SHEROES

Singer, songwriter, keyboardist, and visual artist Hannah Hooper co-founded the band Grouplove with her husband Christian Zucconi fourteen years ago, and rarely does interviews alone. But on the heels of releasing the band's sixth album, I Want It All Right Now, Hannah sits down with Carmel Holt for an in-depth conversation about the journey from solitary visual artist to a catsuit-wearing band leader, singing on some of the world's largest stages.

Singer, songwriter, guitarist, Indigo De Souza returns to SHEROES to talk with Carmel Holt about her new album All Of This Will End, and the necessary changes she made in her personal and professional life over the last couple years, resulting in her most confident work to date.

Our Pride Month series SHEROES & QUEEROES comes to a close with an in-depth conversation and look back at ani difranco's iconic and most commercially successful eighth studio album, 1998's Little Plastic Castle. The 25th anniversary reissue has arrived, and with it, many reflections on that chapter of ani's career. Ani holds nothing back in openly discussing the complexities of that time, as many of her queer fans expressed feelings of betrayal when their SHERO/QUEERO ani difranco married a man (gasp!), and her anti-capitalist fans called her a sellout for producing what was her most polished studio album to date and all the media attention that came with it. Yet, its massive success and magazine cover stories was a major accomplishment for this openly bisexual woman who had blazed trails in every way, including building her career from the ground up as a 100% independent artist who started one of the very first female owned, "queer happy" record labels in 1990, Righteous Babe Records. And while, haters gonna hate, there were countless young women and queer folx who finally found their SHERO, felt seen, and found inspiration and empowerment by witnessing ani's against-all-odds success.

As part of SHEROES Pride Month series, SHEROES & QUEEROES, Carmel Holt sits down with acclaimed singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and eleven-time Grammy nominee, Meshell Ndegeocello, who has just released her 13th album, The Omnichord Real Book.

Romy Madley Croft of The xx has just announced her solo debut album, Mid Air (out September 8), and Carmel Holt invited Romy to take part in her month-long celebration of Pride by joining her for a special SHEROES & QUEEROES Pride Hour, that features a playlist curated by Romy, a peek at the new album, and in depth conversation about the journey that led her here.

Arlo Parks was raised in West London, and while still a teenager, released her first single in 2018 and caught the attention of the BBC. Soon a pair of EP’s arrived in 2019 - Super Sad Generation, followed by the EP Sophie. The accolades and press was nearly immediate. Arlo Parks was longlisted as a Breakthrough Act of 2020, and before the end of that year, she was gracing the cover of NME, and won the AIM Independent Music Award for One to Watch. When we last had Arlo Parks on SHEROES, she had just released her hotly anticipated full length debut, Collapsed In Sunbeams, and as predicted, the album catapulted her career - receiving not only critical acclaim but some of the biggest awards and nominations of the industry, winning the coveted Mercury Prize for Album of the Year, three BRIT Award nominations and one win for Best New Artist, and two Grammy nominations. Keep in mind this all happened during some of the worst times of the pandemic, when touring had pretty much come to a standstill. Fast forward to the present - May 2023, and Arlo Parks is back with a brand new album called My Soft Machine. And this time she is a big star. I caught up with her a few weeks prior to release, and now that it is here, we celebrate its arrival by welcoming back Arlo Parks as this week’s SHERO in the Spotlight.

Guitarist and singer-songwriter Julia Bailen is one third of the NYC power pop trio BAILEN with her elder twin brothers, David and Daniel. On the heels of releasing the second full length BAILEN album, Tired Hearts, Julia sits down with Carmel Holt to discuss her journey to discovering the empowering stability that her instrument and"owning it" brings her, the democratic process of making records with her brothers, and working through some of the negative effects and thought patterns caused by our ageist and sexist music industry. Julia started playing guitar when she was just 7 years old, taught by her father. While the elder twin siblings began playing in bands, Julia was exploring musical theater, and started writing songs. Soon enough, Daniel and David decided to start their own project, The Bailen Brothers, but a desire to create bigger harmonies created the opportunity for Julia to join, and BAILEN was born, which features not just gorgeous harmonies, but dynamic, tight arrangements and a collaborative chemistry only siblings could have. Julia on lead guitar and vocals, David on drums and vocals, and Daniel on bass, synth, and vocals. This year marks a decade since their first live show together, the first of hundreds of shows before they landed their record deal with Fantasy Records, and released the trio’s first album Thrilled to Be Here, in the spring of 2019. Now BAILEN is back with their fantastic follow up, Tired Hearts, and Julia Bailen joins us as this week’s SHERO in the Spotlight.

This week, we bring you a very special edition of the show, featuring a SHERO of SHEROES. Also known as the Duchess of Coolsville, she is an unparalleled, Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, musician, interpreter of songs, and author. She is the one and only Rickie Lee Jones, and she’s just put out her 15th studio album, Pieces of Treasure. The album is her first devoted entirely to the Great American Songbook, and while this seven-time Grammy nominated artist has always woven jazz and pop sounds and covers into her work, one could say this album is nearly a lifetime in the making. Several of the songs on Pieces of Treasure harken back to Rickie Lee Jones’ childhood and songs she learned from her father. It also sees Rickie reuniting with producer Russ Titelman who co-produced her 1979 landmark platinum-selling self-titled debut, which garnered Rickie her first four Grammy nominations and first win as Best New Artist in 1980, and her 1981 critically hailed follow up, Pirates, which went gold, and ranked 49th on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women. Pieces of Treasure captures this full circle moment, encompassing four decades of friendship, the culmination of Rickie Lee Jones’ trailblazing career thus far, and is the perfect follow up to her acclaimed 2021 memoir, Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of An American Troubadour. Just like life, the album holds both humor and deep emotion, and a sense of ever present love of all kinds. There can be no doubt that Rickie Lee Jones is an icon, and her voice and her timing is as astonishing as ever. And as you’ll hear in this interview, recorded back in April just days before Pieces of Treasure was released, she is still paving the way for us all.

The Icelandic band Of Monsters & Men exploded onto the scene in 2010, instantly becoming an internationally known band with their multi-platinum-selling debut, My Head Is An Animal, but the seeds of this band were planted during their front woman's teen years. Nanna got her first guitar at 13 and immediately began writing songs. Within a few years she was performing as a solo act under the moniker Songbird, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. A move to the city of Reykjavik gave her the opportunity to connect with and recruit musicians for that project, that would eventually become her bandmates in Of Monsters & Men. While the band continued to have huge success over the ensuing decade, and released two more albums, Nanna never stopped writing songs that she kept for herself. In this episode, Nanna joins Carmel Holt to talk about finally finding the time and space to write, record, and produce her solo debut album, How To Start A Garden.

A small village in Armenia might be an unlikely place for a future Eurovision contestant and global TikTok star to be discovered but that is exactly what happened for this week's guest, singer-songwriter-producer, Rosa Linn. With a series of massively successful singles already out, and a major record deal with Columbia Records, Rosa Linn's star is rising fast. She joins Carmel Holt in conversation to share her story.