Down + Out Pt.1

“the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.” George Orwell.

Wealth is an entirely different beast in England. It’s old money; embossed letter press class system money. It’s snooty and silly, with inbred facial features, a Hugh Grant middle parting, padded Barbour jackets with corduroy collars and red pants in the social pages of Tatler magazine. Coming from an arts based family, I had some limited experience of financially abundant actors and celebrities, but it ain’t nothing like stinky old British wealth. The British upper set aren’t “rich”, that feels too brazen and glitzy, they are Knights-of-The-Templar (I don’t even know what that is but it sounds about right) nobility, with dark family secrets going back to the 13th century, boarding school trauma and adopted-a-6th-child-for-philanthropy kind of Wealthy. Wealthy with a weighted capital W. 

My grandmother was terrified about me living in London. Even just today, she said to me “I hope you never spend another winter there ever again”, sheer terror in her eyes. She lived in Notting Hill in the 70s (when it was actually cool) where The Who rehearsed in the room above. My grandfather played keys in a reggae band, my uncle (a baby at the time) slept in an empty drawer, they bathed at Hackney Public Baths for 50p a pop and my grandmother (to her horror) stole a fur coat in utter desperation to stay warm. Us Australian’s will always be nothing more than petty theft convicts to Brits, and I kinda would like to wear that on my sleeve. Feels bad-ass.

I came to London with one suitcase and a return ticket for a fortnight later. A producer had reached out to me, encouraging me to write and record a solo album with him. He said that since Adele and Lana Del Rey had become mainstream he thought a door had opened for voices and songs like mine. This made me wince a little, but I got the gist and swallowed my ego. At the time I was living and working with my boyfriend Leroi (in Old French meaning “The King” -you see a theme here?) And his mother Tina. We sold 13oz Japanese selvedge denim, cowboy hats, boots and bandanas. We were moonlighting as 45s DJs for spending money. It was hip and I could afford exorbitant brunches and taxis. I told my father about the offer to come to England. I said, despite my lifestyle, that I couldn’t afford to travel for something so whimsical and I couldn’t let work down -I had 5 shifts that week. He was very serious with me and said they would get on just fine without me, that I simply had to go and he would pay for my flight. “Go on, get outta here!!”. Follow your dreams type thing. He cried when I left and went to the pub for a scotch on the rocks. I only know this because I went to the airport a day early by mistake and had to return from my triumphant departure an hour later to his tear stained cheeks saying “Oh, fuck you”.

I remember looking at that low soupy grey sky in London the first day I arrived, sleeping on this producers couch in a slightly damp house in Oval - south of the Thames, totally grim. I thought to myself ‘I could never stay in this dreary place longer than 6 months’. This producer, after his 8th year in London, said the city had a way of digging it’s claws into you and keeping you there. I was gobsmacked to watch him run outside every time the sun made a curt appearance for just a chance of catching one slivery ray through a broken cloud mass. That would never be me, I said to myself; I’ll just get in, do the job, get out. I laugh to think how naive I was about those claws. 

We made a demo recording of a song I wrote called The Gardens of Paradise (I’d read The Quran during a manic episode a year earlier), and before I knew it I had a famous (and well, honestly kinda hot) attorney and meetings with big time managers and the head of Warner publishing at the time (we bonded over Roy Orbison). It became clear to me that many songwriters lived off their craft here. They had nice homes with studios and mid century danish furniture, coupled with well-fed pets and seemingly functional families. All you needed was one Selena Gomez B-Side. There were government paid plaques on walls of buildings where musicians had lived -“Jimi Hendrix, guitarist and songwriter, lived here 1968-1969”. I couldn’t have imagine a world where cultural revolutionaries who played guitar with their teeth were celebrated and commemorated by the system. In Australia we have a saying that goes “get a real job and a real haircut” that is uniquely reserved for musicians (aka “good for nothing dole bludgers” and wasters). I concluded that if I stayed in London and gave it a good crack I could maybe make something of myself too. Make a little history, leave a little legacy. 

I asked my family if they would consider helping me out financially for 6 months while I tried my best to secure a publishing deal. They agreed, sending encouraging emails I wasn’t quite prepared for. I was so moved and honoured by their generosity… and a couple months in one pair of parents emailed to say they had decided to teach me a fiscal lesson and would stop sending money now-“When in Rome!”. I didn’t have a visa I could legally work on, so I did what had to be done and found a cash-in-hand, under the table waitressing gig. They paid me just below minimum wage (around £5.60 p/hr)  because they could. 9 hour shifts, 4-5 nights a week, sometimes finishing at 2am and returning at 7am. A thousand coffees, 500 cocktails, 250 weirdos and a badly lit basement toilet to clean. Any minute I had free was in the studio (let me be dramatic here) whoring my talent out on blind dates with a slew of hitmakers. A cog in the wheel of creation. 

My friend (and manager for a time) Cherish generously let me share her actual bed. Just two girls named after Madonna hits, who used to be in goth girl-bands snuggled in a pod. I remember spewing a lot in her bathroom early in the morning from alcohol poisoning. I’d never done so much socialising and drinking in my life, beginning with Bloody Mary’s in the morning. We’d bar hop from members clubs like Soho House, Shoreditch House and Groucho’s to dingy hipster hangs in east London -Barden’s, Birthdays, The Haggerston… I got the feeling we were all living way beyond our means and I could barely keep up. There was one woman, rabidly-thin with bleached hair and a sultry tortured pout that I bought pricey cocktails and food for a couple times thinking she was a broke musician. Apparently she was Osama Bin Laden’s niece. I began to realise that a lot of the “arty” types I was hanging out with came from bigger wealth than I had ever experienced; trust fund kids, politicians spawn and the like. They could afford to be artists and adults, you know? 

By the end of summer I was sleeping on my darling Fred’s infamous green Chesterfield couch (many indie musicians had met The Sandman there -Dev Hynes, How To Dress Well, Bryndon Cook from Solange Knowles’ band). It felt like a rite of passage to the gateway of a mid-level venue. I graduated to splitting rent on an actual room with Fred’s flatmate George after we decided we definitely didn’t want to fuck each other*. We shared a bed platonically to afford the rent. We spooned sometimes, but I’d get that thudding chest thing where I couldn’t actually sleep with a human body in such close proximity and preferred a pillow wall for the serenity. He had a cut out picture of 2Pac on the ceiling. I often wondered if it was to encourage him in the throws of a one night stand, or his prey? A few times he would come home, wake me up and ask if I could sleep on the couch for the night because he had a date. I complied, only a little begrudgingly, because I respect the hustle. One night while Fred was on tour I slept in his bunk bed -a fucked up metal monstrosity less than an arms length from the ceiling. You had to kind of slide in sideways to avoid breaking your neck. I woke up in the morning with that the ceiling ricocheting my breath back on me and felt something sloppy on my leg - a used rubber. Fucking great. Fred, he won’t mind me saying, was a hoarder and a slob. He didn’t like home cooking unless it was Ketamine and survived on cereal, delivery pizza and multi-vitamins. George and I both had OCD and tried to tame our simmering mental health struggles with the occasional chopped salad and a tidy minimalist aesthetic -manically reorganising and creating symmetry. We would move and rearrange Fred’s piles thinking they were just that, but he actually knew where every tiny piece of mess was and would ask for a specific receipt I’d have tossed in the trash, something sitting under dry chewing gum and a mouldy glass of Berrocca.

Planning their seasonal looks was an event for the boys and my tie-up cowboy shirts and high waist jeans perplexed, amused and I suspect -slightly perturbed them. George hung out my washing on the indoor clothes line and remarked that my black underwear were in very good condition and he respected that. I asked what he meant and he said “you know, no stains on the crotch, no holes or saggy bits… I’ve hung out some girls underwear in very, very poor condition and they really should’ve been thrown out about 5 cycles ago”. My favourite compliment to this day and a standard I’ve proudly maintained. 

Fred & George are two of the most neurotic, quick witted people I’ve met, together especially. Watching them converse is not dissimilar to a glazed-over stare at a pinball popping around a machine. I was always entertained. We still phone each other once in a blue moon to bitch and laugh about the ongoing failings of the other, welfare checks you know. They had both dated the same famous socialite, who my high-school boyfriend (a vampirically handsome catwalk model) had cheated on me with - “I wanted to tell you before you read it on the internet” he proudly told me while I sat rolling my eyes in my school uniform. She had cheated on Fred with my Dracula. And so we were bonded in this oddly shared transgression of teenage bodily fluids with a few continents in between. We didn’t know each other at the time. The world weaves trivial threads like that.

We sat in the lounge one especially Bridget Jones’s Diary All-By-Myself-esque night, going through simultaneous break-ups, intermittently sobbing. Fred tweeting, eating ice cream from the tub, passing the spoon and bucket back and forth between us, watching Britain’s Got Talent, a Drake scarf draped across the top of the TV. These are the kind of friendships that can only be made in your 20s when all semblance of convention and politeness can be thrown out the window. Jules et Jim without the sex or romance. The three stooges perhaps. A very weird trio indeed, united by our ability to laugh at how tragic we were as people and artists and how cynical we were about the whole thing -the industry, despite shamelessly forging ahead with full vim, vigour and delusion. 

Honestly (and anyone who knew me then will tell you now) my demeanour was too cheery for Londoners, irritatingly so. I’m brought back to a particularly rough night at Efes pool hall where I’ve been spewing in the bathrooms after my 7th shot of tequila. I can’t find Fred and George, but I find their tall blonde cokey A&R friend, grab him by the shoulder panting and ask if he can make sure I get home safely (I don’t remember our address and my phone is dead). The music video for Carly Rae Jepson’s Call Me Maybe is No.1 on the charts and playing in a blur on the television in the background, blonde tall guy turns to me with a smirk, eyebrows raised and says “each to their own babe, welcome to London”. To be continued… 

*Caveat: George says “definitely” is too harsh a word, and that it wasn’t not written in the stars.