How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S7, Ep3 How to Fail: Mabel

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

My guest today has the middle name Alabama-Pearl, which is pretty cool but NOT QUITE AS COOL as the fact that she's a chart-topping pop-star who has racked up three top-10 hits and recently wrote one of the best Christmas songs of all time, Loneliest Time of the Year (and I say that as a die-hard Mariah fan). Plus, my guest is still only 23 years old. Revolting.Yes, that's right, it's Mabel, a double Brit nominee and the creative brains behind the hit song Don’t Call Me Up, which was in the top 40 for four months. She was born in Malaga, went to school in Stockholm and now lives in London. Her creative lineage is quite something: Mabel's mother is Neneh Cherry, her dad Cameron McVey is a producer who has worked with Massive Attack, Portishead, All Saints and Sugababes, her uncle is Eagle-Eye Cherry and her  step-grandfather is the legendary jazz musician Don Cherry. But her talent and self-possession is all her own. Mabel joins me to talk about her failure to remember lyrics, her failure to stay vegan (which is hilarious) and her failure to sleep, which is a first on the podcast and I'm so glad she decided to broach the subject of insomnia as I know it effects so many of us and is such a debilitating thing.Thank you, Mabel, for coming on the podcast and doing your research so well that you actually read my book first. I heart you hard for that.*Talking of that book...the Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong is out now in paperback and available to buy here. * This episode is sponsored by MEYA, a new meditation app that uses the power of music to switch you into a meditative state. Download the app here to experience the power of MEYA mind journeys and a new way to fit meditation into your daily routine this January. *How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email [e-mail]* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayMabel @MabelMEYA @meya_app      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned

from failure. My guest on this week's podcast is only 23 years old, but has a career that belies her youth. The singer-songwriter Mabel is a double Brit nominee and the creative brains behind hit songs including Don't Call Me Up, which was in the top 40 for four months. She was born in Malaga and raised in London and Stockholm, the youngest child of the iconic Nene Cherry, the Swedish musician who provided much of the soundtrack to my teenage years, and Cameron McVeigh, the producer who basically helped to invent trip-hop alongside Massive Attack. Her uncle is Eagle Eye Cherry. Her step-grandfather, the legendary jazz trumpeter Don Cherry. Oh, and her godfather is R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe. But Mabel's talent is all her own. The first song she put on SoundCloud, Know Me Better,

got Radio 1 airplay almost instantly in 2015 and a major label record deal followed. In 2017 her track Finders Keepers went viral followed by a string of hits that have seen her infectious melodies become unforgettable earworms. Her first album High Expectations, the name of which she had tattooed on her neck so that no one would persuade her to change it, debuted at number three in the charts last year. But it's a mark of Mabel's drive, work ethic and ambition that this was a disappointment. She had wanted the top spot. My biggest strength and greatest weakness is the pressure I put on myself, she once said. You score a goal and then the goalposts move. I always think certain achievements are going to make me feel satisfied, but they don't.

I feel happy, but not satisfied. And that's what drive is. Mabel, welcome to How to Fail. Hi. I love that quote about drive. It's true. It is true. I'm always just, I guess, looking for that next high, which I get off, I guess, sort of beating myself. Yeah. And then I do that and then I'm like, oh, great. Now I'm gonna have to sort of move the goal again. I think it's so interesting that because I feel like a lot of

people are scared that they will lose their drive if they become happy but I think what you've identified is that you can be happy and still be ambitious for more totally I've always been like that for as long as I can remember I think when I was younger I kind of used to torture myself with it more and it would sort of become quite negative sometimes whereas now I feel like I've been channeling it into positive things by like enjoying the moment as well like it's okay to just have a day when you're like oh my god that was really sick and then move on to the next thing because you don't want to drive yourself crazy just never being satisfied with your accomplishments do you think you're perfectionist oh yeah 100% I see things that nobody else sees when I watch my performances

back and listen to things everybody will be like it's great and I'm like it could be better though and everything can always be better I think the minute that you think that you know it all or that you're the best at something you've lost because I think life is like you can always be better I can always be a better performer I can always be a better singer I think you can always learn something new and as a musician I guess one of the most important things is to have a sense of your own identity and the image and the sound that you want to project have you always known who you are as a musician or has that been a learning process as well that's a learning process and I feel like I'll be doing it for my whole life I think I'll limit myself if I decide who I am like this is my sound this is you know the way that I perform I've

changed massively since you know I put Know Me Better out in 2015 both as a person and as an artist and I'll never restrict myself to one genre or like you know one way of performing or writing so yeah I think it's all about growth and evolution and that's not necessarily like oh Mabel's making you know I made a dance record recently and it's not like oh Mabel's changed it's just this is another thing that I can do I think I can't believe you're only 23 the way that you're talking is so eloquent have you all have you felt like an old soul yeah definitely I think I grew up quite fast when I was a when I was a kid because I was just like my parents kind of just which I love always just sort of treated me as one of the

grown-ups and never really like hid things from me and I had very big questions from a young age about crazy things like death and war and you know just emotionally just yeah had a lot of of questions and my parents definitely they would spend hours explaining things to me and lots of those things sort of turned into I was very anxious as a kid I think because I had all these questions about things and I was incredibly aware of everything that was going on around me but you don't really have the emotional capacity to be able to deal with things and actually process things when you're that age so I learned how to read and write when I was really young and I was like walking past newspapers and reading newspaper headlines and being like oh my god there's a war

and like but you don't really understand what those things mean and so I was incredibly anxious also you moved around quite a bit so I mentioned there that you're born in Malaga but you moved to Stockholm and I also moved at a young age actually from London to Ireland and just didn't have an Irish accent and still don't as you can hear but I think that sometimes when children are moved around they have to adapt so quickly so you actually have to become quite mature you do I think the moving for me when I look at it now I'm like oh my god I think I'm so lucky to have been to all these amazing places and I spent lots of time in New York and in France and obviously Stockholm

and here in Spain and now I'm like oh my god I have all these places to draw inspiration from and I think that's an incredible asset as a creative and when I was younger I don't think it really bothered me that to be honest with you I was like you know when you're a kid you're so amazing because you do just adapt to whatever's going on you kind of just have to and I never really questioned the fact that we were traveling as much as we were and that you know yeah maybe I didn't have as many friends as other kids but my life was like incredibly rich in other ways. Would you say Stockholm again? Just I I love the accent when I say it in Swedish we say Stockholm oh god it's just so good it's so good oh my god I love that you love it people are always like it's such a weird language and my accent like my dialect is really really Stockholm like super thick everybody's always

making fun of me we say things with like a weird like alien little sound so gross I mentioned in the introduction about your musical lineage is it annoying when people talk about who your parents are it depends on the mood uh no I'm really really really proud of my parents and like also very aware of the fact that I wouldn't be where I am musically they encouraged me to be creative from such a young age so I'm very grateful to have grown up around you know people that were just so inspiring and also I think lots of creatives I guess were quite self-aware about yeah being quite anxious and sort of carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders and you know there's so many kids that grow up in homes where maybe you know things like anxiety and other mental health issues that I dealt with from a very young age where maybe that isn't taken seriously whereas my parents took everything all my emotions and all my feelings

incredibly seriously and I I'm so grateful for that so no I'm very happy and proud of my parents and their accomplishments I think maybe when I first started making music it was frustrating because you know I'm my own person and I've never worked with my parents in any sense. And I guess people assume things like, oh, well, you're only where you are because your mom's so-and-so and your dad's so-and-so. But the more confident I've become as an artist and as a person, like I know now there's no way I could, you know, have the success that I've had just off the back of my parents being who they are and I think it took a long time for me to be okay with that because I was quite insecure in myself and then now that I'm not when people want to talk about it I'm just like yeah of course and I guess the older you get as well the I look at my parents in like a completely different way now to how I did when I was a teenager I'm so appreciative also especially

being a woman in the business and realizing that my mum raised all of us and she was incredibly successful and it's difficult doing what I do I'm so lucky I love it but you know that it's crazy it's very full-on and she also raised a family and we all turned out all right so big up her you totally did um as as a god's parent myself I have 10 god children wow you're popular well it's only because I'm a certain age I have 10 God children. Wow, you're popular. Well, it's only because I'm a certain age and I don't have children of my own, I think. And I feel like maybe I'm good for work experience, whatever.

But I take my duties very seriously and I get presents for all of them every birthday and Christmas. Is Michael Stipe a good Godfather? Okay, so this one's actually, I'm like, this is so deep for you, Michael. No, do you know what? Because we all lived in Spain when I was born and then obviously we moved and then he moved to America but like he's always been like around and we've actually reconnected more recently good okay I'm gonna get onto your

failures now I promise um and we're going to circle back because you raised so many interesting things there about anxiety and I know you've spoken openly about that in the past. And I think it's really interesting. And I think it's a symbol of your strength that you can talk about it. But I wanted to talk about your first failure, which is your failure to sleep. Because I imagine that your schedule at the moment is completely crazy. Literally, my schedule at the moment is wild. Tell us what's been happening over the last I don't know four days okay so last week I did a tv show in Germany which was really cool we went to Cologne and we did that then I flew from Cologne to Seville where I did the EMAs my first ever like

big award show performance and that was like quite high pressure it's live television I was dancing with 32 dancers there was a lift involved there was like you know a stage bigger than any stage I've ever seen before so yeah we did like three or four days there performed on Sunday I've never been so nervous in my life when she was introducing me when Becky G was introducing me I literally I've never had that emotion before of just feeling like I'd lost all the air in my body like I'd been winded I was like this is it this is when I die this is it this is over and then amazingly the music starts and you're just like I forgot all about that it was literally the best experience ever so yeah we did that

which I think was a lot of adrenaline and nervous energy and like after that after that build-up of weeks of rehearsals and planning and like I'm still so happy so over the moon but like just quite low energy yeah because you must have surfed adrenaline and then to come off that takes it's a really weird emotion like as soon as we'd done it I just had to sit down for like a really long time I was like I can't believe and it's a crazy concept that you spend weeks and weeks and weeks obsessing about something and then well yeah with what I do I mean that was three and a half minutes of my life and then it's over and you're like okay cool and then there's something else that's just as important or more important so yes and then I came back yesterday and then here and did some more you

know radio this morning and then now I'm here and then I've got another tv tomorrow and fly out to Spain for Friday to do another award show and wow by the way when Mabel says another tv she means the Jonathan Ross show yes I am doing the Jonathan Ross show I'm so excited that's the thing though is I'll wake up and I'm like I'm tired I haven't had enough sleep I'm not the Jonathan Ross show. I'm so excited. That's the thing though, is I'll wake up and I'm like, I'm tired, haven't had enough sleep. I'm not the best sleeper, as you said before. Like I find it quite difficult. And obviously I don't really have the luxury of lions and I'll be like, oh, I'm so tired.

And then start working. And because I do what I love, you sort of get energy back in other ways. Going back to that EMA's performance, when you come off stage after it going brilliantly for three and a half minutes does it feel like you want it to feel oh i sort of blacked out like something else took over which is like the best thing about performing i think then you're having a good performance if you literally don't remember

anything and i just remember standing there and my dancers olivia and chloe who i'm quite close to they just like shook me because we were supposed to walk off the stage obviously because it's like the award show has to carry on and they were like that was amazing and I was like I don't remember and everybody was cheering as we walked through the corridor and I literally just ran to the dressing room and my manager filmed it and I literally was like nobody talked to me I have to watch it because I literally just had no like recollection of what happened and watched it back and was just like it's like it's another person it's so crazy it's the weirdest feeling and when you give like

that as a performer I imagine it takes a lot of creative energy and probably a lot of empathetic energy to connect with a huge crowd for sure how do you recharge I mean how good are you at setting boundaries the thing about performing is that it's energy exchange so even though I'm out there and I'm giving my all the crowd are giving back it's like playing ping pong so like I'll leave the stage and after I watched it and really realized what had happened the other night I was so full of energy I was like just so happy so over the moon and just like it's the best feeling in the world it's why I do what I do like now I can't wait to have that feeling again it's

kind of fading now and I'm chasing the next time I'm gonna feel like that you need the next hit I need the next hit and in between those hits do you need quiet yeah I do I think it was um difficult for me to recognize that before I grew up in a house that was like always full of people yeah I guess being quite anxious and like stuff I've always been quite afraid of being alone yeah now the bigger the shows get the more pressure there is the more I've realized how amazing and key alone time is so I always try and and my team's like incredible when it comes to this is that like the mornings in terms of like my gym session that's like very important I get that in in the morning because if I do that then I'm going to be full of energy and I'm going to

be a lot nicer to everybody around me and I guess like you know figuring those things out took some time like what do I actually need so that I can go out there and do my best for, you know, my fans and my team and be the best version of myself and waking up in the morning and like not looking at my phone and dealing with texts about schedules and do you want to do this? And do you want to do that? And just having like an hour to go to the gym is like, that's my time. So do you do that every morning that you don't look at your phone for the first hour? I try to. I failed at that this morning. That's very on brand for this podcast.

That's fine. I failed massively this morning and I'm quite tired now. And I feel like maybe if I had made myself get up and just go this morning and just been like, guys, I'm going to get back to you in a little bit. I probably would have tried and had a little bit more energy. I think that's so interesting and such a key practical thing to do I did that a while back when I was starting to feel really overwhelmed and stressed I think it was but I was feeling like nauseous and I realized it was because I was stressed and in the mornings I didn't check my

phone for 30 minutes that didn't even get to an hour and it made a huge difference I remember hearing someone talk about it on another podcast saying what happens when you do that is that you choose what to respond to so rather than the phone being in charge and you being the reactive literally yeah it's crazy like you know how much power there is in our phones and how it affects us emotionally. I think having an hour to just go to the gym or do a yoga class, or even sometimes if I'm really tired, even just to listen to music in my house or play piano and just not look at my phone

will actually just determine, I guess, my perspective on things. I feel like if I wake up and I look straight at it, small problems to me turn into these major issues, which give me so much anxiety whereas like if I can just separate myself from the problem then I'll deal with things and just be like you know what this isn't actually that big of a deal it's going to be okay. Talk to me more about your failure to sleep when was the earliest time that you can remember not being able

to sleep? So my parents always said it was crazy because I was like the easiest baby and I would just sleep I slept the whole way to Australia when I was like four or five months apparently my mom was going on tour and everybody was like oh my god your baby's so good she just slept the whole way and then I guess I got to maybe like five or six sort of around the time I guess when yeah when I was questioning things and being like what happens when people die and just sort of catching on to certain things which I guess maybe not all kids are like that but I think some of us from a young age are just very aware and it was around then that I started getting really anxious about going

to bed it would start getting dark and I'd be like oh my god what's going to happen I'm feeling really stressed about I don't want to go to bed and then we'd have like a routine for a while that would work like maybe you know one of my parents would come in and try and lie down with me in my room for a while it would work for like a week and then again I'd be like no and okay maybe if I went to sleep on the sofa that would work and that worked for like a couple of weeks and then it's like okay well we'll move your bed into our room and like you know just this whole thing and I would have to listen to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter every night. That would be like soothing. But yeah, most nights I wouldn't really sleep until it got light.

Do you think that's related to your fear of being alone? Yeah, I think so. There's just something about the dark and I'm still super afraid of the dark. I still sleep with the light on in my room. I'm really sorry. That's my cat meowing, by the way. Yeah, I still sleep with a little light on you know I still have like nightmares and like still find it really hard to sleep

and are you one of those people who's like gets lost in a youtube hole do you know what my brain just won't stop like I'll lie down and I'll even like people always like don't look at your phone for half an hour before you go to sleep and my brain will just be like on 100 like yesterday I was so tired just got back from Seville doing the EMAs exhausted only had a few hours sleep the night before and got into bed at like one and was awake until about five just because my mind's like oh and this and that and what about oh and because I care about things yeah a lot I care about what I do so much. But are you then exhausted or have you found a way of handling that exhaustion?

The exercise is actually the best thing for me. Like not going crazy and doing like an hour and a half of cardio, but just like going and like moving my body. Actually, the endorphins will make me feel more awake than sleeping an extra hour in the morning if I just go and go for a little bit, go for a run. But yeah, the sleeping thing is so frustrating especially because you know I'm so busy we were saying before my schedule's so crazy so it's so important that I sleep but I guess I try to not

get like too angry with myself now somebody said to me that the best thing to do when you can't sleep is to just leave the room so that you don't like connect that with like negative energy when you walk into your bedroom it just doesn't feel frustrating so I do now most of the time if I can't sleep I just get up do something else read a book. You look amazing for someone who's barely slept most of their life. I'm wearing a lot of makeup right now. It's a lot of makeup. I think you're right though but I think that thing of that one of the worst things is when your thoughts get stuck on this anxious sleep it's like I can't sleep why can't I sleep and then you can't sleep whole person having a conversation with himself and I'm just like I don't know what's going on I'm like not a part of this conversation that you're having yeah does anyone in your family have the same problem yeah

my dad and my grandma on my dad's side used to have it really bad so yeah if I can't sleep most of the time if I call my dad or I text my dad he'll be up too it's so weird it's so fascinating because I just I love sleep so much good for you but you're probably way more productive than I am I mean I don't know about that I'm definitely creative at night I think that's what happens like as well as it gets dark and then I'm like oh have all these song ideas and I'm definitely creative at night I think that's what happens like as well as it gets dark and then I'm like oh have all these song ideas and I'm like who's awake who wants to go to the studio and like which is fine when you're not also doing full days of work hi I'm Matt Lewis historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History,

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experience in Stockholm was not particularly happy no school in general I was very determined to be the best at everything always academically as well I would put so much pressure on myself that I would actually fail to even like I would know everything and then I would put so much pressure on myself that I would actually fail to even like I would know everything and then I would go and do tests or whatever and then I would just you know be looking at the clock and just get really stressed and actually wouldn't end up doing anything it was so frustrating as a kid knowing that I was really intelligent and like I learned how to read and write a really young age and I was so like hungry to learn but then just the school format it didn't really work for me I'm socially very anxious and school is a lot about socializing with other kids and I couldn't really do it and especially when we moved to Sweden

and that's really when I started like you know I was a teenager and that's when you're supposed to be like you know you have your first boyfriend go to parties and and I just couldn't do it so I stopped going to school when I was 15 or 16 I just woke up one day and I remember saying to my parents I was like I just don't want to go anymore it's like it just actually is going to be that death of me and they were like we'll figure out I wanted to learn so I just finished my schooling from home but yeah I think it was mainly the social thing for me because that was like I guess why most people went to school like you know in their little friend groups and I never ever really had that and yeah really struggled with it and when you said to your parents it's going to be the death of me did you mean that quite literally yes

yeah I was very very very depressedously depressed. And I remember it like so well and just was like, oh my God, it's actually fine to just be honest about it. Because I'd spent so long just being like, I'm just going to carry on trying to fit in and wearing the right things and listening to the right music. And I was exhausted, you know, trying to just be somebody else. And Stockholm is a beautiful city, but there is a certain way to be. That's how I felt. I felt like I was quite pressured to be a certain type of way, not be too loud, not be crazy in any way, just fit in, you know, fit the mold. And yeah, I remember that morning and just being like, I'm exhausted because I've convinced myself my whole life,

I'm going to wake up one day and miraculously be this other person that people are going to like more they're going to think she's prettier they're going to you know just be in awe of me and then realize that actually this is who I am and I need to figure out a way to be happy with that because otherwise you know what's the point it was really scary it was really scary Were you bullied at school? Yes. Yeah. From like, I think it was worse when I was probably like 10, 11.

That's when it got really bad. Because I was never really girly in the sense of clothes and boys and things like that. I was just really into reading and was still had this like crazy imagination and was still just making up games and playing at home till I was like quite old 10 11 I remember there being girls that were like already into like designer bags and this and that and who's your celebrity crush and like I just wasn't like that at all I must have been like 10 or 11 and this one girl invited everybody to her birthday party there was like 30 of us in the class and she gave everybody an invitation but me and I was like absolutely gutted and I think that's when it

started and got like pretty bad just like the way I started looking at myself and feeling like I needed other people's approval to feel good about myself and I was like well if she doesn't like me and she doesn't like me and he doesn't like me then why should I like me which is why when I got to 15 16 I was so tired because I literally spent five six years just trying to be a person that other people were going to like desperately and how did your parents react then when you said all of this to them I think they knew how I'd been feeling maybe not that it was quite as bad as it was because I was at a point in my life when I just didn't see the point in anything I was

like there's literally no point I'm just not good enough and I was just like I'll probably never be good enough and and when I said that to my parents they took it very seriously I mean it was very serious at the time they told the school that I wasn't probably wasn't going to be coming back and I did all my coursework from home and my dad got me into he was like well if you're not gonna leave the house and you're not gonna be going to school he's like you need to find something else to do so we started doing hot yoga together me and my dad and for me that was the start of something really important within myself because my self-esteem was so low at that point that I really thought that I couldn't do anything and just physically seeing

the progression in that last week I couldn't touch my toes but this week I can yeah I guess just like within myself started something of just being like oh my god if you work hard at something at anything if you believe in something then it will happen yeah so I did it every day for like two years I would go every morning with my dad. And just physically that thing of just being like, Oh my God, I can do all these things now that I couldn't do before I started applying that to other things in my life, like making music again. I think I recorded my first ever songs then when I was like 16. I think that's so beautiful for two reasons. One is that your relationship with your dad sounds so special it is and the second is that you were

so in your head it sounds like with the anxiety and the feeling not good enough that actually being back in your body and doing something physical was immensely important for your sense of your own strength so important I always say that to people like when you're feeling low whatever it sounds so stupid but just pushing yourself to go and do something for 20 minutes every day you'll see after two weeks that you're better at it and just for your confidence like what that does is so amazing definitely do you think you've ever grown out of that feeling of not feeling good enough or not feeling cool enough sometimes I feel like you know because we're just human sometimes you'll have like, what does this person think about me? But it's definitely like nothing in comparison to how it used to be. I actually feel really comfortable in who I am. And really proud also of the way that

I look and the way that I sound and like, yeah, I'm hard on myself because I'm so ambitious. But I definitely wouldn't change a thing about myself now and I don't think that 15 year old me would have believed that do you think part of your drive comes from wanting to prove those school bullies wrong in the beginning yes and then now when things have happened like one boy who was really horrible to me when yeah when I was like 10 11 yeah sent me a message on Instagram and was like you're doing so well I would love to come to a show he lives in Spain now and saw that I was playing there next year and was like you know and it doesn't actually make me feel it isn't like it

doesn't make me feel anything I don't get that like ha revenge thing the best revenge was just like being okay with myself and being like do you know what I mean just being happy with who I am did you let him come to the show? I didn't actually reply. Good. Do you think that, because I feel like I used to be told constantly school days are the happiest days of your life. And I used to think, well, that is very depressing because I had a very similar experience to you. I did not enjoy school. And I think that there's a pressure actually for people in their twenties as well to feel like they should be having an amazing time and nailing their career and having

an incredible social life. What is that about? I know. Well, you tell me because you're in your twenties. Um, okay. So yeah, obviously super driven and like career wise, people always like you've come so far, but I'm like, Oh my God, there's so much more I want to achieve by the time I'm like 25. So that's my like main focus. But yeah, I mean, it is so far but I'm like oh my god there's so much more I want to achieve by the time I'm like 25 so that's my like main focus but yeah I mean it is crazy how like I'm supposed to be doing that and have like a pop in social life and be like going out people always like oh my god you don't have a boyfriend and I'm like how where how am I supposed to meet him where am I supposed to meet him and then even if I did meet him how and when are we going to spend time like please can you look at my schedule and tell me because I don't understand so yeah right now I'm like when people

ask me about like going out and yeah I'm just one thing at a time and right now my main focus the thing that makes me the happiest is just doing my best with the music career like it actually makes me so happy like doing the Eas the other night just like i can live off that energy forever relationships and my social life and you know that will all just happen naturally i think are you good at getting back to texts not great no i think it's so important like i'm trying to get better at it because I do have amazing people in my life that have been around like friends you know since way before I started doing this music thing seriously you know without them you know obviously my social life would be pretty non-existent

so like I do try my best to just like always be on it but I am one of those like tunnel vision people when I'm doing something I don't know how many texts I got over the weekend because I was doing EMAs I literally was just not really speaking to anybody but it is important and my family as well I'm like I have nephews and like that's frustrating and like I don't see my parents as much as I would like to and my sisters and my brother and like but I think that's really important for people to hear and to be open about that you can focus on one thing and if you're really busy something else will give for a period of time and that's okay you don't have to be brilliant in every single area all of the time no I always say you don't have to be the best just try your best yes I want that on a t-shirt that's my thing I'm just like trying to say that to

myself every morning now it's not about being the best. Just try your best. Give whatever your 100% is today. Yeah. Talking of being your best, your second failure is your failure, which is a surprising one, to remember lyrics. That's awkward given what you do for a living. Oh my God, it's so awkward. Especially when you write them yourself, right?

Like so embarrassing. Yeah, that is connected to questioning myself. So I'll still do that where like I was doing it before I did the EMAs and I turned to my manager and I was like what's the sing me the second verse of don't call me up and she was like I mean I don't I don't know like what's the second lyric of the second verse and it's funny because that's me questioning myself going you're gonna forget this lyric whereas I've sung the song hundreds of times I know it's in my body I don't my brain doesn't have to you know I don't have to ask myself or question myself in any way because it's in there it's literally like a part of me

and I remember just standing on stage right before it started and just being like whatever stop because I was like what's that move and that just stop and that's when I forget lyrics is if I'm like not in the moment if I'm not present in what I'm doing right now and I'm thinking about okay so I'm singing the first verse but I'm thinking already what's going to happen in the chorus I'll forget what I'm doing in the moment I did it really badly the other day I was doing some radio in Germany doing an acoustic set and singing don't call me up and I'm in the second verse and then I start going oh what's that last lyric what's the last lyric what's about to happen and then got there and obviously forgot it but like if I'd just been in the moment being present just ridden the wave it would have just come out naturally so it's so

frustrating even then I think I went literally just made up some words and then laughed and was like ha whatever and then we went into the into the pre-chorus and nobody cared nobody cared if anything people are like they've had an experience with me which is I guess human and that's how I like to relate to artists and the music that I listen to is not because there's some like angelic godlike being that I'm never gonna compare to it's because they're honest people like my favorite ever album is the unplugged Lauren Hill album amazing and in I Get Out she gets like halfway through her second verse and she forgets it and she goes oh at least I got a chunk and she laughs and then she carries on and I remember being a kid and being like that is my favorite bit about that album there's beauty in the imperfections there really is yeah

so do you still get nervous before you before I mean it sounds like it I get nervous but like in a different way to how I used to get nervous so before I would get nervous and I'd be like I don't want to do it I'm afraid and I'd be like I'm not going to blah blah blah and then now I guess I get nervous because I care and I'm like oh I can like acknowledge the butterflies and I'll be like hi there you are okay cool and I guess I don't let them win like if I'd done EMAs three years ago I would have looked back at it and been like I let the nerves win whereas I feel like I just acknowledged them before it started and was like yeah it's really scary it's live on television there's thousands of people here lots of you know pop stars that you look up

to but it's cool because we're just going to try our best and it's fine I feel like yeah nerves will sometimes get the better of you and there'll be that little voice that's like oh you can't do it you can't do it but if you can just be like actually you need to be quiet right now it's cool that you're here yeah I see you but you just need to let me do my thing that is so wise and really profound because it's the source of all meditation really like buddhist meditation starts from that thing of acknowledging your feeling observing it but not being defined by it yeah how did you learn that I feel like my mom and my dad are like really really really good at that obviously my mom's been performing since she was really young yeah I guess just as performers and artists were quite hard on herself and she would always just be like

it's fine to be nervous but just be honest about being nervous and I found that really hard for a really long time and sometimes now on stage I'll just be like guys I'm really nervous haven't sung this song before yet or like whatever it is that I'm nervous about and then that will just massively let go of that thing again of trying to be perfect it's just not it's not real do you meditate I don't but I should because I know I don't but I should because I feel like even though I sound quite wise and whatever I'm really not sometimes as I said before my mind will just be on a hundred and I know the things that I should be thinking and saying to myself but I'm literally doing the opposite and I feel like meditation would really help with that okay if you start I'll start okay I'll let you know

talk to me about panic attacks do you still get them not as much as I used to I've had like one this year what are they like for someone who's never experienced it so I feel like I'm dying oh that's what I think is happening like all of a sudden I'm like the room will feel really small I get really hot really clammy I think that I think when I had one this year which was literally the first time in a really really long time because I used to get them like several times a week when I was a teenager this time I thought I was having a heart attack I was like this is it I remember I phoned my dad and I was like this is it I'm having a heart attack like I'm I'm about to die this is the end literally that's how I feel and just I guess from small problem, like I was saying before, it just spirals. And then I feel like the world is ending.

But again, the key to that is, for me, just acknowledging the small things that are around you. That's what always helps me. When I can be like, okay, actually, I'm having a panic attack. And I'll be like, what's that smell? Or what's that sound? And just to be present. When I realized what happiness is for me is like if I could just live in the moment I think I'd be a really a really really happy person and that's I'm definitely

better at that but I think panic attacks take you away from that they take you away from the present moment that's so interesting because I think that a lot of people if they heard without listening to this interview that you have panic attacks they would think well she's not in a great profession then but actually it sounds like your performing puts you in the present directly exactly and you can switch off that's exactly it like it's one of the very few times I'll actually be anxious is when I'm on stage because I'm present you have to be to perform you have to just think about the one step that you're doing the one note that you're hitting at the time because if you can't do that then it's game over so for me that's been the best therapy and songwriting as well because I'm very much about storytelling so to do that you have to be true to the story and

be like okay what is actually happening what are these feelings that I have right now and how can I turn that into a song who's the most impressive person you've met oh my god um okay let me think or have you ever been starstruck by someone sam smith really i was quite starstruck when i met him do you know it's just like anybody that can be like that open and honest and like it's hard i think you know those are my favorite artists like adele as well i remember she like tweeted me way back in like 2016 or something about one of my songs. For me, that is so wild that like somebody that I really respect will also be like, I see you and I respect and I love what you're doing. That is the best feeling in the world. And Adele obviously is a very strong woman in what is still predominantly quite a male industry.

I mean, yeah yeah I was putting that diplomatically but what's your experience been as a young strong woman in the music industry I mean I'm always just looking at the positives and I'm like I'm not going to sit around and be like oh you know just complaining about it because it's not going to get us anywhere I guess I'm always trying to like encourage other women to make music and you know we should be touring together and we should be writing together and you know I've written some of my biggest most successful songs with another woman Camille and that relationship's been incredibly important to me and just finding as many other relationships and having as many strong women around me as possible has been sort of my way to show people

my managers are female and yeah there's just a lot of very strong women around me it's quite an amazing force that we have going and then I think also it's so important to me when I'm writing like how do I want women to feel about themselves because growing up Destiny's Child you knowaliyah, there was lots of strong female role models that would always tell me that I was amazing. Independent woman, you don't need a man to get this or to do that. And you're a survivor. So I'm always thinking when I'm making music, what positive vibe can I bring to what you said? The world is very male dominated. what you said you know yeah is you know the world is very male dominated so I think the best thing that I can do is make young women feel confident about themselves like if you can listen to my song

and then like when you're stepping into that classroom or into that meeting whatever just be like yes I'm sick I'm great like that would make me a very very happy person I love that so much have you ever come under pressure to change yourself in this industry I mean as I said before me and my team are very like we're very strong and I'm very clear about what I like and what I don't like and my vision so I think when people may have tried to come and even just on shoots and they're like oh you know maybe you should do this or maybe you should like it's not even a a conversation I think that as women our appearance this is what I've found a little bit like different I guess as a woman in the in the business is that that's such an important part of what I do then I've collaborated with lots of like male artists and it's like oh you know you can just rock up in a t-shirt and like do do your thing whereas I've got up at six this morning and I

was in glam and like and those things are like I'm always like oh yeah just acknowledging that and like trying to I guess have a discussion about beauty and like what that is and trying to also show people like post more pictures without makeup and I realized especially this year I guess because my platform's grown a lot that I am so I have so much responsibility with the platform that I have to send a good message like it's cool to I love wearing makeup and I love you know having my hair done a certain way and sometimes I like to dress up and sometimes I don't but it's important I think to use that platform to show both because I never want women to feel that pressure of that they have to look a certain way or be a certain way because it's really not that or that I look like this all the time

and that I just wake up like this because I have a glam team that spends hours helping me get ready do you know what I mean and that sort of like pressure of like oh well Mabel just looks great all the time and feels great all the time and I'm like no guys that's not the truth and that's definitely something that's really important to me you mentioned there that you surrounded yourself with a really strong female team and so if someone were to suggest you look a certain way at a photo shoot it's not even a discussion that's really brilliant and really interesting to me because I'm someone who has always struggled with putting boundaries in place how do you put boundaries in place Mabel because I think a lot

of women particularly struggle with being people pleasers and they want exactly exhausting yeah I have had to because of you know what I told you before about being like 15 16 and kind of getting to a point where actually I don't think I really would have made it if I'd carried on putting the pressure of pleasing other people on myself. So I've had to put those boundaries in place so that I can carry on making music and carry on being an artist and just a person. Sometimes, though, I'm like, oh, God, is it really bad of me to say that I don't want to do this thing? Or like, what are they going to think if but and then I always just try and go back to that emotion of like but you know how did it feel when you didn't have boundaries and when you were saying yes to everything and when you were trying to be this and that and also that all my success has

been off the back of me just being myself so anytime I feel like I'm becoming something else or I'm you know I should make a song that's like this, or maybe I should, maybe I should wear that. Or like, I'm like, no, because I have to be true to myself. I owe that to my fans because if I start becoming somebody else, then like, what if they think that they have to as well? So interesting. I also increasingly think that if you put up a boundary, the way someone responds to that boundary is always their stuff.

And it's always about them and not about you. So true. That is so, so true. So if they're annoyed with you, then that's probably because they're not wanting to be in your life and they shouldn't be. Yeah, exactly. Or they have no boundaries themselves, which is a dangerous game. Yeah. Your third failure is your failure to stay vegan. Yeah. What was the story there? When did you try to stay vegan yeah what was the story there when did you try to be vegan so I guess I started when I was like 19 maybe 19 20 just trying to do the full like mind body soul hot yoga hot

yoga you know and I was like oh everybody seems vegan and like cute um so I was like let me try this veganism thing and tried it and then you know when it gets really hard is when you're traveling yeah and I found that I was eating more unhealthy this year when we started traveling a lot being vegan because you kind of just end up eating loads of carbs like in France you say that you're vegan and they're like vegan they're like why would you put yourself through that like I've been in a restaurant in France where I've said I was vegan and like they just gave me like dry salad and like chips and that's literally how I was eating like because I was like so determined I was gonna stay vegan I don't even know for who and why because you have high expectations you have tattooed on your neck

I'm a vegan so I'm just gonna eat bread and chips and salad for three weeks because that's all there is. And then realize that actually like, it's really important to be feeding yourself. You know, you have to get the right amount of protein and especially when you're not sleeping, like your diet's really important. And was like, yeah, just figured that I could probably eat healthier if I was just like occasionally eating some fish or just yeah another one of those things where I was so determined to not quit and you said that you thought you wanted to become vegan because loads of people were doing it and it was cute and that was funny but what was did you feel a kind of societal pressure to do it I guess yeah kind of I've always been very into like the environment and you know just being very conscious of the fact that our planet is not disposable and you know that there's

things that we have to think about like the things that you're putting in your body not only how that affects you but how that affects the planet that we live on. And I hate, hate the mentality of that. What I do doesn't make a difference. Literally nothing makes me angrier because I'm like, well, if you're thinking that and then the rest of the world's thinking that, then like, great, that's it. I've been like that from a very young age.

So I stopped eating like meat. I went vegetarian when I was like seven or eight because I was just like, why? And like, we shouldn't be hurting animals and like I'm such an animal lover so yeah I definitely like did get to a point where I was like okay no dairy products like all of it I was like it's bad and now I'm in a place where I'm like I'm conscious and that's the most important thing and I definitely like try to talk to other people about it I guess spread more awareness that you don't have to be vegan or even vegetarian but even if you just do a meatless Monday have a little less

dairy and or when you buy meat like where are you getting it from and how is it sourced and just being conscious of it I think actually makes a huge difference and also being kind to yourself to allow yeah allow yourself to eat what you need when you're on the road or so important because i do think that there is this culture now that we know so much about what other people do all of the time that we feel we have to be doing all of it so right we need to be clean eating we need to be juicing in the morning we need to be vegan how like and it's really difficult it's not enough hours in the day to be honest with you exactly to be doing all of that so it's like just

be conscious of a few things do what you can it's an impossible way to live for me how do you deal with social media from the point of view of being a user of it rather than putting stuff out there wow well I never had social media really until I started doing music and then it was like oh you need socials now and I guess the anxiety of what other people thought of me and like I was very hesitant because I was like I don't really want to know what Carl thinks of me or Sally or whoever I don't I don't really care I'm in a place where I'm happy with myself and I don't I don't want to know and then got really addicted to it for a while like super addicted to it even now I'm like sometimes I just have to delete it off my phone like I didn't have it on my phone

for a few days last week and just to get out of the habit of when you automatically are going on it and checking it for no reason like I'm there's no reason for me to be on here looking at what you had for lunch like I don't care I don't know why I'm here for the 80th time today so yeah I got really addicted to it does it make you feel less than when you see other people seemingly living their best lives it used to and then I guess when I was like oh okay now I'm in like a I think also because the success happened quite quickly in the beginning I was in quite a destructive phase and that's when I was really addicted to it and I was like oh but this artist is doing that and she's wearing this and oh she played that show and it was really you know just holding me back from being the best that

I could be because I was focusing on other people's journeys and not my own and I think not just as a musician but as people we just do that and I always I'm always saying that it's like you have to remember it's just the highlights that we're seeing sometimes I will post and be like I'm having a really bad day today guys or I'm feeling really anxious because I think that's important not to like overshare because everybody doesn't need to know you know everything about me but to just be honest but that even on my page now if you looked at it you would just be like she just did a big award show she smashed it but you wouldn't know that two days before I was crying about it and I was feeling really stressed about it and all the dramas that

we went through my outfit and like you would never know that's so important I think to remind ourselves that what we're looking at is just the highlights of somebody's life and we didn't see the fact that maybe they woke up feeling another type of way today you mentioned that that your success came quickly how do you deal with your success now and the fact that you have a public profile and that you're being recognized on the streets super weird yeah even somebody said to me the other day they were like you're so unaware of the fact that people think that they know you like somebody be like oh my god hi and i'll fit i'm like oh where do I know you from I know it's because you have lots of followers on Instagram and because of your music and I'm like oh I think it's really weird but it's so sick as well like I love the fact I'm always like to people please come and say hi like I really am so appreciative and just so

grateful that it's because of those people that listen to my music that I I get to do this and I had lots of jobs before this that I really disliked and I love my job now and it's because of those people that listen to my music that I get to do this and I had lots of jobs before this that I really disliked and I love my job now and it's because of those people so I'm like come let's like take pictures some days when I'm like not feeling my best I'll feel that pressure sometimes of like oh if somebody recognizes me and they think I'm a certain type of way and then they meet me and maybe my energy isn't on 100 or maybe I don't look the way that I look on Instagram are they going to be disappointed it's so nice I think that you said you've experienced success when you're being true to yourself yes and I think that's what the difference is is that you seem really comfortable in your skin and therefore it's really lovely when people come up and acknowledge you for that exactly like I'll have those negative thoughts and be like oh somebody will recognize me when

I'm not feeling myself and I'll be like oh my god they're gonna come over and be like you look nothing like you look in your pictures and that has not happened once no I can't imagine people are always just so nice and really sweet and just say lovely things and I just have little chats with people and I'm like okay yeah no it was just all in my head what were the jobs that you mentioned that you didn't like before this job okay so I was a waitress at a restaurant and a cafe I got fired from both of those jobs terrible waitress because you couldn't remember orders or I think I just I've to be honest with you I just don't think I cared so people would be like they'd order a cappuccino

I'd be like yeah I'll be right with you and then I'd forget and they'd be like I order a cappuccino and then I'd like make them a latte and like terrible terrible so I got fired I think from the second one I kind of fired myself because I knew it was happening I was like I'm just gonna show myself out then I worked in fashion for a little bit I mean the hours are just as crazy as the music business it's even more cutthroat I would say like it's a brutal industry and I was really putting in mad amounts of effort and work and hours and then realized that actually it wasn't what I wanted to do so I was incredibly stressed and tired but like was like I should give this opportunity to somebody that actually wants to be in fashion because I want to put this amount of work in for music. And

obviously you have to start from the bottom and work your way up. What were you doing in fashion? So I assisted, I did some casting. I was a runner for a while. Was it like the devil wears Prada? It was literally like devil wears Prada. And and actually worked on a big shoot a couple months ago one of the people working on the shoot was like you worked on a I think it was like a vogue or an l shoot or something when you were 15 or 16 as a runner and he was like you were so good and you were so like efficient and like hungry for the job and like I was like oh my god that's so sick that like somebody remembered me because sometimes now I have met people that I've worked for or like being on a shoot with who weren't necessarily very nice and were like you know I was getting coffee for even though that wasn't really my job and either they don't remember me or they pretend that they don't

remember me so it was really nice that this guy was just like he was like it's so sick that you're here now and this is your shoot and I was like oh my god always be nice to people on the way up right yeah that's why when I rap like on videos or you know shoots or whatever it's like every person's role was so significant to what we achieve today so everybody has to get a thank you and a goodbye not only because you know everybody deserves it but also because you just never know who's going to be where in a year like the assistant the camera assistant might be the biggest photographer in the world and how nice if we'd work together already and you know there's already a relationship there in mutual respect exactly Mabel we're coming to the end of this lovely interview I've enjoyed it so much it's been great but I wonder if I could ask you what the three failures you've chosen have taught you or more generally what you think you've learned from failure in your life.

Failures. Great. I think I think making mistakes is so important. Things that I've saw as failures in the past and that I was embarrassed about or whatever. Now I look at them and I'm like, they're so sick because they've made me who I am and they've also helped me let go of like the biggest thing which was the idea of perfection and that it doesn't exist and that nobody's perfect and that if I'm like I failed at this and I'm just honest about it and I talk to somebody about it chances are they're going to be like oh my god me too or do you know what I failed at blah blah blah and that like just realizing that it's a massive part of just being human. Yeah, I think just being honest about that. Mabel, veganism's loss is everyone else's gain.

You are perfectly imperfect. And I can't thank you enough for coming on How To Fail. if you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist