Chloe Howl: ‘Everything’s So Public Now. You’ve Got To Be Careful’

We caught up with Chloe Howl to talk Miley Cyrus and being a teenager.

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by Jess Commons |
Published on

She’s been nominated for both the BBC Sound of 2014 award and shortlisted for this year’s BRIT’s Critics’ Choice award so it’s pretty safe bet that Chloe Howl is deffos one to keep an eye on this year. Not that it’s going to be all that easy to miss her; the 19-year-old singer’s already supported Ellie Goulding on her UK tour this year.

‘Yeah it’s been a bit mad,’ laughed Chloe when we caught up with her. ‘I played the O2 last night, it was er, very big!’ The last time she was back there was for the BRITs: ‘I forgot what happened really. Everyone was like ‘Oh my God what happened with Rita Ora? What happened with Harry Styles and I was like, I didn’t see anything! When you’re on the floor you just don’t notice anything cos you’re just sat there drinking beers.’

Having left school at 16 to work on her music career, all Chloe’s school friends are now in their first year of university – not that she’s feeling left out. ‘It’s nice having those two worlds ‘cos I do all this stuff where I have to be grown-up and be really sensible but then I go and visit my friends and I’m transported back to being 16 again.’ So did she have to grow up really fast? ‘Well when I was 16, basically my job for two years was just turning up at random peoples’ houses and spending two days writing songs so you really had to quickly learn how to talk to people and get yourself around and look after yourself. Most of my friends have only learned how to use buses at uni.’ For reals?! ‘Yeah, I remember I made them come and watch a show I did in London, and they left at midnight and were lost in London until 4AM ‘cos they didn’t know how to use public transport!’

Lots of her lyrics talk about how tough it is to be a teenager – does Chloe think it’s harder to be young in today than ever before? ‘Everything’s so public. Like if something happens at a party and there’s pictures they’ll go all over the internet and it’ll go all round school. Also if there was like some weird petty argument you have with someone at school you’d see those people’s friends bitching online about you. You’ve got to be careful.’

In this light does she feel a certain responsibility to her fans? ‘I think that as soon as you’re in the public eye you have to kind of accept the fact that you’re going to be looked up to. I don’t think that platform should be abused for your desires to look like “a bad girl”.' So does what does she think about the Mileys of the pop word? ‘I think with Miley she set herself up as a very clean cut good girl who was like don’t do drugs and I remember her being like sex should be with someone you love and then suddenly she just changed and that’s very confusing for her young fans.’

Speaking of fans – what are Chloe’s like? ‘Yeah they’re great. I played Poland the other day and I didn’t expect anyone to know who I was in a foreign country but when I got on stage they all went mental. Loads of them had gone home and made paper hearts and they all held them up while I sang the song. It was great.’ And, we'd place bets that this is probably only the beginning.

For your chance to win tickets to Chloe's upcoming London gig, plus a meet and greet with the gal, PLUS a Sony Xperia phone, click here.

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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