Indiana makes Top 20 with debut album

February 2015

She knew it; Indiana predicted that her debut album, No Romeo, would be number 17 when the chart was announced. “I was in the shower, the glass was all steamed up and I said to myself ‘write the number you think you’re going to be in the glass and you will be that number,’”says the singer-songwriter who released the album just a week ago.


“And I wrote 17. I wish that, if it was some sort of witching power, that I’d written number one,” she laughs.


The 27-year-old mum of two celebrated at home in Long Eaton by drinking tea and eating chocolate. Last night she was at the cinema with her boyfriend while mum babysat.


“I’m really pleased to have a Top 20 album, it’s what I was hoping for,” she says.


The news came at the end of a busy and anxious week for Indiana, real name Lauren Henson.


“I’ve found it really difficult to sleep,” she admits.


The album was launched in London, followed by a singing and signing session at Nottingham’s Rough Trade in Broad Street, radio and TV interviews and using her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts to promote the album.


“I’ve been busy on social media more than I have ever,” says Indiana, whose music is dark, electronic pop.


“I think people are sick of seeing my face because I posted so many selfies,” she laughs.


The success, the first for a Nottingham artist in the album chart since Jake Bugg’s Shangri La reached number three two years ago, comes just three years after her very first gig in the Old Market Square.


That was part of the Future Sound of Nottingham competition organised by local music champions Nusic.


“I’ve had a lot of support since then and I want to thank Nottingham for helping me, especially Mark Del from Nusic, who has really been campaigning hard for me. I’m really grateful.”


She’s now planning her next single, which will be album track Blind As I Am.


“The photographer Rankin wants to shoot the video for it and I’m excited about that,” she says, adding: “I want people to keep discovering the album. I want it to be known as a classic over time. I think it deserves to be higher than number 17 but I’m a new artist and my music hasn’t been heard on many platforms yet. I’d like to be played on Radio 2 and commercial radio. Maybe with the release of Blind As I Am, which is a ballad, that will happen.


“I definitely want more. I want No Romeo to be heard by more people, in other countries and it to take me around the world.


“And now it’s a Top 20 album, doors will open; there’s a lot to look forward.”


The number one album was a new entry by Bob Dylan, his 36th release called Shadows In The Night.


Others in the Top 20 included Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Mark Ronson and Meghan Trainor.

Indiana

January 2015

SHE isn’t new to having her music critiqued but Indiana admits reading reviews of No Romeo has been difficult.

“To begin with I was just concerned with what the fans thought about it more than anything else,” says 27-year-old Lauren Henson of the album, which is released on Monday.

“And that I was baring my soul with something I’ve been working on for years.

“Then, when the reviews started coming in, I found that really hard. Some of them were really good but some of them weren’t so good and I was like ‘who the hell are you talking about my music!?’”

Despite very positive reviews from the likes of The Guardian and The Observer, for which she should be punching the air, Indiana has been sensitive to any negative feedback, even on Twitter.

“I’ve found it really hard not to come back at people,” she admits.

“It’s been really hard for me to bite my tongue.

“I’m not a volatile person but when people are talking about my livelihood and my passion...”

Both her manager and boyfriend have told her to celebrate the critical acclaim and stop reacting to tweets that wind her up.

“They’ve told me to ‘stop feeding the trolls’ but it’s hard,” she laughs.

The album, released on Monday, is a classy collection of moody, brooding, dark electronic pop that is part-dance music and part-trip-hop.

It follows last year’s No. 14 single Solo Dancing and phenomenal support from Radio 1.

She admits she had battles with the record label about what does and doesn’t go on the album and has had to suffer delays for its release, originally planned for September.

Rather than celebrate its arrival, Indiana is nervous.

“It feels horrible because there’s so much riding on it.

“If it’s a flop I won’t be able to carry on doing it on this path. I will most definitely find another path making music but it’s scary. And I don’t think I envisaged these feelings.”

You get the impression she’s never satisfied.

The Guardian gave No Romeo a 4/5 review describing it as “smart, inventive, thought-provoking pop music”.

And yet...

“It was supposed to be the lead review in the paper,” says the mum-of-two.

“But then Björk’s album got leaked so she took my place and my review never got printed.”

The paper did post the review on its website with a streaming of the full album.

And, despite Radio 1 championing her with interviews, sessions and playlistings (a re-released Solo Dancing recently made the station’s A list), she’s hungry to be played on Capital FM.

“I don’t think Capital like me,” she giggles.

“I think I’m too leftfield for them. Maybe if I have a Top 10 single they’ll play me. Being on that playlist will widen my audience massively.”

Well, at least Durex like her, using her Bound song on their latest ad for Embrace Pleasure Gels.

“They asked to use it and I said OK... actually I asked to see the advert first. It’s not sleazy, so I was happy for them to use it.”

She adds: “And apparently Solo Dancing was on Hollyoaks the other night, while someone was stripping.”

There’s a theme developing. Acclaimed journalist and writer Caitlin Moran tweeted her approval of the album using a phrase that’s not printable in a family newspaper.

“I’m getting quite a name for myself,” laughs Indiana, who lives in Long Eaton.

“I really tried not to be a anything like that.”

This week it was announced that at the end of her next UK tour she’ll be playing the main stage at Rock City, the only female Nottingham artist ever to do that.

“That’s so cool,” she says.

“I’m most excited about having my name above the door. I don’t think I’ve ever had that before. It’s the little things that keep me going,” she laughs, adding that it will be a Nottingham artist supporting her – she’ll be rifling through Soundcloud to find one.

It was through social media that Indiana got her break, posting her version of Gabriel by Grammy-nominated songwriter John Beck on YouTube, prompting him to get in touch.

Boyfriend James Alexander, who she met in Loughborough, where she grew up, encouraged her to apply for the Future Sound of Nottingham competition in 2012, leading to her very first gig in the Old Market Square as part of the semi-final.

Three years on and there’s been the major label deal, Radio 1 support, major festival dates, sold out tours, singing for the Queen and the Top 20 single.

And there’s baby Etta, now 17 months old, sister to six-year-old Harvey.

This week she’s been signing copies of the album at home.

“Harvey asked me: ‘Mummy, are you going to hand these out to people? Will you be sad if nobody wants one?”, she laughs.

“Then he said: ‘Don’t worry mummy, I’ll have one.’ I could have cried.”


Indiana will have a launch party for the album at Oslo in London tonight then at Rough Trade in Broad Street on Monday where she’ll play a short set from 7pm. Details at roughtrade.com.
Tickets for her date at Rock City on Friday, May 29 are £12.50, call 0845 413 4444 or go to alt-tickets.co.uk.

Indiana

October 2014

JUST five years ago she was a struggling single mum, scraping a living together for her and her son by working in a T-shirt printing shop.
Her dad had committed suicide, her mum and two sisters had moved away.
Lauren Henson was alone.
One lunchtime, she nipped into a smoothie bar in her home town of Loughborough, and met the man who would turn her life around.
“It sounds cheesy, I know, but it was love at first sight,” says Lauren Henson, better known as rising Nottingham music star Indiana.
“We couldn’t breath, he was dropping things... we couldn’t get out of each other’s heads.”
The 27-year-old is sat in Suede Bar in the Lace Market, co-owned by her boyfriend, who also, coincidentally, runs a T-shirt company.
As well as moving her and her son Harvey, now 6, to Long Eaton, James Alexander encouraged her to pursue her passion for music.
He entered her for the annual Future Sound of Nottingham competition in 2012, the winner of which would open the main stage at Splendour in Wollaton Park.
She made the semi-final, held in the Old Market Square, in April of that year - her first live performance.
Despite obvious nerves, other local musicians, music writers and Splendour boss George Akins, were blown away by her dark electronic pop. To reach the final, Indiana needed votes but as an unknown artist, she didn’t have the fan base to put her there.
No matter, she would play the final at Rock City anyway, as a special guest, such was the belief in this fresh music talent.
Since then she has signed to major record label Sony, played all the major music festivals, including Glastonbury, had her first Top 20 single, Solo Dancing, and played an intimate show at Radio 1’s Live Lounge with Irish chart-toppers The Script - in front of The Queen.
It was a one-song performance, of David Bowie’s Heroes and included her singing the line “and I will be Queen”.
She laughs: “I was told not to look at her when I sang that line. But I was so focussed on not looking at her, my eyes were darting around the room and they hit her a couple of times.”
HRH was on a tour of the BBC’s new Broadcasting House in London and Indiana’s three minutes were screened live on BBC News 24.
“She’s well sweet and little,” says Indiana, who was introduced to her afterwards.
“She reminded me of my grandma Mary.”
That was last year, a year that also saw her make her Glastonbury debut and play the main stage at Splendour, while heavily pregnant with second child, Etta.

This year she has been regularly playlisted and interviewed on Radio 1, had a No. 14 single, played summer festivals such as Reading and Leeds, Bestival and Nottingham’s No Tomorrow in Wollaton Park and finished her debut album, No Romeo, released this month.
So how does she combine motherhood and a music career?
“It’s been hard, this summer especially, because of all the festivals. After Bestival on the Isle of Wight, I got home at 4.30am and had to be up at 7am to prepare for Etta’s first birthday party,” says Indiana, a lean 5 ft 11 with model looks and tattoos snaking down her left arm.
James, who inspired her growing collection of tattoos, isn’t a stay at home dad as he has three businesses to run, including Suede Bar, three smoothie bars and the T-shirt company Some Kind Of Nature, which Indiana often wears for gigs and social media photos.
“He’ll kill me,” she says, realising she’s forgotten to wear a branded T-shirt for today’s photo shoot.
“We’re lucky that my mum has moved in to our house to help out with Harvey and Etta,” she says, returning to the childcare issue.
“She’s retired and she wanted to do it but she’s looking to buy a house so she won’t be there for much longer.”
Her mum and dad separated when she was six.
“I saw him every day and I was extremely close to him but I didn’t find out he was ill until I was 14 or 15,” she admits.
“He was a paranoid schizophrenic. My childhood is a very confusing place because there were two sides to him. He could be very loving and caring and a really fun dad to be around. But then he’d say some really confusing things to me.
“A young girl from our town had been murdered and the last person to see her alive had the same name as my dad. The police told him that they knew it wasn’t him but he invented this whole thing that he had killed this girl. He’d tell me that he was a bad man and a murderer.
“Even when they caught the guy who did it, he’d carry on saying that and I’d scream at him ‘what is wrong with you, you didn’t do it!’ It was very confusing. Very weird.
“He attempted to kill himself six times and I witnessed it. He stabbed himself in the stomach and we had to take him to hospital.
“He eventually killed himself because he thought me and my sisters would get bullied because of him.”
After that her mum moved away. Her older sisters, Joanne and Nicola, had already moved to Hampshire and London.
She became pregnant by a childhood friend.
Indiana admits that she went off the rails after her dad’s death, although she believes she was always off the rails until she found music.
“I was ungrounded, going from job to job, fixating on fitness or partying too hard or yo yo dieting... there was something I always had to focus on. Sometimes bad things. When I found music, I found peace. I have an addictive personality... I’m just glad that I’m addicted to something healthy.”
Early musical favourites included Marilyn Manson.
“I had a poster of him on the wall next to my bed right where my pillow was and I used to kiss it,” she laughs.
“What a weirdo!”

She adds: “I was a greb. I went through a bit of a bit of goth stage but reverted back to being a greb. I was into metal, punk and ska. I didn’t used to wash my hair, I’d wear baggy trousers... and I’d stink,” she laughs.
She didn’t make to the trip over the border to Rock City to see gigs though because she had a baby at home, whose dad is still very much a part of his life.
“Harvey’s heard me on the radio and he comes to rehearsals, so he’s getting it,” she says.
“He misses me when I’m away, as does Etta, but sometimes I see them more than the average mum because I can be at home for long periods.”
That won’t be the case this month when the album is released. There’ll be promotional duties to do followed by a UK tour that includes a home coming in November with a date at the Rescue Rooms.
She admits: “I’m the most contented and grounded and happiest I’ve ever been.”


No Romeo is released on October 13. Indiana plays the Rescue Rooms on November 7. Tickets are £10, call 0845 413 4444 or go to alt-tickets.co.uk.