicked off yeah 2020 covid yeah yeah yeah you were in berlin at that point no so i just came back so i left in berlin from like august 2019 to march 2020 so like half a year okay yeah so you start making music as kind of like a fuck you to the way your art is graded or scrutinized by teachers yeah and so how do you think that informed to kind of music or like yeah what energy you're putting into making music i don't necessarily think that act itself informed anything i think that it was more that i wanted to one branch out of being kind of tied to one discipline to find a way to fund And not only my life, but also my transition.

21:11Because in 2019, I started transitioning. I just needed to pay for shit. So you just music? Yeah. Well, this is the thing. This is the thing. No, DJing. Okay. So through DJing and through making money through DJing, whilst I was still a student, very much paid for a lot of the medication and stuff that I was using. Okay. I think the work has always been like inherently very personal. But I do think that that is perhaps attributed to a naivety and an immaturity because I was so young. So now the work that I make is tied to, well, the work that I'm working on now is definitely tied to my own experience.

21:59But it's not internal. It's external. Does that make sense? yeah i don't know but that's also caveat i'm kind of like taking a break from music that's also why i needed or at least i felt like i have to take a break is because all of my music thus far has been incredibly incredibly personal and i am at a point where i don't really want to talk about myself what you should start a podcast i had one i had one it's retired now but i had one um the dolls discuss and we were fucking discussing um yeah okay but it's quite amazing that you like it's almost inspiring and when it is inspiring that like you almost made the car so close no it's inspiring how you like you kind of made it happen so quickly like yeah you and and you speak about like naivety like you went from downloading ableton to like having someone or like signing a record deal yeah um do you think that kind of like naivety helped you or like compared to painting which you'd been like doing kind of no i think that maybe but i think i didn't when i signed that record deal i still had another year of art school left so i still had another year of student loan so i wasn't really like focusing that much on what i would be doing afterwards and also covid just kind of made things very made everything very intense to think about um yeah i don't know i think that i attribute it i attribute my earlier work to uh perhaps like an immaturity and i do feel like when you figure out that you're trans and then you kind of um put the practices in place to then formulate or like enact your transition you can't help but be like really cringy because you're still figuring your shit out like you're not done cooking yet um and so i look back at that work and i'm like what was what was cringe like the because it's like hyper pop okay and like i it's funny i kind of like go through or at least when i was younger i was i went through a lot of kind of like musical phases and um at that point i was going through like a huge kind of like i don't like the term hyper pop but like that sort of like uh sound the music i was very very very interested in um but it's funny i like don't listen to any of that music anymore in the same way who makes hyper pop now well does it still exist does hyper pop still exist well i i think it's kind of like morphed into this real kind of like uh almost like glitch core like it reminds me of frost children yeah right right right right right they're kind of like spear they're kind of like yeah i feel like a good time of like 2019

25:16Tahliah Simumba:though because i moved to london yeah 2018 2018 it was so long ago it was fucking ages ago but the scene i think music the music that was coming out of like the whole of the uk hyperpop wise was fierce as fuck yeah i had to go to hyperpop nights and it was so fierce it was like similarly like i feel like i grew up on hyperpop but i had like nothing to do with it but just like watch that happened there was such like an influx it had it had like such a grip like i don't know how it morphed but it just did it kind of just stopped there was like a whole scene there was so much going on i think so many nights i think that it becomes when something becomes kind of like consumed very intensely it can't help just be like screw and also uh for a genre of music that is very much just pushed and peddled by like drugged up white people well that's also the thing do you know what i mean babe and i think that also when sophie passed kind of had a real like because i remember like such a distinct sound coming out of 2021 and i want to say that is the year that she passed and then after that just like not coming back yeah never i i'm fully in agreement with you it's like it was that yeah and and then kind of like i've and i do think that there that you can kind of see um thematically and conceptually all of the the interesting music that people are listening to and how that then influences either the music that they make or just like the culture that they surround themselves by because then in 2022 when ethel kane was coming up suddenly everyone was listening to shoegaze and everyone loved guitars and do you know what i mean and it's also interesting that it's all centered around trans femme artists as well wake it up but it is interesting isn't it and then it was like i think at the time that uh for kane was coming up like it was so interesting how everyone wanted to tear it down and now i feel like i think it's going cyclical yeah because i do feel like there is people like are now turning it down again.

27:33Particularly with our music, perhaps. I think that, yeah. Wait, what were you saying? Because you spotted FLCN right at Heaven. Yeah. No, no, no, I haven't. I done two shows. It was one in Glasgow, one in Manchester. I was at the Heaven show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can maybe show you there then. Probably. God, I was on drugs then. That whole period. You're not going to pick up a guitar. you are i don't know how to i play i play piano and i am i sing i would say i sing but i don't like sing publicly yeah um you're like no i don't know what because i i don't know whether to go back to hyperpop or because i've i feel like i read you say some banger of a quote about hyper pop that i can't remember yeah i back when i had twitter i was talking about and it's so funny because i literally i tweeted this kind of like very flippantly just when like i was sat on my sofa one day and just like put my phone down and then like looked at it and then like suddenly people were talking about it um but you can trace a lot of the sonic roots of hyper pop to um working class rave sounds so like for an example would be like that kind of like super like sugary pitched up vocal i can kind of trace back to dj bernie from like 20 2006 2007 um and it's interesting because a lot of the people that were at the forefront of hyper pop so like ag cook sophie danielle hall they all come from like incredibly incredibly affluent backgrounds um and i just think it's very interesting that there was this real kind of like adoption of working class sonic aesthetics and music that wasn't being pushed by working class people or wasn't being consumed in like the same way because like people would listen to like dj bernie whilst drinking like a 2l of cider and like the park and you know you have sophie playing like moma ps1 and stuff yeah right yeah it's just like it's just like as old as time it's like yeah it is it is but to but to me and my kind of like in my like not adolescent but like my younger brain i think because of all that was like the only music that i was consuming at the time and because of my experience of like being very working class and being surrounded by those sounds at such a young age i was like has no one like thought about this yeah we're all the thinkers yeah because you were at that conference too i was behind you i was stood at the back because i came when she said that i was like everyone was like right yeah i was like okay yeah i was like okay right so funny because nadine who was into interviewing her is scottish yeah and so i just can't help but hear like we're all the thinkers i think we're all thinkers like and and and like nadine's scottish accent i think they're like yeah they're here you're just like not touching

30:49Tahliah Simumba:grass girl i would have no idea what to see i actually got i actually got asked to play the you sexual afterglow like album listening party right for foundation the one at the cause uh No, no, no, no. Like the one like that was like a week ago or whatever. And then my management were like, she'd do it if you'd pay her cash. And they were like, oh, we've asked someone else. Cause I'm like, fuck HMRC guys. Yeah, yeah. No, babe. Honestly, tax attorneys, I don't want to kill myself. Like I'm like so, I'm killing myself. That's why I had to get like a salary job. I was like, I can't think about this.

31:23Yeah, no, no. It makes me. But it's 23, 24. So, well, for me. You were broke back then. Whoa. We both had normal jobs back then No no I was still freelance then Really? Because I quit and then went freelance and then just started working there again But I just had to do my own taxes Oh fuck I didn't reach the minimum Do you have an accountant? No we need one Do you have an accountant? I do Fierce? Are any accountants fierce? I just want to cheat one that does the job That's it I mean like I just find anything to do with finances so just like your receipts no no god no I mean I do I do now I do now yeah but there was a point where I was just like oh I could go into tax stuff but I don't want to like dox myself of being like financially illiterate I'm like financially literate now but I wasn't back then um no my accountant's like fine yeah like does the i'm just like i don't know like you don't make any money in music guys so there's like how are you gonna how are you meant to pay your taxes with no money wake it up so we could move on to on to music and why are you taking a break okay yeah sure is it because everyone's posh shows no like i get my boyfriend's posh i can deal with posh shows very easily i can kind of assimilate um and i've been so

32:58oh um but i think that i i have achieved a lot for the person who i am and kind of like where I came from like I have been recognized critically by like you know the BBC the Scottish Music Industry Association the Independent Music Association DJ Mag like I have been nominated and won like a lot a lot of awards for my work and I still don't have a publishing deal and I think that there is something that has to be inherently tied perhaps to my identity and i just don't want to participate in that ecosystem and i think also like the system is just not built for like someone who is black someone who is trans someone who grew up working class um and outside of my situation now would still be working class um it's just not like built to sustain someone like that and i just don't want to participate in that and i find that it was so exhausting trying to constantly push my worth and to talk about it and to kind of interact with the system in a way that didn't just make me want to like kill myself because like it's there is like i i honestly feel like being a musician you are just like you're meant to be embarrassing like you're meant to kind of like push this image and like really kind of like governor and like tech talk and fucking instagram and like all of this stuff and it's just like no no and I think having it not be my main vocation at least takes the pressure off and it means I can when I want to interact with it again it's coming from a place of kind of genuine creativity rather than like oh I need to like I like need to make a song or I like having like an album do or whatever blah blah blah blah um and there's like a multi there's a multitude of other things and that like the way that music is released now is not it's crazy kind of conducive to the way that i want to release music i love the album format i love um working with an album conceptually i hate the idea of like one-off singles or um like putting something out for the sake of like oh i've worked with like this artist and like you know they're like a big artist let's put a song together i kind of hate that um and yeah i think that i really i was just like on a consistent tour from 2021 to 2024 kind of up until the beginning of this year and and during that I had to make Grammarie I had to make my album and I think I should burn myself out with touring How do you find touring?

36:24I hate it I hate it It's hard, it's fucking hard There is no I think that at the beginning when I was kind of like young and naive and everything was bright and shiny and new I definitely enjoyed it more

36:45um but i hate it i hate the format of it i hate that i am kind of like shipped off to these places and i never really get to see the place i hate the fact that half of my money isn't my money i hate the fact that people don't pay me enough um is this um mainly dj touring or is this both because like i feel like well to me there's there's like a bit of money indeed well i mean like unless you're like vtss or whatever right like there's like a there are tiers of djing right and electronic music so you like tier one tier two two three like tier three is like vtss yeah tier one is just like diy yeah like yeah um it can be very very hard to sustain yourself in that tier two because it means that you need to either well not either you just need to be like constantly at it because you're getting paid like for example like i would get paid like i think the most i've ever been paid for a dj set is five grand let's fucking go but even at that was it for a brand no it was at sonar okay um and then but like if we'll say for example if my rent is like a thousand pounds yeah and my bells are 500 pounds and i have been asked to play a show in newcastle for a grand okay if that's my only show for the month yeah not okay yeah yeah because then tax as well yeah and half of the money isn't mine so like well i say half but like 10 goes to my agent 20 goes to my manager and then i need to save 20

38:34Tahliah Simumba:for tax like have like that's half the money yeah it's literally half of it and so it just got to a point where i was like i am literally i am meanwhile i'm going to these shows like over the past like four years or whatever i'm going to these shows i am most likely being misgendered at some point especially in like 2021 2023 2023 2024 we got okay we got somewhere um but i'm not having like my safety requirements being met so that means taxis that means um being like a score if the venue is closed being escorted from the hotel to the venue people aren't um adhering to that and so i am putting myself in a place of not just physical physical danger sounds a bit too much but kind of i'm affecting my emotional mental health and like two other things that you kind of mentioned but also like they're just horrible about that lifestyle is like um the kind of lack of sleep touring and like the weekend just becomes this horrible thing where you're like meant to be playing like two or three gigs and you're just kind of surviving and this kind of factors back into why i want to um yeah not quite music but just step back for a bit because i think that surrounding touring surrounding making work being in the studio i don't think that you your labor is not is just quite obviously not some supplemented for the amount of effort and energy that you put in like you know like right there's no way that you can sustain a music career whilst also having a full or part-time job in a and like a in a meaningful way because when you think about like even when i think back to like when i lived by myself in glasgow and like i was touring a lot on the weekend like you would think that i would just have like the weekdays to just like chill out or whatever but like no like you need to you have like studio sessions or like you're going to studio to work on your own stuff and then like i don't know i feel like the music industry very much pushes a really really unhealthy kind of like unsustainable way of living one's life that is yeah surrounded by late nights surrounded by alcohol surrounded by drugs surrounded by overworking um yeah especially dj world it's just like it's it's like not right it's just like not right and then be the life of the party as well be like always be in a good mood yeah um and yeah like for like three four years i was missing like very major kind of like uh very major events and that like my little brother's birthdays or my mom's birthdays or my best friend's birthdays um a lot of birthdays a lot of christmases all of new years it was just like messing out and like and it's just like really depressing were you ever enjoying djing itself or was it more to like facilitate writing and making i look back and no i think that i it was just a way for me to make money truthfully and like i had to make money um but i think that i got very and like also i was young like it was very exciting to be flown out to like different countries and like yeah you know play the music that you enjoy me um either listening to or making like it's all very tantalizing but it it's not yeah it's not conducive of like a healthy or quote-unquote normal life and i think that kind of when i turned 25 i just wanted to live like a normal life yeah um because like yeah the kind of rose tinted layer of it just wore off and i suppose with that like it's like especially if as you were just saying touring straight for four years like two people who don't know like music or how the industry works you'd be like oh so you're loaded then yeah yeah i mean also you're absolutely but this is also the thing that i was encountering was that like everyone that i would meet in kind of like uh social acquaintance kind of setting would think that i'd have so much money yeah and like yeah and like i doesn't because at the end of the day like i uh like it's the only way that i'm making money and i have bills to pay and like i don't want to live with people so i'm gonna i'm obviously gonna pay like a more expensive rent yeah because like my job at the time in my career facilitated that but that didn't leave me like loads of expendable cash at the end of the month um and yeah people people in music just think that you're loaded and like it's just like so far from the truth i think that's even when i when i started touring when i like literally like 2018 2019 like independent tours i literally pulling a suitcase around like wherever fuckery i was going yeah there was a friend of mine who i love very dearly and they were like you're not getting paid loads of this and i was like babe i'm in some random um studio in norwich no i'm not getting paid who is you yeah no but it's like you're like okay like well that's it again peggy peggy peggying off of that thank you backing off of that um when i then so i'd when i made the album released the album and then wanted to do a live show tour yeah i was saying kind of perplexed perplexed at the fact that i was not going to be given the same amount of kind of like uh what would the word be i don't know because like yeah it's supplemented the same way as i would be for a dj set i would get paid like i would get flown out i would be put up in a hotel i would most likely get like taxis and and ground transport from airports and train stations to the hotel and back um i would get a fee and that would be like ah right and like that would be a dj set and you have to pay for all of that yourself when you do it live yeah right the fee doesn't go up despite the costs going massively no the fee actually goes down i was it for i so if anyone who isn't familiar with the lore i was gonna do a tour for grammery in april of this year and i think i was i was mentioning before we started recording from around august to august 2024 to around january 2025 i was like i was i I was probably like at the kind of depths, the depths of my mental health.

45:58It was so, so, so bad. And a lot of it was attributed to the fact that I was self-employed and I was very much like, just, I had worked so hard over the past couple of years and I was like, where is my money? Where the fuck is all of my money? So I was just like, so just mentally so unwell. and so the new year rolls around we kind of had booked all of these shows and for um the heaven rise kind of live show and then we they crunched the numbers and i was so i was like guys we need to make some money on this tour like i can't i can't fuck off for a month and come back with like no money yeah i like this is like pretty crucial here because one like the record con uh deal that i signed no advance no advance whatsoever because it's like untitled are like small independent label that you would expect that um so the only way that i was making money was solely through touring and then some brand stuff but that would like that would be like once in the bluest of right um i was like yeah so basically guys we need to make some money and so they crunched numbers they were like okay even if you sell out every single show you'll lose two grand and i was like ah run the numbers again run the numbers again um me and i was like right okay um cancel the tour yeah like obviously canceled yeah i don't have two grand to lose yeah um and so yeah i was just like so i was so so depressed and i know that and meanwhile like i was also like i kind of had a i had a real kind of moment in australia i was in australia in february and i just really i took such a bad turn and that's when i decided i'm gonna stop doing this for a bit um and so yeah they like and i had australia will do that to you yeah um and so yeah i think that i think once i got back from australia i had a meeting with my label and my management because of the same i was like things aren't looking good guys like i am genuinely i'm not gonna kill myself but i am gonna joke consistently that i'm gonna kill myself right so something just has to happen and so we just like cancel it all good for you though babe yeah yeah that's like after yourself i know i look i think i have this like weird relationship with um my listeners and that like i don't i'm not necessarily like that aware that they exist like i always feel like i just like put out music and like no one listens to it like i feel like very under like internally i feel very underachieved um and so that that was it was quite easy to make that decision because i was like and then people would like message me on instagram be like oh my god it's looking so forward to it so much but you can't so i was like i'm literally like i'm loving on a nice edge yeah yeah yeah and it's hard to like try and explain that because like i'm not going to be like hey everyone i am like really really really depressed so i'm going need to cancel these shows but also even in that same breath it's like i can't tell people why i'm depressed i'm depressed because i'm like i can't pay my rent next month do you think if like um the industry was kind of financially sustainable uh for an artist like yourself that it would you'd be kind of okay with it or is there stuff beyond the kind of i think i don't when you finally find your thing.

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