Indecisiveness plagues the existence of nearly every millennial. A constant surfeit of options, ranging from career paths to religions to preferred Soul Cycle instructors and meal delivery websites, has handicapped our youth, making even the most miniscule of choices feel grim. Of course, with the not so affectionate nickname of the “Me Me Me Generation,” millennials can’t help apply this level of over-analyzing and woolliness to more personal matters, particularly those of the heart.For singer Fran Lobo, the endlessly asked question—is this love?—is in fact millenniums old. The North East Londoner’s first official release captures the haunting, often nerve-racking rush of adrenalin surging through your veins after the casual flirt, that makes your cheeks rosy with possibility, that makes the heart pounding with uneasy excitement. Threateningly blunt acoustic percussion drives Lobo’s fearless vocals onward, conjuring an ominous soundscape that wholly captures the unnerving yet strangely euphoric phenomenon of uncertain affection. Watch the premiere of the video for “Is This Love” below, plus we talk to the singer about women in music, her turbulent upbringing, aesthetics, androgyny, authenticity, and her love of dance—even if she’s not at Nick Carter’s level just yet.Noisey: You're preparing to release a three track EP called Beautiful Blood. What were you working on prior to this?
Fran Lobo: Well up until now, I’ve basically been spending some much needed time crafting my ideas and sounds in the form of rough demos at home on my laptop, and then moving to recording stripped down demos of songs with a mate in his home studio. I wanted to write as much as I could and forge a sound that was unique and true to me as an artist. I mean, I’ve been writing tunes since I was 17 and have done everything from fronting a spinal tap inspired rock band called Hot Magenta, to writing acoustic guitar-lead indie/folk. My music tastes are so varied—I love it all—so I really wanted to pin down my sound and after getting into production and being able to articulate the sounds I heard in my head, I was able to co-produce my own music. This EP showcases the first three tracks I wanted to put out as an introduction to Fran Lobo. You recently participated in London Roundhouse's "Women In Music." How are women treated in music today?
As a female artist, I definitely feel like there’s this culture of the female singer/songwriter who goes and works with male producers to flesh out their sounds. I barely know any female producers. When I started out ten years ago, it was the same. I feel like there’s definitely been a shift lately—some great female artists who have come out owning all their shit that bit more—people like Grimes, Lapsley, Shura and FKA twigs. I’m definitely trying to up my production game and become even more assured with it so that I’m not as dependent on producers/mix engineers. But then again, collaboration can be magical. Did you have any collaborators on your EP this time around? Do you generally work better with other people or alone?
All of the tracks were co-produced by myself and some mates of my mine. A lot of the music itself I wrote alone, including the vocal melodies and lyrics. “Is This Love” was written in fragments at home, often late at night, surreptitiously scribbled in a notepad by the toilet. “You and I” was written in about an hour in a rehearsal room. I wrote the lyrics and melodies on “Back Again,” and the music was co-written with my mate James Ellis, which was quite a fun process. In terms of what works better, I think it depends on the track. I really like cocooning myself and zoning in on a track completely on my own, but I also love the energy and the vibe you get from bouncing ideas off other people. Sometimes it makes for a juicier, more exciting end product. Were you a musical kid or teenager?
Oh god, yeah. I had keyboard lessons on my Yamaha and slowly stopped playing as I grew older and realized I had a voice. Now I’ve got a Yamaha keytar and various Casio keyboards, so it’s obviously stayed with me. I love the unique sounds you get out of them; they can sound quite eerie. One of my earliest memories was hearing my mum put on “Locomotion” by Kylie Minogue on vinyl and dancing to it as a young kid in the living room. [I listened to] lots of pop music, like Michael Jackson, and into my teens there was R&B, like Pink, Brandy Monica, etc. My Dad loved his rock like Creedence Clearwater Revival and Deep Purple. I was well into my music at secondary school and listened to such different stuff. I listened to the Travis album The Invisible Band and nothing else for about a year. I had a Blink 182 cassette tape that I ran dry, and oh my gosh, I developed an unbelievably huge obsession with Queen when I was fourteen. I adored them. Freddie Mercury taught me how to sing. I used to blast their songs at full pelt just before school cause I felt the neighborhood needed to hear this. They were probably like what the fuck? Such madness. [Laughs.]Their influence can be heard in the big vocal harmonies in my tracks. Then when I was 17, I started getting into The Smiths, John Cage, Steve Reich and all sorts [of music] really. I used to bop around, lanky in my overly short tie and near ankle length kilt school uniform with massive Sony headphones, just looking so uncool. But I loved it, man. My Walkman was my goldmine.Can you talk a bit about your upbringing and your family?
I grew up in grey, grim Edmonton in North East London. Edmonton Green was the center of the universe as a young child. My Dad is from Goa and my Mum from Mumbai. I grew up with my Mum, Dad and my younger brother Steven. Mum used to rent a lot of Bollywood movies on VHS and we used to watch them together in the front room. As we grew older it became apparent that my Mum clearly was suffering with mental health issues, which she never wanted to address. She’d switch moods really suddenly and she could be quite cruel to us. Home life could often be very stressful, and as a child, I was always spending a lot of time in my room, trying to escape. We moved houses quite a lot because she kept converting the homes we were living in into care homes, until we ended up in a tiny little house which she then started lodging out. My parents split when I was 16. It affected me a lot without me really knowing it. I suffered from crippling migraines and didn’t speak to my Dad for over a year cause my Mum made me believe he was evil. Now he’s my best friend. I love him more than the world. I’ve tried speaking with my Mum, but she is now severely disturbed and has become estranged. I think she’s living somewhere in Mumbai. People are quick to compare "new" artists to better known ones…
I’ve been compared to Amy Winehouse, Grace Slick and Nina Simone. To be honest, I can’t really complain with that! John Davis from Metropolis said one of the tracks sounded like Tears for Fears meets U2 via Adele, which again is a huge compliment. People have always felt the need to categorize and organize things with music in order to understand it better. It’s just the way it is. People find it very difficult to pin down my sound or style though, which I like. I think my sound is a mixture of so many different things. I always wanted it to sound unique and luckily it just came out that way. Do you pay a lot of attention to fashion and style? Is there a difference between what you wear onstage and off?
I think fashion and style is so important as a representation of an artist. I like looking quite androgynous on stage and I like dark colors. I did a gig at The Roundhouse recently where I was so ill I had no idea if I would last the set. But I had a baggy men’s shirt on and my Reebok classics, and they made me feel invincible. I felt like Liam Gallagher. I don’t wear much makeup in everyday life either. I don’t think there’s that much difference to what I wear on and offstage to be honest. I was working with a manager on some previous music who got specialist makeup teams and stylists to make me up with a retro 40s image and the whole thing felt so contrived that now I just want to feel as much like myself as possible—I just wear whatever I feel like on the night. I might be made up, I might not. Authenticity—that’s what people respect. You cut and paste a lot of interesting imagery into the "Is This Love" video. What type of visuals were you looking for?
I worked very closely with my director to find images that alluded to the general question, “Is This Love?” to take the song out of its original context and apply it to the wider world. The dark imagery of fighting and war is a direct reaction to this. Over time, war and abuse to other people and the planet have been constant. The fractured state of society—especially now with the recent [UK] election results and madness like homeless people being fined and food banks multiplying by the minute—this question is ever-relevant. Some of the imagery was inserted for cultural references, such as the Bollywood dancing to showcase my heritage, and some were from old horror movies. I’m a massive David Lynch fan [and I wanted] creepy settings to give a real montage feel of chaos and to echo the dark energy in the song. Lyrically, the song seems to be about discovering and questioning a new love. Sonically, it sounds dark and ominous. Can you talk a bit about this dichotomy?
I love writing melancholic, dark music. I've tried happy songs and they never work as well. I've suffered on and off from depression since about 16, so maybe that's affected my writing. I love the power of sound and the dichotomy of upbeat music versus. quite dark lyrics. The Smiths are big guns for that. I wanted the dark, ominous sounds to almost be answering the question “Is This Love” sonically, creating a soundscape to the messed up thoughts you have in your head. I enjoy making the music quite filmic in that sense. You have a lot of soldiers fighting throughout the video. Do you have a thing for guys in uniform or is there a connection here between love and war?
Haha, woah, oh my God, cringe. Love and war definitely have a lot in common. Sometimes we can keep making the same mistakes in relationships and it’s like we never learn. War is very similar. It’s still happening now even after the billions of people that have been killed in wars all around the world for centuries. It also has connotations of the inner war that happens in our heads I suppose and in our homes of course when relationships get a bit tough. Do you dance a lot when you perform live? It seems hard to resist with your music.Thanks man. Yeah, I love music that makes you want to move. I dance like a loon a lot on my own in my room, so when I perform live it’s much of the same! It’s not Backstreet Boys levels [laughs], but it’s fine. Join Mathias Rosenzweig in dancing while embracing confusion on Twitter.
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Fran Lobo: Well up until now, I’ve basically been spending some much needed time crafting my ideas and sounds in the form of rough demos at home on my laptop, and then moving to recording stripped down demos of songs with a mate in his home studio. I wanted to write as much as I could and forge a sound that was unique and true to me as an artist. I mean, I’ve been writing tunes since I was 17 and have done everything from fronting a spinal tap inspired rock band called Hot Magenta, to writing acoustic guitar-lead indie/folk. My music tastes are so varied—I love it all—so I really wanted to pin down my sound and after getting into production and being able to articulate the sounds I heard in my head, I was able to co-produce my own music. This EP showcases the first three tracks I wanted to put out as an introduction to Fran Lobo. You recently participated in London Roundhouse's "Women In Music." How are women treated in music today?
As a female artist, I definitely feel like there’s this culture of the female singer/songwriter who goes and works with male producers to flesh out their sounds. I barely know any female producers. When I started out ten years ago, it was the same. I feel like there’s definitely been a shift lately—some great female artists who have come out owning all their shit that bit more—people like Grimes, Lapsley, Shura and FKA twigs. I’m definitely trying to up my production game and become even more assured with it so that I’m not as dependent on producers/mix engineers. But then again, collaboration can be magical. Did you have any collaborators on your EP this time around? Do you generally work better with other people or alone?
All of the tracks were co-produced by myself and some mates of my mine. A lot of the music itself I wrote alone, including the vocal melodies and lyrics. “Is This Love” was written in fragments at home, often late at night, surreptitiously scribbled in a notepad by the toilet. “You and I” was written in about an hour in a rehearsal room. I wrote the lyrics and melodies on “Back Again,” and the music was co-written with my mate James Ellis, which was quite a fun process. In terms of what works better, I think it depends on the track. I really like cocooning myself and zoning in on a track completely on my own, but I also love the energy and the vibe you get from bouncing ideas off other people. Sometimes it makes for a juicier, more exciting end product. Were you a musical kid or teenager?
Oh god, yeah. I had keyboard lessons on my Yamaha and slowly stopped playing as I grew older and realized I had a voice. Now I’ve got a Yamaha keytar and various Casio keyboards, so it’s obviously stayed with me. I love the unique sounds you get out of them; they can sound quite eerie. One of my earliest memories was hearing my mum put on “Locomotion” by Kylie Minogue on vinyl and dancing to it as a young kid in the living room. [I listened to] lots of pop music, like Michael Jackson, and into my teens there was R&B, like Pink, Brandy Monica, etc. My Dad loved his rock like Creedence Clearwater Revival and Deep Purple. I was well into my music at secondary school and listened to such different stuff. I listened to the Travis album The Invisible Band and nothing else for about a year. I had a Blink 182 cassette tape that I ran dry, and oh my gosh, I developed an unbelievably huge obsession with Queen when I was fourteen. I adored them. Freddie Mercury taught me how to sing. I used to blast their songs at full pelt just before school cause I felt the neighborhood needed to hear this. They were probably like what the fuck? Such madness. [Laughs.]Their influence can be heard in the big vocal harmonies in my tracks. Then when I was 17, I started getting into The Smiths, John Cage, Steve Reich and all sorts [of music] really. I used to bop around, lanky in my overly short tie and near ankle length kilt school uniform with massive Sony headphones, just looking so uncool. But I loved it, man. My Walkman was my goldmine.Can you talk a bit about your upbringing and your family?
I grew up in grey, grim Edmonton in North East London. Edmonton Green was the center of the universe as a young child. My Dad is from Goa and my Mum from Mumbai. I grew up with my Mum, Dad and my younger brother Steven. Mum used to rent a lot of Bollywood movies on VHS and we used to watch them together in the front room. As we grew older it became apparent that my Mum clearly was suffering with mental health issues, which she never wanted to address. She’d switch moods really suddenly and she could be quite cruel to us. Home life could often be very stressful, and as a child, I was always spending a lot of time in my room, trying to escape. We moved houses quite a lot because she kept converting the homes we were living in into care homes, until we ended up in a tiny little house which she then started lodging out. My parents split when I was 16. It affected me a lot without me really knowing it. I suffered from crippling migraines and didn’t speak to my Dad for over a year cause my Mum made me believe he was evil. Now he’s my best friend. I love him more than the world. I’ve tried speaking with my Mum, but she is now severely disturbed and has become estranged. I think she’s living somewhere in Mumbai. People are quick to compare "new" artists to better known ones…
I’ve been compared to Amy Winehouse, Grace Slick and Nina Simone. To be honest, I can’t really complain with that! John Davis from Metropolis said one of the tracks sounded like Tears for Fears meets U2 via Adele, which again is a huge compliment. People have always felt the need to categorize and organize things with music in order to understand it better. It’s just the way it is. People find it very difficult to pin down my sound or style though, which I like. I think my sound is a mixture of so many different things. I always wanted it to sound unique and luckily it just came out that way. Do you pay a lot of attention to fashion and style? Is there a difference between what you wear onstage and off?
I think fashion and style is so important as a representation of an artist. I like looking quite androgynous on stage and I like dark colors. I did a gig at The Roundhouse recently where I was so ill I had no idea if I would last the set. But I had a baggy men’s shirt on and my Reebok classics, and they made me feel invincible. I felt like Liam Gallagher. I don’t wear much makeup in everyday life either. I don’t think there’s that much difference to what I wear on and offstage to be honest. I was working with a manager on some previous music who got specialist makeup teams and stylists to make me up with a retro 40s image and the whole thing felt so contrived that now I just want to feel as much like myself as possible—I just wear whatever I feel like on the night. I might be made up, I might not. Authenticity—that’s what people respect. You cut and paste a lot of interesting imagery into the "Is This Love" video. What type of visuals were you looking for?
I worked very closely with my director to find images that alluded to the general question, “Is This Love?” to take the song out of its original context and apply it to the wider world. The dark imagery of fighting and war is a direct reaction to this. Over time, war and abuse to other people and the planet have been constant. The fractured state of society—especially now with the recent [UK] election results and madness like homeless people being fined and food banks multiplying by the minute—this question is ever-relevant. Some of the imagery was inserted for cultural references, such as the Bollywood dancing to showcase my heritage, and some were from old horror movies. I’m a massive David Lynch fan [and I wanted] creepy settings to give a real montage feel of chaos and to echo the dark energy in the song. Lyrically, the song seems to be about discovering and questioning a new love. Sonically, it sounds dark and ominous. Can you talk a bit about this dichotomy?
I love writing melancholic, dark music. I've tried happy songs and they never work as well. I've suffered on and off from depression since about 16, so maybe that's affected my writing. I love the power of sound and the dichotomy of upbeat music versus. quite dark lyrics. The Smiths are big guns for that. I wanted the dark, ominous sounds to almost be answering the question “Is This Love” sonically, creating a soundscape to the messed up thoughts you have in your head. I enjoy making the music quite filmic in that sense. You have a lot of soldiers fighting throughout the video. Do you have a thing for guys in uniform or is there a connection here between love and war?
Haha, woah, oh my God, cringe. Love and war definitely have a lot in common. Sometimes we can keep making the same mistakes in relationships and it’s like we never learn. War is very similar. It’s still happening now even after the billions of people that have been killed in wars all around the world for centuries. It also has connotations of the inner war that happens in our heads I suppose and in our homes of course when relationships get a bit tough. Do you dance a lot when you perform live? It seems hard to resist with your music.Thanks man. Yeah, I love music that makes you want to move. I dance like a loon a lot on my own in my room, so when I perform live it’s much of the same! It’s not Backstreet Boys levels [laughs], but it’s fine. Join Mathias Rosenzweig in dancing while embracing confusion on Twitter.