Lianne La Havas at Wilderness

You’ve had quite a successful year so far, and have also recently been I-Tunes single of the week, how does that feel to be acknowledged and supported on such-a level?
Yeah I am, well I was. I’m currently I-Tunes single of the week in America at the moment with Is Your Love Big Enough. It’s nice to have their support and they’re such a big part of how we consume music. So yeah, it’s nice to be recognised

One of your initial big tracks was No Room For Doubt, which featured Willy Mason, how’d that all come about?
I was a big fan anyway and I met him by chance on the tube in London at Brixton because he was recording an album with my friend Dan Carey, so yeah I just met him that day and it all went from there.

You have quite a unique and apparent jazz tone, how has that become apart of your sound today?
When I started playing guitar, I kind of accidentally stumbled across jazz guitarists online. I’d watch videos of people playing guitar, and I just love music that’s just guitar only, when it’s just the chords, bassline and melody all on one guitar, so that really fascinates me. I was listening to Emily Remler, she’s passed away now, but she was a guitarist in the 80’s, a big jazz guitarist, and was one of the only female jazz guitarists and it was just beautiful to see that. Also, she has instructional videos online, so I was watching her videos. Also a guitarist called Martin Taylor who’s a big British jazz guitarist and a guy called Tommy Emmanuel, who’s an Australian guitarist and he specialises in playing the whole song on just the guitar, but he does also sing. Singing wise, I was loving: Nina Simone, Lauren Hill and Erykah Badu, people who know themselves, strong women with kind of interesting gravelly voices.

Any Tour plans for the upcoming months after the festival season?
A UK tour in October, and the London show’s going to be at Shepherds Bush Empire, which will be my biggest gig to date.

Also, you recently supported Bombay Bicycle Club earlier in the year, how was that for you?
That was amazing and I’m a big fan, so to be asked by a band who you’re a big fan of is more amazing. We had a really lovely time, we toured around the UK and did gigs and it felt really honest and pure and lovely and I’ve made some really good friends in that band that I’m grateful for. And they’re just really lovely guys.

I know it’s still quite early after the 1st album, but is there anything in the pipeline for a 2ND?
Funny you should say that, I’m thinking about it, obviously I want to make albums for the rest of my life. The 2nd album now this album is done, I’ve time to think about it more and letting the ideas brew, there’s nothing recorded at the moment but I’m just playing ideas and seeing how it goes, I’m so intrigued to see what the next one will be like.

Lianne’s debut album, 'Is your Love Big Enough?', is out now. Upcoming UK tour dates below:

Oct 05 ABC, Glasgow.
Oct 06 Queens Hall Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Oct 07 02 Academy Liverpool, Liverpool
Oct 08 Cambridge Junction, Cambridge
Oct 10 HMV Ritz, Manchester
Oct 11 02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
Oct 12 HMV Institute, Birmingham
Oct 14 Leeds Stylus, Leeds
Oct 15 Olympia Theatre, Dublin
Oct 17 Old Fire Station, Bournemouth
Oct 18 Brighton Concorde 2, Brighton
Oct 20 Leadmill, Sheffield
Oct 21 02 Academy, Bristol
Oct 22 02 Academy, Oxford