If the return of Aurora has taught us anything, it’s that comebacks can and will happen. She’s not the first artist to experience that slow and painful writing process and won’t be the last. As cocooned as she may have become in recent times, she still has enough self-awareness to realise that some reintroductions are needed. At the first night of her comeback gig at the HMV institute in Birmingham, she opens via the thrilling ‘Say No More’. The unmistakable beats rippled through the building and the crowd went crazy. A surging ‘Take It Back’ provides the evenings first dose of euphoria and even the usual finale ‘Spectacular’ is tossed in early doors, with nerves dispatched Aurora decides to reacquaint herself with her hometown crowd. With funky synth melodies, this autumn the soloist will release the anticipated third album…
Q: Well, that was an experience wasn’t it?!
A: That was incredible! Definitely the best gig of my life, didn’t realise I had as many fans as that
Q: You certainly do. So Aurora, I’ve had a question that’s been on my mind for a while. Why is your name Aurora?
A: Well that’s not my birth name obviously, I wanted a stage name, something really different. I love space, I studied Astrophysics at Uni before my career in music started and my favourite thing about space are the Auroras so I just thought, why not?
Q: Ah, now I finally understand. You studied Astrophysics? That’s unusual, how did you get in to that?
A: I’ve always been a bit of a geek. At school physics was my favourite subject, I was never good at the maths bit so I couldn’t study Mechanics but my teacher suggested I start researching in to space and since then I’ve always been fascinated by it. I went to Uni in Lincoln to study it and had the best time there. It was there that I started showing people that I could sing. I did a lot of open mic nights at the pubs and bars around the town.
Q: Apart from this gig, what’s been your favourite gig ever?
A: Probably when I did a gig in Camden, everyone’s very strange down there.. I remember walking down one if the side streets as I did a some shopping there and before I know this guy is screaming my name and running up to me with a cat in his hands. Definitely one of the weirdest fan photos I have stopped to do ever. But apart from that the gig was really good fun, there was such a crazy atmosphere, pretty sure more than 50% of the crowd was high that night
Q: You recorded a few album tracks in your Brooklyn apartment. What’s the best part about working at home?
A: Well, one of the songs on the album is called ‘Why not?’ It started with just me and my Jack (her producer) just messing around, we never took it seriously as a song. But a few days later we ended up doing a live recording of it at like 3 in the morning when we’d had too much coffee and that’s what ended up being the main foundation for the song.
Q: How’s the album coming?
A: It’s mixed and mastered, I’ve spent a very long time getting the lyrics just right. Now I’m just working on presenting it to the world.
Q: As a fan, how do you find new music?
A: I don’t really listen to new music, I’ve had the same 4000 and something songs on my iPod for years now. If I do hear about a new friend it’s usually one of my friends pushing it on to me to listen. A lot of times I just hear stuff in people’s cars, or in a bar or something and I’m like “What is this?” and then I go home and I look it up on the internet or something.
Q: I really like the illustrations that you did for your album artwork, and I also noticed that your lyrics are full of very visual images. Could talk about how the visual art that you do and the musical art are connected?
A: If I’m not playing music, I’m drawing. When I wake up first thing in the morning my throat sounds like it’s got cobwebs so I just sit there and draw. All day long. My throat doesn’t catch up with the rest of my body till mid afternoon so until then it’s just drawing or playing piano.
Q: You play the piano? Why don’t you include piano in to your songs?
A: Everyone asks me this! I just don’t think my voice and the piano go together. I like to keep them separate. I wouldn’t class my voice as being beautiful yet the music that the piano produces is beautiful. Piano should be left without vocals in my opinion.
