TRNSMT

To kick off our TRNSMT coverage, Megan Merino speaks to Beabadoobee, the UK-Filipino star who grew up on 90s indie rock. Here she talks about riding a wave of nostalgia and refusing to be discouraged by bad teachers

Beabadoobee’s career may have been catapulted by a viral TikTok sound when rapper owfu sampled her first single ‘Coffee’ back in , but she remains unsentimental about the app. ‘TikTok is shit if you’re on it constantly,’ insists the ondon-raised singersongwriter who was born in the hilippines as eatrice Kristi. ‘ ut it’s a great opportunity for artists to show their work and be discovered. And I’m not going to ignore that.’

Kristi is talking down a slightly crackly phone line ahead of catching a flight to begin her stretch of

UK and uropean music festivals, taking in lastonbury, ad Cool and T T. ‘I love playing gigs in cotland the kids are actually mental,’ she laughs. ‘ ne time I was in dinburgh and I got some random guy to recite the whole Trainspotting monologue.’

The combination of tweeness and emotional honesty in her early tracks (‘I’ll make a cup of coffee with the right amount of sugar how you like it’ ‘You haven’t been good for a while, is it the sound of your thoughts ’ resonated deeply with fans and pricked the ears of independent record label irty it, who she still works with today. After this fleeting trip to urope, eabadoobee is heading to the

U where she’ll support leachers ( ack Antonoff’s band on tour, as she has done for the likes of alsey and The over the past couple of years. ot bad company to be keeping as she ascends from bedroom indie ‘it girl’ to full-blown rock star, but the glit doesn’t always sit well with Kristi. ‘I’m playing these shows and I wouldn’t want to change it for the world,’ she states. ‘ ut I’m still trying to figure myself out. I’m still trying to heal the -year-old girl inside of me.’ The -year-old ea was ‘very unpopular, very shy and super selfconscious’, she recalls, and it was only after an unsettling e pulsion from si th form that she picked up the guitar and began writing more seriously. hile album Fake It Flowers (which reached number eight in the UK Albums Chart was a candid deep-dive into eabadoobee’s adolescent mind, upcoming record Beatopia sees the -year-old reclaiming a more whimsical world which originated in her seven-year-old imagination.

‘I created this world, eatopia. I made a poster, made up names for every country and even had these weird symbols for every single letter of the alphabet. I was so proud of it.’ Yet this sweet memory was tainted by an unthoughtful teacher (‘a complete dickhead’ she insists who found the poster and ridiculed her for it in front of the entire class.

The unlocked memory of eatopia became the inspiration for eabadoobee’s new record, where she wants not to inhabit the fictitious world but instead better understand the child that created it. ‘ riting Beatopia helped me focus on what was happening in my life, right in that very moment.’

Questions of identity make their way onto the album as she touches on bad mental health, psychedelics, the perils of growing up, and love. ‘I write a lot when I’m in love. I think it’s important to cherish that moment when you have it and write about it. In all honesty, the best songs I write are my love songs.

I am a big romantic. aybe it’s time to grow up a little bit.’

Beatopia certainly feels like eabadoobee’s most sophisticated album yet. The continued s indie-rock influences are also impossible to ignore, despite Kristi’s frustrations of always being saddled with the comparison.

‘It’s really flattering that people say they feel nostalgic towards my music, but in no way am I trying to recreate or revive this whole thing. verything is inspired by something and every generation wants to romanticise a generation before them. It’s just an inevitability. e’re going to be in the year and everyone’s going to be doing what we’re doing now.’

Beabadoobee plays the King Tut’s Stage at TRNSMT on Friday 8 July; Beatopia is released by Dirty Hit on Friday 15 July.

TRNSMT NO MORE EGOS

The Snuts are rising to rock’s higher echelons at a cracking pace. Band leader Jack Cochrane tells Fiona Shepherd how the band’s momentum conquered covid

To invoke the old music biz cliché: artists have a lifetime to write their debut album with that diffi cult follow-up being cobbled together in hotel rooms and at soundchecks. That may have been true before the pandemic, but for long periods over the past two years musicians have had nothing but time: a lu ury or a curse, depending on circumstances. eing largely upbeat types, The nuts would err towards the former. ut not every band can say they scored a debut number-one album during a national lockdown.

‘ e were just determined not to let that slow us down momentum-wise,’ says frontman ack Cochrane. ‘ o, it was a good time to look at what we were trying to become as a band and take a breath to do that.’

The nuts are all about the progression. ormed at school in hitburn in , they moved steadily through the ranks of indie hopefuls to join their est othian neighbours ewis Capaldi and usan oyle at the top of the charts with debut calling card W L . It wasn’t an easy birth. ‘ e didn’t know what we were doing,’ says Cochrane. ‘ e started the fi rst half in America and I don’t think we’d even been abroad before. e were stuck in A, which is a really depressing place if you don’t know what’s going on. e were just really na ve to how it all worked. And terrifi ed: is anyone going to like this ’

In stark contrast, their second album (due out in early ctober was recorded in isolation with the pressure off. ‘ aving been through that e perience we are much less precious. I think the preciousness can put a chokehold on your music and this time we were very free and open, and not fi lled with pointless ego. ow when we’re writing songs, we’re trying to look at it from a more conversational point, less introverted, trying to look at the big picture, not just our small town and our culture.’ ever one to sit still, Cochrane is already writing for a third album before the second is out, and in the meantime, the taster singles ‘ urn The mpire’ and ‘ uckerpunch’ (about state and social-media control respectively are out there and ready to be showcased at The nuts’ forthcoming T T appearance. aving grown up with T In The ark as a distant totem, the band have cultivated their own growth-relationship with its successor. ‘The fi rst shout we ever got for T T, we were still kids who didn’t know how to play our guitars yet,’ says Cochrane. ‘ o, it’s been a big part of the progression for us as a band: fi rst time super amateur, second time semi pro. This time we want to show how far we’ve come in front of a home crowd. e’ve got lots of big surprises. e’re going to go right out there with this one.’

TRNSMT NO MORE EGOS

NORTH STAR

Playing to a huge crowd in the Norwegian capital was less of a homecoming gig for Scandi pop star Sigrid than a statement of intent. As she prepares for a TRNSMT headline slot, Shaun Milne meets her backstage and talks harmonies, hits and happiness

There was a moment under the spotlight at Oslo’s Spektrum arena, only fl eetingly, when the tiny frame of igrid shook her head and fl icked her hand momentarily into the air, before launching into another vocal harmony with the band. link and you’d have missed it. It probably didn’t even register among most of the near , -capacity crowd of music-loving orwegians and international travelling fans who greeted the efforts on stage with roars of approval. ut when I asked later if there had been a point during the -song set where she’d been able to just pause, look out at the sea of faces and take in the absolute ama ingness of what she’d achieved, the -year-old says, ‘ouff . . . that was during “ row”. I really had to keep it together to not cry when I looked over at the band standing right ne t to me. I just felt so proud of us and them we’ve been rehearsing harmonies for everyone and it’s so fun.’

And she’s right to feel that swell of pride. ‘ row’ embodies confi dence (the clue is in the title . tripped back from the dancefl oor-bothering ‘ irror’ and ‘ urning ridges’, and the anthemic early days of a crowd-pleaser such as ‘ on’t Kill y ibe’, her musical family gathered around the piano is the e uivalent of a roaring fi re. All very ‘koselig’, musically it’s a nod to Coldplay (an early inspiration , while the sheer work that had gone into preparing this full-band harmonising shouldn’t go unappreciated.

This was no ordinary gig. n the day that igrid’s second album H ow To Let G o was released in a bla e of publicity, this was e traordinary vindication of holding onto a cherished dream and telling herself: don’t stop believing. ‘I remember writing my fi rst songs on the piano in lesund, daydreaming about maybe, maybe, one day playing slo pektrum. ever could I have imagined it to be as fun as it was, only hours after dropping my second album. I literally had the time of my life up there with my best mates, forever grateful to everyone who showed up and sang so loud that I could barely hear myself.’

It was emotional too. igrid spoke passionately on stage about how much it meant to her, with a vast crowd gathered there to watch this crowning moment of orway’s ueen of pop. tage cannons fi red ticker tape and confetti high into the air digital screens wowed with da ling backdrops right from the star-studded opener of ‘It ets ark’ lights high in the ceiling delicately picked out the intimacy and illuminated moments of raw energy.

This full-on production was in view of the record companies, managers, publicity agents, make-up artists and stylists who together have come to respect igrid the business leader as much as the feted creative performer. rom the alluring, dangerfi lled fi ght or fl ight of ‘ ancer’ to the street-skipping tears of a ta i in the discoes ue ‘A river aved y ight’, it was clear that her new album is a mature step on from the naked optimism of Sucker Punch . igrid and her music are now very much stadium-ready.

NORTH STAR

Those who grew up with parents listening to The Beatles (or even Oasis) may smile at the strains of ‘Mistake Like You’ while ‘Thank Me Later’ could be a Killers-edged tissue to wipe away the tears of a lingering break-up: ‘we’re just scared of being quitters,’ she laments in the latter song, while ‘someone should say the words we’re choking on’ perhaps shouldn’t sound so upbeat. But on an album that is as much a spinning story as it is a track-list, that ‘fuck it’ moment of moving on just makes sense.

While comparisons to other artists might help newbies contextualise her sound, make no mistake, the partnership with her songwriting and production team, including Emily Warren (who also created hits for Dua Lipa and Backstreet Boys), is original and still evolving. No doubt they will face the intellectual snobbery of a music-mag elite or a surge in lazy, daytime-TV questions. But to do so misses the point.

‘How To Let Go’ has been a long time coming for her fans. No doubt her too. Gigs have been rescheduled, trips to the US made, signatures have gone from legible to scrawl in the never-ending signing sessions, social media activity has been stepped-up, posters have been plastered, and there are wall-to-wall TV, radio and live appearances for the next . . . well, how long have you got?

As her final track alludes, she wants to get as much in as possible. To leave on a ‘High Note’. No regrets, just lived experiences. Like the dream come true at the Spektrum or her current European tour. All the things that make her one of the hardest working artists in the business. ne last uestion: what was the first thing she thought when she woke up after that stand-out gig in Oslo? ‘Fuck, I have to wake up? It’s too early!’ Then, she adds: ‘I’m so happy, the happiest I could be.’ Which is how any one of us should learn how to let go.

Sigrid plays the Main Stage at TRNSMT on Sunday 10 July; Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Tuesday 8 November.

Who else to catch at TRNSMT

FRIDAY 8 JULY

Paolo Nutini and Sam Fender will be joint headliners on the Main Stage, which will also play host to perpetual party starters Nile Rodgers & Chic, twentysomething hunk Tom Grennan, and Brit Award nominee Ella Henderson. But our pick of the day is Kitti, whose award-winning jazz noise make her a must-see when she graces the King Tut’s Stage.

SATURDAY 9 JULY

Guitar thrashers The Strokes headline the Main Stage this year, with synth-pop warbler Years & Years and post-rock champs Fontaines DC also playing earlier in the day. The King Tut’s Stage is well stocked for indie nostalgists, with performances from 90s punks Jimmy Eat World, art rockers Maximo Park and genre revivalists Wet Leg. Our fave rapper Bemz will also make his TRNSMT debut on the River Stage.

SUNDAY 10 JULY

Lewis Capaldi returns to headline the Main Stage (presumably with Chewbacca mask in tow) alongside rock outfit Wolf Alice and big-haired Glasgow chanter Dylan John Thomas. Lovers of guitar-wielding lads can rejoice at the King Tut’s Stage, which features boy band Easy Life and exuberant alt-rockers Gang Of Youths, plus acoustic troubadours Thomas Headon, Jamie Webster and Alfie Templeman.

Sigrid serenades the masses at TRNSMT in 2019; pictures by Ryan Johnston