Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - S11 Ep 30: Lauren Mayberry (Chvrches)

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

This week we welcome my daughter’s absolute favourite, Lauren Mayberry from the fantastic Chvrches to Table Manners.The Scottish singer zooms in from LA and talks to us all about living in California, searching LA for the best curry, her mums ‘rats-pooey’, eating nachos with her dad, her love of creme eggs and she introduced me to ice cream clowns! We chat about the hopeful return of live music & Chvrches upcoming album ‘Screen Violence’ which is out on Aug 27th x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here on Zoom with my mum. Hi mum. Jessie, I don't like it when you're not next to me. Really? You poke me usually, so I thought I'd give you a little bit of a wide berth this week. And I've got a floppy tripod. That's what she said. Or he said. He said. He said it's on your head. Oh my god, we just... Anyway, that's that's very very lovely segue that i didn't even think i could possibly do we have lauren mayberry of churches the scottish band who are fantastic on today and they have a song called he said she said and that just kind

of tickled me mum you're not having to cook today so what are you having for dinner i have cooked i've made myself prawn curry. Oh, nice. What, with butternut squash? Mango? No, I've done it with manged two peas in and red and yellow peppers. Lots of yoghurt and Bob's your uncle. Mmm, nice. I saw you for a barbecue yesterday. You did your famous pui lentils. They went down a treat.

Did they, darling? have you been eating them today and dinner yeah good so when people are listening to this i've probably had a baby by now so i won't be whinging anymore i'll probably be whinging about being tired by this point but you won't have to hear it i'm really excited to have this guest on my daughter is a massive fan of her but alas it's bedtime so i don't think that i should let her meet her oh it's only seven i know is that really mean i don't know if also lauren will really be anyway lauren is a fan of the podcast i believe so that's nice and she's zooming in from la because she's made it big time mum the glasgow girl is now living in la so they're a trio and

i don't know if all of them live there. Darling, can I just check that I've not left my curry on? Yeah. And yeah, she's a really amazing musician, front woman, singer, like the most kind of memorable voice and makes a bloody banger. And they've got a new record out

on the 27th of August. Oh, my wedding anniversary. Lovely. Maybe that's what Sam will get me for my wedding anniversary. And she's in the waiting room. Lauren Mayberry coming up on Table Manners. Lauren Mayberry, we have you here.

You're Zooming in from LA. Your lovely boyfriend has just helped us with tech support. You have two microphones going. Oh, shit, hon, who's coming in? Right, I was going to mouth the love you, Sam, but fuck off, Sam, you fucking just made a big noise. Love you. My daughter, I'm a bit sad that...

Well, no, she'll be sad that she's not speaking to you, Lauren, because she's a big fan. It's her, like, she'll be sad that she's not speaking to you, Lauren, because she's a big fan. It's her like top, top requested song that we have to have in the car many times. And actually my husband introduced her to it. It's a big family fave. That's awesome. You better tell her which song, darling. She knows because I already sent her the video of my daughter singing.

Because we are DM friends. We DM. Oh, yeah. Well, this is kind of how this happened i feel like i'm i posted about he said she said because i think it's an amazing song and then you said that you were a big fan of the podcast yes and then i said well you must come on because this is my way of flirting and and then i sent you a just to seal the deal i sent a video of my daughter singing the song whilst in the car so there and here we are now you are zooming in tiny girl fans are my favorite demographic so you totally had me there and

yeah i've listened to you guys a lot this last year because uh sam was here sometimes but he was away with his family for some of the lockdown stuff so uh yes it was very comforting listen i would listen to it at nighttime when i was making my dinner and stuff because it felt fitting i would make a slightly rubbish meal whilst listening to you guys talk about nice meals that you were having and it felt very comforting especially because yeah your mother and daughter

haven't been able to see my folks since Christmas 2019 so it's been quite a long time now yeah well I mean I'm very lucky I live in a house with cats and a nice, I'm very safe and fine. I'm fairly privileged, but yeah,

it's just weird because we have US visas and those, we've got our US visa renewed, but you can't get to the embassy to get it stamped. So we can't really leave. Otherwise we won't be able to get back in and we've got tour dates here. So our management were like, just sit tight. Lauren, why have you got a jumper on when you live in la um i did realize when i stepped into the zoom square i was like i

look a bit like where's wally which wasn't my intention but um you don't well it's raining today so i thought it would be cozy for me and i miss lots of things but every time there's an occasion to wear a jumper and amer Americans are quite intense about their air conditioning in a way that so I carry one with me all the time anyway not that I go anywhere but when I used to go places if you go into a shop or a cinema it's absolutely Baltic immediately so I have to have a large jumper to put over my entire self just in case so do you miss Scotland I do I do yeah what do you miss most the rain or the midges I'll take the rain over the midges 100 but yeah I feel I guess it's weird when you move away from a place because it's not like I left because I didn't like it

anymore I was just conscious that I have an opportunity to travel and do something that not a lot of people get to do and you know I don't have I don't have kids I don't have things that hold me to a place necessarily and I was conscious that I don't know why I decided this when I was 27 I was like well everybody's putting a timer on women in entertainment so you need to do as much as you can while you can and also figure out a way for the to do something afterwards which maybe sounds overly negative and overly paranoid but I do think that I'm like I would love to be Shirley Manson or PJ Harvey or any of those people that get to create constantly forever but I just I'm unsure if that would be the case. So I was like, I need to figure out a way to be able to work in creative stuff after this because there's no session,

session front man, session front woman isn't really a job. So I was like, yeah. So we're in Los Angeles trying to expand on the old writing CV. So what are you writing for other people as well? Trying to, yeah. I'd only ever written lyrics for myself

or projects that I had been in. If someone else wanted to sing but didn't want to write words, then I would just feed them forward. But I think it's kind of nice, and especially most of the stuff we've been doing, I think all the stuff almost, is writing for female singers and female artists, and I feel like that's something that appeals to

me a lot because I haven't been in a lot of those kinds of rooms as an artist but the ones I have been in it's just been all men all the time so when you're like this is what my concept is and this is what I want to do a lot of the times people are supportive but other times they don't get it at all so I feel like I'd like to I'm only 33 I'm almost 34 I don't know why I'm putting a time stamp on myself so early but part of me is like I'd like to be the old wise owl in the room that can be like she's trying to say something what is it you want to say that would be my if someone could pay me for that that'd be great it's I mean it's so funny it's actually. It's, and it's not surprising that

you do say about the shelf life for women, because most women that come on this podcast that are in music say exactly the same thing. And they feel it too. And it's really crap. Yeah. And it's odd, because I don't want to live too much in like the fear realm. But I also don't want to be naive because i know that realistically it's more likely that that will happen and even like i think it's bizarre to be confronted with your own age and aesthetic even if people are saying something nice that they think they're saying is very nice when they're like oh wow you wouldn't know she was 33 you look so much younger and then it just gets me in my own head where I'm like yeah but then we're placing the worth on a woman's youth and that's gonna go away

and then when I do quote unquote look my age what does that mean does that mean I cease to be relevant artistically and so yeah part of me was like I understand that's a very I'm lucky to have that I'm lucky to get to do that. And I do fucking love my job. But I'm also conscious that at some point the job might not exist in that way. And if I've learned anything about anything in this industry, it's that once you're viewed as old news, people are much less likely to let you try anything.

And that sounds really savage. I didn't move here to just be like such a depressive cranky person but uh you know future-proofing because i do at the end of the day i fuck i fucking love music and making music and i would like to get to do that for a while but i don't know i i understand the fear but i also think like you you've got a new record out with churches yes in end of august it sounds killer it sounds big and like you're doing that you're still doing your band and then i think it's i i understand that you want to write for

other people it's a brilliant thing to be involved in especially if you like collaborating you know you're part of a band and and to be able to collaborate with other people other women other female voices you know i i get it all and and sometimes when you feel like you've put all your eggs in one basket it can feel quite scary in the old music world yes good to have a couple of plates spinning which is a very table mannersy metaphor well let's talk about this so you cooking feeling a bit homesick what were you cooking a lot of whilst in lockdown and what have you what are you a good cook I've got so much to ask you

I feel like I've gotten better I've definitely gotten better during this time period because I feel like when you're on tour even if you're going for the quote-unquote healthy option it's not really that healthy a lot of the time and if I on tour I try and eat vegetarian or but a lot of the time that's just mac and cheese or like junk food versions of regular food i don't know what to call it that's not offensive pita will be right up my ass about that but um uh yeah so i think being at home and just being able to be like okay i'm gonna try and make healthy things and i got into a weird pickle by the end of the last round of touring where i think i just really messed up my my my guts I think because I'd had a couple of like vocal throat infection things and I'd taken

antibiotics for them and then we were touring and then I think I just when I eventually went to a doctor about it they were like that plus were you doing a lot of worrying during 2019 I was like yes a lot of worrying and they were like you've basically worried yourself into a 19 and I was like yes a lot of worrying and they were like you've basically worried yourself into an upset gut issue and I was like oh no so I had to try and figure that out and what was irritating and what wasn't and it would just be like I would wake up one day and my face would be like swollen and like with hives all over it and stuff if I'd eaten certain things and now I kind of got to a place where I think I can eat that stuff again it was just a case of building back up so I had to cut out gluten and dairy and all those things for a while which sounds very LA whenever I was doing stuff I wanted to be like it's not

because I moved here it's because I fucked up my guts but yeah so I got uh like Amelia Freer does a lot of like healthy but actually tastes like stuff recipes. So I've been doing some of that and Anna Jones. And there's this book, which has a name I don't love, but the beauty chef and it's about like gut, gut healthy cooking. So I can pickle basically anything. I can pickle it now.

If it's, if it stands still, I can pickle it. So you like kimchi? Yes love it love kimchi i love uh one of my favorite things and sam my boyfriend thinks it's mental i make these like just pickled red onions and it's just so easy and i'll just eat a little bowl of them you can go on the side of anything but if i want a little snack i'll just sit and eat my stinky pickled onions and it's it's flavourful what a great girlfriend give us a kiss Sam

what were you worrying about on tour just apart from the shows going well and all that, was it stressful? I think well we had a bit of a bit of a tough situation on the last tour where we'd done this feature and then that person then

went on and collaborated with another artist who was quite a high profile domestic abuser and we were like oh god do we have to say something about this because our whole brand and our whole fan base is built on not that yeah and we were like oh my god I guess we have to say something about it and it was kind of damned if you do damned if you don't because if we didn't say anything then that would be quite cowardly but also wouldn't be very honest and we don't want to be hypocritical but then if you do say something

then you're drawing attention to it and it went very badly I will say yeah it went pretty badly and there was a lot of like security problems in it yeah it was bad and just stuff like yeah it's been good to have Yeah, it went pretty badly and there was a lot of security problems in it. Yeah, it was bad. And just stuff like, yeah, it's been good to have the time off in a way to reflect on those things. Because, yeah, there would just be things like I would wake up in the morning not aware of the fact I must have gotten up during the night time.

And I'd put chairs and loads of stuff in front of the hotel door and I don't remember doing any of that like I don't recall it and I was like oh right but your brain and your gut are really connected so one influences the other and then I just started having like really bad allergies to things and like my skin was like it looked like it had been like burned half the time and I was like what's going on so I just slather stage makeup on it and then go to the gigs so I think it was good to have time off and be like yes but maybe it wasn't just the sheets you know and it's interesting how food is all connected to those things that you develop food intolerances because your body's already upset or whatever but everything's fine now it's fine my guts are great everything's really great regular it's good

that sounds incredibly stressful and frightening well yeah so do you can you eat bread now and things like that i mean i choose my gluten it's not great bread in la is it well this is i think a strange american bread is very like sweet or sugary or something i can't so there's one place near us a little local bakery and they do like just this really nice sourdough and i'm like okay this is the place this is where we'll go but yeah even like a healthy i guess you can't see air quotes on a podcast but a healthy like wheat like seeded bread it's always very like sweet and that's bizarre to me I don't understand and there's certain things that just are different like

once just after I'd moved I had a small small cry in a supermarket because I was like everything is the same but it's different I don't understand like things that you just don't know the brand names of certain things or like yeah and it's interesting so where do you shop in LA where do you like well there's a little well it's not I think it's a California chain but it's a chain of supermarkets called Sprouts so I do that and then we have uh like if we're feeling really bougie we'll go to like the farmer's market and stuff like that um and i got one of my favorite 2020 purchases was this thing called a lettuce grow which is i i cannot basically yes and it's like a it's a big like a tower and you put water in the bottom and it just it will push

the water around to keep the plants alive and you can grow like vegetables and herbs and all this stuff. And I murder everything in a garden ever. I can't keep anything. And this keeps it alive. So what vegetables are you getting out of it then? What are you doing? I've had loads of things. I've had a couple of failures,

but I've had lots of different lettuces, some rocket, coriander, basil, cauliflower once, which was quite bizarre. Wow. And you can get like peppers strawberries all kinds of stuff and if you go on their website i'm not sponsored by them i was just what's it called let lettuce grow lettuce lettuce like let us like uh like the plan yes and i love a pun anyway so i was like like, great. Yeah. And you can put in your postcode and where you're based, and they recommend if you're indoor, outdoor,

what plant will survive, et cetera. So basically it's like... Have you got a garden then? Oh, it's really pretty as well. It looks quite cool. So my mum, when I speak to her on the phone, is like, show me the lettuce grow. Oh, wow.

Does yours look like the one on the adlet? I mean, that's much yeah there's a few things there's a few holes in mine where things haven't come through that's amazing i know that the instagram algorithm is evil but at the same time it did recommend me that and i did want Where did you grow up in Scotland? I grew up in and around Stirling. So I lived in Dunblane for a bit and then in the countryside, a place called Thornhill until I moved to Glasgow for university.

So most of the time in either a small town or quite rural. So, yes. And I guess I was thinking about this before the podcast I'm like my mum did a really good job with the cooking when I think about what my peers were eating and I think about how ungrateful me and my sister were like she would be trying to cram vegetables in us and it's like you know the late 80s early 90s that's not necessarily a thing that's that popular and yeah she would make us like ratatouille and things like that and my sister and I would call it rat's pooey and be really rude about it that's so mean it's so mean and I think about it we were so rude about things and the poor woman like you know both my parents were

working jobs my mom was a teacher and she'd pick us up, take us home, make this food. And then we'd be rude about it. I feel so guilty as an adult. I'm like, I'm sorry, mum. I'm sorry. So, yes. It's funny. We used to do ratatouille a lot.

You'd do a baked potato with ratatouille and grated cheese. I think we all hated it. It was slightly kind of miserable looking veg. So we were doing the same. I don't think it was. I always thought it was great because I had a French boyfriend and he introduced me to ratatouille so i always thought it was exotic but you what we used to have it with sausages and baked potato didn't we that's what we did yeah so okay so your mum was quite a good cook or do you kind of she always made an effort

i think she was good and yeah she was making an effort to get nutrients into us like yeah she would be like you won't have monster munch for your school snack you'll have a little box of raisins and healthier crisps which are still crisps but she was ahead of the game you know she really was and yeah it's just funny when you think about certain things from like oh yeah it was the 90s like if it was a special occasion we would have a gammon steak with like a pineapple ring on it and stuff like that and that was like the height of luxury whereas now i'm like i don't know if i would eat it necessarily what's your what's your best meal that she used to cook your celebration meal was it gammon that was if somebody fancy was coming around not necessarily in-house that was if somebody we wanted to really show that we had

this style um she used to make uh maybe this is horrible to people if microwaves are viewed as terrible things to cook with but she used to make this love my microwave like uh mark mark suspensors had this little microwave cookbook and she would make a chili like a chili in the like this big casserole dish in the microwave and that was like the treat that we would get so you like chili still yes yeah well I made chili for my parents once and they were like oh it's taking so long because it was made on a hob and I was like yes but it needs the flavors the flavors must infuse and they were like just stick it in the microwave it'll be done in five minutes did your dad cook he did i mean he definitely came into his own after we moved me and my sister moved out and also i think in the last since he's retired he's like now when i phone my parents on

facetime that my mom's like can't really talk your dad's making a paella or whatever i'm like okay whereas in like the 90s if we were left home with my dad like a nice dinner would be you know those old El Paso like nacho kits he would be like right we'll have nachos for dinner that's what we would eat as a fun treat and I guess living in Los Angeles now

I'm like oh right that's not what that's meant to taste like but I have fun memories. We were talking about Chicken Tonight the other day. Do you remember Chicken Tonight? That big, rare... It was like the most exciting thing, wasn't it?

Sauce in a jar. Oh, yeah. I didn't buy that. But I know, and that's why we all wanted it. Oh, okay. And it had a good song. We were... Oh, yeah.

Chicken Tonight. I feel like chicken tonight. Like chicken tonight. Yeah, anyway. An amazing jingle we were always really lusty over uh pot noodles and rustlers because you would see the adverts on tv all the time and my mom would be like i am not feeding you that and then as an adult i was like yeah i can see why we don't know we don't know what's in our rustler but i really want really wanted it. Really did.

Where are you eating out at the moment in LA? Where's some of your favourite spots? Well, we're kind of, we're quite near Pasadena. So we're like quite far out in the east. But there's a good, there's a nice restaurant near us called Hippo, which I like. I haven't heard of it. It's like kind of new American stuff. And it's got a nice little patio. It had a patio before COVID,

but they've really lent into their patio now. And I guess there's loads of good Mexican stuff and there's lots of good sushi and ramen and like Asian foods and stuff. Haven't found any good Indian food in Los Angeles, I have to say. And in Glasgow is good. You know, I've been spoiled. And I lived in New York for a little bit before coming here and I couldn't find there was

that stretch of curry restaurants in Manhattan but outside of that I was like yeah I don't want like I got a sag paneer once that was just like liquid it looked like green juice it was very odd I was like what did you do to the spinach? I don't understand. So yes, I feel like that is the one thing I really, really, really miss here is just really good curry. Can't find it. So whenever we're in the UK,

it's like London, Manchester, Glasgow, anywhere you can find decent curry pretty much anywhere in the UK. And we, it was just not great for us singing, I suppose, just shoving yourself full of Indian food and then playing shows but I have to live I have to live so where's your where's your spot in Glasgow that you go and eat oh I mean there's so many good ones but whenever my I go with my parents to this place called Balbears which is in the west end of Glasgow

and big fan of Mother India cafe which is like small plates and yeah like it was really near uh where I used to live when I was at uni and yes whenever I go home me and my best friend from university will go for lunch at Mother India every time we get two pints of King Fisher and a bunch of small plates and it's it's a really good day. You know, because you listen to this podcast, we're going to ask you what your last supper is. I wonder if curry is going to feature in this. It's a starter, a main, a pudding, and a drink of choice. Okay.

I think starter... I feel like for me, food is quite an emotional thing. I suppose that's for everybody you associate a certain time with a certain food and I think for my my starter I would like to have like my gran's vegetable soup that she would always make us and I've tried to make it as an adult my mom has made it we've all made it and it's just not quite the same I don't know maybe she's just putting in a crap ton of salt I don't know describe it what was just putting in a crap ton of salt. I don't know. Describe it. What is it? It's got carrots and maybe potatoes, but I can't... I never know whether it's like rice or barley or something that she put in,

but there was something. Barley. Something, and it would always... You would get to it at the bottom, and it would be fully infused with all the stuff, and it just... And it thickens the soup as well. It creams it up as well. Yeah.

And I have just nice memories of going around to her house when we were all kids and having to sit at the teeny tiny table where you were crouching on the floor to eat the soup. And she made us a lot of weird foods, but like pickled beetroot sandwiches and things like that. Even as a kid, I was like, that's bizarre. But, you know, that's post post you do have pickles now maybe I do so maybe again now maybe she got me but yes I would start with the nostalgic soup

and then I definitely have uh mother India mother India for my my mains and because it's the small plates maybe you could combine a few little things on a plate but i don't know i'm a sucker for tag paneer as discussed and any kind of dal they do like a lovely black dal sometimes which is very filthy and you've got to have a naan i don't mess with poshwari naan i've tried it a couple of times but i don't it confuses me oh i like it do you it's not so you just do butternut or garlic just yeah just go straight up maybe garlic but then sometimes i get upset about the garlic because i'm like you're distracting from the distracting from the dish which is i like the filling in a night the pechoir is like it's like a kind of guilt guilty pleasure i kind of love it it's an extra little surprise yeah

maybe i should i'll try again next time i go back don't try bloody la whilst you're there don't don't bother if you're gonna try peshawari wait until you come back to bloody scotland just with sweets all over it it'll just be like sick yeah exactly it's kind of like an almond croissant but like uh kind of yeah no coconut anyway yeah now that i think about it yeah it is quite weird yeah um okay so what's the what's the pudding or are you still on your are you still got other small plates that you need to tell me about um no I think I'm good well they do like a really good like chili king prawn as well and there's always a tiny little new potato in the wrapper when you

get it I don't know why the potato is there, but I always enjoy the potato. And I guess for pudding, I don't know. I'm not like, I've got a massive sweet tooth, but I'm not a very good baker or anything. And if I go out somewhere, I would rather get starter mains than mains dessert. So I feel like it would be a nostalgic thing. Like maybe, like my mum, when we were kids for like a birthday party or whatever,

would make us little ice cream clowns. You know those things where it's just a scoop of ice cream you put a cone on the top to look like a little hat and smarties for a face and it was probably like i love that crap cone crap ice cream but it really blew me away every time i haven't done that for my kids and i should totally do that ice Ice cream clowns. That's genius. Church's ice cream clowns. There you go. Branded. That maybe should be merch.

Maybe you should have an ice cream store. Yeah, something like that. Or just a cream egg. I had to body slam to try and get a cream egg out here. It was pretty tough. So sweet. Yeah, I know. You're confusing me, Lauren.

You don't do a pechoirie naan, but you do a bloody cream egg. But I'm not putting, like, garlic on top of my naan. Not with her savouries, darling. You're not a sweet and salty person, then? Maybe for, like, popcorn or something, but, yeah, I don't know why. I think, I have noticed as I've gotten older, I'm like, oh, maybe there's some weird psychology in that I don't like certain things to be touching other things,

which makes me sound weird. But if I i put for for instance my little pickled onions if i'm putting them on a dish i will put them in a little ramekin so they're not i'm so i can apply them when i see fit fancy but i don't know i think that might be i didn't used to be like that keep things very separate so i wonder if that's like a control psychological issue that doesn't need to be there i am but so you won't have the pickled onion combined with like the dahl or anything like that it won't be like you'll have to taste together you like to have this taste separate i will occasionally take a couple and put them on top of and then i'll know that they're coming and otherwise it's like the little sorbet between bites i don't know like i've yes it's been pointed out to me that that's a palate cleanser it's a very odd way to

eat so and i didn't used to be like that so i do wonder i'm like oh maybe things are going slightly bizarre as we get older i don't know so and what's your drink of choice oh i mean if it's with curry just a straightforward beer probably like uh they always, in Mother India, always get like a half pint of Kingfisher on tap. Just nice and crisp. And if we're being fancy and it's not curry, then I don't know anything about wine. But a quote unquote nice red wine would be nice. So what's on your rider with you and churches? Like you and the boys, do you have a similar taste

do you all kind of have your own riders how's it work in a band we have pretty similar i think i could look at it and choose what was mine and then the rest of it's probably for the guys but yeah like we'll just get like a bunch of beers and we have to think about the crew guys as well so there was a while where we're like maybe we should get light beers and also we'll just get like a bunch of beers and we have to think about the crew guys as well so there was a while where we're like maybe we should get light beers and also we'll get murdered we can't be offering them like michelob ultra as they load out that's not what they want um but ian from the band is a big whiskey guy so we'll ask for like a lafroig or something and he'll have he likes to take a bit of that um and then the drummer johnny he always he's like a really he likes a little cocktail situation so he'll he brings like a boy he brings his stuff with him so he'll just be like

give me some bitters and a bottle of this and then he has his like touring cocktail kit that he likes to roll with oh my god he sounds fun so yeah well yeah he's yeah he's a little fancy so yes and he toured with the killsills for a bit. So I think that that helped him get chic and fancy as well. So he knows a way to do things. Whereas I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'll have a beer after the gig. Don't know. That's it.

So are you going on a big tour, Lauren, next year? You're really big in the States, aren't you? Oh, thanks. I mean, I think we do we do we do well we do well here and i guess we were trying to figure out tour routings and it was just about where stuff was more open and more accessible first so um we love the idea of like being able to go home first but it just didn't seem practical the idea of booking a tour in the uk for the autumn time so yes we're starting uh in texas in start of november i think and then we amazing i think

the hope is that we'll be in the uk in the springtime next year but it's also have you got have you got dates booked or kind of penciled we have things penciled in and it's just tricky because it's about like safety and where you can get where you can get to who's taking tours in but also loads of the venues are booked because it's all shifted lineups for the last 18 months and yeah so i feel bad when people are like but you're not coming to xyz place i'm like i want to we can't so but we will i think yeah we're just feeling really lucky to get to play any shows at all like I was talking to the band guys

about it and we were saying that this is like the longest that any of us have gone without playing shows since we were kids basically because so yes have you been in bands for your whole life or have you been how did it start?

How did you find that voice? Well, I was like 15, 16, and I started playing drums in a band. So I had played piano at high school since I was a kid. And then for higher music, they were like, you need to have two instruments for your performance stuff. And I really didn't want to do singing because I think I'd hit that point of self-consciousness in life and also I

will learn drums and then drums could be my second instrument and then I played drums in bands mostly. But did you know you had a voice at that point or was it kind of did it did it feel like a unique voice? No, no I knew that like I think I thought I was okay like I was like I can keep tune and I can sing backing vocals and I like singing along to stuff but I think it was just always like the self-consciousness I never really wanted to be the guy in the band and I didn't think that my voice was like very special or anything so and then I think it just kind of happened by default that I ended up singing in bands like the band I was in before churches i was kind of sharing vocals with this other guy and then he had said you should sing

more you should do more of the songs and then we recorded us a ep with ian from churches and then he had said that him and his friend were writing some demos which they thought they might try and sell for publishing or something and try and get a publishing deal so he was like if you sing some stuff sing some backing vocals sing some leads then we'll pay you a day rate and that'll be good and i was like oh lovely and it wasn't this sounds really like fairy tale whatever but uh cinderella but i didn't i just didn't think about it like that i never thought that there was any exciting quality to my voice but martin from churches always loves to tell the story that they were listening to the demos back and they muted his vocal and then they were like that's the band which i don't know if that's true but that's how they like to tell the

story and i think i don't know i guess maybe i don't know how you feel about how you relate to your voice jesse but maybe you're bound to think your own voice is bizarre like sometimes i listen to i'm like oh what what a strange tone it's just like specific and like coming out of the front of your face i don't know why but it must do something some like to me i'm like it's it's the means of getting the message across like i would always sing in bands to try and communicate the thing. It was never like, I'm like, oh, I'm an amazing singer and everyone would be so lucky to listen to me. It's not something I ever thought, but...

So you're kind of like, you're the reluctant front woman. I mean, now I... Or you were. Yes. I think, well, I just didn't ever think I was, like, good at it. You know what I mean? Like, I think some people, maybe it's about pushing yourself forward

or but some people they walk into a room and you're like oh yeah they've got like that quality it's funny you talk about that because I I just I'm watching the Billie Eilish documentary and it's really fascinating because the girl was like I mean she kind of makes me laugh because she talks about hating songwriting i mean this girl is what when she makes this documentary she's like 17 um and it's about the rise of her and she she's so self-assured about her it's not that she's cocky at all she's really remarkable but there was like a total inner confidence and self-belief that she had with her the way she delivered songs and all of that and you know i remember i remember watching florence florence the machine like singing on tables anybody that listened she

was there in elephant castle singing and there was like this showmanship about it and i was like i was not that person i was kind of like sorry, sorry, I'm just going to do this. So no, I totally understand where you're coming from. But then to me, I'm like, but you've got such a beautiful voice. And when you sing, it's like, oh, people will feel something because of what you're singing. So maybe it's like we always want what we don't have. I don't know. I don't know.

Well, I just love the idea that my daughter sings, he said, she said, and she doesn't actually really know what the words necessarily and the message means but it's so it's quite poignant and powerful my little girl singing these words and it's so it's such a clever song and it's so important um and the message is so direct but yet my little four-year-old is kind of yet to realize those situations women find themselves in it's um a really really remarkable record um i wanted to ask you well mum actually asks this question all the time come mum do you sing karaoke i do i was taking back everything we just said apparently karaoke

is where i'm like give me that microphone get me up there oh wow what's your song of choice I mean I definitely love a bit of Alanis never mad at that oh yeah and there's triple headline tour that's Alanis Garbage and Liz Fair and it's been rescheduled

I can't wait I keep every time the date gets moved i change it in my calendar and i'm like i hope i can go i hope i can go i really need to go um yes i would do that and then so which alana song no i think you should know probably you ought to know i mean you ought to know it's good you ought to know yeah i mean i love them all i hate it when people slag off ironic they're all like Oh well it's not even What she's talking about It isn't ironic I'm like Well you

What What Shut up It's one of the best Biggest songs of all time I do Yeah people don't like Like something that's popular

She got too popular And people got annoyed I think she's got a great point And It's like It's arousing She was so young When she wrote that record

And I'm sure That when it went across radio programmers desks a lot of men were horrified but like she's completely iconic and she was writing like when we were talking about he said she said there was a moment but when we were talking about putting the song out i was like oh i don't it was a split second where i thought about alien i don't want to alienate certain people that are listening to the band I know we have a lot of male fans I don't want to alienate people

and then I was like hold on like in the history of music I don't think any man ever has thought oh I shouldn't put this song out from my perspective because it might alienate female fans so I was like okay well we just have to deploy it and hope

that it goes alright and I guess for well we just have to deploy it and hope that it goes all right and I guess for me we always tend I think what I love about Alanis's writing is that you know that there's a point underneath what she's saying but she's not written it as a point she's making like she's written it as a personal story and you can extrapolate other things from that if that makes sense so it's not like a manifesto message song it's like coming from a personal place but you can tell that her life is informed by those things because i don't know how you feel about these questions jesse when they happen but when people are like do you write about feminism do you write about women's stuff and i'm like but you that's your life experience so you will be writing about it in one way or another because it infiltrates your whole existence so

it will come out in your writing but it's not like you write about only quote-unquote female experiences i don't know did that did that become quite exhausting for you because because you spoke out what back in what 2015 about kind of the rape threats that you were getting and i'm sure you're so bored and tired of talking about it. But, you know, you were, you, if people didn't know about churches, which were a relatively new band at that point. I mean, maybe not, but like, you know, maybe weren't a household name like they are now. And you kind of do this Guardian piece and you start talking about, you know, rape threats you're getting and all of this. And do you feel like that's kind of now become part of your narrative every time you get interviewed and it just becomes like this kind of.

And do you mind it? Is it kind of a bit exhausting having to feel like you have to have an opinion on every. I mean, he said, she said to me, it's about gaslighting. It's about this control and all of that. And it makes total sense to me and but that's through your music and is it like do you kind of feel like sometimes you're like can I just leave it at the music or do I have to really like do we have to labor all the points um or have I just put words in your mouth and I'm sorry if I did uh no not at all I think that it's definitely come in waves over the course of time. I think when we wrote the Guardian piece, it was just as the first album was coming out. So it did feel like that was what people knew about the band

before they knew about the songs a lot of the time, just because of the nature of online press, I suppose. And I don't think they'd mind me saying this, but the guys in the band definitely struggled with that for a while because they can be supportive till they're blue in the face, but it is upsetting for them when they go into a room and that's all people want to talk about. But then we had a big shouty argument about it in the dressing room once

where I was like, do you think that's what I want everybody to talk about all the time? But the difference is you can leave and do something else and it won't happen to you ever again like I think it was a weird like coming to terms with it thing like well there'll never really be a conversation around female art which isn't about how inherently female it is so I would rather have a constructive conversation if I can but I guess what's different as I've gotten a bit older is I think that those

feelings are reflected in the work more than they used to be. Like the first album, there's absolutely nothing on that record that talks about any of these issues. And I think it dripped into the second album a little bit. If anything, I tried to deliberately keep it off the third album because I thought that people would stop asking about it and it didn't happen. So now I feel like it's good that if those conversations come up we can point them back to like the comment is essentially pretentious but the comment is the work if you know what I mean rather than the talking about the work um and what I read something once that Elvis Costello said talking about music is like dancing about dancing and I was like yeah so I

guess I would rather when people are like what do you think about it I could be like this and this but it's reflected in the in the imagery in the videos in the songs and yeah I think there was a time where on the third record I was I don't want to put any of that stuff in the songs because then it'll be even more likely that people will write about that and more likely that you'll get pigeonholed as xyz kind of artist but i think that's why sometimes i don't know i really love the third record but to me it's a really specific moment in time where we were almost doing a little cosplay or something like cosplay as another in my almost in my writing i was like imagine that you weren't this person that you didn't have to go in with all this baggage and you could write about any of those things and maybe it would be like feel better and safer and

more fun and it was fun to make and then when we put it out i don't think it connected with people in the same way because it didn't feel as honest or as vulnerable or something and you still got asked all the same dumb ass questions anyway so I was like oh well like I don't think you should second guess creation like that so that's all I regret about that was me second guessing things and I think if I'd wanted to do a character piece then I should have properly done it, you know? Where does the name Churches come from? And why has it got a V instead of a U? Well, we had a lot of terrible band names.

At least I'm like, yes, you have your own name, Jessie Ware. And it sounds good and you didn't have to worry about it. It was done. But yeah, I think we had a lot to one name that the guys were really keen on was society and i was like guys are so pretentious like we can't go up every night and be like we are society that's really bad but uh yeah so i think we'd written down like wooden churches and burning churches and we were trying to go for that like black metal witch house thing and then

we were like oh maybe just churches is cool and i guess how we all grew up there's a lot of religious baggage in in that so we were like oh there's a statement and our friend had done a logo for it that was with a roman u and then we found out after we'd put a song on the internet there was an american band called churches and we dm'd them on soundcloud to be like hey what are you what are you guys up to you haven't put up anything in a while what do you want to do and they said we could be churches uk and we were like well that spells churches suck on a poster so i don't want to be called churches suck so then we were like oh we'll just make it traverses and so it was and somebody once tried to extort us out of a web address because they'd

registered all the traverses ones and they wanted us to pay a very sizable amount of money and give them like lifetime triple a's which makes no sense to me but it was our manager who was very smart and he was like if we get, I think it's is it Spain? And you can get chivert.es and that to this day is our website so don't try and kid a kidder you can't haggle a Glaswegian

it's not going to work. That is hysterical that they tried to bloody get you and then they wanted triple A's for the rest of your life, that is amazing aren't you quite tempted to just meet these absolute cheeky monkeys just go see and give them sometimes when I'm showering

or whatever I'll have my fantasy argument with people well I try and not carry too much rage but yes I think there's one person in the music industry I would still like to, and I've honed it whittled it down to shame on you and that's it and then I leave

I love that that's like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman she's like big mistake huge huge yes it was previously a long diatribe but I suppose that's the processing of the grief or whatever and now two years later I would just if I see them I would be like shame

on you and i'd walk away so um lastly lauren do you have good table manners i think my mother instilled in us good table manners they've probably waned since being ratapui i don't think that's right i know well yeah that's probably bad but uh, I know where all the forks are. I know no elbows on the table, no talking with your mouth full. And when we would do Ratatouille, my mum would... You would get a count to three. You would get three goes. So if something happened, she would be like, that's one. You get one.

And then after that, you knew. So Ratatouille was one. It's one. And yeah, I just think that touring with feral men has probably lessened my table manners slightly but I'm still definitely the most polite out of us I would say

so yes I always put the napkin on the lap don't cross people when you're passing things like that Lauren thank you so much for doing this it's been a pleasure to chat to you good luck with the record. It's out,

I think, on the 27th of August. It's indeed, yes. And touring, hopefully we'll get you over here soon, but otherwise the States can have you for a bit longer.

But do come back to us soon. I will. Thank you very much, you guys. Thank you. Lauren Mayberry, like the loveliest, politest woman with the filthiest mouth. Oh, she was delightful. She did have a big woolly on, darling. I'm a bit worried.

I thought you were going to say something else, Mum. Jesus. I don't know. It's raining outside. I think it was a bit of a homesick cling to, you know, Scotland. Thank you so much to Lauren Mayberry from Church's. Album's out on the 27th of August. And I shall go to bed now, Mum.

Are you going to go and eat your curry? Yeah, I am. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Lauren. Thank you to Mum. Enjoy your curry? Yeah, I am. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Lauren. Thank you to Mum. Enjoy your curry. We'll speak to you soon. All right, darling.

Bye. Thank you for listening. The music you've heard on Table Manners is by Peter Duffy and Pete Fraser. Table Manners is produced by Alice Williams.