Interview: Nimmo

Heading up to the Louisiana dressing room to chat to Sarah and Reva before their set, I feel none of the trepidation you can have when you don’t know how decent an artist will be – four years ago as an undergrad I conducted my second interview ever with Nimmo and they were nothing but delightful. We hug hello and make ourselves comfortable on slouchy sofas to discuss new music, studio evictions, Morrissey and redefining artistic identity.

A lot has changed for you guys over the past few years!

Yeah… We left our record label which was great because it was a bit of a conveyor belt – we didn’t feel like we were getting to do the things we wanted to do. And we got to take all our music with us but it was like a year and a half until we were properly legally out.

So were you creating during that time?

Yeah, and going back through everything we’ve done, working out our identity without forty people telling us what they think of every song. We started DJing a lot more and naturally found a massive gay scene in east London that was so important for us as people. We came out of it way more headstrong and knowing what we wanted to sing about and how to present ourselves.

And this was when you went and got regular jobs?

Yeah we feel so sorry for our friend that ran the cafe we worked in ‘cause literally it was not professional – we worked really hard but there was a notepad and Post-it notes under the till which we’d dip in and out of, and we were fully emailing on the iPad we were meant to be serving people on. It’s actually hands down the funniest part of our history. Even just having two of us on the coffee machine like one of us making the coffee the other one steaming milk is just the funniest fucking thing ever.

Did it ever get depressing?

No, not really because we had each other and a plan, so it was never like ‘fuck, I’m lost’. Also the 9–5 thing was lit, clocking off at 4pm on a Friday and having a beer, and not working weekends. We wrote a lot of music as a result of that experience and it really pulled the album together – it was something to push back on.

Tell me about your song ‘The Power’.

There’d be times were I’d (Sarah) be horrifically misgendered and barked at and it felt like I’d forgotten the person I was a year ago. But then I found this poem that I’d written about Morrissey years ago – which I would never write now because he’s a fucking racist, just putting it out there – but it was something I wrote on my own, and it’s my power, my thing. So then we left the cafe, did loads of DJing and then went to an apartment in Lisbon for five weeks to go back over all our material and write loads more.

I love the video you made for No More over there – it’s so different from your other ones and you guys look so happy! 

It’s so beautiful there and we were so happy. I (Sarah) found pictures the other day and I was like what the fuck are we doing just mincing down the street – we were so drunk the whole time that I don’t think there’s one sober shot in the video. It was liberating to shoot one like that, just with our mate Joel and his camera, after being at Sony and having to choose a specific treatment. It’s weird how sometimes structures that are supposed to elevate something actually end up diluting it.

What was doing the stripped performance at The Church Studios like?

So great – they’ve got loads of female-identifying engineers and their whole ethos is to push female producers and engineers which is so rare because in studios it’s only ever men. They’ve got these really beautiful mics and pianos so we decided to do something more tender.

Was there a sense of freedom after leaving Sony, or was there an element of desperation?

We were definitely free, but we didn’t know what was going to happen. Our song It’s Easier is about our wild times in Dalston when had these mad studio parties but didn’t realise they had CCTV the entire time. They emailed me (Reva) a black and white fisheye photo of me in a massive fur coat holding a Stella at 8am and they were like who’s this. We got evicted in the end. Those were the fucking days; we were like, surviving.

What’s changed about the industry in the last ten years that you’ve been in it?

A lot. The DIY aspect is far more commonplace these days and what defines success is different, it’s not about being signed so it’s like the MySpace era again. In terms of us and labels it’s kind of ‘never say never’, as long as we don’t have to compromise.

Listen to Nimmo on Spotify.
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Main image: Roxy Lee

Read more: Review: Nimmo, The Louisiana