"I used to be scared of singing"

On stage, Anna Calvi is a force of nature, pacing around, shredding her guitar, switching between powerful operatic singing and ear-splitting shouts. She saunters down the catwalk-like stage, then stops, making direct eye contact with an audience member. Calvi walks gradually closer, eyes still locked, until she’s on her knees, her forehead pressed against theirs, while still playing a wild and wheezing guitar solo. In that moment, and many others during this London gig, it’s clear what makes Calvi stand out from her musical peers, and why she now counts Nick Cave and Brian Eno among her fans.

Off stage, by contrast, the two-time Mercury Prize nominee and former member of the judging panel is calm and softly spoken. But her conviction is no less present. As she sips tea, smiling occasionally, she talks about her third album, Hunter, a bold and noisy rock record on which the 37-year-old from Twickenham explores sexuality and breaking the laws of gender conformity…

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The Red Bulletin: Your music career began in 2008, and since then you’ve built a reputation as one of the best and most inventive guitarists around. How did you first fall in love with the instrument?

Anna Calvi: I started playing the guitar when I was eight years old. I was a very shy child and it was a way of having a voice. It gave me an identity I wouldn’t have otherwise had.

Having witnessed your wild live show, that comes as some surprise...

Actually, until my mid-twenties I was quite phobic about singing. I wouldn’t sing at all, ever – not even in the shower.

Why was that?

I just didn’t think I’d be able to do it, because my speaking voice is very quiet. Then I thought that it must feel so liberating to use your voice that way, and I was curious – could I do it?

So you started as some form of personal therapy?

Yeah, like really letting go. If you’re introverted, you’re holding in a lot of stuff and you need to find an outlet, whatever it is. For me, singing was how I let go of all that energy.

Do you remember the moment you tried it for the first time?

I was at my parents’ house and they were getting the floors done, so there was no furniture. There was this natural reverb, so I just very quietly started humming to myself. I thought, “Maybe there’s something I could work with.” That was the start of me trying to become a singer.

How do you go from not singing at all to being praised for your operatic skills?

I just practised for hours and hours and listened to singers I loved, like Nina Simone and David Bowie.

How do you practise?

When you train your voice, you go through different stages. First of all, you need to strengthen your voice like a muscle. It’s like in football: you need to be able to run around the pitch without being out of breath. And then it’s about learning techniques you can forget about later, but that allow you to be freer in your voice. And then more recently, for my new record, I experimented with singing higher, because previously I always used the low, darker tones of my voice. There’s something about singing high and loud that feels even more freeing. And because it’s a record about wanting to be free from any restraint and be liberated in whatever way, the subject matter made it feel thematically right to sing higher.

Calvi: “I wanted the music on this album to feel really wild; for the voice and guitar to be this raw, unleashed energy”

How do you translate a desire for liberation into an album?

I wanted the music on this record to feel like freedom, to feel really wild; for the voice and the guitar to be this raw, unleashed energy that won’t be contained. There are a lot of songs that imagine a more utopian way of experiencing the world as a queer person. There are moments where I wanted to sound really beautiful. There’s this contrast between very loud, primal, brutal sounds and moments that are meant to feel more intimate and vulnerable.

In the song Hunter, you sing: “I dressed myself in leathers, with flowers in my hair.” Is that a nod to the idea that we can be both hunter and hunted?

Yes, we like to put labels on things, but actually the world isn’t like that. I felt very restricted by what a woman is meant to be and how they’re depicted in culture, having to be perfect and passive. And if they want to be powerful, to be heard, they have to behave like men. I imagine how useful it would be for a young version of me to see a more realistic depiction of a woman going out into the world and hunting for whatever pleasure she wants, without any shame. Someone who’s the protagonist in her own story.

Why do you think so many people still cling to old gender stereotypes?

I think things are changing gradually, but it’s like the tide: you make some progress and then things go back a bit. But I feel we’re going in the right direction. A lot of the problem is that the people who have the power, who decide what gets shown – in the film industry, for instance – are all white men. Until the people at the top represent a wider spectrum of society, we’re going to have the same problems.

Conservative political parties are on the rise across Europe – what’s your take on the current situation?

It’s a weird combination of things being really positive and really negative at the same time. On the one hand, you have these extreme caricatures of the most toxic kinds of masculinity. But on the other, you now have young people who don’t want to live by the same gender binary, because it’s much easier to be a queer person than it has ever been. What’s hopeful is that it feels like young people now are way more aware of politics and seem more clued-up and liberal than they’ve been in a long time.

Why is that, do you think?

I imagine it must be the internet. They have access to the world and can connect with like-minded people in a way that wasn’t possible in the 1990s. Back then, women had to show they were one of the boys and that they were fine going to a strip club. That was their way of coping, whereas now it’s OK to be angry that things aren’t right. That’s really important. There’s always this attitude towards the angry woman: “Oh God, shut up!” But anger is an important and essential part of change – you have to be angry that things aren’t progressing to have the energy to do something different.

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Hunter is out now; annacalvi.com

Words: Florian Obkircher

Photography: Maisie Cousins