Talking To...Lucy Ward
#NK You eluded to Derby earlier and that's not far from Nottingham that's got a university with good music. Was it difficult to start moving away from your local open mic into venues further afield?
#LW It's quite a while ago that I started being asked to play in other venues. I was quite keen to start getting out and about. It's by going to the different clubs that you start hearing different songs and songs you know arranged differently. It can give you new ideas for writing songs. In fairness, around Derbyshire at least, my mum and dad took me around lots of different clubs. You get a club ask of you want to do a support slot and from there, I think the ball just rolls. You hope that it snowballs and get bigger and bigger. We're lucky that where we are there's a nice live scene going on. There are places where it might be better than Derbyshire, but Derbyshire is right up there as one of the places to be. A festival organiser from Yorkshire heard me playing in a club and really took me onboard. That got me a number of festival slots during the year. That got me gigs playing clubs further afield. It's been fantastic how, not easily, naturally it's all come.
#NK Compared to a number of singers of your sound, you've got a harder, more aggressive edge, was that a deliberate choice?
#LW No,[laughs] not at all. People have commented that I've got a nose ring and I wear Sex Pistols t-shirts on stage and things. That's part of my taste in music. I don't try and hide it. If I could be Debbie Harry, I would be Debbie Harry. My taste in music is so broad and it's literally just what I see in a song, I try to bring to it. It's been said in the past I'm not very folkie, but you've got to be true to yourself and I'm very happy with it. It one of the reasons why I am who I am. It just comes naturally and you hope people enjoy that. Some songs are hard and aggressive
#NK Debbie Harry did her folk and jazz albums because she was enjoying that at the time.
#LW Exactly…but I'm talking 'Heart Of Glass', rock out with a few electric guitars, but I'm not like that. I grew up listening to the Beatles and Bowie so that's at the base of my musical taste.
#NK It does set your sound apart from where people have, say, grown up completely in the tradition or had those influences from a younger age. A wider musical heritage to draw from.
#LW There's probably some truth in that. I've never really thought about it or analysed it like that. I've been in soul bands, I've been in a metal band. I love music and I love good songs.
I don't think to myself, 'I want to write a folk song'. I just want to write a song. I don't think to myself that I'm not going to do 'Lilac Wine' because it's not from the tradition. Good music should be heard. It just happens that I think a lot of good music and good songs are folk songs.
#NK And songs go both ways. "I Don't Like Mondays" has become a folk song and the "Irish Rover" has gone punk.
#LW Exactly. A couple of week's ago I learnt Blur's "Tender". You can definitely say my version is folky, but it was never intended like that. Like you said it can be changed, a punk version would be different again, but it would be the same song.
#NK Let's be honest it's why music is such a live, vibrant thing.
#LW I'm with you. It's why the tradition, should be and is, always changing. The likes of Jim Moray mixing music with drum beats and all that. Some people have turned their heads in horror at it, but traditional wasn't always traditional, it had to be new at some point.
It's great that lots of people, Megan(Henwood) herself, are trying to change things. We need another revival. I think it's ready.
#NK How do you see that translating from live into recording? What are your plans for that over the next year or so?
#LW Hopefully I'll get an album recorded during the next year, there's talks going on, but if it doesn't happen, I'll try and do it independently.
I feel that I ready to have something decent to sell to the people that are nice enough to buy. I want to do something different with my recording. I think there are lots of girls out there with lovely voices and great song choices. I think to stand out and have that edge and be a little bit different. Hopefully that will come to fruition over the next year.
#NK You're coming off the back of a very busy 2009. Are you ready to hit the next decade face on?
#LW I'm definitely feeling like that. 2009 has been such a learning curve, after the Folk Awards, having that validation. This might not be an unrealistic dream, the sky's the limit with this.
The more you put in the more your going to get out. I've already got a number of festivals booked for the summer, which is fantastic and takes some of the stress about paying the rent away as well. It's really about playing and see if people like it.
I'm so happy to be able to call myself a musician at the moment that I'll do anything to keep that going. Well apart from go on The X Factor that is[laughs]
#NK Thank you