2. CONTENTS
PG NO.
FEATURES
48
AURORA STORM
72
THE 1975
The woman who has landed herself
as the most controversial artistof our
generation lays herself bare.
How much fun can beiung a member
of The 1975 be? This much.
80
TWO DOOR CINEMA
CLUB VS (MAG)
85
Q&A ED SHEERAN
90
THE DRUMS
We go head to head against one of
Britain’s favourite indie bands.
Picking apart the guitar-toting, celeb
squiring, worldwide chart-topper.
A short, tactical guideto preening and
prouncing about.
92 HANDWRITTEN
Expert analyses behind the scribblings
of your favourite Indie artists.
101
50 GIGS IN 10 YEARS
The top 50 gigs of the decade that you
must see!
PG NO.
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www.magname.com
3. ISSUE NO
SOCIAL
NETWORK
REGULARS
08
YOU’VE GOT MAIL!
10
THE TOP 50
This months essential songs.
15 NOW
48
Alt-J in the studio, Foster The People’s
secrets spilled, the 10 most notable
career suicides and the rest of the
music news.
32
Hello Camden! We visit one of
London’s most popular urban areas
to hunt down what’s going on in the
world of Indie.
34
PG NO.
ON LOCATION:
NEW TO (MAG)
Greetings Passenger, London Grammar and Imagine Dragons. Make
yourself at ome.
PG NO.
32
REVIEW
50
BAND NAME
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repudis et, si aut latiis dolupta
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culpa nos quiae autem esedi odis
repreiur sit et quam culpa sequissum anihici mintur? Xime natiam,
sus, cum sum rehendel iusaeres
ipsumSoludem in te condum pat,
42
ACCESS ALL AREAS
The best seat in the house behind the
scenes of Arctic Monkey’s hit new
album - AM.
78
RECORD COLLEC
TIONS
Indie’s finest, Chris Martin, takes us
back to his musical beginnings.
96 SUBSCRIBE
Oh, go on, you know you want to!
161 QUIZ
Your regular dose of brain food. Win
a guitar and amp worth £1,200.
162
LAST REQUESTS
Final thoughts from Kodaline.
00
5. S
W
hat with her eccentric, controversial yet
iconic style - and music and match 20-year-old Aurora Storm is currently
causing a sensation in the UK, where
her vivid indie-edge debut single ‘Smother’ has charted in the Top 10. Her sassy, bad-girl act echoes that of
childhood idols Janis Joplin and Madonna. “I look to
Madonna for her philosophy about music and fashion,”
she admits. “If I’m going to get compared to any music
artist, I sure as fuck want it to be her.”
Raised in the heart of London, Aurora attended the
£17,000-a-year Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone, where she studied music and performing arts
alongside Rita Ora and Tom Fletcher. ‘I didn’t hang out
with all the popular girls,” she says, claiming to have
kept her head down and focused on her art and theatre
studies. To the humiliation of her parents – extremely
successful lawyers - she ended up moving downtown at
just 17 years old following a serious argument she had
with her family. Aurora did everything she could to get
by – working in a small café at minimal wage and occasionally partaking in nude modeling and busking on the
streets of London to songs that she had written in her
spare time, just so she could have a roof over her head
and place food on her plate every night. “I was doing
drugs, I was really out of control,” she says. “But what
made me different was that I was making music, too. I
wasn’t just doing drugs.”
Her antics caught the eye of musical-director Caius
Pawson, (Founder of The XX, Sampha) who found her
busking at Camden Lock, before
bringing her to the attention of
Young Turks Records. Aurora’s
debut album Porcelain is released in
the UK this month, and she plans to
take just herself, her guitar and her
music worldwide. But Aurora insists
that it’s not all about the marketing
and publicity.
“I could end up in America selling
thousands of records or I could
go back to how things were before
when no one really knew my name
and few people purchased my
music, and it wouldn’t matter to me.
All that matters is the music. I don’t
give a shit about how many records
are sold – as long as I am making
music for the people I love, then I’m
happy.”
There’s no denying the fact that
Aurora is all that everyone is talking
about right now – her seemingly
overnight success is what has got
her to where she is now. When
asked if this is the “most insane
year” of her life so far, the singer-song writer says, “Everything
is so chaotic and crazy right now
and it’s so much all at once, but I’m
living for it. I’m just having the best
time ever and everything’s
falling into place like it’s supposed
to. I don’t really care if people hate
me. I think anyone wanting to
pursue a music career would have
given anything to be me at that very
moment where I blew up, because I
was being one hundred percent true
to myself… and not many people
can say that.”
But it’s not all hate for Aurora. This
fact is a kind of icing on the cake
for some, who have greeted Aurora not just as the latest, new, indie
sensation to appear freshly baked
off the assembly line, but as a kind
of Trojan horse come to deliver
us from the saccharine smiles and
full-frontal sexual provocation
clogging the charts. “The charts are
constantly filled up with pop songs
00
6. with no meaning, no real passion…
just a different combination of the
26 letters in our alphabet accompanied by a stupid tune. Who wants
to listen to that?! That’s what I want
to change.” Aurora’s sharp narrative
observations – on both the single,
and her critically acclaimed follow-up album, Porcelain – have led
to her being labeled the voice of her
generation.
When we meet, Aurora can barely
sit upright. “I came down with a
kidney infection just as I was about
to get on a plane here,” she says.
“They took me into hospital and
put me on a drip and now I’m on
heavy-duty antibiotics.” With her
gothically pale skin offset by dark,
red lips, black-rimmed wide-set
eyes and her bold, statement full
fringe, it’s not hard to see why she
attracts the attention that she does
– even when she’s ill she manages to
look flawless. She looks much older
than she is, a perception reinforced
by the deep, commanding timbre of
her sonorous voice.
On stage the previous night at
That is the power of the whistle
register; the ability to control that
part of the human voice is quite
rare (think Mariah Carey) and even
when ill, Aurora is able to hit way
beyond the whistle register. In performance, Aurora has a goofy theatricality: one minute she is indulging
in closed-eyed singing whilst si
ply sat with her guitar, shaking her
hair and flicking her hands out;
the next, she’s all broad smiles and
wisecracks, jokily mocking her
audience. Aurora was born with the
ability to be a performer and that’s
quite hard to find these days.
‘‘Songwriting is so weird because
you are writing down intimate
things and then you go into a studio with someone you have never
met,” she says. “For me, the idea
of an album touched by anyone
else… that would cut me in half. I
wouldn’t want to make albums with
song writers. I don’t like people
who call themselves singer/songwriter when they don’t write all
of it themselves. I do everything
myself.” When asked about sharing
“I don’t intend on
selling dreams to
young people.”
Brixton Academy, Aurora had betrayed no sign of her illness, or that
she had only 20 live performances
under her belt. Aurora performed a
mix of emotional ballads and when
she reached the dramatic climax
of the song, she vaults to the top of
her range and produces a piercing
sound that shakes you to the core.
00
her thoughts and problems with
the world through songwriting,
Aurora claims, “It was just music
that was written when I was getting
wrecked just for fun. It was almost
secondary to getting wrecked – the
fact that people have embraced it
is actually really humbling. It’s also
kind of conflicting and has sent me
a bit mental
but anybody
that knows me
will know that
it doesn’t take
much to send
me mental.
When I passed
it through to
my team, it
was a strange
situation where
something just
clicked. My
team was very
good at being
perceptive
and figuring
out what I do,
which is quite a
raw, impulsive
thing. “
Over the past
year and a half,
from 2011,
Aurora and her team came up with
the 10 songs for her debut album,
but Aurora says it never crossed
her mind that one might become a
worldwide hit. She insisted her first
songs be put out on free streaming
service SoundCloud without any
videos or photographs to promote
them. “I put my music out with no
kind of commercial expectation,
and found out I was a ‘star’. I didn’t
see my music as number-one Billboard chart selling music,” she says.
“I tried to market my music the way
my favourite indie producers did. I
care more about giving back to my
fans and the people that I love than
selling my music worldwide – don’t
get me wrong, it’s an absolute honour to be doing what I’m doing but
I don’t want to become a marketing
product like most pop artists these
days. I’m much deeper than that.”
While other mainstream pop acts
such as Katy Perry, One Direction and Britney Spears turn to
the same small pool of producers
in London, Stockholm and LA
www.magname.com
7. who deal in radio-friendly generic
dance styles, more-experimental
acts such as Kanye West or Lady
Gaga elect complicated, flamboyant
and ostentatious compositions. By
contrast, Aurora’s sound is simple
yet cinematic, spinning tales of real
teenage realities – penniless but
happy nights out full of longing and
loneliness – that reject clichés of
mindless fun and decadence.
“I don’t intend on selling dreams to
young people. We’re now brought
up believing that you have to live
and behave in a certain way to
get the best out of life – but that’s
completely wrong. Look at Disney
for example; as a child I thought I
was going to be a princess, just like
most little girls do… but that’s not
going to happen. Being a teenager
and growing up in this generation
isn’t what people expect. Y’know,
constant partying, your first kiss,
being prom queen, falling in love…
it’s not what it seems. It’s all bullshit.
Growing up is one of the most
difficult periods of time that you
can experience – yes,
it can be great, but just
like everything there’s
a downfall and people
need to be more aware
of that. That’s why I
write about my experiences. I’ve gone from
rock bottom right to the
top; I want my music
to reflect on this – not
everyone is perfect
and I want my music
to help people through
the reality of life… not
this perfect picture that
generic music seems to
constantly portray.”
When asked about what
motivates Aurora to
create music, she states
“Nothing really, it’s just
an innate need - I’ve
never known how to do
anything else. The way
my music is so based
around music almost
drives me crazy. I would
00
8. rather get away from it than me
inspired to create it because I can’t
ever imagine doing something
else.”
When asked about what motivates
Aurora to create music, she states
“Nothing really, it’s just an innate
need, I’ve never known how to do
anything else. The way my music
is so based around music almost
drives me crazy. I would rather get
away from
it than me
inspired to
create it because I can’t
ever imagine
doing something else.”
experiences. I’ve gone from rock
bottom right to the top; I want
my music to reflect on this – not
everyone is perfect and I want my
music to help people through the
reality of life… not this perfect
picture that generic music seems
to constantly portray.”
“I feel like there’s a genuine hole
in me. The little death, almost. I
need stimulation. I used to need
physical
stimulation
constantly,
whether
that is from
taking
drugs,
listening to
the sound
of my own
voice or
flirting with
guys and
girls. I’m
not bisexual, but that’
moment
when you
realise
someone
likes you –
it’s the best
feeling in the world. If you could
bottle it… [She drifts off for a
moment. And then she asks that
question] ‘Do you like me?”
“The way my
brain is so
based around
music almost
drives me
crazy.”
“The idea of
hell for me
would be
if I wasn’t
making music. I don’t
know any
other way
of expressing myself;
therefore I
don’t really know
another way of indulging myself.
And a life without indulgence and
nuance would be catastrophic.
I genuinely don’t know what I
would do. Music for me kind of
commands me how to feel, whether its excitement or emotion or anything. I’m totally, totally defined
by music. I would just try to get
any job that was associated with
music”, she says laughing.
“It’s all bullshit. Growing up is
one of the most difficult periods
of time that you can experience
– yes, it can be great, but just like
everything there’s a downfall and
people need to be more aware of
that. That’s why I write about my
00
Aurora possesses a maturity that
is, for now, inoculating her from
the madness growing around her.
“What I am doing now, I learnt so
much that I couldn’t learn at any
university at any age,” she says.
“Every time I get on stage I learn
something new. I’m evolving all
the time. My next record could
sound completely different.”
Aurora Storm gives her
opinion on some of the
most well-known Indie artists of the generation:
The 1975:
“The 1975 are one of my favourite bands!!! I especially
love their song ‘The City’, it’s
so catchy and always stuck
in my brain. The impact they
have made in such a short
time really reflects well on
the type of band they are,
and I encourage everyone to
buy their debut album otherwise you’ll regret it!”
Ed Sheeran:
“Ed is actually one of my
close friends, he’s an absolutely amazing artist and we
actually plan on working
together in the future! But
shhhhhh... you didn’t hear it
from me!”
London Grammar:
“I’ve heard some of their
stuff - they’re great, but a
little bit overrated. Maybe
that’s just me but I personally think that they haven’t
quite produced the life-affirming set they may have
bee capable of... But don’t
get me wrong, I think that
Hannah [lead singer] has an
absolutely beautiful voice.
They have the potential to be
a chart-topping, tear-inducing live act – but when I saw
them live at Brixton, it was
not their time or place.”
Aurora’s album, Porcelaine, is out
November 26th.
www.magname.com
10. handwritten
LYRICS
Handwriting expert Vanessa Wanner’s mission from (MAG NAME) was simple:
pore over a selection of original indie lyrics and spill the beans on the people who
wrote them... get her take on the scrawlings of Aurora Storm, Paloma Faith, Matty
from The 1975, Kasabian, Florence & The Machine, Ed Sheeran and Oasis.
Aurora S T O R M
“LOVE”
She can’t erase him [them] from her mind,
the memories and the heart break. She
replays the happiest moments and the
moment he ended all he had with her for
another person. It’s constantly on her mind,
although she’s tried her absolute hardest to
forget everything. She can’t stand knowing
that he said words he used to say to her to
another girl. Also, porcelain is very detailed, as in China dolls and antiques; and
are often connoted as breaking very easily.
She pictures them having intercourse, and
everything’s very detailed. He and his new
lover knew of everything she had with him,
and they both knew that it would break
her heart (‘bleeding inside’) as in her heart
hurts. These lyrics really capture the heart-
Matthew Healy T H E 1 9 7 5
“HEART OUT”
This quote could either be directed at Matty from the girl, or from Matty to
the girl. “Rocks” is slang for a form of cocaine. “Brown” is slang for heroin.
Matty or the girl is addicted to cocaine, heroin and sleeping around, this
behaviour is a reflection on the persons mental health.
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www.magname.com
