Interview with Emily Breeze: ‘When I was a teenager in the 90’s, you could survive on the dole on dreams and cigarettes’

Emily Breeze’s latest single, ‘Hey Kidz’, out today (14 August) is her take on the sleazy old rocker in a Soho dive trying to give unsolicited advice to young singers.

‘Yeah, the ‘Hey Kidz, don’t do what I did’ is basically the guy in the pub who used to be in a band and gives unsolicited advice but has no clue how things work any more,’ she laughed.

As such, ‘Hey Kidz’ serves as both a cautionary tale for young aspiring starlets and an anthem for failed rock stars everywhere, according to Breeze, who has been described as a 21st century Patti Smith. The track retains the beautifully crafted pop noir trademarks of 2019’s Rituals album and features the same luxury trash backing band consisting of Rob Norbury (lead guitar), Andy Sutor (drums), Graham Dalziel (bass) and Duncan Fleming (keys).

The lyrics are as vibrant and unapologetic as Breeze herself:

‘To all my tired out troubadors,

To all my middle aged matadors,

To all my rock ‘n’ roll dinosaurs,

We left clawmarks on every door,

Got washed up on this strange shore,

Nothing matters anymore.’

‘In a spectacularly ageist industry, stating my age feels like a reckless and rebellious act’

It marks the first single from Emily’s forthcoming album due out next year and documents, in her words, her ’40th year on planet earth’: ‘I was inspired to write about age by James Murphy’s (LDC Soundsystem) ‘Losing My Edge’ song about losing his edge to the kids coming up. I’m 39 and there’s this shame peddled by the media that if you’re a woman over 40 you should just disappear. It’s like those articles telling women over the age of 40 what they should wear. It’s fucking ridiculous but I might have a crack at taking one of those articles and turning it into a song. It might work, it might not, we’ll see!’

By her own admission, Breeze is not the most prolific of songwriters: ‘You write a song and think it’s the best you’ll ever write,’ she laughed. ‘And then I think I don’t have to do anything for two weeks but then I think, oh, I’d better write another fucking song!’

Breeze is conscious that it was easier for her generation to pursue their dreams when the cost of living was cheaper. ‘When I was a teenager in the 90’s, you could survive on the dole on dreams and cigarettes. Today, you can’t pay your rent on minimum wage and kids are more responsible.’

October will see the release of her next song, ‘Concessions Of An Ageing Party Girl’. ‘Are you spotting a theme?,’ she laughed. ‘This one is like the disco for the apocalypse. The words are spoken, it’s a shimmering, dysfunctional disco with a disco beat, it’s very synthy and decadent!’

Breeze grew up on Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen and says she is most drawn to singers who manage to be ‘sad, funny and sexy’. Songwriting, in some ways, gets harder with age, she says. ‘You have to keep looking for new angles, for new stories to tell.’

(Photo: Ania Shrimpton)