15 November 2023
Newsdesk
PinkPantheress joins Zane Lowe in studio on Apple Music 1 to discuss her new debut album ‘Heaven Knows’. She tells Apple Music about embracing authenticity and emerging from her shell, finding the courage to pursue music, writing about intense topics, and how music helped her get through her teenage years. She also touches on discovering dance music, when she felt like she first succeeded, sampling, her music being leaked, what she’s most excited to do in 2024, and more.
PinkPantheress on Embracing Authenticity and Emerging From Her Shell…
I never look at other artists and think “hmmm”, but I realize the artists that I have looked at during my own career and looked at and thought, “wow, they've really done it in a way which I think is beautiful and effortless”…. Those are the people where I've realized they haven't really had to convince anybody about anything. They've just kind of been themselves… when I was emerging out from my shell of not really showing my face and then showing my face, I realized that people were… it felt easy because people were telling me what I was. I didn't have to be like, this is what I am. And their assumptions were correct. It was like, "Yes, I am this shy girl from this small city in the UK. I was an emo. I do dress like this. I do have this kind of humor. They were telling me. And I was like, “yeah, they're kind of right.”
PinkPantheress on Finding The Courage To Pursue Music……
I was really shy. The courage to do music really, really stemmed from my desperation to be successful. I always knew I wanted to be successful, and I always knew I wanted to do exactly what I wanted to do in my brain. And what that was was an accumulation. I actually wanted to be a flipping film editor. I wanted to be in films. There was even part of me that wanted be an actress. There was part of me that just wanted to be someone successful so I can just be happy about the success that I've built for myself. I knew I didn't want to have a job where I wasn't sure about my success. I wanted it to be like, okay, I'm doing this job and I'm good at it. So the courage really came from, I'm desperate right now. So when I was 18, that was where I was like, okay, it's between going to university or doing what I want as my dream job. And it's so funny. At 19, I felt like time was running out. I had fear of, I literally had fear of, I was like, oh my God, these young people doing all these parties and having money and being able to buy cars. I was like, okay, I really need to figure this out.
PinkPantheress on Dealing With Intense Subject Matter on Her Debut Album ‘Heaven Knows’…
Genuinely, when it comes to subject matter, I don't know. Honestly, it's like I'm just bleeding onto the paper when I write, you know what I'm saying? And this has been from the beginning of my music. It's weird because I make it sound like I'm constantly chasing love and affection from someone, which isn't true to my conscious belief. But then somewhere in my subconscious belief, it must be true because I keep talking about it. So, it makes it, honestly, I'm not too sure. But there are issues in the album such as there's a song about me dying. It's one called Ophelia, where someone's actually killing me. They're drowning me in a bathtub. That's literally what it's about. That is definitely one of the worst ways to go. I did think about that too.
PinkPantheress on How Music Helped Her Get Through Her Teenage Years…
Oh, it was the most pivotal part. Well, actually it was then when I realized that music could actually influence your whole identity, down to the clothes, down to the hair, even down to how you speak and talked. So, obviously I was emo, I was friends with all the emos at my school, and that was really my life. Music ruled my life to the point when they started listening to other music, I then joined them and started listening to the other bits of music they were... So, we all made this transition together from emo to this genre, to this genre, we all made it together.
PinkPantheress on Discovering Dance Music…
When I found dance music, I was about, I don't know, 17. Honestly, the reason I always mention Kaytranada is because that was my segue. That was my gateway into music. Even though he is Canadian and not British. When I found his collaboration with Aluna George, that was kind of when I was like, "Okay, let me go down this path." That's where I discovered Sam Smith with Disclosure. You find all these garage tracks that at the time, Jorja Smith On My Mind had that big moment. Then I was like, "Okay, that's an amazing song. What else can we find?" Then you find Sunship, then you find Shy FX. Then you find that whole group and you're like, "Hey, now this is garage." And now we've found ourselves at Mike Skinner with The Streets. And so it's a literal ... It's like an iceberg.
PinkPantheress on TikTok and When She First Felt Like She Succeeded…
Okay. It's just so funny speaking about in Gen Z terms, but honestly when my first TikTok blew up, because all I do use TikTok for and wanted to use it for was for music. I was never about vlogging or this is what I ate today. It was all about, this is for strictly music. So when I first posted my first snippet, and it didn't go viral, this is the thing, I hate the “viral”… but when I had the first few hundred comments being like, "Oh my God, this is amazing." I was like, okay, success. The relationship is real, and I can trust my ears. Because I thought this was good when I made it, or I thought it was good enough, and then people were confirming it for me. So I was like, "Okay, good. This is great."
PinkPantheress on Sampling…
…when it comes to sampling, I try and use the more obscure ones. Back at home everyone knows the song. But over here I try and make sure people on the radio in America are not going to know where the sample's from.
PinkPantheress on Her Music Being Leaked…
See for me… I don't know. I think it's nice for real fans to have a feeling of, oh... “I got this”. Especially my fans, because they're such fiends for the actual music itself. They're fiends for the music itself. It's a bit of a friendship gift. I won't say romantic. I'm platonic with my fans.
PinkPantheress on What She’s Most Excited To Do in 2024…
I'm actually really excited to see which song people are drawn to the most. I'm not saying that's something that's specifically for next year. I'm also excited to go on tour, even though I… no, I'm lying. I'm not. I want to write more for people. I want to do more writing sessions.
PinkPantheress on Joining Paramore On Stage for “Misery Business”…
Well, I watched the same thing happen when I was 14, where she brought someone doing that exact bit to the point where the manager came up before I went on stage. He was like, “well, we might call you up to do this section. I am not really too sure if we will, but would you be down if we pulled you from backstage? Would you be down to go up?” And I was like, “yeah, of course”. But he was like,
“oh, by the way, the section of the song is”. And I literally was like, “you don't need to tell me which section of the song it is. I know what it is.”And I'd watched someone else do it when I was 14, the same section. She was wearing a dinosaur onesie. And I remember thinking to myself, I could never do what that woman did. Going up on that stage in front of, I was like, no way. Even going up on the stage now with those many people, I was like, this is horrible.
