{"id":1418073,"date":"2025-01-22T16:45:43","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T16:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/?p=1418073"},"modified":"2025-01-22T14:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T14:57:11","slug":"shura-album-i-got-too-sad-for-my-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/music\/shura-album-i-got-too-sad-for-my-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Shura: \u201cGetting muscles takes so long\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shura discusses post lock-down anxiety, becoming a muscle mommy, 5-a-side with Leah Williamson and teasing her first album in six years<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<pre>WORDS <strong>EMILY CAMERON<\/strong>\r\nPHOTOGRAPHY <strong>SOPHIE WILLIAMS\r\n<\/strong>DESIGN<strong> JACK ROWE<\/strong><\/pre>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shura_Header-1.jpg\" \/><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I get on my Zoom call with Shura I\u2019m immediately mortified by my setup \u2013 a grainy MacBook camera, grim lighting and a messy bedroom in the background embarrassingly juxtaposed to Shura\u2019s HD top-left camera angle and ring light. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The perils of interviewing someone who became a streamer during the pandemic, I guess.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A lot has changed for Shura since her last album, 2019\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">forevher <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 and not just the streaming. Having made a name for herself in 2015 with songs about heartbreak and sad-girl sapphic longing like \u2018Touch\u2019 and \u20182Shy\u2019, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">forevher <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was about falling in love. Now, after six years, a brief career as a pro Twitch streamer, and an internal struggle with with mental health and isolation, her new album, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I Got Too Sad For My Friends<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">bravely shines a light on those parts of ourselves we turn away from, feelings of shame and selfishness around our mental health. Crucially, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">IGTSFMF <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">seeks to soothe and soften those strains while you find a way out. Filled with cuttingly emotive expressions of loneliness and isolation, it addresses difficult feelings from a position of love and positivity. This record lets you be the little spoon, it\u2019s the fabulously sapphic image of sitting in an armchair \u2018with a cat sitting on your lap\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Part therapy, part cultural digest, our conversation ranged between topics like isolation, having a brick for a brain, delayed gratification, fancying video game characters and becoming a muscle mommy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shura-Recognise-press-shot-Credit-Sophie-Williams-scaled.jpg\" \/><\/p><h4><b>There&#8217;s a lot going on in the album artwork: the armour, the mountains, the gremlins, the Kurt Cobain fit\u2026 What were some of the influences feeding into it?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I sort of joke that it&#8217;s giving Joan of Arc top, and then Ellie from <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Last Of Us<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> bottom. I think that the first sort of obvious one is a game I played called <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/culture\/gaming\/best-lgbt-video-games-2023\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Baldur\u2019s Gate 3<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which took over my life. I just sort of fell in love with the idea of myself as this slightly chaotic gnome Bard. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I had also just read <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Little Prince<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and was absolutely devastated by it, like this is <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">not<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a children&#8217;s book. There&#8217;s this really striking image of him stood on top of a mountain range, and then the themes of the record are anxiety, loneliness and sadness and feeling myself disappearing. Obviously, Baz Lurman\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Romeo + Juliet<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is also in the back of my mind there. I think there&#8217;s almost not a lesbian on the planet who hasn&#8217;t at some point wanted to dress up as Leonardo DiCaprio in that film. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[In the album artwork] I&#8217;m ready to fight against these monsters or demons or whatever it is that I encounter, except my armour is nowhere useful, I&#8217;m not covering any vital organs. The idea is that the monsters are kind of not really there \u2013 they\u2019re part of your internal world.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b><\/b><b>In the title and throughout the album, you address really difficult and familiar feelings directly. How did it feel to turn and face those feelings?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s true that extreme emotions make it easy to write, but part of my experience of being sad and alone actually meant I couldn&#8217;t write at all. Of course, that started with the pandemic. I was discombobulated that I couldn&#8217;t listen to music.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I remember calling my friend Pip [the singer-songwriter Ladyhawke] and just being like, &#8216;Pip I can&#8217;t write&#8217;. I remember saying, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018I feel like my brain is a brick.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It&#8217;s just <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">solid<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Nothing is \u2013 there&#8217;s no <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">movement<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in there\u2019. And I remember them saying, \u2018Shu, I felt like this so many times. You will absolutely write music again, do <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">not<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> worry about this\u2019. And that was really comforting, actually, to hear from someone who is a friend and who I respect. So initially quite difficult. Once I knew I had enough songs to be like, \u2018Oh, an album is happening,\u2019 it was a lot easier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>You mention the lockdown era and the difficulties which you faced then as an artist. I remember you pivoting to streaming during that era \u2013 why?\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I started streaming video games on Twitch in the pandemic as a way to stay connected with fans that felt less strange to me than playing music to an empty room on Instagram Live. I also tried the Instagram Live route but it just felt alien to me since so much of performing is an exchange of energy between the audience and the person performing.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There&#8217;s not a lesbian on the planet who hasn&#8217;t at some point wanted to dress up as Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h4><b>This album explores the unglamorous side of mental health, and I think a lot of people are going to relate. I don&#8217;t want this to feel like therapy but is there anything you would like people to take from it?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I do hope that it brings people comfort, but I also actually hope it brings people joy in the process. Musically there&#8217;s definitely some less joyful [moments] but, overall, it&#8217;s quite joyful and warm. I hope it&#8217;s like an armchair for people to curl up in with a cat sitting on their lap, where they can stare wistfully out of the window and cry, or maybe also feel excited about the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b><\/b><b>I can see that mix of emotions in the song \u201cWorld&#8217;s Worst Girlfriend\u201d. It hits you with very difficult lines like \u201cmaybe I got too sad for my friends\u201d but it\u2019s followed with the hyperbolic, almost comedic, \u201cI don\u2019t wanna be the world&#8217;s worst girlfriend\u201d.\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And you can see the merch, right? I was like, I <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">need<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to wear a cap with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">World&#8217;s Worst Girlfriend <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">on it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>How did the musical side of the album come into being?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think the first record that I really could listen to after I had that period of not being able to write, not being able to listen, was <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An Overview on Phenomenal Nature<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by Cassandra Jenkins [who features on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I got too sad for my friends<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">]. It felt like an armchair record and I was so comforted by it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019d made a decision to make an album that was the type of record I wanted to listen to. I wanted it to kind of spoon me. I wanted to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">be<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> spooned. I wanted to be little spoon. We made a decision to record this live with musicians in one room, playing all together in takes, which I&#8217;d never done before. I remember the first day of recording and setting up in The Pool [recording studio] in London and just being really overwhelmed by emotion and on the verge of tears a lot of the time, partly because I almost never thought I&#8217;d be here [recording music] again.<\/span><\/p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/160824_press_2.jpg\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Shura_press_6-credit_Sophie-Williams.jpg\" \/><p><em><\/em><\/p><h4><b>Let&#8217;s talk about the soaring ethereal lead single about staying in, \u2018Recognise\u2019. Was that always going to be the first single?\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, and then no, and then yes. I wanted it to kind of lead people and welcome people, to make people a little bit excited, a little bit unsure. I love being a bit of a troll at this stage of the record, I&#8217;m a big believer, for myself, in deferred gratification. I&#8217;m always the last person to open their Christmas presents. I like knowing something good is coming. So this is like my peak, where I&#8217;m the most mean to my fans ever. I like the idea of kind of, yeah, drawing [my fans] in and making them excited, but also not letting them know where we will go from here.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>A little bird told me you\u2019re becoming a muscle mommy\u2026<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I thought it was going to happen really quickly. But, it turns out, getting muscles takes <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">so<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> long and you have to eat <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">so<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> much chicken. At one point, I was like, \u2018Wait, how many whole chickens have I eaten this year?\u2019 I started feeling really bad for chickens, who I love. I love chickens. They&#8217;re such cute creatures. I&#8217;d also had some health scares as a result of Covid. Being told that your lungs have the capacity of a 70-year-old woman when you&#8217;re in your 30s is quite a frightening experience. I&#8217;d started going back to the gym and taking that quite seriously to try and get my lungs to be back to somewhere good. Then, in the middle of all this generic health stuff, I watched <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Love Lies Bleeding<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and wow, just wow \u2013 what a film. I was like, Wait, so you can be more than fit? You can be like a muscle mummy!? Since then I\u2019ve been training quite seriously, several times a week and lifting. But I think the final evolution of myself as a muscle mummy Pok\u00e9mon is years in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My favourite Lioness is Leah Williamson, I met her at an Arlo Parks concert. We had a lovely little chat and agreed to play five-a-side.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h4><b>I also obviously loved <\/b><b><i>Love Lies Bleeding<\/i><\/b><b>, do you have any other sort of lesbian media that you&#8217;ve become obsessed with?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Arcane<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: everyone in my Discord was talking about it and excited about it because it was gay. My other friend was messaging me about it being like, \u2018Is it okay if I fancy a cartoon?\u2019 I loved <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Agatha All Along<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. I do love a little gay treat from time to time. Last year was quite a gay year as well. There was also that film with Ayo Edebiri and who else? And it was kind of like high school\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b><em>Bottoms<\/em>?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, Bottoms was great. And musically, you know, Chappell Roan, having that meteoric rise. There was a time, I think 2015, when I first started releasing new music and there weren&#8217;t many of us. Now, it&#8217;s like I never have to wait for a gay thing [to come out], which is so nice, there&#8217;s always a new gay thing around the corner, which I think is exactly as it should be.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>And women\u2019s football too is getting a lot of well-deserved attention \u2013 I heard you played for Man City as a teenager?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From U9 onwards. I was scouted at a primary school tournament, and I played until U16. Then I discovered guitar and I was like, \u2018Wait, I can be inside in winter and not in a T-shirt and shorts and maybe people will think I\u2019m cool and fancy me?\u2019 That [last bit] didn&#8217;t happen. It did later, but not then.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I watched the England women&#8217;s team win the Euros I was so happy and I was so proud. And there was this tiny little footballer Shura, who was like, \u2018Oh, what if I&#8217;d carried on? Maybe I could have been there.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>Who\u2019s your favourite Lioness?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s really difficult. But I have to say Leah Williamson, because I met her at an Arlo Parks concert. We had a lovely little chat and agreed to play five-a-side. I know that&#8217;s never going to happen but, in my brain,<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it&#8217;s going to happen<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recognise <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is out now on all streaming platforms. Follow Shura <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/shura\/?hl=en\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shura discusses post lock-down anxiety, becoming a muscle mommy, 5-a-side with Leah Williamson and teasing her first album in six years. WORDS EMILY CAMERON PHOTOGRAPHY SOPHIE WILLIAMS DESIGN JACK ROWE\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7615,"featured_media":1418118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"templates\/feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[556,620],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shura: \u201cGetting muscles takes so long\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shura discusses post lock-down anxiety, becoming a muscle mommy, 5-a-side with Leah Williamson and teasing her first album in six years\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/music\/shura-album-i-got-too-sad-for-my-friends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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