Neu Syron: ‘Things Started Coming My Way’

In the time we spend with Syron, we essentially try to get into the head of a popstar. Watching her pose for photoshoots, seeing her command the stage as headliner at London’s Old Blue Last for our ‘Hello 2013’ show, even seeing her pour tea into a mug, for crying out loud. She’s a popstar. The very best kind. All while her entourage film her every moment - including our interview - she’s got the personality to match the professional sheen. And when we ask her if she thinks she’s made it yet, she swiftly replies, ‘no. Not at all.’

In order to get here, Daisy Tullulah Syron-Russell had to take a few risks. After a brief stint at the Institute for Contemporary Music in London, she took off. She found herself a manager and she decided ‘actually going out there and doing it was more important’. ‘If I’d been really fucking clever, maybe I’d have done something else as well,’ she tells us. But she rooted for music, and she has done from an early age. 

She’s the product of the Brit School academy. Unlike what our wild imaginations might lead us to believe, it’s not like a cross between F.A.M.E and Hogwarts. The culture can be intense, pressurised. But Syron wasn’t involved in any of that. ‘Because I did musical theatre, I was with loads of people who wanted to be on West End stage. And that’s not what I wanted to do at all. But if I was surrounded by people all wanting to be the same thing, it would’ve been different,’ she admits. 

She agrees that there might be a stigma towards Brit School graduates, but she disputes all of this by stating that if you don’t like Leona Lewis, you might like Amy Winehouse. And if you’re not into Adele, King Krule might appeal. Regardless of its reputation, it led Syron to where she is today. That, and a chance happening with chart-toppers Rudimental last year. In a studio across the street, the Hackney quartet were working with MNEK and decided they needed a female vocalist. ‘As soon as that happened things started coming my way.’ 

The ‘Spoons’ collaboration helped land her a deal with Black Butter Records, with whom she releases her new ‘Here’ single in March. Underlying her sleek, nu-garage sound, the recipient of comparisons to Katy B, Miss Dynamite and just about every other seminal UK pop talent, is a desire to stay true to her musical crushes. ‘I’ve always wanted to make sure it’s credible music that I’m into,’ she explains. ‘It needs to be music that I’d listen to if it wasn’t just me.’

An illustrious past, then. But again Daisy expresses clearly that she wants this project to go even further. ‘As big as it can go. The bigger the better’, in fact. Self-described as ‘personally really competitive’, she sees this forthcoming debut album as the first in a long line of crucial steps. So when you see Syron posing like a professional model for photos, and interacting with her audiences and taking interview after interview, you have to ask: ‘How do you do it!?’ It’s because it’s what she does best. Beneath the ambition and the relentless desire and the risk-taking and the strokes of luck, is a knowledge that she’s always wanted to be a popstar. And nothing’s going to stop her from becoming just that.

Syron’s ‘Here’ single is released 15th March through Ministry Of Sound / Black Butter.

Taken from the March 2013 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.