Rae Morris

Ethereal singer songwriter Rae Morris has a huge future ahead of her. Before her first Forest Live gig, she tells Ella Walker – over the sound of sheep – about admiring Tom Odell and wanting her music to make an emotional connection.

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celeb interview

‘‘I

can pull the most horrific faces, like I can make my face look really, really ugly. I’ve been taking lots of pictures of myself looking really gross.”

This is 22-year-old singer songwriter and pianist Rae Morris inadvertently making a great case for becoming the next Cara Delevingne, supposedly stretching her porcelain features into stomach churning grimaces.

Thing is, she’s much too pretty, and if the wind changes direction, instead of getting stuck with a screwed up face, she’s more likely to end up getting knocked out by a hank of corkscrew curls – she has the most amazing hair. But neither her face nor her hair got her on the BBC Sound of 2015 long list. That was all thanks to her music.

Blackpool born Rae, real name Rachel Anne (“My grandfather was called Raymond, so that’s why I call myself Rae, he played piano”), was head girl at school and wanted to go to the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, but got rejected. Instead she went to the Leeds College of Music, relentlessly performed at open mic nights and got offered a record deal with Atlanta over salt and vinegary fish and chips after a gig when she was 18.

“I’ve been lucky because I’ve never been thrown into anything, I’ve never been jolted into the limelight, so it’s all been quite natural and lovely,” she says, explaining how Atlanta gave her time – an almost unheard of three whole years – to ruminate and develop, out of the shiny glare of the public and media. “I feel I’ve not changed in any way. I’ve been able to continue doing everything that I do. I still get to spend time with my family and stuff without feeling completely alienated. It’s been a lovely natural progression.”

That progression led to debut singles, Don’t Go and Grow, and collaborations with Clean Bandit, Sivu and Bombay Bicycle Club. She appeared on three Bombay tracks, including single Luna, after meeting the indie boys through her sister-in-law, folk singer Lucy Rose. Joining them on stage at Glastonbury last summer is still the most mental occasion she’s been swept up in, musically speaking, so far. “That was a crazy moment, that whole weekend was kinda crazy because I’d never experienced anything like it.”

Rae’s also supported George Ezra, Lianne La Havas and Tom Odell on tour, the latter of which appeared on Grow. “Tom’s wonderful. He’s a true artist. He’s very enthusiastic and creative. I think the best artists are quite intense, he’s very involved in his art and that’s a really good thing I think.”

Now she is once again joining forces with Odell for a Thetford Forest concert as part of the Forest Live series.

“I hope the weather’s going to be nice,” she buzzes. “I think the atmosphere can be so amazing if everyone gets involved and is up for it.”

A keen runner and former netball player, Rae is a big fan of being in the great outdoors. When we speak she’s on a day off in the Lake District where her parents now live, and there is much baa-ing going on in the background. “It’s pretty beautiful. I think it’s a sheep, can you hear that?! Haha.”

The former Blackpool FC waitress is currently based in East London having dragged her piano (a 15th birthday present) along with her. She started bashing away at keys aged 4, prompted by her parents (“They really wanted me and my brother to play piano”) and her grandfather’s memory (“I think for my dad it was important his children played as well”), finding inspiration in Kate Bush and Cat Power along the way.

Unguarded, her debut album released in January, is the 12-track result. It went in at number nine in the UK chart and certainly deserved a ranking nearer the top spot. Haunting, keening and layered with beats and chords that thrum and shiver, she doesn’t make party anthems (although you could definitely have a bit of a dance to Love Again); instead her music cracks and hums with emotion, piano keys plinking on your tear ducts.

Her favourite song to play live from it, at the moment at least, is Morne Fortuné. “It’s about family, about loved ones, your close friends and families. I think it was the first song that I hadn’t written about myself, it’s about other people so I like that.” On paper the lyrics – “There’s a rain coming/ It pours down love/ To protect us” – don’t fly out at you, but set to music, they take on heart-breaking dimensions.

In an interview with The Independent earlier this year, Rae credited fellow Blackpool singer, Karima Francis, and their two-year relationship, for teaching her how to write, building on an inbuilt bent towards keeping a diary and collating notes and lists, amalgamating them into song; into Unguarded. “At the time I wasn’t really considering what I was doing,” she muses. “I was just using the music as a way to express myself and to document moments in time, so I never really worried about [over sharing], and now I just feel very lucky that people have received it so well.

“I really want people to feel a sense of emotion of some sort, just to have an emotional reaction would be a wonderful thing, and if they feel any relief or release or connection to the words. I think there’s something so powerful about turning to a piece of music in a moment of calm, or a moment of feeling sad, and if I can help in any way in that respect, that’s my whole reason for doing it.”

Following a summer of Forest Live and festival performances Rae will be returning to Cambridge (“I remember it being a really beautiful place”), on her first major headline tour in the UK. The only negative about that is it’s hindering her getting back in the studio, not that she isn’t constantly jotting down potential lyrics.

“I’m always writing things down, I’m always thinking of new ideas and thoughts, but I probably won’t get in the studio until the end of the year because of all the touring,” she says with a touch of sadness. “[I’m just] documenting everything and making sure that I can look back on the year.”

She sounds like quite a planner. Has she her career all mapped out? “I do like to look forward and always think of the next thing, but it’s hard to know exactly what will happen, everything changes all the time.

I definitely wouldn’t have known what was coming five years ago.”

Right now she’s focused on “staying well and staying healthy”, a tricky balance when you’re on the road so much. “Like I’m really sensible and don’t really do much drinking, but you can still always pick up colds and it’s hard to keep healthy and look after your voice; it’s really important and quite difficult.”

When she’s not downing honey and lemon or scribbling in her diary, Rae is hunting down new piano musicians to listen to (“I love them all!”), or daydreaming about collaborating with producer and electronics musician Jon Hopkins. “I’ve been listening to those Late Night Tales collaboration albums where somebody curates a record. I listened to the Jon Hopkins one a lot.

Collaborating with someone cool and electronic like [him] would be amazing.”

How could he say no?

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Tom Odell + Rae Morris, Forest Live, Thetford Forest, Sunday, July 5, gates open from 6pm.

Some tickets left. Full details at forestry.gov.uk.

Book now: Rae Morris plays Cambridge Junction on Tuesday, october 6. Tickets are £14 from (01223) 511511 / junction.co.uk.