Billy Nomates on Glastonbury and Metalhorse

Two years ago, you might’ve been deep in the glow of Barbenheimer, but Tor Maries, the one woman behind Billy Nomates, was dealing with another blow-up. The Bristol-based songwriter faced an onslaught of online abuse following her appearance at Glastonbury. The Park Stage performance marked the end of the musician’s CACTI tour, but the BBC footage has since been removed, at Maries’ request. The uproar was instantaneous. Broadcaster Lauren Laverne insisted that Maries “doesn’t need a band. She is the bloody band!” Producer Steve Albini added that “performing alone in front of people who do not get it deserves infinite respect. Billy Nomates fucking rules.”

Maries isn’t the only artist to speak out against this surging wave of online toxicity. In 2024, Chappell Roan rebuked fans for their increasingly unacceptable behaviour. In a statement on Instagram, she wrote, “I love music and art and honouring my inner child. I do not accept any harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it.” Maries feels similarly. “I've constantly had men look at me confused and say, 'What is this terrible karaoke, awful thing?' People have come to the tour and said that to me,” she explains from her sunny flat in Bristol, a stone’s throw from the city’s infamous Invada Records (and incidentally Maries’ label). While the confrontation wasn’t new, there was a frank realisation to contend with. “Against the odds, I've made it here, and I remember thinking, 'Ah, but it doesn't matter, because they'll never truly accept you.’ Women have taken the bullet for a long fucking time, and some never got back up.”

Maries journey to Worthy Farm has seen the songwriter face countless hurdles. Her self-titled debut landed during a global lockdown where, as she admits, “for a long time, social media was all I had.” She’s since had to grapple with an MS diagnosis and the loss of her father, Pete, who passed away from Parkinson’s disease. “[But in] that moment,” she continues, “I was just like, 'Ah, might fuck it all off for a bit and make a record.' Turns out, I've still got a career.” Her latest record, Metalhorse, came together with her trusty Focusrite interface (“This has written three albums!” she beams, holding the unit aloft to the camera) and snatched moments down the road at the Invada sound desk, one of the merits of these demo states as she reflects. “When you're quite DIY, you can just get a laptop and interface and set up wherever.”

You could, for example, reroute to the South of Spain and find yourself laying down the new record in sunnier climes, which is precisely where we find Maries last September. Unbeknownst to those dishing out snarky asides about the one-woman show in 2023, Maries was loosening the reins, welcoming Scottish-born session bassist Mandy Clarke (KT Tunstall; The Go! Team) and Glasgow-based drummer Liam Chapman (Rozi Plain) into the Billy Nomates fold, with some instant benefits. "We'll finish a show and decompress together. For years, I would go back to sit in a hotel and watch Naked Attraction, analyzing what's happened. Before you know it, you're at the Premier Inn and someone's penis is immediately in front of you, and you're watching it thinking, 'Was that show good? Maybe I shouldn't do this anymore?'”

The studio time in Seville didn’t just cement the union of the three creatives but also another cosmic connection that Maries could never have anticipated. During her vocal takes for album number Dark Horse Friend, Maries mentioned to producer James Trevascus that she was trying to emulate The Stranglers’ Hugh Cornwell. Owner of Paco Laco and Metalhorse engineer, Paco piped up that The Stranglers’ singer would be in the studio tomorrow if she wanted to ask him onto the track. Convinced the conversation was lost in translation, Maries buckled down in the booth. The next day, though, Cornwell showed up bolstering the bright, shimmering singalong. “Had it not been on the album, I would have to call James up and be like, 'Did that happen?'” Of course, the appearance of Cornwell at the studio conjured another very important man to the forefront of Maries mind. “The only person that I wanted to tell about it was Dad,” she shares wistfully.

Her early entry into music, Pete “the renegade hippy”, is the only opinion she’s ever really cared about. “The good thing is that Dad saw so many things happen with me. I'm so grateful he got to see me working as a musician. He had this constant belief that I would do something.” A lot has shifted for Billy Nomates since that fateful summer but perhaps most significantly, Maries' absolution, stepping away from the carousel of commentary and treading her own path. “When I first started, there was this need in me to want people to like me, because I wanted my music to do well. Now I just go, 'Oh, fuck it. Who cares?' I need to like it. I'm the one that fucking lives with it. Do I like it? Am I having a good time? And the answer at the moment is yes.”

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Billy Nomates performs at Fringe by The Sea, North Berwick, 8 Aug; SWG3, Glasgow, 3 Oct