Long May She Rain - Interview with SOAK

The day before she arrived in Dublin, Bridie Monds-Watson had her mind blown. Her SOAK performances have brought her far and wide of late – she describes the last eight months as the busiest of her life – but not every stage is equal in stature. When it came to early ambitions for the Derry artist, two were at the top. Playing Glastonbury was checked off the list last year and proved as life-changing as she’d hoped, marking the moment Rough Trade saw her and “swooped in” to win her over the majors thanks to the genuine spirit of partners Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee. The second was appearing on Later with... Jools Holland. Done and done. She can retire before her debut album hits shelves.
"Scary as fuck but an incredible experience!!” the 19-year-old says today in the capital, getting her mind picked by yours truly. “I had the seat at the side that they kept panning too – they would watch me vibing out to some of the songs. At the start you take a photo. So I was standing with Jools Holland and Paul Weller. Weller was just chatting away: ‘How are you?’and ‘Where are you from?’ Dead nice guy. Jools seemed the same, he came over and said some very nice stuff.”
Well, Jools is a genial host and The Modfather was being neighbourly: their dressing-rooms were side-by-side.
"Before the show, he was in the hallway taking phonecalls. Really chilled, which was weird.”
In his teens himself when The Jam became A Big Deal, he’s been at it for over 40 years, so no wonder he takes it all in his stride. This is Monds-Watson’s first time at the rodeo. So there are pressures and new experiences. She’s selling out gigs in Australia and Italy, travelling to the States (“towns I’d never heard of, packed full of people,” she marvels). A chance to see the world but then you have to face those pesky journos. Some with little English. “You know when you answer the question that they’re going to write it down weird. And then in some places they’ll get sarcasm but others...”
She’s yet to make lasting friendships in far-flung places, but the internet makes home contact easier. Her daily nutrition has been analysed in The Telegraph (really). There’s a growing team, a machine, for which she’s responsible, too.
“I see all the people on a chain mail that’s been sent out saying, ‘the new single’s being announced today’. There’s a hundred names there. And those are people that work for me and probably half of those really intensely work for me.”
As with everything so far in her career, she’s handled it with poise and assuredness.
“Everything we’ve done has been really well chosen,” she notes.
So we can all stop making such a play about her age. Not only is she in adulthood, it seems even more patronising and redundant when you consider she’s knocking stripes off musical peers twice her age.
She recognised and nurtured her ability early on and seized her chance. You may say she’s a romantic, titling her debut album Before We Forgot How To Dream, a lyric taken from the track ‘Oh Brother', but it says much about her sense of realism.
"It means a time before people have responsibility and have to provide for themselves in order to live. With a lot of people in the creative industry, their dreams die. Their aspirations are just gone."
So she's striking while the iron is hot. And creatively, SOAK is on fire. The spark was there from the start, and last year's releases added fuel to the fire, with new textures and real sophistication. There's no reason why she can't explode when her long player-hits. Placing her older numbers alongside more recent efforts and applying a lush sound to it all, the only word is accomplished. Every song, whether fresh-faced or fan favourite, was lovingly crafted one track at a time. Each is "true to itself", Monds-Watson affirms. "It's just gotten a makeover." So the 13 are all dressed up and ready for their graduation ceremony. Praise can go to producer Tommy McLaughlin of Villagers who worked with the songwriter in Donegal on that velvety sound, which occasionally matches those vocals in the remarkable stakes.
"With all my work, I'm just trying to outdo myself all the time," Bridie says. "Definitely I think I've gone up in terms of production and ideas. It's exactly where I want it to be."
Typically, that's a place she's already moved on from since its completion.
"Which is weird, because the album hasn't even come out! I've go the bones of second album. But I'm glad it's working out that way."
The debut has an obvious 'tracing the teen years' narrative, "unconsciously written over the past four years" as it was. Has she started to disconnect from the sentiments of any of those first lyrics?
"'Sea Creatures' has always stayed true to itself bar the instrumentation," she says by way of example. "When I listen to it now, the thing that rings for me is the chorus [I don't think they know what love is/Throw it around like it's worthless]. What with everything going on in Ireland and Northern Ireland with the conscience clause and all that shit. Multiple different things. And there's a whole part of the song that's about loving the town you live in but also really wanting to get away from it and all the people there. I've never gotten rid of that feeling."
We'll refrain from harping on abut LGBT concerns and marriage referendums. Monds-Watson has spoken to Hot Press before about being "out" (how irritating that that's still even a necessary thing), but not being defined by it.
"Gay press-wise, I've done the absolute minimal and I've chosen really specifically what I do. It's so easy to get that title and once you get it it's so hard to get rid of. It'll be in everything you do: 'lesbian singer-songwriter, blah blah blah.'
"It's a part of me but it's not a prominent part of me," she continues. "It's not something I think about every single day. It's not something that affects my life on a day-to-day basis. If I want to fight for gay rights and I want to say something, I'll say it."
With a young fanbase (to augment the fanbase that includes the rest of us, naturally), she's grappling with being a role model.
"People put that on you, you've no choice about that. Which obviously makes me think a lot about what you do, knowing that there are a lot of children that are younger than me listening to things I say and taking them seriously. That's pressure. I understand that happens and that's fair enough. And I want to provide for those people as well. I'm not going to ignore issues that are happening, but I'm not going to talk about things I don't know much about either."
One thing she knows plenty about, being an informed Northern Irish voter, is the Conservative landslide victory in the recent UK general election. She knows it only too well, and is not best pleased.
While she doesn't go in for "Illuminati shit", she says she "honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was fixed."
"I don't know anybody, at all, who voted Tory! Not one single person that I know. It does not make sense to me.
"It's gonna fuck our whole system," she continues. "That UKIP was even allowed to be a thing is fucking crazy. It's incredible how far backwards it's moved when people fought so hard to have the things we have. The rich stay rich and it's fucked up. I'm glad there are people protesting it. There needs to be that show of people because otherwise it's going to get ignored."
A deep breath.
"When I feel like I need to talk about things, I'm gonna."
However she chooses to use her voice, be it in SOAK or as a spokesperson for a generation, it could make a powerful sound that echoes for years to come.