Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 130: Kirsten Lane

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Kirsten Lane is a freelance music supervisor who negotiates the deals that make it possible to put music into films, TV and adverts. She was the music supervisor for Saltburn and so that is how we met. She is now part of Murder on the Dancefloor’s journey and helped make its inclusion in the film’s soundtrack possible, naked dance and all! We talked about the importance of music in changing the atmosphere, and she sees it almost as another character on screen.Kirsten told me how she had made her career work, alongside bringing up two children, often as a single parent. Sometimes she had to fit her freelance work into the little pockets of 20 minutes that you have when your children are babies, and then late into the night when they were asleep. We realised we have shared the same experience over the past months when Murder has become unexpectedly popular again - both Kirsten’s teenage children and mine have been momentarily impressed by their mothers, when they’ve heard Murder being played on Tik Tok and by their friends. What a wild ride! Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, I'm Holly Rubenstein, the host of the Travel Diaries podcast, where each week I speak to guests like Michael Palin, Stanley Tucci and Joanna Lumley. I've taught myself that the best thing you can do when you arrive somewhere new is to say at once, I love this place. I love it. We uncover the travel experiences and destinations that have shaped their lives, chatting all time favourites, hidden gems and what's at the top of their travel bucket lists. It's wanderlust guaranteed. Just search for The Travel Diaries wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates,

the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing. It can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hello, greetings from San Diego. I've just got here. We landed, what time is it now? About an hour ago. Come straight to the venue. It's really nice. lovely we have started the American tour so as promised here I am speaking to you from America

I know I sound a little bit quirky but I'm so much better than I was so don't worry and yeah morale is very good I'm so proud and impressed by my band and my crew because we landed in San Francisco the day before yesterday and we did our

first gig last night which means we had no real opportunity to acclimatize so we went on stage at the equivalent of half five in the morning UK time but obviously having been up since like you know 5am local time so, basically the long and short of it is we were absolutely deranged. But I got on stage and the energy I got from the crowd was so good that it really buoyed me up and it made me really happy

and I had a really good time. I probably seemed even more sort of bonkers, eccentric British woman than usual. It's a role I inhabit quite regularly anyway, but I think I was giving some... Oops, I nearly dropped my phone. I think I was giving some very odd energy because I was just all over the place with myself.

But, yeah, I felt really good. I i enjoyed myself it was a good gig life is good and yeah so gig two today here we are i'm just planning what to do really we're not here very long we're only here really for an afternoon and a night and obviously doing a show and then we leave tomorrow morning to drive to la um where we got a festival but we're on quite early so we have to leave here I don't know I think we're leaving about 10 or something but um sorry that probably sounded horrible uh I just dropped something I'm unpacking my stuff you see as I speak to you I don't know if you're impressed with this kind of thing but I've travelled hand luggage only for this trip. I know. So I've got, like, for my costumes on stage,

I always do a costume change. So I've got the opportunity to change... I've got, like, four options for the first look, four options for the second look, and then two options for the festival tomorrow. So anyone out there who's good at maths could tell you like it's combinations like what how many different versions I could do but it's a lot plus all the stuff I haven't brought with me you know versatile clothing I always think of it as like day-to-night Barbie you've got to try and

like plan all things however there is something that's going to scupper it and that is my love of vintage clothing because yesterday in San Francisco I bought like four dresses and I know I'm not supposed to but I've wedged them like get in my bag uh three long ones like caftani type things very inexpensive really good prints and then a cute like little yellow 60s sundress I couldn't help it so many nice things and I get so like obsessed with the fact I'm never going to see these items ever again and sometimes I wonder what it is I'm searching for any compulsive shopper out there do you understand do you identify with that I feel like I'm looking looking looking for something and it's like I'm going to find it and it's the outfit that is the thing that seals the deal

and I then have everything and I never need to buy anything ever again. It doesn't exist. It's an addictive feeling though, bloody hell. Anyway, if you're anyone who's coming to any of the shows on this American tour, thank you. It's been an incredible thing to embark on this road trip knowing that there are people coming to see us so i'm putting mascara on i look a bit scary um

and yeah i'm just really appreciative so thank you you're like shut up about yourself who's the guest my guest this week is a lady called kirsten lane now kirsten and i first met when we both participated in a little interview for spotify in germany so there we were both on our zooms and i just thought she spoke so much sense and has a really interesting job and happened our paths crossed because she was the music supervisor for Saltburn. Now, Kirsten is an independent music supervisor. She's worked independently for 20 years. And during her time as someone who's worked in music supervision, she's seen that whole landscape really change

from something that was a bit of a side project in the major labels back in the 90s to something that's really front and centre now because everybody can see the impact it can have when songs are in adverts and soundtrack soundtracks so she's worked alongside emerald for both of her emerald vanell's films uh so promising young woman and saltburn and she also works with edgar wright the director who i think uses music so brilliantly in things like baby driver um online soho yeah it's just that they're both directors that clearly have music as a really uses music so brilliantly in things like Baby Driver, Online Soho. Yeah, it's just that they're both directors that clearly have music

as a really integral part of what they're up to. So I was intrigued by all of that. Kirsten has two teenage kids, a son and a daughter. And yeah, we just had a really lovely conversation. And I think her job is one of those things that when you're doing your job well, no one even really notices all the magic you did, all the work behind the scenes, making sure that you've got the right music in the right places and it's all legally tied up, but also that the director's happy, it works for the audience.

You're kind of putting in this extra layer into movies that actually really binds a lot of what you're seeing and how you're feeling so yeah really interesting to talk to her and someone's looking at you and i'll see you on the other side bye um well it's really nice to meet you actually because it's the first time we've met in person i think in real life in real life yes uh because we first uh said hello when we were gearing up to speak to Spotify Germany for a chat um but I thought so much of what you were saying was so interesting and that's why I was like I have to get a customer on the podcast not least because I love sort of trying to shine a light on jobs that people might not even know are jobs and I wonder when you meet someone and you know let's say you're sitting next to someone

at a dinner party and they find out you're a music supervisor what do they generally know about what that means? I don't think anyone really knows what a music supervisor is I certainly didn't when I started in the music industry um although I do get lots of people writing to me now saying, I love your work. I've always wanted to be a music supervisor. Tell me how I get into it. And I'm like, wow, I didn't even know that existed when I was your age. And yeah, you're right.

When people ask me, what do I do? And I say, I'm a music supervisor. They just look at me blankly. Like, what does that even mean? And sitting there watching musicians while they work or something. Yeah. Yes, that sounds like music. I work with music and films. So they're like, oh, you compose the music. Yeah. Yes, that sounds like music. So then I say, well, I work with music and films.

So they're like, oh, you compose the music. No, I don't compose the music. I do work with composers, but mostly my job is to work very closely with the writer, director, producer, studio, whoever, and find out the music that they really want to go in the film that already exists, like Murder on the Dance Floor. I have to find out who owns the rights to that, who's record label who's the publisher who are the writers who's the artist and i suppose i'm a broker really i negotiate all the deals um work out obviously reading the scripts putting together the synopsis and scene descriptions and negotiating how much that would cost to use it in the film or TV series.

And then I negotiate all the contracts as well. Make sure all the credits are right for the end roller. Make sure that all the cue sheets are right so that the artists get paid all their performance royalties. It's a lot of juggling. A lot of dealing with lots of different people. So record labels and managers and publishers and writers, directors, producers, everybody's got their own take on things. Everyone's got their own agendas.

So I'm a liaison, I suppose. I think it sounds like you have to be doing lots of different strands to lots, you know, all the time. It's like lots of satellites that sort of shoot off from the main thing is marrying the music with the film. And what point in a film's process would you be called in? Usually before it's greenlit. Okay, so it's just a script?

When it's just a script, yeah, right from the very beginning. So some films I can be on for two, three, four years before the film's actually out. So Baby Driver that I did with Edgar Wright, I think I worked on that for about four years. Salt film's actually out so baby driver that i did with edgar wright i think i worked on that for about four years um saltbone that i did recently that was definitely a couple of years so sometimes scripts have got tracks that are written into the script so like when i did baby driver edgar had every single page had a new track scripted so that was quite full-on wall-to-wall music and then other scripts don't

have any music at all or they might suggest oh there's a dance track playing here or there's somebody playing something softly on a guitar here or whatever so sometimes it I am needed to source music to make suggestions and other times the director the writer knows exactly what it is that they're looking for and I might only get involved creatively if we can't use something for some reason because it's too expensive or it gets denied or there might be some samples in there that haven't been cleared. And then I'll find some alternatives that we can find that will work. That's still the similar genre, still similar lyrically and that works within our budget because budgets are always very tight. Yeah, because I can imagine that music is sort of almost taken for granted that that palette's going to be there,

those colours are going to be there to be used, but actually they're so integral. And then the budget is probably the thing that can be, people might squish that before they squish budgets on other aspects of making a movie. The problem with the music is that it usually, although I do get involved right at the very beginning and mostly because of things that are happening on camera so we need to make sure they're cleared before they shoot it so for example murder on the dance floor in salt burn and Barry's actually dancing to that so we needed to know

that that was approved and cleared for us to use before we shot that scene because if we'd shot that scene and then you denied it we would have had to have reshot the scene to something else so I do get involved right at the beginning but most music gets done in post-production phase and is put on after the film's finished and it's fully locked so if you think of all the shooting days that they've already done and the visual effects budget has already been spent the music budget is the last bit of budget to be spent so often it gets nicked out of yes because they had to do a couple of extra shooting days or something like that so the music budget that you thought you had at the beginning of the film often you don't have when you come to even if you've been working on a project right from the very beginning yeah because

they they steal bits from the music budget when they need to because that pot hasn't been spent yet. That must be pretty challenging because you've done a job at the beginning and then you have to kind of redo it again when you find out what you've really got to deal with. Yeah, often that happens. And they never really put too much in there in the first place. It's always a figure that's kind of plucked out of the air.

I'm never quite sure how production companies come up with music budgets um if i'm lucky they'll come to me when they're at their budgeting stage of the film before it's greenlit and ask me how much do you think our wish list is going to cost and i can give them a realistic you know estimate so that we can make sure that we ring fence that and try and keep hold of that in the budget so that we've still got that when we come to clearing the music at the end. It doesn't always work that way. Yeah, and I think all that's pretty fascinating

because again, I think people might not understand all the mechanisms that go into, because the way I think of it as music and film is, you know, they say if someone's got the right hair colour, like when they've had it dyed, is if it's not the first thing you notice, someone just looks well. And I think it's the same thing in a movie. If the music's all right,

you sort of don't really notice the transitions of the music. It just kind of becomes part of the tapestry of your experience, if you know what I mean? Absolutely. So you're not thinking, I love this song, but what on earth's happening there? Or vice versa. It just sort of all creates exactly the world

that was intended to be there. Yes, completely. The music can really make a scene feel exactly how it's supposed to feel. And if you have the wrong music or different music, it will completely change the tone, the flavour of it and the feeling of it. And often music can be used almost like another character

in the film itself, I think. Very much so. Someone like Emerald or Edgar use music in that way very cleverly. Yeah. It's definitely got its own personality as part of the overall tapestry, if you like. Very much so. And with your...

So is your passion stemming from film or music or sort of being able to navigate and help all these people create what they want? What was your first sort of love of those things? Music. Music. Music. I'm a musician myself. Okay. What do you play? I play piano and I sing. I play a bit of violin, although I haven't played the violin for a musician myself. Okay. And what do you play? I play piano and I sing. I play a bit of violin,

although I haven't played the violin for a long time. My grandfather was Scottish and he brought music into my life, really. He used to sing a lot of old Scottish folk tunes to me when I was tiny. And we moved into the home that I grew up in when I was four and a half, I think. And the people that had left the house left a piano behind.

They couldn't take it with them. And so I was fascinated and I just started tinkering away. And my parents obviously realised that I had something there. I wasn't just bashing it. I was actually making something that sounded nice. So I started piano lessons at five. And yeah, I played in orchestras and bands and all sorts of things did a music degree so that was my background. This is a big love this is a big part of you.

Absolutely so that's what I really wanted my first Saturday job was working on the record bar in Woolworths. Amazing. Which was great I loved that that really got me into pop music because before that point I suppose most of my exposure had been classical. I was playing a lot of classical music and I know when I got to senior school and somebody took the mickey out of me because I didn't know who George Michael was and I was mortified.

I was like, okay, I need to find out about all of this. So I was like, right, got myself into smash hits, was listening to the charts avidly, was reading Music Week and really it just just it opened up a whole new world for me it was just amazing and so that's what I decided I wanted to do when I was at school I wanted to work in music but I didn't know what I wanted to do and I remember talking to the careers advisor and they were saying well you could either play in an

orchestra or be a music teacher and they were the only options that were available and I was like well that I don't really want to do either of those. I could, but that wasn't what I really wanted to do. I wanted to do something more exciting than that I wanted to get into the music industry. So I was really lucky. I managed to ring round several record labels when we were supposed to do our work experience week at school.

And EMI Records were amazing. And they said, yeah, you can come work with us for a week and they put me in the corporate PR department and they were brilliant they took me to Abbey Road Studios and they were just launching Studio 3 at that point they took me down to Swindon to see how CDs were manufactured they took me to Hayes to see how vinyls were manufactured wow um I was I was just like I was just in awe of it and the fact that everybody had an office with their own stereo and they could all listen to music all day while they were working I was like right that's what I want to do definitely want to want a bit of that that sounds so exciting so yeah so that's what I did basically I'm very

impressed with EMI from all that from taking it to see all that stuff because that sounds almost like what you're hoping a record company is like. Yeah yeah yeah completely I was amazed I had the best week it was just fantastic I was like yeah this is really what I want to do. So this is when you were still a teenager or this is after your degree? Yeah no I was like 15. Oh wow it was amazing to give me that opportunity and that insight at that age and so from that point I was like right this is absolutely what I want to do and I I wrote music and I dabbled with the idea that maybe I could be a film composer but I I don't know I was a bit too scared after I left my degree I was like maybe I'll just go and do what I said I was going to do and go and work in the music industry and figure out how it all works and who's who and and do that so I did and I started marketing um for Polygram Classics originally that was my first job um so I was

working with DG and Deco and Phillips doing marketing for them and then I got involved in the film and TV side of things which was completely not something I'd chosen but the the chap Brian Berg who was setting up the commercial marketing division um I'd done a little bit of work experience with him before I started working in classics and he'd said to me right from then I'll get you a job I'll do something you know I'd love to work with you and when I started working in the classical team he was like oh you're wasted here I really want you to come and work for me um and I think I shook things up a little bit in the classical team because I would turn up to work in my leather trousers and I'd be, you know, it wasn't quite how things were done in the record in the classical department at the time.

And so anyway, when I'd done that for about a year, Brian was expanding his department. And I said to him, you know, if you are expanding and changing things, if there's anything comes up that you think I might be good at, let me know. And so he got back to me and he said, well, we're starting this new department. We've never done it before. It's going to be called synchronization. It's about licensing music for films, TV, adverts, games. Does that sound interesting? And I thought, yeah, I don't know anything about any of those things.

But that sounds amazing. I didn't, like you said, I didn't even know that was a thing. Didn't know that that existed. But that sounds amazing. I didn't, like you said, I didn't even know that was a thing. Didn't know that that existed. So together with Ian Neill, who was my boss, we set up the first dedicated synchronisation team of any of the labels or publishers in the UK.

I'm not quite sure what was happening in the US. So when is this? That was 95, 1995. Okay. And at that point, synchronisation was just seen very much as something that copyright did or legal and business affairs did or royalties did. No one was dedicated to looking after that side of things. So we were proactively pitching all of our artists' material for films, TV, ads, games.

I didn't realise it didn't really exist before that. That's crazy. It didn't exist. Because that's exist really very powerful way of getting music out there exactly and when we first started all the labels were a bit suspicious of us because we were working across all of the labels within the polygram group which is now universal records um and they were sort of like oh i don't really know what you guys are doing and it was kind of the attitude then was that a lot of music

that was used in those media, particularly advertising, would be re-recorded rather than the original being used. And I think that might be because artists were worried that it would damage their reputation if they were seen to be associating themselves with a brand unless it was something like Levi's maybe. People sort of looked down on it. So our job really was to turn that around

and show that it could actually be really advantageous. So one of the things that we managed to get launched was the Lighthouse family. They'd been trying to get the Lighthouse family launched and they'd had a few singles, but they hadn't done very much. And then we got lifted on the Ford advert and all of a sudden the song

was rocketing up the charts and the head of polydor marketing was like okay what are you guys doing i want all my artists on an ad like that because this is we're suddenly selling loads of records so not only was it raising artists profiles but it was also making money the sync money fees that we were bringing in was actually not insignificant um and yeah since then obviously the sync you know what's that 30 years ago synchronization now is a massive part of what's going on for artists and everybody wants a murder on the dance floor moment or a massive levi's ad or something yeah um but they are they're quite you can't engineer them, but you can definitely be in that world and, you know, proactively working on those things. And it can make a huge difference to an artist's career trajectory.

Yeah, and I'm thinking that actually, I mean, you were ahead of the wave definitely in the mid 90s but towards the end of the 90s up until then everything had been very sort of stay in your lane in terms of your genre and the idea of an artist or a band collaborating with a brand was very uncool yeah but there was a big shift that happened towards the end of the 90s for me the moment i remember thinking about it was when madonna teamed up with H&M and did a range of clothes there. And I was like, what? She's gone, Madonna's working with a high street fashion thing. And I, there probably are loads of examples, but that was the one that hit me at that time. Yeah. And slowly, slowly, it became the case of, well, you don't just have to be doing one thing. In fact, what else have you got going on? And if you were, by the time we got to the mid-naughties,

if you didn't have, I don't know, a sunglasses range and a perfume coming out with your album then what are you what were you doing with your time kind of thing I think that whole shift towards um it just not being seen in the same way not perceived in the same way for artists to work alongside big brands it just shifted the perception of that, became a lot cooler and actually sought after and actually pretty savvy and a way to really give a shop front that you didn't have and just expose your music. But that's interesting as well about Sync and the idea of people wanting to think you'd re-record it

rather than it being original. Do you think there's been some big soundtracks that kind of changed that view as well? Things like, I don't know, Pulp Fiction or Trainspotting or Reality Bites or any of those movies where they had those massive soundtracks. I think film's always been a bit different to advertising. Artists have always wanted to be, on the whole,

associated with films. Because if a film's really successful, then the fact that their music's in it is brilliant because they were a part of that sort of cultural cultural moment and if a film isn't successful then it kind of disappears and no one notices anyway so it's not a big issue whereas with advertising it's kind of different because you are associating yourself with a product so as you were saying you don't want it to be naff it needs to be something that works for you as to what you're you know as the artist what is um something that you perceive to be cool and something that you want to be something that works for you as to what you're, you know, as the artist,

what is something that you perceive to be cool and something that you want to be in. Whereas film and TV, I mean, TV has changed massively. TV was always sort of the second class cousin to film. Whereas now, particularly since the pandemic, the streamers, you know, have changed the face of how we're all consuming tv series and now it's almost cooler than film and over and above all of that gaming is bigger than film and tv put together yeah gaming's so huge so the way that we're all accessing music is completely different to how it was 30 years ago and even you know things like tiktok that you know my children are finding or certainly my children are finding

or certainly my daughter's finding a lot of music through TikTok yeah and I think I was listening to one of your podcasts the other day where you were saying it's almost like they can access all music from all genres from all eras all the time it's it's there on their iPhone or whatever it is that they're accessing it from which was not the case 30 years ago at all. You had to be quite discerning about what albums you might buy. Definitely. And then you would listen to those on repeat, whereas now you can listen to anything, anytime, anywhere.

So true. It's just enormous, isn't it? I mean, my daughters, they're singing stuff from the 60s,s 80s 90s like it was just released this week i know it's really it's just it's a bit kind of weird they'll be seeing that how do you know that song exactly i guess actually with your job you've kind of been thinking like that for since you started doing what you do because if you're marrying music with something that needs a soundtrack to it you'll think you're you're trying to access all that needs a soundtrack to it, you're trying to access all music that's around all the time anyway.

Yes, completely. So your brain was already working like that. Yeah, I mean, one of the jobs that I did after I was at Polygram, I was then at Sony Publishing. And the guy who was my boss there had an A&R background and he wanted me to be at lots of gigs all the time to meet their new signings, meet their new artists, because he wanted to show them that we had an active sync department

so we were pitching their music all the time for work that was coming up. But realistically, in terms of the projects that are out there, I would say 90% of what's being licensed is back catalogue. It's not current artists or emerging artists. And so you've got to know all of the music across the entire catalogue. And even stuff that's, for me, now I'm not working for a label or a publisher, stuff that's out of copyright as well, needing to know about all of that. So yes, as you said, it's enormous, the amount of knowledge you need to have.

And world music too. It's not just stuff that's from the UK and the States. It could be from anywhere. Golly, that must get very complicated. Are there any songs that are really famous that would be quite hard to put in a film, like something like Happy Birthday or something? Are those things easy or hard?

Thankfully, Happy Birthday is now out of copyright. Okay. It wasn't when I first started doing this. And every time it was in a film, which as you would imagine is used and every time it was in a film which as you would imagine is used a lot um it was being licensed but now it's actually out of copyright so why can't I write a happy birthday yeah exactly is there anything else we can be happy about that they'll do a lot yeah happy Friday I don't know

hi I'm Holly Rubenstein the host of the Diaries podcast, where each week I speak to guests like Michael Palin, Stanley Tucci and Joanna Lumley. I've taught myself that the best thing you can do when you arrive somewhere new is to say at once, I love this place. I love it. We uncover the travel experiences and destinations that have shaped their lives, chatting all time favorites, hidden gems and what's at the top of their travel bucket lists. It's Wanderlust guaranteed. Just search for The Travel Diaries wherever you get your podcasts. So you mentioned your daughter. You have two children, two teenagers.

Yes. So you said your daughter's nearly 15. My daughter's nearly 15 and my son just turned 17 yep just started driving just started driving that's quite a moment isn't it watching them drive off down the road for the first time I haven't actually seen him driving because his driving instructors picked him up from school okay um and then he's driven back home so yeah I haven't seen him driving yet but he's very keen to get out in the car with me I'm not so sure how keen I am. Yeah, that moment of seeing, because I did the same as you

and booked Sonny's first driving lesson on his 17th birthday. And then that image of him sat in the car and then driving off down the road is just like, what? It looks so funny. Like, why am I putting that behind a wheel? But what was happening in your work when you had your first baby and you had your son what was so you'd set up your own company yes it's 2002 2001 2001 yeah i set up um on my own so i'd i'd worked for a major label then i worked for a film company i was at polygram films for a while

worked on things like notting hill when i was there. And then I was at Sony Publishing. And then at that point as well, music supervisors still didn't really exist. I mean, really what happened was if somebody needed music, it would just be someone on the production. It would be a runner or the producer or a mate of the director who would be clearing the music. There was no one necessarily dedicated to doing that. And so quite often the people that were coming through to us looking to clear music didn't even understand

that there are two copyrights in each piece of music. There's the copyright in the song, which is what's written by the writers, the composers, if you like, and usually looked after by a publisher. And then there's the copyright in the sound recording, which is the recording by a specific artist the artist might also be the songwriter but sometimes it's not um so that would be looked after by the record label and so i found myself explaining this a lot to the people that were

clearing music for their tv productions and film productions and i thought you know i i could do this myself why don't i just go and do that so i set up on my own in 2001 and I've been working independently since then I had my son in 2007 and because of work as a self-employed person I realized that I was probably going to need a bit of help because I wasn't going to be able to take any maternity leave so I did have someone come and work for me. And that was quite full on because as a new mum, I had no expectations or ideas or understanding at all how that was going to affect my working day to day. So I had a chap called Craig working alongside me. And I was quite good for the first couple of weeks. I didn't really

check in with what was going on with work. Craig just took care of everything and it was great. And then I just sort of juggled things between being a new mum and being with Craig. And then when I had my daughter, I think she was born on a Thursday evening. And on the Friday, I think she was born on a Thursday evening. And on the Friday, I was back at work. I had to do the payroll. And then I gave myself the weekend off. And then I was back at work on the Monday.

And Immy just had to be in the office with me. Whenever she was asleep, she would be in her little carry-cotty thing so that I could be working. And then when she was awake, I'd just have to crack on. Okay, so you have a baby on a Thursday and you're back at work on the Friday. Do you think that that's partly because... I know when I had my second, I felt like, oh, come on, you've done this before.

And I was much brisker with everything the second, even though actually I probably could have taken a little bit longer. Or do you think you just felt like, I want to just keep an eye on what's going on at work this time and I just feel like I need to do that for me? I think the second time around was easier in some regards because the first time you have a baby, you have, or I certainly, didn't have any understanding

of what that meant in terms of routines or how that was going to affect my day. Obviously, we all have our own routines before you have a baby. But then once you've got a baby, certainly feeding puts you into a routine, doesn't it? And so when I had my second, when I had my daughter, I was already in that routine and I understood how the ebb and flow worked. And so I realised that actually when they're very little thankfully Emi was a really easy baby because not all babies are easy at all and Jerome my son had been much harder at feeding than Emi she was an angel baby and she just had to slot in to the routine that I'd already established which was baby friendly and toddler friendly whereas before

having had any children I had no idea and if someone had explained to me that you literally have tiny windows of like 20 minutes here or half an hour there to fit in anything that you need to do I would have just thought they were crazy but then once you've had a baby you're like yeah that is exactly what happens yeah and I guess now that they're teenage looking back to that time it feels like such a different chapter doesn't it remembering that newness of the new baby and all of that phase because things shift so massively once they're into double figures and all of the way that I mean I really believe they need you more than ever but it's a different dynamic you're sort of navigating the the role of your parenting has to shift so massively but you're still trying

to help them out but you have to kind of I once spoke to Katlin Moran and she said you have to turn yourself into like a friendly cow which I think is a really good way to approach teenage teenage parenting I think or parenting a teen I should say I don't mean like being a parent as a teenager that's a whole other conversation but I think you have to sort of um they need to feel like they're they're calling the shots even though actually you might be behind the scenes kind of gently nudging them in the right direction yeah definitely it is a completely different dynamic having teenagers they they do need you in a different way it is in some ways more emotionally demanding. I would say so. I would say.

And juggling now is almost harder in that regard. Because they ask what? Because they need you to be around? Or they notice when you're... I guess, although now they're that bit older, I'm finding that I am able to not be around quite so much and they finally understand what it is that I do. They never really understood what it was that I did and they were like god your job's so boring you just sit in

front of a laptop all day how boring is that and it's only actually since salt burn when in January because murder went so skyrocketing back into the charts and I was getting radio stations and journalists and TV stations wanting to interview me my kids were like wait what why do they want to talk to you what have you done I'm like well actually what I do is quite interesting to people you might not find it interesting but actually other people do find it really interesting because it's such a cultural thing and so now I like yesterday I was over at Pinewood watching an animatic of a film that I'm working on at the moment before they've done any filming at all and I'm able to do that and leave the kids to their own devices because I'm a single mum so um they're they're

happy with me doing that and they know that I'm down here today and they think that's really exciting so now I'm beginning to be a bit more me and do stuff for myself and they can see what I'm doing and actually their friends think it's really cool as well so it must be interesting for you to have that insight because I guess there is a bit and this sort of happened to me a little bit too where normally my work is sort of what I go off and do and I can tell them about it and sounds I bring along to things but kind of bit disinterested but I think you know we've mentioned a few times that the thing that happened with Saltburn a murder was extraordinary because suddenly my teenager was a bit like that's that's your song and my friends are singing at school and I'd never I hadn't had that you know before like that that crossover in

that way so a similar thing was happening in my house is happening yours but it must be interesting for you with your work as well to suddenly to have that insight into how things translate and what you're always trying to imagine how it'll be perceived at the other end of the journey of making that movie or the tv program whatever you've been working on for all those months years but actually to see it in your own house under your own roof of like ah that's the that's the cultural impact is quite something. And when I first read the script, I loved the script when I first read it, and the song was scripted in there, so I knew that we wanted it right from the very beginning.

But I had no idea just how massive a moment that was going to be at all. I really couldn't see that. And even when I saw the first cut of the film, I thought, yeah yeah this is great um but it wasn't until I saw the finished film with all of the final music in it I was like okay that's genius that's amazing and I was really championing for the film to have a soundtrack album because often soundtrack albums don't exist now in the same way that they used to like you were talking about Trainspotting and Pulp Fiction and so on. That was often how people accessed music from lots of different artists. Because as we were saying, you would only buy a handful of albums.

So if you weren't going to buy an album that was fully by one artist, you would buy a compilation. And a film soundtrack was a good way of having a compilation because then you would have the association of what was going on in the film but now obviously you can listen to all of those tracks on spotify or apple music or whatever and you can put together your own compilation you don't need to go and buy a compilation album but there are other elements in the in the music in saltbone where our composer, Anthony, changed them and edited them and added to them.

And we had a couple of things in there that were exclusive to the film. And I was really saying, you know, we've got to get an album out for this because this film really deserves it. It's, you know, the music is used in such an amazing way. And no one was really listening, which I found to be a shame.

And then obviously once the film got out there and I think it was really once it had gone onto Amazon and all the teenagers started watching it um and then they were tick-tocking it everywhere and then everyone finally was like oh my gosh this is amazing this is such a moment and they finally sort of caught on to to what was going on and and now we are getting an album coming out and it's out in July yay on vinyl which will be very exciting that's actually new information for me as well so that's lovely to know yeah that's really cool i remember there have been conversations about it but i didn't know when if there was a date or if it was still happening so that's lovely i think as well kids i mean my 12 year old um i think i might have told

you this when we spoke before but he just bought his first bit of vinyl and he bought the baby driver soundtrack album because that's what he went and he's played it over and over yeah so firstly brilliant job it's wonderful but also i just thought it was interesting because you i think we kind of assume that kids are now just accessing music in different ways obviously that is by far and away the predominant way but there's still an interest in in that that excitement that we would have had as well about the way it looks when it's an actual thing you can hold and just and enjoy that experience of listening to it in that way he's you know now collecting more albums I think it's really lovely yeah and my son's doing the same really yeah see that's nice isn't it yeah and Baby Driver was one of the first albums that he was listening to but

he's listening to all sorts like um he's love he's really into Green Day and Pink Floyd and Elton John it's all old stuff it's not new stuff which I find fascinating he's yeah and you've I mean I realize your you know your passion for music has obviously been unwavering to all of this since you were small so what's it like if you're doing working with someone and they want music and you don't it's not your taste because I would find that really hard like if they wanted to use music for someone I was not into um yeah that happens that happens um and at the end of the day it's like it's a bit like parenting I can only guide I can't do so I can make suggestions um but at the end of the day it's usually the writer director's choice it's their baby it's their

creative vision and it's my job to make that happen um you know I can come up with suggestions and and say you know how about this or have you thought about that or we can't afford this what about something else but it it's their it's their tapestry that they're creating and so it's my job to just make that happen whether I like the music or not is is irrelevant and so how when you watch something back do you sometimes feel like I think that piece of music is actually I would have gone for something else or do you sometimes think oh wow that one really comes to life there is there still a piece of the puzzle to be slotted in when you actually watch the whole thing together yeah definitely and and as we were saying a different choice of music can change things dramatically as to how it feels and often what

happens is when a film is first put together they'll have what's known as a temp score so either the music editor or the film editor will will put a temporary score to them to the film just so that you could get a flavor of how it's going to turn out. Is it like existing music? Existing music. So they'll take score music from other films, for example, so you've got an underlying score, but they'll also put in commercial tracks too.

And what quite often happens is that the director will then fall in love with the temp score. And even if it's got music in there that is going to be too expensive for their budget they'll be like but it felt so much better with that track it's like i know but you can't afford that track we need something that's that you know so what it does is it makes you think outside the box and have to get a bit more creative than perhaps going for something a bit more obvious

so yeah and then you know there was a film that I worked on not long ago, Heart of Stone, and we did have a track in there for the end credits for about a year that was, you know, as we were working on the film before it was released. And our director absolutely loved it, but he got to the point, he was like, I'm 99% convinced, but there's still 1% of me that thinks that our track's out there and we haven't found it yet. And I must have done that search at least six or seven times and sent him stuff.

And then he just said, can you just one more time, just have one last search? So when you say do a search, what does that entail? So I'll either reach out to record labels and publishers if it's something that they're looking for a new artist, for example. So we actually ended up licensing a track by an artist called Nina Lee, who is an emerging artist. And it just happened that that morning I received an email

from her record label of tracks. And I was delving through my folder. I get record labels and publishers. You get pitch songs all the time? All the time, constantly. I get maybe 30 or... Isn't that quite overwhelming? Do you just pretend you've listened to them? I would just be like, yeah, I get record labels and publishers. You get pitch songs all the time? All the time, constantly. I get maybe 30 or... Isn't that quite overwhelming? Do you just pretend you've listened to them?

I would just be like, yeah, I went through all of it. It is a bit overwhelming. I get like 30 or 40 emails a day. I mean, it's completely impossible for me to listen to it all as it's coming in. So I have this folder called music and I just put it straight into my music folder. It's not even very specific. No. So I just stick it all in there.

And then when I'm searching for something I will trawl my way through and just have a look at what's come in and what people are actively pitching so I'll do that but I'll also reach out to record labels and publishers and say look I'm looking for something so you don't even have someone that works with you that might just be like put them into some sort of shape of like sad songs songs that would be great if I had the time to do that um and anyway so one of these samplers came into me I mean we used to physically send out cds this is what I did when I first started in Polygon so my my cd collection is enormous and it was taking over my whole house so it's actually much easier now that people send disco links to things um but I was listening

through and I heard this track by Nina Lee and I was like, do you know what? That's not what the director said he wanted, but actually I think this would sound great. So I sent it to him. It was on my next list of things I sent over and it was the first track that I put on the playlist. And within half an hour of me sending the email,

he came back to me. He was like, tell me more. Who is she? What is this? Where did you find it? And so we ended up using that and it was just a great track and so yeah sometimes you think that you're there and you're all sorted and but then you might might just find something else that works that one percent better and then then that's the track you end up using that's amazing as well because I mean that shows the significance of what you're doing as well that it wasn't even you sort of anticipated what might work better than what

even what the director had articulated what they wanted you thought oh actually i think there might be another thing that could work and then it ends up tessellating so perfectly and it's like ah there we go yeah there we go so it's a bit like i don't know curating something together isn't it you've got to go have you thought about this just try it and I guess sometimes these things are happening very close to the wire in terms of the deadline always it's quite stressful um yeah everything always seems to be left to the last minute which is which is quite hard um I take everything way too much to heart and I care so much about everything that it does get quite stressful at times.

And I think I'm the one that's squeezed in the middle because I always, up to this point, Touchwood, let's hope it continues, always seem to manage to pull the rabbit out of the hat. And the production people don't realise quite how many hoops you have to jump through and how many people have to sign stuff off to be able to get something approved.

And so my job really is to liaise with everybody on the production side of things, as well as the record label, as well as the publisher. And, you know, something I'm working on at the moment, we're about to record something and we're literally recording it in less than two weeks. And it's been in the script for a long time and you know before something's green lit though I've seen it and I'm like can I crack on and get on with the clearances with this because it takes time

you know artists are often on tour they're not around that it's not the first thing it's not their top priority is to sign off on my sync request. You know, they've got loads of other stuff going on in their worlds. And so it might take weeks to hear back on a clearance. Sometimes I can clear stuff in a day, but sometimes it can take weeks, could even take months. You know, sometimes with a French copyright, for example, I've had six months before I've had a response. And if you're coming to me and you've got six days to turn something around, it's not feasible. So in that instance, would you be having a couple of options or working simultaneously? Yes.

So often we're looking at backup plans. So you might have a yes from that, and then just before the end you have a yes from that, and then you end up using that one, not that one. Yeah. Ah. Yeah. Dramatic.

Yeah. So that's why you are juggling a lot and often you've got lots of different elements to have that need to be signed off so there might be several writers on one track yeah and they might all be represented by different publishers so you might be going to like 10 different people just for one piece of music yeah and you're trying to coordinate all of those and you know structuring the deal and everything as well. So yeah, it can be quite complicated. So I know people probably have the image

of a music supervisor as someone who just sits and watches movies and puts loads of music, cool music up to the picture. But actually I'd say 80 or 90% of what I'm doing is just coordinating and admin and talking to people. I'm a communicator and a facilitator and having those relationships with the record labels and the publishers and working really closely with them because they know they're artists they know what what's likely to clear or what is going to be a problem and how much things are going to cost and you know that sort of thing

so but I guess as well you've got to do another job which is also to keep your that sort of thing. But I guess as well, you've got to do another job, which is also to keep your own sort of ego quite under the radar so that everybody who's kind of making all the noise can feel like they're getting what they need to do what they're doing. Absolutely. So how did it feel when Saltburn was making people, you know, call you up for interviews and things? Is it quite nice when there's a sort of recognition of all the work you've been doing?

It was nice to get the recognition. Kind of weird because I was being interviewed by all sorts of people and i was i found that quite stressful because i've never done it before and my son was like oh it's because you're not media trained mum it's your son who wants to be an actor yeah exactly he knows all the right things and and but he's right though i mean i talk to people all day and sometimes that's on the phone sometimes it's on zoom sometimes it's just by email but mean, I talk to people all day and sometimes that's on the phone, sometimes it's on Zoom, sometimes it's just by email. But I do talk to people all the time, but in a very different way. I don't shout about myself and what I'm doing. I'm doing that for my clients and for the artists.

And, you know, being a musician myself, I'm very much aware and understanding of perhaps what their priorities are, which is quite different from what the film company's priorities are or the TV company's priorities are. So trying to empathise, I suppose, with everybody that's in that and trying to get them all in the same space so that everyone feels like it's a win. Yes. I mean, without sounding too trite, it does sound like a lot of skills that are also needed

when you're raising a family, actually, and working out kids' priorities and problem solving. There's a lot of that sort of saying, yeah, we'll get there, we'll make that sorted, and then running off and kind of actually putting all the mechanics in place and trying to make sure that everybody feels like when they step, that next bit of the plank is there, whether they realize how much work's gone into or not yeah and I do feel very blessed and very lucky that I'm working in the way that I'm working because I'm freelance and I'm independent I have no idea how women who go to an office or go to a job actually do that you work from home I work from home and so I'm very fortunate that I've always been able to do the drop-offs and the pick-ups and the assemblies and the sports things and whatever else it is that needs to be done because I can be flexible about my time. So you do that you'll put it on like you'll block out things if there's things coming yeah completely so I really don't know how other people do that because if you're in a real job how do you how do you do you need to book off holiday to be able to do stuff like that.

Whereas I don't, I manage to fit it all in. And if it means I have to work in an evening because I spent the whole morning doing something with the kids, you know, going on a school trip, for example, I've done that a few times, which has been really lovely. So I've very much been a part of my kids' world. So to them, they don't see me working too much because I am around for them as a full-time

mum but in the background I'm also doing all the work well that's amazing and you said if they had a real job but obviously what you've also done is set up your own business and had to work under your own steam and that's actually there's a lot of you know bravery and not having that the umbrella of what the corporation would give and contracts and all these sorts of securities that come along with that. Yeah, that's one thing my mum said, actually, when I had Jerome, my first, was because she couldn't believe that I was back at work within two weeks of having him. She said, well, if you had a real job, you'd have maternity leave. And I was like, well, yeah. But then I find that amazing that women take three months, six months, nine months, a year, whatever it is, off and then immerse themselves in that world with being with their baby.

Because obviously it's a really symbiotic relationship at that point. And they are part of you. They're still very much a part of you. And to be separated from them is really hard, especially if you're breastfeeding. But then how do you then change that and go back to work? Yeah. I don't think I could have done that. So I just kind of did everything all at the same time.

So there was never that sort of differentiation between home life and work life. It's all kind of one and the same. I completely agree with that, because I know that when I've had, you know, a new baby and then I've sort of done my own version of what felt like the right thing, which is mainly saying yes to things and then sort of trying to tessellate it or get it all working as well as I can. But thinking to myself, well, I don't really have a proper job, so I can slightly move and shift things around if I need to be somewhere. But by and large large just kind of making

it work somehow but then I remember feeling sometimes a bit I don't know if it's jealous exactly but a bit envious of the idea that you'd have more of a you're going to have this time off and it will just be you and your baby and then you'll return but similarly thinking god that that jump back into work there's a cafe i go to in the morning to get my coffee after the school drop and there's a ad in there for someone who calls herself i want to say something like it's something like a post-maternity leave coach and her job is literally uh helping women returning to work with how that must feel to go from one thing to another yeah i think about it whenever I see that

little poster because I think that that jump is so huge in your head you've got to just go back to work and the breath you know the briskness and the energy of that office space or whatever it may be and you're the one going oh yeah I've just been back from maternity leave for a week now I just can sort of almost feel how vulnerable that transition must be so hard because I never made it and from when I had my daughter from when she was 11 weeks old I then was a single mum so I had an 11 week old and a two and a half year old and in some ways work was very much still a contact for me because I was still talking to people and they became that my work was so if I didn't have my work and I was just at home with a baby and a toddler I I think

I would have gone mad actually so the fact that I was still working and I was still communicating with people and and I suppose I I really get a dopamine hit or whatever from when I do manage to get something cleared I get really excited I'm like yay fantastic there's another great you know piece of music that I know that we've got that sorted and I think without that I would have really struggled actually if I'd just been the three of us at that point so although juggling it all was tricky um that's a lot that's such small children yeah that was so I was working a lot in my evenings once i'd got them to bed i would then work quite late into the night and because then they would

rise up early in the next morning but it was um liking it to i've never done it but i just imagine a bit like sas training with the sleep deprivation um you sort of you find new new resilience that you didn't realize you had um you just have to crack on with stuff and make it work and and the fact that I was working for myself I could wiggle things to make it work yeah yeah I know what you mean as well about taking just getting yourself busy is sometimes really good for your brain just going back into getting work done and being like I can escape into this a little bit and the familiarity I suppose as well of a job you've been doing for a long time by that point as well yeah it's not a new job and also I would imagine there'll be

people that might listen to us saying about the maternity leaving that jump back in that would actually as well they some people are really keen to get back to their jobs when they've had the yes and have a break yes exactly and just go out and see people again and get back to their jobs when they've had the... Yes, and have a break. Yes, exactly, and just go out and see people again and get back into their old, like, feel like themselves and that way again, because it is quite hard, isn't it? Exactly. So I didn't sort of lose that, and that's why I'm saying your identity changes when you become a mother.

You, it has to, because you've got a little one who needs you very much so. And so you're not just you anymore. And I must admit, I'm still evolving, especially now that my kids are that bit older and I'm beginning to find the me perhaps that I was before I had children. Does that make sense? Yeah. As they get older, you mean?

As they get older because I feel more able to be myself and not saying that I'm their friend as opposed to their mum, but I'm able to take a bit more time to do the stuff that I want to be able to do, particularly with my work, to be able to come into London more often, because I live up in Suffolk. Like yesterday, I was over at Pinewood and travelling for work, being on set for some of the films that I'm working on I couldn't really have done that when the kids were little but now they're that much older and they are a bit more independent I'm able to do that and be like I do love coming

into London because I feel like I'm I'm in work mode fully and I can think about it and immerse myself in that whereas when I'm at home I don't feel like I do that because I work from home. And so my home life and my work life is all melded together and it's all one and the same. So when I do come into town for meetings, I feel that I can focus on that a bit more. So at home, do you have an office space? Is it kind of quite done? No. No?

What is it? I work in the kitchen okay that sounds really unglamorous doesn't it um but i'd rather not be in a tiny little room i like to be we've got a lovely big kitchen dining space and the dogs are there and the cats and we've actually got ponies at home as well it's all a bit crazy i'm starting to think you've got this whole thing quite soft what we're talking about like hang on a minute you've sort of melded it seems to be pretty pretty smooth which all works great until then we started doing zoom calls so the kids always knew from when they were little that if mommy was on the phone they had to be quiet because i didn't

want to ever work with my kids because people didn't used to work from home when i first started working from home and so it really did sound unprofessional if you had like a three-year-old you know running around running amok um whereas I think people have become much more accepting of that since the pandemic because everyone was then having to work from home and they're they're like oh my goodness now I understand what it was that you've been going through all this time um so yeah if I'm on a zoom um they know that they can't come in the kitchen and grab a drink or whatever because I'm on a Zoom. Like last night was quite funny because I got back quite late from Pinewood and I didn't even have a chance to talk to the kids properly before I jumped on a Zoom call with the States. And I'd gone to knock on my son's door to say, look, I'm back home. I'm just about to do this Zoom and I'll come and say hi because it's gone 10 o'clock at night.

back home I'm just about to do this zoom and I'll come and say hi because it's gone 10 o'clock at night and sort of halfway through the zoom he comes wandering wandering into the kitchen um in his pjs and he's like oh sorry sorry sorry I thought he was asleep I didn't realize he was still awake um but yeah so it's quite funny yeah that kind of thing happens doesn't it and I'm wondering as well because I'm thinking my my kids have got very strong opinions about music and who what's cool and what's not and your kids must think like that when you're thinking about songs that are going to be involved in movies do you ever kind of check with them like I'm thinking of this artist just to kind of get the litmus of like actually what you're saying is really interesting because we do have those kind of conversations now which hasn't happened until fairly recently I suppose as I was asking my daughter so who's on your playlist who

are you listening to what you know show me and obviously there's yourself and Taylor Swift and but then she was listening to the Smiths and I'm like okay so explain where have you found the Smiths and it's because they were on some TikTok or then she's listening to the Lars and that was in Gilmore Girls. So she's accessing music that way. And it's really fascinating. Whereas my son is a bit more, to say intelligent is probably the wrong word, but he's not finding it necessarily through social media. He's finding it through, maybe through Spotify, because he'll listen to one thing and then it obviously suggests oh if you like that maybe you'll like this and so actually the the algorithms the AI that's behind that is is really helping him to find lots of older music that he's really loving which is which is great so we have

all those kind of conversations and actually he introduced me the other day to Spottle I don't know if you've heard of Spottle it's a bit like Wordle okay um but it's with music so it plays you like a little bit so no you have to guess who the artist is um and you get 10 guesses so it's like wordle and you have to put in the artist um so you might start off with elton john for example and you have to know as in you're doing the letters you're right spelling out no it's it's it's a bit difficult to explain. So when you put in... We can have a play with it after this. I'll show you afterwards, yes.

So when you put in the artist, it will then show you what their nationality is, what their chart position is, the year of their debut album, what type of group it is, whether it's pop or rock or whatever. And I can't remember the other categories there's several categories and just like wordle so it will show you it'll come up green if you're

right for something or like the number of um people that are in the group whether it's a solo artist or it's a four piece or whatever and so and if you're close to it it'll come up yellow and if you're completely wrong it'll be black So you have to work out who the artist is. So actually, it's really interesting. So we're finding lots of different artists that way. I feel like I need to have a word with the designers about the name. I'm not sure. Spottle.

I guess it's, I think it's probably linked to Spotify, perhaps. Yeah, I get that. I was thinking Wordle. What's that? It's a five-letter word and you have to guess it. You'll know if you can start getting the letters right. Spottle. We need a niftier way of describing it.

And I'm thinking maybe the name should somehow relate to what you end up doing. Yeah, maybe. But we've having quite a lot of fun. So he's been playing that with me. So we play it together. But we're also doing wordles together because he wants to be an actor so um i'm saying well you need to increase your

vocab so if we if you do wordle with me i'll do spottle with you so that's what we've been doing together so that's quite cool now i'm definitely gonna have a go at spottle definitely i'll be spottling away yeah trust me so they've never actually vetoed anything you've put in a soundtrack you've never been like about to suggest someone they've been like oh my god that's so do they not say to you things like that's so millennial that's so gen my kids are constantly referencing different generational things so boomer is what yeah even like that that's gen z and then because I've got the older kids, my older ones are a different generation to the little ones. Okay. And they'll be like,

oh, you're so Gen Alpha, you're so Gen iPad. It's like a little, yeah, into like a house slur that you can chuck around. Yeah. Yeah. I usually get called a boomer. I'm not actually a boomer. yeah I usually get called a boomer I'm not actually a boomer that's what I often get called or a Karen well when I went on uh TikTok uh like my little I have a little flirtation with it every once in a while because I don't feel like it I don't think TikTok needs me to interact with it basically I think it's doing fine doesn't need me waiting in there um but occasionally like especially over Christmas and New Year when Murder was doing lots of fun stuff on there I was like I'll have a little play with it. And I did a thing where I recorded something, a little chat thing, and my kids found it hilarious.

They were like, Mom, your millennial pause. Because basically that came on. And then I was like, hi, all of a sudden. And they're like, what are you doing in that pause? Just start talking. Even now, if I have a pause or something, they're like, what are you doing in that pause? Just start talking. Even now, if I have a pause or something, they're like, the millennial pause. Yeah, no, they do have a go at me,

particularly my daughter, about like selfies and stuff. Oh, yeah. You just don't know what you're doing, mum. You're just, please don't. I know. But then there's a new, I sort of find it quite cosy being sort of teased about being older with them. Sort of something I think it's like because you sort of know that that's how the generations like slide down, you know, like we would have thought that way about our parents.

Are you the only one in your family that went into music? Yes, I have a brother and he's a town planner, actually. And he lives in Australia. He went on a gap year and never came home. Oh, through mother's fear. Which is really hard. Yeah, him and my mum. in Australia. He went on a gap year and never came home. Oh. Which is really hard. Yeah. Him and my mum. Not Australia. Him and my mum were really close.

So I think she really found that hard when he, well, the problem was he went to Australia for a year. He fell in love. And so he didn't come back. So we visited him at Christmas, actually, which was really nice. Because for a long time they were living in Singapore, him and his partner and their daughter. And so now they're in Australia and I hadn't taken the kids there for, oh, about 10 years. So that was quite an adventure.

But yeah, he started learning instruments, same as I did when he was younger, but that wasn't really his vibe. No, no, he found your thing. Found my thing. My kids, I wanted them to find music. So they both started playing when they were little. My son still plays.

My daughter went into ponies. Does piano still? Yeah, he plays piano. And he did play trumpet until he had braces put on. Oh, does that affect trumpet playing? Yeah, because it affects your embouchure. So really difficult. So he's singing now instead.

And he plays drums. Amazing. And he wants to be an actor. So he's gone more um instead and he plays drums amazing so uh and he wants to be an actor so he's gone more down the drama route than music but he is still playing and songwriting which is great i love love hearing him playing the piano and writing and it sounds like they're both really big fans of music which i think is the thing that for every kid if they have that i feel like it's like a friend they've always got very much so and i love the fact that they did do music when they were younger and they played in orchestras and stuff because I find that music

is one of those things that you can do at school which isn't age dependent if that makes sense because most of what you're doing at school is only in your own year group so even when you're doing sports you only play sports generally against your own year group true whereas when you're doing music, you're often in ensembles, orchestras, bands, whatever, choirs, across all the ages. So you then get to have friends who are at a different stage to you. So you might be in year seven, but you're talking to a year 10, or you're doing your GCSEs, but you're talking to kids who are doing A-levels. And I think that that's really healthy that you have friends of different age groups

and you're all pulling together to create a school production or something or a concert, whatever it is. And I think that that sort of collaborative teamwork thing is really important. And learning an instrument or singing is really great for your brain as well. Yeah, I think it's been proven, those things,

especially as well with kids with their morale and their imagination as well, it really helps with all those things to get involved with music when there's more, because you have to explore stuff, but then you can also come up with your own ideas, it's like another way to express, which I think, yeah, fully champion all of those avenues when you're little, because it's so healthy to have outlets, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, well, you've been sitting next to a piano this whole time so feel free to have a little tinker after this let's have some piano time and some sparkle time yeah absolutely oh thank you so much it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you thank you for

having me it's been lovely chatting so nice now let's get sparkling Thank you, Kirsten, for talking to me. And I really, yeah, it was so nice to cross paths with her and also talk to someone who has a job that, I don't know, maybe you didn't know was a job. Did you know about music supervision? I know that my sister's fiancé is thinking of getting into that. I think it's brilliant. And do you remember

there was a knock at the door while I was doing my chat at the beginning? It was them delivering this insane cake to say well done for selling out the venue. And it's so beautiful.

Made by someone local called Veronica who I don't know but I'm already like wanting to be her friend because she makes beautiful cakes and yeah what a good day I'm having and I will oh next week yeah I'm not sure there's going to be a podcast next week because basically I normally do them in blocks of 10 sorry that noise was Richard I normally do them in blocks of 10. And when I lost my voice, I had to cancel

a couple of conversations. So, and then I left to go on the road. So, I'm working out if it's better that I do, I can't believe it, Richard just left the room and he's just like, didn't even close the door quietly. Like, he edits this thing, he should know. Anyway, um, yeah, I can't work out if it's better to do an extra recording for you, but it'd be like a week late, or we just have this as an erroneous block of nine, and then I just start a new series. Will you be sad if you don't hear from me for a little bit? Actually, don't tell me. I don't want to know, because if the answer's no, it's fine. My sensitive little heart. Anyway, I will figure it out. I don't want to know because if the answer is no, it's fine. My sensitive little

heart. Anyway, I will figure it out. I suppose I'm being a bit optimistic because I land back from Canada on the Monday morning. I have to go away for work on the Wednesday. So I've optimistically booked in a couple of recordings on the Tuesday. Do you think that's realistic? I don't flipping know either. I just really don't like the fact that I haven't done my quota. I'm so, I've done so well. Four years, I haven't dropped the ball. Come on, guys. It's so annoying.

I've even had two bank holiday Mondays during this run. I could have easily used that as an opportunity to put some meters on the plank. But no, I just stuck fast to what I was doing. Anyway, I'm sorry. But I am very grateful to you for listening. And if this is the end of the series, then thank you so much. And if it's not until, if there's one more, then I'll see you next week. Well, in two weeks.

But in any case, thank you for lending me ears. Thank you to Kirsten for talking to me. To Claire for being producer. To Richard for editing. Ella May for the artwork. And obviously you mainly for listening and tuning in and giving me your ideas. All right, let's have a speak to see.

Bye-bye. so To be continued... at once. I love this place. I love it. We uncover the travel experiences and destinations that have shaped their lives, chatting all-time favourites, hidden gems and what's at the top of their travel bucket lists. It's Wanderlust guaranteed. Just search for The Travel Diaries wherever you get your podcasts.