SOAK has it all sorted out

While her peers figure out what to do with their lives, the 19-year-old rising star has found her calling

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      Just when it seems Bridie Monds-Watson can’t be any more charming, the artist formally known as SOAK comes out with something that’s pure gold. Cartoon-addicted 10-year-olds aside, it’s not every day you come across someone with a voracious appetite for the most magically delicious of breakfast cereals.

      “I have a really big thing for Lucky Charms,” Monds-Watson says with a laugh. “That’s one of the best things about touring in America—the Lucky Charms. They have them in Ireland, but they are really expensive. In America, they are cheap as hell.”

      The 19-year-old singer-songwriter has, of course, more on her mind these days than Lucky the Leprechaun’s most prized possessions. When the Straight reaches her in her hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland, she’s busy in the studio, working on a follow-up to 2015’s much-celebrated, Mercury Prize–nominated Before We Forgot How to Dream.

      That breakthrough was built on echo-bathed guitar, atmospheric vocal washes, and wide-screen string arrangements, and it got SOAK glowingly profiled by tastemakers like the Guardian and NME. Monds-Watson’s new songs are shaping up to be heavier.

      “I’ve been listening to a lot of Sonic Youth and Nada Surf and Death Cab for Cutie,” she reveals. “That’s making me want to write big, loud, hefty songs at the moment.”

      The possible shift in direction marks Monds-Watson as an artist with little interest in repeating herself. She comes across as wise beyond her years, an impression backed up by the maturity she shows on Before We Forgot How to Dream.

      Lyrically, the album’s songs are inspired by personal experience, intelligently exploring teenage alienation, family discord, and the challenges of growing up gay in a place where acceptance is a work in progress. Musically, think grey-days drama and melancholy introspection.

      That Monds-Watson is happy to field all questions thrown her way might surprise those who’ve heard SOAK. (The name combines parts of soul and folk, neither of which she seems particularly indebted to.)

      Far from coming across as downbeat and sad, the singer gamely turns even the most mundane queries into interesting answers. Take, for example, what she’s looking forward to on her upcoming North American tour. Seeing the continent from a window seat is at the top of her list.

      “I love when we tour on buses because I feel a million times more comfortable,” she says. “You’ve got your own space—your own kind of moving house, whereas a hotel room can be really anxiety-producing because you never know where you’re going to be that night. In a hotel room you can’t go and get a cup of coffee if you want. And you can’t have a bowl of Lucky Charms.”

      Monds-Watson’s playful side is surprising because, like her previously released indie EPs, Before We Forgot How to Dream sounds like someone spent plenty of nights alone with a diary as a kid. Piece together the lyrics, and it starts to seem life wasn’t exactly a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

      Anyone who’s ever listened to their parents fight will relate completely to the “Blud” lines “You’ve got a problem I cannot fix it/Hear the anger through the ceiling/I wish I missed it.” Knowing that one of Monds-Watson’s siblings briefly lost his way just as her career was lifting off, meanwhile, adds extra poignancy to “Oh Brother” lyrics like “Oh Brother, can you stay with me?/Where my fears aren’t real/Pretend we are who we used to be/Before we forgot how to dream.”

      But in the grand tradition of the immortal Steven Patrick Morrissey, Monds-Watson is also able to see the humour in life’s various miseries. Consider “Sea Creatures”, a vintage-sounding twee-pop song dealing with being gay and bullied, something that the singer is familiar with. Her great trick on the track—which contains lines like “I know you get it bad/You don’t deserve this/And I won’t put up with their ignorance”—is turning her own experience into something uplifting.

      Despite golden memories like appearing on Later… With Jools Holland and touring with the hugely inspirational Tegan and Sara, Monds-Watson confesses that everything hasn’t come easy to her. Introverted as a child, and suffering from dyslexia she worked hard to overcome, the singer was eventually dragged out of her shell by her love of music. After picking up a guitar at 13, she quickly found a like-minded community.

      “You know when you’re a kid, and you’re like, ‘Music is my thing’?” she asks. “I was one of those music kids. Finding that out, and then making mutual friends through playing in bands and stuff like that, really put me out of my comfort zone in a nice way. I was learning about music and making friends through going to concerts. Eventually, I started loading songs onto the Internet when I was 14 or 15, and when I got a positive reaction from that, it made me confident enough to perform live.”

      She doesn’t mind confirming that living up to the hype of being a U.K. Next Big Thing can be stressful.

      “I’ve been touring for the past two-and-a-half years. Things just started getting more and more intense until we were away for two months at a time. Being this age and not really having a normal routine, travelling so much, and being under pressure to perform every night is strange. I feel very blessed to be able to do what I do, but it’s also very tiring. Most kids my age are out with their friends all the time. These are the years that most people spend with their friends while trying to figure out what they are going to do with their life. I imagine that I’m ahead a bit because I’ve kind of got it sorted out.”

      A better way of putting things might be to say that she’s got things mostly sorted out—and that the stakes are now higher than she ever dreamed.

      “Because the first album won awards and we got nominated for stuff, I feel the pressure now,” Monds-Watson admits. “And everyone says the second album is the hardest.”

      There’s a good reason she’s worried, in some ways, about a follow-up. Imagine making a record that’s all about personal traumas and experiences, and then trying to find something to write about while spending a year in planes, buses, and greenrooms.

      “I think I’m now writing songs about subjects that don’t have much to do with me,” Monds-Watson says. “I write all the time. I never stop—I fill up one of those little pocket Moleskine journals once a month.”

      In between, presumably, bowls of Lucky Charms.

      SOAK plays the Fox Cabaret on Monday (March 7).

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