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‘YOU CAN’T WRITE SONGS WITHOUT DRUGS’

Thought Rosie Tyas had cleaned up for album number 3? Think again. Sophie Stratford heads to London to talk to her about her new album, The Optimist, recent successes and her thoughts on headlining the NME Awards Tour.

The golden pop phenomenon Rosie Tyas was first tipped for stardom when Group Love was released as a demo and since then she has risen to fame pretty quickly and her fan base has radically grown. She outlines what pure, raw, original music is really about, not manufactured or planned, it is entirely her own work.

She has just recently released her psychedelic new album The Optimist, she recorded the majority of it in Los Angeles with producer and musician Greg Wells, who also produced her debut album Group Love. The Optimist has a more mature sound than the previous albums, “I think Group Love and  Meds were albums that really introduced me as a solo artist but with the addition of The Optimist I sound more confident and, myself and the backing band have come on leaps and bounds, it is a pretty strong record. I love listening to it and I love playing the songs on it”. The album’s sound was influenced in many different ways, “I listen to a lot of music like The Smiths, Joy Division and New Order. Basically what interests me is two types of music, sincere and insincere so I have a mix. The album incorporated a lot of the new wave stuff that I love and a lot of elements of darkness and mystery. But mostly specific things in my life that were occurring at the time of writing and recording”.  When asked if there was a hidden story behind the critically acclaimed album, she commented “Well I wanted to have a title that was kind of like a movie title, something that makes you think outside of the box.”

Tyas’s stand out tracks on the album are “a song called Naked Kids which I really like because it has this happy sad theme and includes so much music from the 90s which I love. There is also a song called Toy Boy which is kind of delirious, it’s the creepiest fairytale on the record for sure. It talks about a boy whom expresses his life through the eyes of a doll and falls in love with the boy that owns him, but then gets broken hearted when the boy abandons him and the doll ends up being turned into a voodoo doll and lives the rest of his life underneath the sink in a cupboard and is telling everybody about how horrible his life has been.” Tyas’s first single from The Optimist, Millionaire, is a massively happy slice of timeless, sing-along indie-orchestral pop bliss, she chose this track to be a single from the album, “It is rhythmically and lyrically a lot of fun and it has this typical kind of teenage attitude in the lyrics, and I picked it as a single because it makes my feet move and I guess that’s a good sign” she says. Her music slightly differs from each album and all 3 have a different tone, she adds “Maybe people thought that The Optimist was going to be clean cut however it is actually more violent and more gothic. The sound has become a little bit more full of fantasy , I mean you can’t write songs without drugs”. Whether you believe Tyas’s depiction of her new album or not it is safe to say that this album is moving in a new direction.

Rosie Tyas embarks on a UK headline tour this March as part of the NME Awards Tour, she says “I’m definitely looking forward to the tour, it’s one of the biggest I’ve ever played. I love all of the other acts playing too and it will be great to tour with them. We’ve (Herself and the band) been practicing a lot and it is probably one of the best sets we’ve ever had, so it’s exciting. Our set will include about half of each album but we will be playing the “hits” or whatever you like to call them too of course”.

Tyas is driven by her desire for fame and love of performing, however I’m intrigued into how she knew that music was her forte, she says “When I was 12. I got my first job, I’d been kicked out of school, I didn’t have anything to do. I started to sing and became good very quickly and ended up with a gig. Then I realised there was another way of living your life where you weren’t treated like s**t and you actually had a responsibility to do something that you could be proud of. So it became my life and I realised that’s what I wanted to do.”

Tyas’s also reveals that even though she has finished dazzling album number 3 she has been working on some new material, “I’ve been working on songs and stuff for a movie, but I’m not really concerned about albums really. It’s all a bit everywhere, but in a good way though and I think I feel quite liberated.” Amongst her many successes of the year she is also nominated for a Brit Award – Best Alternative Female Solo Artist, up against the likes of Florence Welch and PJ Harvey “I am very chuffed to be nominated in my category especially with the other artists that are nominated, a lot of them I am a fan of. It’s a pleasure, I don’t know if I’ll win, probably not. However I like the nominations it’s like a little brat pack” She comments.  

What is the future for Rosie Tyas? “I don’t know. I know that I am going to continue to stay true to my fans and make music that is meaningful and interesting, and if my fan base grows or people forget about me I always just want to continue doing the same thing”. So, do you think Miss Tyas will clean up for album number four?

Rosie Tyas is headlining the NME Awards show this month, two win 2 VIP tickets for you and a friend visit www.indigo.com/competitions to enter.