Spotlight On... Pippa Blundell

In 2023, Glasgow singer-songwriter Pippa Blundell was shortlisted for The SAY Award’s Sound of Young Scotland award, and went on to perform on our stage at Kelburn Garden Party last summer. There’s a warmth and vulnerability that comes through Blundell’s music, both on record and in a live setting, that's hard to match and makes her one to keep your eye firmly on.

With her latest single, wasted, having been released last week – and her debut album common thread due in Jun – it felt like the perfect time to catch up with Blundell to find out more about what inspires inspires her music practice, and what to expect from common thread.

What was it that first inspired you to start making music when you were growing up?
My dad. He was a songwriter, not so much a ‘successful’ one but a songwriter nonetheless and an inspirational one in my eyes. He taught me to view life through the lens of lyrics and filled my early years with soundtracks from the greats – Dylan, PJ Harvey, Bowie, Thom Yorke and Joni to name a few. He taught me to strum basic chords, and we would stay up after dinner singing tunes from his Beatles song books and trying to figure out harmonies.

When we last spoke to you in 2023 around your nomination for the Sound of Young Scotland, you told us how you were hugely inspired by your friends and the creative community that surrounds you in Glasgow – how does the scene continue to inspire you now?
The Glasgow creative community is still my first point of inspiration! I’m working with a beautiful band now. They are all good friends I’ve made through the scene, at jam nights, local gigs and events. Norman Villeroux on bass, Alex Palmer on drums and James Mackay on guitar. They come from backgrounds in jazz and improvisational music and are incredibly sensitive players. Their individual styles are seeping into my playing and inspiring new sound worlds and directions within my own writing.

Speaking more on inspiration, you just released your second single of the year – wasted – described in the press release as "a battle with inner demons". What can you tell us about the song and the experiences that have helped shape it?
For me, songwriting is a form of therapy and often songs will fall out of me before I realise what they’re about. It’s like my unconscious mind is bringing up secret thoughts that I need to confront and figure out; wasted was one of these songs that just fell out. I wrote it in summer 2023 whilst I was driving from Marseille to Croatia. I was driving in an old 90s van that just about chugged along the journey; the whole trip lasted about a month.

I wrote a load of other tracks along the way but wasted was written whilst I was passing through northern Italy, in the Alpine paradise of the Dolomites. However, in this region you also pass through these urban zones of plastic grass, motorway stench and fas -food restaurants (the part you don’t see from travel influencers). It was a chaotic juxtaposition, but it was the reality. I began analysing myself in this state, the traits that lurked within me and things that we can all fall victim to, due of this fast-paced, consuming world we live in. The lyrics were all written in the car and the cyclical rolling rhythm is the sound of that rusty old van.

Image: Pippa Blundell by Nicky Murray

Along with the single, you've announced your debut album – common thread. What can you tell us about the album? What's the common thread that runs through its songs?
Yes! common thread will be out in the world on 6 June. Writing these songs was not only a deep creative journey but a journey of extreme personal growth; learning to let go of grief and develop a deeper understanding of love. I was reading a lot of bell hooks at the time and she was definitely part of that journey. These songs explore the many ways we love. From the toxic kind, such as addiction and dependency, to the freedom of loving the simple and the mundane parts of our everyday life, the land, the nature and of course the people, and in the final track on the record – the self. common thread is the title because of this running link, all our experiences are woven together to make us who we are – the ugly and painful with the beautiful and loving.

When dealing with such personal themes, how have you found the overall process of creating this record?
It was an intense and vulnerable process for sure and it didn’t make it any easier that I’d gone through an intense break-up a few weeks before we were scheduled to record. I think this is why it was so important to make the record with people I deeply trusted. There was a lot of love, patience and care in the room when we recorded that week. Some of the more intimate tracks on the record were done in one take, they truly capture that raw feeling. I feel so lucky to work with such emotionally in-touch musicians who show such consideration and care to my songs.

Beyond the record, what does the rest of the year either side of its release have in store for you?
I’ll be putting on an intimate show and listening party to celebrate the release at The Glad Cafe (my favourite small Glasgow venue.) My guitarist James and I will play an intimate set and then we’ll listen to the record and showcase some of the beautiful films that my friend Michiel made for the release. Some summer shows at Eden and Wastelands festival… Then in September a little tour is on the cards. With the biggest ever Glasgow show at the end of September… more on that soon!

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wasted is out now; common thread is out 6 Jun via Bridge the Gap

Follow Pippa Blundell on Instagram @pippablundellmusic