PURPL * 1995
( One For The Future? You Choose… ) - Saturday 3rd February 2024
Words by Isaac Solanki. Photography by Alex Channelle. Thanks to Jessica Lamb.
Introduce yourself and describe your sound…
“So, my artist name is purpl and I make indie alternative music with elements of both R&B and pop. A lot of the music I write is autobiographical, it’s honest and I don’t like to hold back if I’ve got something that I need to get out. For me, music is kind of like therapy, I don’t really like talking about my emotions out loud with words; I feel so much more comfortable putting it into a song, it’s kind of just how I process things.”
What do you think makes you different to the other young up and coming artists of today?
“I think it’s mainly just my strive to be authentic, even if it makes my life harder, even if it makes it more difficult to make it as a musician - I just think it's one of the most important things for longevity in terms of your career. If I made it but felt like I hadn’t been authentic along the way, I really don't think I'd be happy.
Another thing that I feel makes me different to other artists is my vocals - I don't think I really sound like anyone else. When people ask me what I sound like, I really struggle to find an answer. I would actually say that my tone of voice is the most distinctive thing about my music. With a lot of the singers you hear on the radio at the moment, it's actually quite hard to tell who it is because they very often sound like someone else, whereas I think if you hear my voice, you'd know that it was me straight away. It’s all come naturally too, it’s literally just the way it’s come out my mouth.”
What’s your story? How did it all start and what challenges have you faced along the way so far?
“Well, funny that you ask actually, I was thinking about this the other day. When I was younger, music used to be a really good escape for me - it was a place where I could go and listen to other peoples stories, understand and relate to how they were feeling. If I ever felt lonely, I would listen to music, so I think music was just engraved into me from a very young age and over time, I feel like it’s become my happy place.
My grandad used to teach me the piano when I was really young as well, so I’ve kind of been trained classically when it comes to music. Around 16/17, I started listening to electronic music. All my friends were going to raves and listening to DnB, which I hated, so I was listening to a lot more electronic sounds and I fell in love with R&B. I think somewhere along the way, the pop music that I loved must have started fusing together with the more electronic side of music that I loved. Then, when I went to sixth-form, I tried doing maths, English and all of these other subjects but I failed them all and eventually went to a music college. Ever since then, I've kind of just been doing music and trying to make it full time.”
Moving forwards, what are some of your short-term and long-term career goals for the future?
“By the end of 2024, I'd like to be making money from music as a full time job - that’d definitely be the ultimate goal. Also by the end of the year I'd like to be on tour with a really cool artist and I'd also like to get some more music videos made - I really want to explore the fun and creative side of things a bit more rather than just focusing on the boring business side of things within my music career. Then beyond that, I suppose as cliche as it sounds, it’s just all about taking it as far as it can go - I eventually want to be a household name in the industry.”
Talk to me about some of the unsung heroes of your music career to date. Is there anyone that you perhaps wouldn’t be here today without?
“Good question… first of all, my boyfriend - he's also a music producer and he's basically my left arm. He kind of like acts as my manager; we write and make all of the music together and if I'm feeling shit, he’ll always be the one to pick me up. I don't think I would be able to be doing this as big as I am now, if it wasn’t for him. He's definitely the main one, he's just always been the constant.
In terms of music artists and bands that have inspired me along the way, I’ve always been a big fan of Fleetwood Mac, I just love how their Rumours album was all about each other and how they wrote it and recorded it together. I also used to listen to a lot of BANKS, she was pretty big about six or seven years ago, especially within the R&B and indie scenes. She actually influenced quite a lot of my sound; she did a song with Snakehips back in the day, in their early days - I like them too and they’ve probably also had quite a big influence on my music as well.”
“Trippin” by purpl
“So, quite a few years ago now, I went into a session with my friend Jamie. We’d worked together quite a few times and I was right in the peak of doing the whole kind of session grind thing - I was doing about 2-3 sessions a week and I just wanted to try something different, something really random. Jamie sat on the keyboard and played a few notes and we ended up writing a song about the first time I tried psychedelics; he’d happened to have tried them as well, so it was just a fun kind of let your hair down idea. It then essentially got put in the vault and we didn't touch it for a very long time.
A few years later, I decided that I wanted to release it but Jamie’s hard drive had just broken broken and there was nothing we could do. A few more years went by and me and my boyfriend sat there and just felt like we needed to do something about it. We actually put parts of it into AI and it split up all of the stems - we then produced around the stems a little, recorded it and it just sounded better than ever. I think that with the weird nature of the song, the AI contribution actually worked really well. The synth stem had little bits where the vocals hadn't quite been fully taken out but it just added this really cool kind of effect in the background. I wouldn't do it for every song but it just happened to compliment this specific project perfectly. I would actually normally be very anti-AI but I think if you're using it in a creative sense, there's not necessarily anything wrong with it. I still feel like the idea was authentic - the core of it was still human, it just had a helpful nudge from something different.”
Favourite lyric from the track…
“I think probably the middle 8. “I feel twice as good, A big deal but misunderstood, Is this real? Now I see things in different ways.” This kind of the epiphany when you're tripping and you understand everything, you just feel calm and at peace - that's kind of what the middle 8 is symbolising.”
