Luvcat might only have a handful of songs out, but the Liverpool-born singer is accumulating quite the cult following. I witnessed it for myself during the artist’s mini-residency at London’s Hoxton Hall last month as part of her debut headline tour. Past the merchandise stand selling frilly thongs — each colour corresponding to the tarot-esque cover art of each of her singles — the candlelit theatre was filled with young people, stylish à la indie sleaze, who knew all the words to the three releases. The fourth, Love & Money, dropped at midnight on Valentine’s Day, exactly 12 hours before our interview. The tune recalls a whirlwind romance with a waiter, for whom the singer left her phone number on a napkin. “He was a filmmaker,” Luvcat tells me. “And I just had this idea of, you know, making a movie with him. That’s where the song came from.”
The 27-year-old singer, who recently supported The Libertines on tour, isn’t shy when it comes to recounting tales from her “wild life” — during our chat or within the lyrics of her songs. Combined with her knack for crafting metaphors, Luvcat’s cinematic approach to her existence makes her music so whimsical yet viscerally emotive all at once.
Scarlett Coughlan: There’s something really old-school romantic about your music and vibe. Does that come easily?
Luvcat: I’m naturally a hopeless romantic. I feel like those kinds of love stories are always the most charming — when they start in a crazy circumstance.
SC: That’s really clear in your lyrics — they’re genuinely immersive. Where does that knack for storytelling come from?
L: Maybe just living a wild life — being young and having freedom, and documenting it. That’s all it really is. And then blending that with some fictional twists and metaphors. But it’s all rooted in real things that have happened to me.
SC: I didn’t realise until your show that, as well as singing and songwriting, you play piano and guitar. Tell me about your musical background.
L: I saw an Avril Lavigne video on MTV when I was a kid and I wanted to play like her, so my grandad bought me a tiny electric guitar and a skateboard. But then my mum rang up the music school down the road and they said, “She should start by playing piano,” so that’s where it all began. I started when I was six and I just fell in love with the instrument. I stopped the lessons as soon as I could figure out how to accompany myself to sing and lay chords underneath. The poems that I was writing at the time were obsessive.
SC: Then, eventually, you became Luvcat. Where did that moniker come from?
L: The name came from The Lovecats, a song by The Cure. It’s a scratchy, slinky, cheeky little song, and I thought that it matched the music that I was making at the time.
SC: I read somewhere that Luvcat was “made somewhere between the south London pub circuit and underground clubs of Paris”. How do you think these places have influenced you?
L: I didn’t know anything about the south London music scene when I accidentally moved to Camberwell, strolled into a pub and fell in love with a local punk. Then he kind of introduced me to everyone that I now know — band members and stuff. Paris played an integral part because I’m always hanging out there, and a lot of the experiences I’ve had there have inspired the songs. Our first gig was out there on a boat.
SC: How did you start hanging out in Paris so much? It’s not like it’s just down the road.
L: I was just naturally drawn there. I don’t know, something inside me told me to go. And I have a lot of friends there, and I made more friends there, and lovers, and everything in between.
SC: Is the French, almost-cabaret feel to your shows intentional?
L: I think maybe that's just my style of theatre. I don't really know anything about cabaret or burlesque, but maybe the music suits those kinds of smoky underground bars, where things can happen.
SC: And what about your band? How did you and the guys come together?
L: It's all different stories. I met my lead guitarist, Tom, when I was 16 or 17. I'd put an ad in the paper for band members, and we met the good, old-fashioned way. We've been through thick and thin together, playing on the street, playing in pubs to no one many, many, many times. And then, slowly, we introduced more members. Our drummer was met through, like, a skinny-dipping thing on a beach abroad. Everyone has kind of come in in random circumstances. But the great thing is we're all Northern, so it's a really fun band to be in.
SC: Speaking of bands, you just supported The Libertines. How was that?
L: It's the dream come true. I covered one of their songs a couple of years ago and it just was a full-circle moment, with them inviting me up to sing with them in Berlin, the same song. They were just so welcoming. They brought me roses into the dressing room on the last night. It won't be the last thing we do together.
SC: What about other musical inspirations?
L: I grew up with my dad's record collection, so it was all The Cure and The Smiths, and then, when I was older, I discovered Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. My grandad played me all the old-school stuff — Sammy Davis Jr and Frank Sinatra. I guess I'm still just listening to a lot of things from the past. I don't listen to modern music, which makes it difficult when people ask me about who I'd recommend, because they're all either dead or ancient.
SC: So, what's next for Luvcat?
L: I don't really see past this year — I kind of see my life in years and don't get too ahead, because things change so quickly and who knows where I'm going to be next year or what I'm going to want. But, right now, all I want to do is play shows with the boys and try to get an LP out, and have it exactly how I imagine. I can't wait for the day that I can actually give people a full body of work to sit with and go on long drives listening to. We're also doing the biggest tour we've ever done at the end of the year, including a date at Kentish Town Forum. It's gonna be the maddest show we can put on, and it's going to be raucous and fun and outrageous, if I can help it.
PHOTOGRAPHER Cal McIntyre
STYLIST Adele Cany
WRITER Scarlett Coughlan
MAKE-UP ARTIST Kareem Jarché using HUDA BEAUTY HAIR STYLIST Elvire de la
Roux at Carol Hayes Management using R+CO and BABYLISS MANICURIST Suki Nailz
PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT Rachel Wojcicki
STYLIST ASSISTANTS Jade Kingsman, Savannah Morgan Jones
