We first came across Scottish singer-songwriter, Liv Dawn, and her music via the Sofathon Singalong, an online festival to help support grassroots musicians and venues. The 21-year-old Loch Lomond native was featured along with fifty artists who participated in the 24-hour festival along with fellow Scottish musicians Callum Beattie, Luke La Volpe, KT Tunstall, Cameron Barnes, and Stephanie Cheape, among many others. The festival also took donations to support local venues in support of many independent musicians with the crowd funder, Music Venue Trust also in the UK (The National). Liv’s music is in the pop-country vein, and she’s a natural storyteller, navigating her songwriting prowess centered around life and human connection. She has also spent the last few years working on and developing her music since high school and college. In our interview, Liv went in-depth conversing about her road to music, supporting Tom Walker on his U.K. tour, being a finalist for BBC Radio Scotland’s Singer/Songwriter of the Year Award 2019, and her music favorites.
You released your current single last year titled “Reason,” and are currently working on your EP. Is that still in the works?
Liv Dawn: Well, it was a plan, but possibly might not be happening now, because just with everything going on, it’s hard to do the promotion that you want to do. But I mean, I was trying to plan for the summer to release an EP, but we went a little bit behind schedule with everything going on. My plan was maybe throughout the year just release a few singles, and then pull the singles together as an EP, so that might be the plan now. I have a song I’m working on now, which is hopefully going to be the new single. We’re just trying to plan and put some tracks down. Obviously, I can’t get us to do it at the moment, so I’m just working on it right now. I have recently been working with my friend, Emma Robertson, who acts as my manager. We have been planning together, working on contacting people, doing festival applications, etc. and I run past all my music release plans with her also. I’m hoping that the plan will be possibly July to release it, although I’m not sure at the moment. We’re going to play it by ear.
You’re keeping busy, so that’s good!
Liv: Yeah. Well, “Reason” was my first ever single to go. It was my first time in the studio, first time recording a song, writing for a single. And so, it was like my first time really, for kind of trying to get into the industry and to get this little song out and just start from there. It’s quite more or less an artistic pop song, and it’s got a little bit of country, maybe, in my voice, but it’s kind of a piano acoustic pop song, which I thought it would be quite a good one to start as like a single. It’s quite easy to listen to, and you can sing along with it.
Your writing is reflective upon your personal experiences, but are there certain experiences that relate to you more with your writing than others? Can you share your process of writing and recording for us?
Liv Dawn: So, I mean I’m a bit like half and half. So half of it is maybe kind of personal; to do with love, and relationships, and the heart, which is quite big and very common. I also like to write about other things, like friendships, loneliness, mental health stuff, and things that aren’t really mentioned a lot in music. I’ve got a song, “Welcome Home,” related to that [mental health]. I’ve got loads of videos about, but I’m actually and hopefully, planning to bring that out as a demo before the single, and would like it out on Spotify and iTunes. I’ll just record it myself, as a demo, for people, so they’re able to listen to it.
“Welcome Home” is a song that I based on a friend, whom I was speaking to and hadn’t seen for a long time, and I was just asking them how they are, what they’ve been doing if anything’s changed for them. I was essentially asking them “Have you had any self-development?” “Has any of that happened for you because it’s happened for me?” But, at the same time, I’m still the same person. So, this little song is about taking time to look after yourself, finding yourself, and this is maybe someone at the same time that I had to kind of step away from to find myself a little bit more. It’s just me coming back to them asking, “Have you tried to take a wee [Scottish word for ‘small’] step away or figure out things?” Then at the same time, it’s also got an underlying suggestion of wanting someone to ask me if I’m okay and how I’m doing because I’m always the person that’s asking “Oh, how are you? How’s things?” I will always listen, but no one really seems to ask me [how I feel and how I’m doing], because I always come across as fine and good. I quite like to write lyrics that you can interpret in any way. So that song, people are questioning, “Oh, is that about a boyfriend, or a relationship?” And I was like, “Yeah, it could be.”
If you’re taking time apart or something, that’s what the song could’ve been about, or you could base it off of friendship, or someone else entirely really. I like to do that from other people’s perspectives. Even with just my friends’ telling me things, or just chatting to someone, or I just come up with a wee storyline, and it has this personal feeling and emotion from it, then I’ll bring out the story, even if it isn’t necessarily based on me. I quite like to do that as well. I just take other people’s experiences. For example, my Mum will tell me a story about what she’s been going through, or my friend will describe the same thing or even a stranger who I chat with at work, something similar to that, and I can then take a little storyline, and base it off that. I like to do that as well, as it’s fun.
I quite like to write things that are a wee bit different, so that they’re not just like the typical kind of love lyric, which is great. I mean, if you can write a really good love song, then, wow, good for you. And it’s fun when you do, but I quite like to write about daily life or stuff that’s going on in your head, and that you can’t understand…I mean, because there’s so much now about mental health, and it’s okay to feel rubbish and not understand what’s going on in your head and stuff. And I quite like to write about that as well.
You actually just started performing and singing music full-time last year, so you haven’t been at it for long. Have you been singing for a long time prior?
Liv: Well, I was singing when I was really young, but I wasn’t really good. It was just like I’d be running around about the house and sing, and it’d be like really off tune, but I loved it. And then it wasn’t until maybe my fourth year in high school that I took music as a class and studied that, and I did voice, and then I learned a little about guitar as well. I think I had a few lessons when I was younger, but it was only for a few months, so I just learned some basics. During my fourth year of school, I worked on voice and guitar for singing, but it was mainly for learning how to sing and play my favorite artists at the same time. I then studied the next level of music in my last year in school, and I started taking part in vocal groups, but I never had any confidence to sing solo until I left school, really, because I was so scared, but I grew confident. I had to really develop my voice and work on it over the years. I started writing songs at the end of school, and my writing started to develop as I got better at guitar. I used to come up with some melodies, and then I started writing lyrics, and I was like, “Oh, I can write lyrics,” and then it was like, “Oh, I’m actually good at this.
I also studied drama in my last year of school, so I went on to study that, and it was a two-year college course, and trained in acting. Within the two years I was there, I had to train my voice, movement, many different things, which all comes together for music actually, and it was me in a class of 20 people, and we’re all very close. We all had to act and grow very close and personal, getting into each other’s space, without a personal bubble whatsoever, so that pushes you to work harder and figure things out. Over the two years of acting and training, we also had a voice class, where we did some musical theater songs, which is when I started writing more, got better at playing guitar, then started playing a little bit of piano, then got some recording equipment, and just built up over the two years of college. With studying acting, it was very complex and I learned so much, but I still needed to study it much further. The stage I developed to with music was good enough to pursue and I knew myself I was good, and I got to the point where I was thinking “I need to do something with it,” and so many people were telling me “You need to try and do this.” So I am giving it my best shot!’
After researching for six months about contracts, recording music, and how to music out online, along with learning how gigs work and the like, I built up my knowledge about the music industry for over six months, and then planned what I’d like to do for 2019, and had everything planned, discovered all the studios, and my career really started in summer 2019. I started gigging more as well, pushing myself quite a lot to do it and went to London last summer, which was really good. That was good fun!
Can you tell us about your time as a finalist for BBC Radio Scotland’s Singer/Songwriter of the Year Award in 2019?
Liv: In April of 2019, I was recording the single and getting ready for the release, so once it released, my Dad was listening to BBC Radio Scotland, and they were talking about launching this award, and it came up about unsigned independent artists, who have to be from Scotland, couldn’t be with any agents or management, or the like. It was only for newcomers, and my Dad encouraged me to apply for it, and I submitted my song “Welcome Home,” and I had to submit a cover as well. I got a call, while casually going to get a coffee and was just walking, and it was from the BBC letting me know that I was made to the final 10.
The top four were to go to a live final held in Saint Lukes in Glasgow (an old church, but also a really cool venue). I had all my friends and family to vote, which I think helped because I also had gained a new fan base in London as well. I actually received the phone call on my birthday that I made the final four, and I was the only female in the final four. All of the guys are so talented, and it was an amazing experience.
What was the experience like touring with international artist, Tom Walker?
Liv: He’s really cool. He was wanting to help out and get unsigned Scottish artists a chance to perform with someone who is in the industry. I submitted an application to support him, and his tour started the first week in February, and two weeks before that I received an e-mail stating that I had been selected to support him on tour. It was so awesome and he is amazing! The crowd were so great and made me feel so comfortable, the audience interaction was awesome and I think it was the best I have ever performed to date! It was such a cool experience, Tom was so lovely, and he’s just such a genuine guy. Also, all of his team and who ran the event were lovely too! Definitely my favourite gig so far!
Who are your biggest influences within the Americana and pop-country genre?
Liv: I love modern acts like Lady Antebellum, and I love Hunter Hayes and Luke Combs. And then also people like Stevie Nicks and then Dolly Parton and Sheryl Crow. Love Sheryl Crow’s stuff. I love so many people from so many different genres and I also quite like mix genres as well.
