Ahead of her Great Escape showcase at Brighton’s Unitarian Church, I sat down with 18 year old songwriter Fenne Lily. The self-taught songstress came to our attention when reviews started coming out online from her shows through the UK with Marlon Williams and in current single “Top To Toe”, we were struck by her talent even further.
Seated in the makeshift green room for the artists, Fenne notes that although the momentum surrounding her music is definitely becoming more and more noticeable now she’s booking more shows and festival sets this year, it’s hype she pays little mind to, for the most part.
“I don’t really see things happening unless I look at my Spotify plays and realise, “Shit – loads of people have actually listened to my stuff’!” she laughs. “Normally, it’s like one person will come up to me after a gig and be like, ‘Can I get you to write on my napkin for my daughter?’. Apart from that, I think people have a bigger view of what’s happening than I do. It’s also been a really slow journey; my first shows were in Bristol and like, ten people went. Now, there’s more than ten people and that’s great, but it still has been a slow journey. It hasn’t been a sudden thing.”
Still studying in Bristol, Fenne is eyeing up a solid amount of time to be dedicated to writing new material soon though as she mentions, getting into the groove now she’s situated in the city has brought with it its challenges as it has benefits.
“At the moment, I’m doing an Art Foundation course and I’ve never not been in education, so now from this summer onwards, I won’t have anything else to do.” she explains, “It’s tricky because I moved from the countryside where nothing happens to Bristol, where everything happens, and I can’t really find any headspace to write. I’m going to hopefully go back to the country for a week or two in the summer to get at least four or five songs written. I’ve got a lot of material from when I was about 15, that I just never really followed up; I’m going through all of that now and patch working something together.”
On fleshing out her material live and further developing herself as a performer, Fenne describes her time touring with Williams and The Yarra Benders as being influential on how her approach has now changed.
“I’d done a few shows with them before,” she says. “It wasn’t with the whole band, it was just Marlon. I had the opportunity, because he’s amazing with his audiences, to take sly tips and watch him every night. Then with the band, this whole different dynamic comes in and it made me realise that I need more musicians! We played in this church in London; it was something like a 600 capacity room and when everyone’s playing at maximum volume, it was insane. But when he does a song and it’s just him…wow. They’re all so lovely too, I was sad that I didn’t have my own band! I couldn’t have gone with better people, it was so much fun.”
As the rest of the European summer rolls out this year, Fenne’s calendar is stocked pretty full of festival dates in the UK and through Europe. It’s clear that she’s really finding her groove when it comes to touring and bringing her music to new fans with each show, the Great Escape being no different. On this exciting time in her life as an artist, Fenne admits that being involved in a music community as thriving as Bristol’s has given her the opportunity to come out of her shell more and explore.
“Now that I’ve made loads more friends where I live in Bristol, it’s really great to go to someone’s house and say, ‘I’ve got a little bit of a song, can you help me with it?’ or be like, ‘I’ll give you this bit…’ – it’s more of a communal thing.” she says. “Before, I was writing alone in my room and now, it’s more of a way of making friends and learning from other people.”
“Performing live is the best bit,” she says. “I don’t like recording because it means that you have to finish something and I hate being like, ‘That’s a finished thing‘. I’ll want to change it. Performing live is the bomb.”
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Keep up to date with Fenne over on Facebook.
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