Stooshe talk gay Pride, making it in the music industry and brand new single ‘Let It Go’
By Will Stroude
Stooshe are back! With a new look, new single and new remix (exclusively premiered on Attitude), the sassy, soulful trio are feeling better than ever.
Following on from the resounding return of their taster single ‘Lock Down’ earlier this year, the South London girl group are firmly in the driving seat, ramping things up a couple of notches with their great new single Let It Go.
Produced by juNGLeboi and Dan Leary, ‘Let It Go’ represents the epic journey Stooshe have embarked on over the past 18 months, following their two top ten singles ‘Love Me’ and ‘Black Heart’ and top 10 album, London With The Lights On.
The video for Let It Go is filmed by the turquoise sea on the Italian coast and directed by previous visual collaborator Damien Sandoval. The track is packed with a commandeering vocal and an anthemic, dance undercurrent, that’s set to infiltrate house parties, clubs and festivals, bringing good-time party vibes to the summer of 2016.
They have performed at Birmingham, Portsmouth and North Wales Prides this year, and have just announced they are headlining Chester Pride on 1st October.
As attitude.co.uk exclusively premiere the White N3rd remix of ‘Let It Go’, Attitude’s Mark Richards catches up with the girls to find out more…
Congratulations on your new album Lock Down and latest single ‘Let It Go’. How was your 2016 been so far?
Karis: 2016 has been good for far for us! We’ve had a bit of time out, we had time to find ourselves, think about what we wanted to do, and then 2016 has been all gun’s blazing, writing our new album, and that came out in January. We had the video for Lock Down, so we were shooting that. We’ve just come back from Italy, shooting the video for Let It Go. A lot of fun stuff, life experiences, and we’ve grown up
You’ve performed at a lot of Pride’s this year and in the past. How was performing at Birmingham and Portsmouth’s Pride events this year?
K: Yeah, we love doing Pride, there’s so much energy, we just love going! We know the crowd is always up for so much fun. We often do a cover, we do a selection of our songs, and we know it’s going to be a good time. We like a party.
Do you consider yourselves to have a large LGBT fan base? Why do you think that is?
K: To be honest, they’ve always given us a lot of support. Prides give us the audiences and best responses.
Alexandra: Yeah, our first single her a lot of innuendos and they really loved that, so I think we’ve always had a large gay fan base.
Now that you’ve split from your original label, what kind of things can we expect from Stooshe now? What style of music, etc.?
K: Yeah, when we split from our old label we knew they weren’t going down the path that we wanted to, we wanted a different sound and we’d grown up. We’re now women, and we wanted to embrace all of our personal life experiences that we’ve had together as a three. We wanted to make music that we would dance to listening in the car.
As females – and Courtney being part of the LGBT community – do you think you’ve ever faced setbacks in the music industry because of who you are?
Courtney: Times are changing! A few years ago things might have been different, but because now everyone seems to be a bit more accepting and open about everything we don’t see it now so much as a hindrance. We are three different women, we attract a wide range of followers, and we appeal to lots of different people. We don’t see it as a hindrance; we celebrate it! We have a good time at Pride. Our new album is about acceptance and coming together.
What advice would give to girls/LGBT people trying to break out into the music industry?
C: I think we’d give the same advice to them as we’d give anyone! Always be true to yourself. If you’re putting up a front, that’s no good. You have to know who you are before you sign up because you can lose who you are and lose your path. When you have an idea about what you want to do to, just stick to it. Always persevere your music.
Which bands/singers did you look up to when you were growing up?
K: Yeah all the girl bands we were listening to when we were growing up, Destiny’s Child, the Spice Girls, TLC all were our big inspirations. But we’ve always tried to bring our own inspirations to the group. I always really loved P!nk. So all of our inspirations join together, and all our individual tastes and likes making one big Stooshe really.
What has the rest of 2016 and 2017 got in store for you?
K: Our album now is our main focus, and our European Tour coming hopefully soon. Album came out in January and New Music We Trust. We’ve got a lot of little things going on and we haven’t been back home really. We’ve got more Prides this year, and hopefully, have some more signed up for 2017. Hopefully even Brighton Pride next year!
Stooshe’s new single ‘Let It Go’ is out now. Listen to White N3rd’s remix of the track below:
Words: Mark Richards
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