Jazz. Grunge. P Funk. Brit Rock. Just some of many different genres to be discovered in Weirdo, the AOTY-contender, dropped today by multi-instrumentalist Emma-Jean Thackray. But our adjective of choice for this album is vocal.  Across the eighteen tracks, Thackray utilizes all the different colours of her voice to give you layers on layers of harmonies, sounds that go to the depths of drone and then skits about tofu & interludes inspired by the mixtapes of her Hip Hop heroes.

Thackray began Weirdo as a reclamation of the word and her experience of being neurodivergent. Then she experienced the tragedy of losing her partner of twelve years. After taking time away it was the making of Weirdo that became her diary and way of survival. She tells Loverboy that in particular the song, “‘Thank you for the day’ was my way back into making music and feeling grateful for being alive.” ‘Where’d You Go‘, our personal favourite, comes from the dark place of loss but brings the beauty of Thackray’s trumpet accompanying stacked vocals which finally dissipate, giving that feeling of being one lone voice among many, but voices both present and past. Finding strength in knowing those gone are always with us.

The album was written, arranged, performed, recorded and mixed by Thackray which brings its own problems when performing it live, ‘I don’t have time for a sip of water.’ As well as playing Hoxton Hall, London on 14th May, Thackray is also playing dates across the UK and EU, culminating in a show at KOKO, Camden on 20th November. For tickets and info see www.emmajeanthackray.com

To celebrate the relase of Weirdo, Loverboy spoke Thackray about grunge, gate-keeping and Gail Platt…

Now, EJT, today is a very special date. Obviously your fantastic new album Weirdo is out, but 25th April is also a legendary moment in niche pop culture – something you referenced here. Was this release date purposefully planned?
I really wish I could say I set that date on purpose. But my team came to me and I was like, ‘Hang on a minute, I know about April 25th, it’s the perfect date.’ It was the perfect thing to combine with my silly, camp sense of humour. Are there any parallels between Gracie Hart’s story and my own on Weirdo? I think you can read into it any way you want!

You wrote, arranged, recorded and mixed the whole album yourself. I wanted to know, what was the most unexpected beginning of writing a song for you?
Most of these songs came from the vocals first. When writing the album I was walking around my house singing different things like little songs about tofu. The one that didn’t was maybe ‘Nowhere.’ That came from this distorted bass riff and the drums together. I was like, ‘This is a great groove. I really need to explore that and bring out that 90s Brit Rock.’ I also wanted to show people that West Coast grunge side of me as well. That was the one that was definitely not from my voice first.
It’s such a vocal album which I am starting to realise now that I am performing it live. I don’t have time for a sip of water throughout the whole song and I’m like ‘Eucchhhh’ at the end.

How many tracks of your own vocal would you have playing at any one time on say, ‘Black Hole’?
Ooh a lot. I think there were maybe five harmony parts and each one would have been recorded four times. So at least twenty because I like to pan them left and right and then double them. There’s definitely this big choir sound. Hopefully a gospel leaning sound rather than it being lots of people coming together, to celebrate in a room together, becoming one. It’s the opposite, like one voice going out and separating.

There’s a line on there where you said, ‘Only the beat can pull me out.’ Can trauma permanently shift our music tastes? I know that since Covid my tastes have definitely shifted to Industrial, Noise Rock, Cold Wave.
I think you definitely carry stuff with you. I think you can explore new things, become obsessed with them and not listen to anything else for a long time, but I don’t think it means you lose the other stuff. You just find your own way back to it and appreciate it in a new part of your life.

We need to talk about the power of an interlude. On Weirdo we have several. Why are they special for you?
I think it comes from a love of hip-hop. Hearing skits and the personality behind a rapper as they tell jokes. I’ve tried to do that musically on Weirdo. The whole album is like a diary in the lyrics, this unimaginable pain.  But when you’ve got quite dark songs, you need to balance that with something silly. So you also have songs about my actual life in there, like about making food, a moment of joy or some silliness. I want people to laugh, cry, feel a spectrum of things with me. That’s what an interlude does. 

Talking about that light with the dark, I love the delivery of the line ‘How did you get this number?’ on ‘Please leave me alone.’ That line actually made me think of some of these quotes which have become cannon recently. Like when Whoopi Goldberg was asked if she would marry again, she said, ‘I don’t want someone in my house.’ Or Kim Cattrall saying, ‘I don’t want to be in a  situation for even an hour where I am not enjoying myself.’ Quotes where you can’t tell how serious they are being.
Yeah, friends never quite know if I am joking or not because I say stuff like this all the time. They’re like, ‘Are you being serious?’ But that was definitely one of those moments on ‘Please leave me alone’, that was all I felt, I just wanted to isolate myself. I remember a friend asking me, ‘Oh now that you live on your own, do you want to get a housemate?’ I was like, ‘Fuck, no, I don’t want someone in my house!’ like Whoopi! So I think that sarcasm is something people are drawn to.

‘Save Me’ is my favourite track on the album. It was the melody that caught me first of all. The production. It wasn’t until a few listens later that the lyrics really processed. Do you gravitate towards music or lyrics first?
I feel like listening to music and lyrics are not entwined.  The first time I listen to something, it’s usually just the melody. Then the second time it’s when I join in with the words and I’m like, ‘Oh, ok, now I really understand the message of what you’re trying to say.’
I didn’t necessarily write all of these songs together, the music with the lyrics. Sometimes I had a melody and the demo was just me going, ‘Lalalala…’ Then I had been writing poetry and I was like, ‘Actually this fits.’ Sometimes it all came out just as one as well. Lyrics are so powerful.
I try and play the trumpet like I am singing and when I am singing, sometimes I try and sound like a trumpet. I don’t need words but you can just have such a deeper level of communication if you are using them. It’s just about how you perform it I think.

My other favourite track was ‘Thank you for the day.’
I actually wrote that before my life fell apart. Back in 2022 after loads of touring, feeling burned out, I wasn’t feeling grateful for my life and the job I am able to do. I sort of sketched the beginnings of that song to get back to that point. Then my life completely changed and I didn’t do anything for about six months.
‘Thank you for the day’ was my way back into making music and feeling grateful for being alive. I left all of the lead vocal recordings across the album until the very end of everything. I’d got this really nice mic and wanted to do them all at once. I did all of the lead vocal lines within a week. I remember when I recorded the lead vocal line for this song it was one of the last things that I did and I did feel a little bit of that gratitude for being able to make art and being alive. I’m still not completely in that place but I’m closer than I was two years ago. 

I love that P funk way you have singing and I don’t know if everyone feels this way, maybe it’s just me, but is it kind of ugly to everyone? It’s kind of ugly but the strength that comes from making it is so satisfying.
I think it’s all beautiful if you are expressing yourself truthfully. There are points in the album where I am singing a lot more softly, more I guess typically nice to listen to. But that’s not what you need for all of it. The song ‘Weirdo’ for instance there’s a little bit of anger in there, in the chorus I’m putting just a tiny bit of distortion, a bit more forcefulness behind it. That’s not as pleasant to listen to but it serves a purpose. Same on ‘Black Hole’, I needed to evoke that world, that silliness, that joy that people like George Clinton had when they sang. That kind of abandonment of any sense of embarrassment, just being your weird ass self.

Lord knows I love a wail!
Especially if you put it through some delays. Then you’ve got a record, babe.

There’s a lot of gate-keeping when it comes to jazz and I wondered if your quick jazz lessons online videos were a way to troll those gate-keepers at all?
I just wanted to do it because I thought it was funny and I’ve not really shown people that side of my personality so much. A lot of people think I am very serious. I’ve been told that I’ve got quite a resting bitch face. But I am just always cracking jokes and trying to find silliness in everything. So I thought, ‘I need to show people this side more’.
In Jazz there is so much gate-keeping, it is such a sausage-fest. It is full of jazz police blokes saying, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ But you can do whatever the fuck you want. At points it feels quite oppressive, quite sexist so I think it’s just a need to express myself wholly. Like, yes my music can be serious but I am also very much not serious a lot of the time. More than anything I need to do those videos for myself.

I was reading you have a portrait of Gail Platt in your flat?! Iconic.
Haha…so it was painted by Joe Lycett and he was doing it to raise money for a Pride march in his area of Birmingham. I was like, ‘Why wouldn’t I want to support this? Why wouldn’t I want a portrait of Gail Platt in my living room?’ I immediately sent a photo of me with the portrait to my Mum and she was like, ‘You’re a fucking idiot.’ I love it. It’s one of my prized possessions.

Finally we are named after the biggest-selling single of 2001. So we always ask what is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
I’m going to sound like such a cliché but ‘All I want for Christmas is you.’ It’s just a really good song. I wouldn’t necessarily say I am big into Christmas, I’m a bit of a Scrooge to be honest. But when people start hearing that song on the radio everyone gets a lift because they feel like something big is happening and they can celebrate. You can listen to songs whenever you want but people sort of need the permission to listen to it. You give yourself permission to feel something good, that nostalgia for your childhood christmases. 

Weirdo is out now via Brownswood Recordings.
For all Live Dates see www.emmajeanthackray.com.