Hailing from London, Annie Eve is the 23-year-old singer behind that hypnotising voice currently dominating your 6Music airwaves on track of the moment, Basement.
IRL, Annie Eve is cute as a button with the BIGGEST eyes you've ever seen. We caught her somewhere in between the mammoth festival schedule she's got this summer just before she played a homecoming show at London’s The Lexington.
Everything seems to be kicking off for you at the moment, is it all a bit scary?
Annie: I sort of take it wave by wave, I guess because when I started I was pretty young, I saw how people sort of got ahead of themselves. It’s super exciting and I won’t lie I’m very happy about it, but I don’t let it overwhelm me or anything like that. I try not to anyway…
So no, ‘OMG that’s me playing on the radio’ moments yet?
No, not really, I mean, I guess I’m pretty lucky I haven’t got overwhelmed yet, but that is impending. I’ll let you know when I have a weird breakdown somewhere.
And are all your friends being supportive?
Yeah, I’ve got some really, really supportive friends. They come to every show they can make it to.
That’s nice…
Yeah I’m from around London, and London, as big as it is, it’s still pretty small. Everyone seems to know each other; the band as well, we all have weird connections of knowing each other before we met each other through the band so… This is sort of my hometown, my hood – oh no, don’t write that!!
And how did you get into music in the first place?
I guess it started when my older brother got an electric guitar. I was not the calmest of kids, my intention span was like ‘meh’. I asked him to teach me and he would teach me pretty hard stuff and I guess I was obsessed with it so I just kept playing and teaching myself. It wasn’t until a lot later that I started doing shows, like started doing all open mic nights and that.
I know you started writing songs when you were really young, what are they like?
I would try and write about things that left impressions on me and when I listen back to my old material, I mean like, lyrically, I can hear where I’m going but it’s just torture for me.
Is it a bit like reading back your old diaries?
Yeah exactly, I found my notebooks with lyrics in in my room and I was like, ‘I need to keep them just because you have to but I really want to burn them so no-one else sees them ever.
Have you got nice fans?
I do have a few! But they’re really sweet. There’s this one guy who comes to almost every show that he can make it down to, and his mates, he gets his mates to come. Super supportive.
Have you got a good luck ritual before you go on stage?
I always get like Will or Ben from my band to squeeze me real hard, to calm me down, that’s pretty much the ritual, I did try and get the Almost Famous huddle going. But it didn’t catch on, they were like ‘what are we doing’ so I was like yeah ‘fuck it, Will just squeeze me.’
Annie Eve's debut album Sunday '91 is out August 11. Pre-order it here.
Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.