Pale Waves singer Heather Baron-Gracie has told Music Week that Dirty Hit, her band’s label, “are pretty much getting everything right” in 2018.
Baron-Gracie stars alongside Mabel and Catherine McGrath on the cover of the new edition of Music Week, a 2018 preview special featuring our list of the 10 new artists set to light up the year ahead.
The singer, who first appeared in Music Week in March 2016, acknowledged that the Manchester quartet’s growth has been rapid. “ Yeah [it’s been] really fast, but it was only last year that we really came on show to the rest of the world,” Baron-Gracie said. “Then once we released There’s A Honey, everything just seemed to take off. I guess I couldn't ask for anything more because obviously everyone who's in a band wants their band to be successful. Sometimes I don't even have time to even take it in.”
Unpicking the plan concocted by Dirty Hit and management company All On Red, the singer continued: “I think the label were pretty confident. Whenever Jamie [Oborne, founder] is confident in something he’ll stick by it, but I never realised how fast this would take off. I didn't really want to get my expectations up because it would absolutely make you so unhappy to expect something and not get it."
It now feels as if there was little chance of that happening with Dirty Hit’s involvement. Buoyed by the continuing success of The 1975, the London-based indie wasted no time in driving Pale Waves forwards.
“Dirty Hit are pretty much getting everything right and I feel like a lot of artists would love, or die [even] to be on that label,” Baron-Gracie continued. “It's a really close team, it feels like every one of them works so hard to make your band how you want it and strives for the best. They're the perfect label for a band like ours."
We're starting recording our album this month and a lot of people have only heard our pop songs, so I can’t wait to give them the other side of Pale Waves
Heather Baron-Gracie
The singer also told Music Week that “there seems to be a lot more people open to signing new bands”, and added that Pale Waves stand to surprise a few people in 2018.
“We're starting recording our album this month,” she said. “And a lot of people have only heard our pop songs, so I can’t wait to give them the other side of Pale Waves, which is super dark and vulnerable. We're growing so fast, I just want to keep that energy. I want to see us grow a lot more. I want more faces at the shows, I just want more of everything!”
Subscribers can read the full interview online here. Stay tuned to musicweek.com throughout the week for more from our new music special issue.