lorraina thames

LORRAINA THAMES ON HER CHILDHOOD: "I grew up in a very religious family- well, it was really my grandparents. My dad wasn't in the picture so my mum and I moved in with her parents cos she couldn't pay the rent on her own. And that meant going to church with my grandparents three times a week. I was very nervous about not only upsetting my mum, but going to hell. I was so sure of hell back then, I'd do anything to stay out of it. I effectively locked myself in a room and played with my dolls until I was old enough to start really thinking about what I was being told."
ON HER SCHOOLING: "I was a really nervous kid! No surprise there, I guess, but I was awful at making friends. I had one best friend, but then she moved right before secondary school, and I was going in alone. I was a complete wreck. I felt all alone in a sea of attractive, pubescent faces. My tits hadn't even come in yet, so it was just like, you still feel like a little kid. And I was so dramatic, I was just like, 'this is the end of the world!'"
ON ACTING: "I was very much into the drama school thing when I was in school. I just joined it on a whim, and everyone, including myself, was a bit surprised. I was just like, fuck it. I didn't really have anything else to do. Every single time I auditioned for a part I'd vomit in a bin beforehand, but I got every single part I auditioned for. I nailed it! But then, as quickly as I tackled it, I got bored. It didn't feel like a challenge any more, which I think is really the only reason I did it. I didn't have a passion for acting, I had a passion for conquering something no one expected me to be able to do. So I started singing, because that seemed like the next thing I could tackle. And I loved it."
ON DRUGS: "In secondary school when I got into drama club, people started seeing me for once. I'd been spending my whole life trying to hide in a corner and not cause any trouble, and suddenly it was like, they had forgotten I even existed until that moment. So they started inviting me to parties. And I would have these sleepovers where they'd just hand me some new thing to get myself into trouble with. I tried a lot of recreational drugs around that time- and it sounds like peer pressure, but it was far from it. I felt like I had spent so much time locking myself up, I wanted to try everything. But that's not the way to go about it, and I was stupid for having done it. Should've stuck to marijuana."
ON SMOKING: "I've been smoking since I was twelve years old, which shocks a lot of people. Really stupid thing but it was pretty much my only form of rebellion back then. I used to snag them from my nana, and take them in my room and smoke them. I did this for years, til I could just buy my own. I think my mum knew but never called me on it. I felt so bad for taking advantage of nana's declining memory that when my first album dropped, I sent her piles of money. For the cigarettes."
ON HER MUSIC: "When I first started out, I was just trying to find the next thing to get me by. But then as soon as I started, I realised that this is what I wanted my forever to be, and I got really serious. I knew some things from my childhood, how to play guitar and piano. I wouldn't sleep, I'd be up all night writing songs and playing them for mates. And they were all really nice, but I'm glad those things aren't recorded. They were utter shit. I was really just trying to find myself and that process was a long and arduous one for me."
ON HER FIRST ALBUM, LUNGS: "By that point, we'd been playing gigs around London for such a long time. And I just was starting to get really disheartened. I used to have this very damsel in distress thing about me, where I expected someone else to swoop me up and save me and fix whatever was wrong. And I just kept thinking, one day someone's going to pick us up and find us and love us. And when it didn't happen I was mad at everyone else. Finally I just realised no one else would give a shit unless I made them. We were on the festival circuit when we finally got picked up, and the same week we got picked up I had to go to hospital for a few days because I'd just totally dehydrated myself trying to get someone to notice us. Once I get something in my head, I can't eat or sleep 'til I've done it. And then we were picked up and I moved to America!"
ON HER SECOND ALBUM. CEREMONIALS: "As great as this time was for my career, my personal life was an utter shambles. My depression had reached such a serious, tumultuous point and I just refused to do anything about it. I still very much thought I could just snap myself out of it. I just didn't understand the gravity of it. I started pouring those feelings into my writing, and I think you can hear that in some of the songs. I remember how much I just wanted to die, or just disappear or something. And I just kept waiting for people to help me. And it was so fucking stupid. The only person who could save me was me, and I did it. And the album helped, certainly."
ON HER ANXIETY: "I think the problem isn't me specifically, but how everyone else treats mental illness. We don't talk about it. We all just kind of keep mum, and I'm supposed to be embarrassed that I have it. People have told me I just use it as an excuse to be lazy on days when I want to stay in bed, and that kind of shit is like a slap in the face. It's honestly pure nastiness to me, to speak of someone's illness like that. And I think if I'd have felt more welcome to discuss it, I'd have gotten help long before I did. I could've killed myself and it would've been on the hands of every single person who teaches us we are supposed to stay silent and pray it away."
ON MEETING FANS: "Oh, its fucking horrifying. I'm fine on stage, because I wear these big outfits and run around and scream and, you know, my on-stage persona is so much different than my off-stage one. I just am a completely different person. I feel like I'll be disappointing. And I have so many sweet fans who just want to meet me and take a photo, but I get so fucking nervous. I worry I'll be disappointing. Its really shit."
ON RELATIONSHIPS (AND LIKELY HER HIGH-PROFILE EXES): "Relationships are good for one thing- great writing material. That awful gut-wrenching feeling you get when someone really fucks you over, you can write a whole album about just that one feeling. Otherwise, I could do without."
ON BEING A CELEBRITY: "I'm going to be honest- I don't get it. I don't get why anyone would care about what I said or did outside of my music. But I do get it in a way, I guess, cos I had those crushes on boys from telly as a kid. But me specifically, it makes no sense. And I have to be extremely private, because I could seriously become ill thinking of people knowing so much about my life. I know some people out there have tried hacking my emails, I know some personal photos are going around the net and I've no idea how they got them, I know that people have these little blogs dedicated to me and one of my mates? And as long as they're not getting into my personal life, I don't care. But thinking about it too much, I'll get sick. I love them and I love that they love me, but if I think too hard on it, I get queasy."
ON HER UPCOMING THIRD ALBUM: "You get really freaked out about it, don't you? The worst part of having a fan base is that you just errantly worry you're going to let them down. I used to always worry about that with my mum and grandparents, but now there are millions of people waiting for my music and every once in a while I almost go, what if they hate it? But you have to cut that shit out so quickly, because it will infect your music. You have to do it for you and do what you like and say fuck it to what people might think, even if you lose some fans. Cos in the end, that's how you make a killer record. Worrying about that other shit is for other careers, not this one."
ON HER 'OFF-STAGE' PERSONA: "I act completely differently at home. Even in interviews, I try to put on a certain face to make things interesting. In real life, I am a fucking bore. I drink and smoke a lot, I spend a lot of time on the internet, I binge watch television, I eat takeout. I barely even have hobbies."