Interview Shura: “I wanted to have this time capsule”

Now that her long-awaited album’s out in the open, Shura reveals just some of the finer details…

Words: El Hunt
7th November 2016

Two years on from first rocking up at DIY’s Class of 2015 photoshoot with questionable aim and a full can of blue spray paint, Shura’s debut album is finally out in the big wide world! Wahey!

Refusing to shy away from cheese, jam-packed with personal twists, and over-brimming with pop bangers of the highest order, ‘Nothing’s Real’ is an album well worth the wait.

You can have a read of our review of ‘Nothing’s Real’ here.

With her potential-packed first work officially released, and roaming the globe like a 80s adoring pokemon armed with a room-full of synths, we gave Shura a bell to chat about how it’s all going now that she’s a fancy musician with a proper album.

Your debut album has been a long time in the works…

Stop saying that! It's a really weird thing to finish it, and be like, ‘OK, now I have to wait four months?' Are you kidding, that's mental!. But then again I like teasing people. I'm excited, yeah – unless of course people really fucking hate it!

You ended up working with Greg Kurstin (Adele, Beck) in LA on ‘What’s It Gonna Be?’ How the hell was that, and did you feel like you were in a glitzy Hollywood telly show?

Me and him just had a really funny chat about how he was gonna bring all his heavy metal samples to the session. I was in LA anyway for a show, so I just stayed behind for a couple of days and jammed with him. It's weird – I've made this bedroom pop record but I've also worked with one of the biggest pop writers in the world. I've done both. I just felt like I was this weird person who had accidentally walked onto the set of a California drama, interrupting. When I was writing with him, 'Hello' had just come out, so I'd get an Uber to his house – you can't walk in LA - and the song would play, like, twice. So weird. I felt like a total fraud!

"I don't believe in fate, but I believe life would be like this no matter what universe I was in. I'm not a philosopher so this sounds really shit."

— Shura

Were you ever tempted to rock up at the studio by saying ‘Hello, it’s me’?

I think I probably did. I think everyone does that to him. I mean, I definitely said ‘Hello’. But you can't really avoid that, can you?

Your family, feelings, and relationships are all over this album. Why was it important for you to make a record like that, which puts a lot of yourself into it?

A lot of it was from watching ‘Interstellar’, honestly. That film really fucked me up. Being a film about death and ageing. I think about death a lot, bizarrely; in a hundred million years the sun might be gone! There's this part of me that thought, this is my first record. I might only get to make one, who knows. So I want this record to have me on it, and my family, and everyone I love, or loved, or will ever love. I wanted to have this time capsule.

If ‘Nothing’s Real’ where does that leave life, Shura?

Well, this is a question I find myself asking a lot of the time! To me, life is a virtual reality. You have one window into the universe, and it's just a film you're watching. By virtue of something having happened, it's the only thing that could have happened. I don't believe in fate, but I believe life would be like this no matter what universe I was in. I'm not a philosopher so this sounds really shit.

Tags: Shura, From The Magazine, Features, Interviews