Flo Morrissey Interview

The Beatles? At least half of them were as Irish as they come. Morrissey? A fine Kildare man. Kurt Cobain? One of the most famous Corkonians of the past half-century. When Ireland claims you as one of its own, however tenuously, it's a surer sign that you're a musician going places than a scientifically-tested Pitchfork rating of 9.2. Going on the evidence of her surefooted debut album, Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful, it's time to start bragging about Flo Morrissey's Celtic credentials.
A polite, properly posh 20-year-old from London (her family would retreat from Notting Hill to a countryside residence on weekends), her roots over here are clear given that surname, as well as the fact that she comes from an absolutely humungous family.
"I'm half Irish," she smiles. "My dad is fully Irish. He's from Waterford. I love Ireland but sadly I haven't gotten to go over much. I'm one of nine children, so when theres that many of us it's hard to all go away together!"
The second eldest, it was her older brother and father that exposed her to quality artists as a kid, fuelling her passion for music.
"We used to listen to the likes of Nick Drake and Bob Dylan," she recalls. "So that really set the foundation for the type of music that I would like and end up writing. They really helped me find my way. And then to find new things on my own."
Early on, Morrissey was quite classically minded, until rock 'n' roll and, later, freak folk captivated her.
"I thought I'd do opera singing when I was 10 but I soon realised that wasn't really what I was into, so I picked up a guitar when I was 14, got into garage bands and got really excited about an A minor chord. Then I started putting my own stuff on Myspace. I think people could see that I wasn't coming from a label that was trying to 'sell' me."
Devendra Banhart was one teenage love, so it was a bit of a fairy tale when her Super 8 video for early number 'Show Me' caught the eye and ear of the Texan's manager Aram Goldberg.
"I'd been meeting people in London and I didn't really feel like any of them were how a manager should be," she says. "It didn't feel like me. So I stuck it out and kept doing my own thing. Then out of the blue [Aram] got in touch and I thought 'No way, this must be a joke.' Regardless of managing Devendra, he really gets me. Which is the key thing to have a team around you and lets you be in control."
Meeting musician and producer Noah Georgeson also proved incredibly fortuitous, as the Latin Grammy winner twiddled the knobs for Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful.
"I've been a huge fan of Noah since I was, like 10, so it was an honour to work with him," she says, wide-eyed, of recording her LP in LA.
"It was the first time I'd properly collaborated with someone. It felt very natural and fun to be coming up with things on the spot too. It was really inspiring to see how another musician's mind works. As for LA? I have a love/hate relationship with it. There's a lot of people having 'brunch'...You just have to keep your wits about you, too, but I'm really happy that I went there because it's such a different environment to where I'd written the songs. It gave the album a warmth. The sunshine had that influence on the songs."
As a collection, it tells the tale of an artist's tentative teen years, its tender British folk injected with some California confidence.
"When I went to the studio it really didn't feel like it was in LA. It was in the mountains, there were flowers there, it was great. Then we'd drive down to see the other side of Hollywood."
Album out now – "it feels like giving birth!" she laughs – Flo is ready to bring it to as many people as possible and see a little more of the world. She's also looking forward to working with her new band, having missed out on the camaraderie of college.
"I left school at 17 and didn't even finish Sixth Form. I felt I needed to be out there in the world – if I wanted to be doing music then I had to get on with it. It was a gamble and a risk to leave. I don't regret it. But it does make it difficult because all my friends are at university and doing something very different."
"It's been really nice to just do rehearsals with the band," she continues. "What a difference it makes! It's a weird job and it can be quite lonely too. But it teaches you a lot."
A recent lesson came from another influence that has entered Flo Morrissey's orbit, cult '60s songwriter Vashti Bunyan (if you haven't heard her classic 'Train Song', "track" it down immediately – you're welcome!)
"She still gets nervous before the show," Morrissey notes. "Which happens to me as well. It was kinda nice to see. It show's we are all human."