At just 21, Georgia Barnes has packed a hell of a lot in already. At one point (bizarrely) a pro football career seemed the most likely trajectory, but after working at the iconic Rough Trade West, stints drumming for Kwes and Kate Tempest and ultimately crafting every beat and pulse on her glistening debut album for Domino, she is a young woman totally obsessed and clearly focused. As you might have guessed, it always starts with a record shop.
This interview originally ran in issue seven of Deluxe in September 2015.
Georgia releases her new LP ‘Seeking Thrills’ on Domino in January 2020.Deluxe: After spending the last couple of years sculpting your record, are you excited about getting out now and playing live?
Georgia: Yeah, that is what I’ve gotta do now. I feel like I have to make the live show as integral a part of me as an artist. I come from the London background of going to see shows in clubs, a lot of live music.
D: Is it quite different to the record?
G: It was at first. I had to play a few shows to spread the word and get people out. It was quite different. My goal was simply to perform the songs live and get past that hurdle. Now it is to concentrate on getting the sound as much like the record as possible, but give it it’s own space to be a live thing, entertain the audience. It’s been a process of making sure you’re happy with all the sounds, and also people like front of house engineers. With what I do if you can’t hear yourself up on the stage, it’s kind of…. well, you have to really wing it. So tech is the new hurdle. It’s basically a lot of planning and loads of effort. It’s not like I can walk up and plug in a guitar and smash it like Nirvana...
D: Knowing that you have made all the noises on your record, how about delegating things live?
G: (laughing) You’d have to speak to the band really…, they know that I am the only one that knows exactly how it should sound. They’re all fantastic players, and all really passionate about the music, but I have to lead it and be quite up front. I’ve found it quite challenging, if I am honest, but I have enjoyed it and I am lucky to be working with people who are working with me, not against me.
D: In terms of the physical side of your album, How was working with Jamie Hawkesworth and MMParis?
G: I was kind of taken back. I had a body of work but, I didn’t exactly struggle with visual aspect. I definitely felt under confident about the decisions I was going to have to make. I was actually very lucky that M and M Paris started following me on Twitter and sort of knocked on my door. They dropped me messages saying how much they liked the music. I reached out saying “do you think it might be a possibility that you’d want to get involved” – and they said they’d be involved in any shape or form. I know about their relationship with Bjork, but I had no idea that they had been working with her for like 16 years, and just how much they loved music and created such amazing artwork. Michael * is a massive music enthusiast. You go into the studio and there is music everywhere always on the stereo. They really consider it to be an integral part of M and M Paris. Going back, I was really shocked that they wanted to work with an unknown girl from London, I was in awe. They managed to subtly extract ideas and brainstormed about how we should be presented. I think they liked working with someone who didn’t have a massive team behind them, or a massive name and expectation. Michael then just said “I have this great guy, a real up and coming photographer who should do the photos for you” – it turned out to be Jamie.
I was kind of dreading the shoot on the Friday. I was expecting a this really diva-ish photographer, but he turns up at my door and he was just like, ‘alright, I’m Jamie’ – this guy from Preston., totally the opposite of what I thought. It was such a relief and we just got on like a house on fire, very natural. So overall I stepped back and let them all kind of lead the project, it was really amazing, the help I needed and it was so funny that it kind of came from the best in the game…
D: (laughing) If you can manage to be objective, they are the best in the game…
G: (laughing) Yeah, they are pretty incredible. It’s been such a compliment but first and foremost it was so important that they liked the music, and Michael in particular really got the music. He knew instantly that it was something that he could really help with. I hope it goes on and lasts as a working relationship.
“I grew up on mainstream pop. I remember feeling so proud that I had bought it with my own money”
Photograph: Laura Coulson
D: Have you seen your album in a shop yet?
G: Well (laughing) I used to work at Rough Trade West in Portobello for about two years behind the counter selling records, so that shop is like a home from home to me. Walking in, seeing it as album of the month was like…. it was pretty surreal and overwhelmingly emotional. That was pretty special.
Seeing it as a digital package having just seen it for so long on a computer screen was pretty special. I don’t feel like it’s quite settled in yet.
D: I always like talking to people who are actually on their front cover, how do you feel about so literally seeing you everywhere? – it is of course now globally released on the same day…
G: (laughing) I know! It’s pretty amazing, very surreal obviously. In some way though I kind of wanted this from a very early age, so I know it sounds twisted, but I am a bit like… okay, done that, onto the next thing. I went to my local just to have a pint the other day and there is a really big poster outside the pub – all my friends were naturally taking the piss out of me.
D: So talking shops then, Rough Trade West has had such a massive impact on so many people’s lives. It is a special place right?
G: Oh, it’s incredibly special. If I hadn’t worked at Rough Trade I don’t think I would be in the position I am in now. It’s been there for so long, and when you work there it’s seeing the people come into the shop who have come into the shop for twenty years, the locals, the people that travel in every month for their monthly collection. That is when you realise how impactful it is and always has been. For me, it’s a shop where you can take in the counter-culture… You’re behind the counter, talking to people about music and music related things… it makes peoples day, it’s very unique.
D: It has adapted though…
G: Very much, always inventing new ways to promote compilations, doing creative things with record shopping. I recently went into the New York shop and I thought it was a wonderful place to buy records. For kids who are now starting out, they can take booth pictures, have a hot chocolate, buy a book… it’s clever, it feels special.
D: Do you think that record shop culture has become a big part of young people and young producers lives again?
G: Just working in a record shop I would wholly agree that it has changed the lives of young producers. The amount of young aspiring musicians that came into our shop was incredible, people like Jamie xx and Jungle. The age difference as well, fifteen-year-old gangs coming in and buying an actual physical record. It changed over the last ten years and buying records and crate digging has become a cool thing to do. There is a strong resurgence in kids coming in, it’s getting bigger and bigger. Certainly for me, just being around all those records was just an incredible education. If it hadn’t been for those two and a half years, I certainly don’t think I would have released my own stuff, it was a major part of my development.
D: What is you most poignant memory of that period in your life?
G: (laughing) This is a memory I will have for the rest of my life, honestly. It was a surreal Sunday. I used to work on Sunday with my colleague Cordelia, We were big house and techno heads, so we’d be racking through them, and this one day, at the start of the summer, we opened the shop up at eleven and pretty early on Colin Firth walks in. He came up to us and said “I’m having a diner party, can you help me to with some Jazz”. So me and Cordelia really went to town playing stuff and he probably only really wanted one CD but we managed to get him to buy about ten.
D: Good Girls!
G: (laughing) Yeah, exactly, Nige trained us well. So an hour or two passes and it’s lunch time and it was bit busier and amongst it all this woman walks in and I was like ‘Cords, come here, she’s really familiar’. Cords turns round and said “George… that’s Nicole Kidman”… I was like, NO WAY, but she came right up to the counter and sad “can you recommended some records, we want to buy some records”. So I ended up pulling out some old stuff, some new stuff and they’re looking through. Her husband (Keith Urban) was pulling out all these soul records and they’re having a good listen at the counter. So she is stood there, very Hollywood like, very delicate and stuff, and suddenly, at the same time, this real Character from Ladbroke Grove called Cyrille (likes a drink, real geezer, about 72 or something) walks in right up to the counter. So I stood back and it hit me, I was like ‘Fucking Hell, Nicole Kidman and Cyrille are stood at the counter… he was totally oblivious of what was going on. So they bought a load of records and left and I got talking to Cyrille and I said “did you know who that was that was just standing next to you?” And he said “No no darling, no idea”. So I said it was Nicole Kidman, and he said “Nooooo! God, if I’d have know that I’d have given her a nice big kiss” (laughing) It was such a picture of the mix of Rough Trade. It was so comical, it represented how much Ladbroke Grove had changed.
D: I guess it’s endlessly lucky that he didn’t realise it was Nicole?
G: Exactly! It was just such a fond memory of working there. I think that day ended up taking more money than any other Sunday in years.
D: So I guess last question, honestly… what was your first record shop purchase.
G: (laughing) You know what, it was probably a Britney Spears single.
D: I am glad you were honest…
G: Totally. I remember going into Woolworths, I grew up on mainstream pop. I remember feeling so proud that I had bought it with my own money. Then it was just little steps to going to Fopp, then going to Rough Trade, then going to Sounds of the Universe and Honest Jon’s. It was Woolworths first, but it did kick of my obsession with buying records.
D: You’d be amazed how many people would have also gone to Woolworths first… or Our Price or Boots… I guess that is going to now become Urban Outfitters.
G: Totally. But I definitely served a lot of people their first music in Rough Trade. But then before, that generation had so many more to go to. My Dad’s would have been Honest Jon’s as he worked there
D: So you’re a second generation record shop worker then?
G: Yeah, I guess it was weird working at Rough Trade because I had such a good relationship with Honest Jon’s. I feel like I have to creep in and creep out of there now.