Alice Phoebe Lou Interview
Alice Phoebe Lou built a ‘Shelter’ for us.
A shelter is a mid-journey place of rest, a temporary hideaway from the outside to restore the inside, and protection from something harmful, out of our control. Shelter is also the title of Alice Phoebe Lou’s new album. “I started writing it at a time when I stopped having an apartment, all of a sudden,” Alice says, “I had to deal with suddenly not having a home when touring life as a musician is quite intense. It's really important to have a base.” Finding herself without a solid ground under her feet, she had to create a home within.
“It's a place to feel yourself and to be proud and happy with yourself and to give yourself love. I like how the songs ended up feeling like a release. A celebration in a way.”
The artist not only succeeded in building a sweet foundation rooted in past decades’ music but discovered the joy that comes with growth. "The point is to heal through looking into yourself and what you've been through and helping yourself go to the next phase in your life,” Alice explains.
Starting with a radical self-care and revising archive, Alice collected new, runaway feelings and words of youth – songs she’d finish now, after years of storing them unfinished. “It became a reflective album, looking back on who I was, as a young woman starting my music busking in Berlin to now and reflecting on: What's the next step? What is home? Where do I want that to be next?”.
Just before we get fixed on the future, let’s reflect with Alice. The South African, Berlin-based independent artist has been staffing tiny empty places in-between the everyday craze with invaluable moments of appreciation. Being consistently genius in her self-made indie-pop/folk magic, with every release she’d remind us that there’s beauty to be found in temporary bliss and lonesome battles. Ever since her 2016 debut album Orbit, followed up by 2019’s Paper Castles and two albums in 2021 – Glow and Child’s Play, Lou has been focused on what’s important. Instead of giving us the potential viral material without much thought, she chooses raw emotions and straightforward words. It means so much more.
“I started with the last two records, writing very intuitively, just improvising the words and letting it really become a stream of consciousness, saying my innermost feelings unfiltered.” Shelter is a patchwork album, written in countless cities and recorded in six different countries on a tour. “I wouldn't do that again. But it was an amazing thing for the album then because it's talking about home while being so scattered and not really having a ground,” Alice says.
‘Underneath the armour that I wear/There's something sweet and full of care,’ sings Lou in the first seconds of the title single, ‘Shelter.’ “I was having a hard time and feeling quite insecure. I needed to find ways of writing songs with a bit of hope and light in them.” Projecting your inner self on the public person that’s (un)voluntarily basking in the spotlight can carry its dangers. It’s not easy to revolt against the expectations and influence of the audience. “It's so important to come back to yourself and why you do what you do and not get lost in how it's perceived,” Alice states.
“I feel like I've reached places where I'm much more comfortable with myself and hopefully making decisions from the right place. Insecurities come and go.”
‘I'm done putting everyone in front of me, yeah/ I just have to look out for myself,’ the single leaves us with a life lesson – save yourself first, love yourself first. Another single from Shelter, ‘Open My Door’ is a cautionary tale of what can happen if you don’t listen. Yet, it doesn’t suggest stopping. ‘But I made my whole world safer for everyone but me’, is a turning point.
“It all comes down to not really prioritizing your emotions, but feeling like you need to feel sadness and pain and love and all these things and to experience life in all its different colours. I've always found that dealing with your problems and being able to take yourself further means looking back and understanding what's come before.” In the early stages, Alice treated songwriting like therapy. Twisting together diary entries with spontaneous poems, the artist made each song into a little haven of intimacy. Though creating from deeply personal pieces, the bigger picture of an album is so relatable to the human experience.
For this delicate dynamic to occur on the record, everything else must be kept strict. Every decision matters. “I've always just really enjoyed being completely in control of my music creatively and in the business. It's important to have people around you that support you. But it's wonderful to be able to just depend on yourself.” Alice always kept her finger on the pulse of her career and away from a bigger musical structure. It paid off.
“I've always wanted to be able to, at the end of the day, just rely on myself.”
Alice is still busker at heart. Despite the international recognition, playing impromptu shows in public is what keeps her grounded: “I just have myself to rely on. That's nice, having community and engaging, but also just knowing that you got your own back.” On warm Sunday afternoons lucky Berliners, led by a usually day-before social media announcement, have pleasure of witnessing Alice Phoebe Lou’s magic in its natural habitat. “I enjoy it on many levels. It's the symbol of my summer,” Alice adds.
The music industry can be a relentless machine. Once put in motion, it’s tricky to stop it. Acquainted with this side of it, Alice learnt how to operate it so it’s a friend, not a foe. “I'm very fortunate with the band that I have and the sense of taking care of ourselves and each other that we have. We all don't really drink alcohol. Not to be square but it is quite a big thing on tour. There's always alcohol everywhere. It can get quite intense. I'm really happy that we just take it easy and are quite a cosy bunch of people,” she shares. Amid the touring chaos, different stages daily and fans that expect you to always deliver your best, Alice knows where to search for peace. “Really enjoying the cities that you go to and finding a way to get some time to yourself. Using the time to read, write, contact family and talk to people so you're not so isolated because the rhythm and the routine of it can make you feel quite disconnected from the world. Finding connection.”
That’s what Shelter ultimately is about – finding connection. Let’s start with ourselves, then with the surroundings and lastly with one another. Alice Phoebe Lou shows us that prioritising self-care is not an act of selfishness but quite the contrary. Having already created a safe space for herself, she passes on her temporary home. We gladly accept it, grateful for the gift. Sometimes, a pre-loved shelter is what we need to save ourselves, scraping leftover hope from the walls, in the hidden spot where previous users left it.
Photography By: Miriam Waldner & Lexi Hide
Interview Taken from Still Listening Magazine ISSUE SIX: 31/06/2023