Weekend – La Varieté

I think we were about 16, me and Emma and my mates Bunny and Maxine. We were all at school together. I can't remember what gig we were at but we got collared by this guy who was writing a piece for LA Weekly, or the LA Times, I can't remember which. He interviewed us as young London punk girls and there was a whole article about the London scene at the time.

One of the things I remember is they took us to HMV and said we could all pick an album. Emma picked this album. When we were that age, we sort of fed off each other. It was really good to have a circle of friends who were all really into music. There was always a bit of a sort of, ‘Weekend are an Emma band and I can't tread all over her toes’. So it was something that I was into, but wouldn't really talk about in case I was encroaching on her territory.

If you want an album to conjure up the summertime, this is it. For me it's got that kind of mellowness. I actually love the fact that she has quite a normal voice. It's not necessarily a trained voice. It breaks in certain places, and there's a vulnerability. I think sometimes that a very professional can lack emotion. I actually think there's a sort of sincerity to having a voice that is – I mean, I may be saying that because I'm actually quite shit singer, but it feels kind of real, doesn't it? When you deliver a lyric, and you're struggling to hit those notes sometimes I do think it has a sincerity to it. It really does feel like you mean what you're singing and not just performing it.