Fiona-Lee On The Uncomfortable Art of Growing Up

Tee Tolmar

Budapest born, Edinburgh based. Cultural journalist & photographer, with a passion for music and fashion.

Fiona-Lee discusses her debut EP ‘Nothing Compares to Nineteen,’ exploring personal challenges, songwriting vulnerability, and developing authentic artistic expression

Eight years is a long time to spend on a debut release, but for emerging artist Fiona-Lee, the journey to her first EP has been as significant as the destination. She joined me to discuss the winding path to finding her sound, the raw vulnerability of her songwriting, and the power of taking one’s time. Though not from a musical family, Fiona grew up surrounded by her dad’s classic rock collection, with Genesis, Led Zeppelin, and U2 forming the soundtrack of her early years. It was at the age of fourteen, years after abandoned childhood piano lessons, that she finally picked up a guitar — and she never put it back down. “I just got really obsessed with playing the guitar, and then started singing and writing,” she explains, recalling how she honed her craft through countless gigs in Hull, “cutting [her] teeth” on live performances near home.

Fiona was eighteen when she made the big move to London — into her manager’s office basement. Whilst the opportunity felt like her big break into the music industry, it quickly turned sour. The nineteenth year of Fiona’s life was filled with profound personal challenges, including an increasingly abusive management relationship and the loss of a friend to suicide. Her new EP’s title ‘Nothing Compares To Nineteen’ denotes the gravity of this year of her life.

The EP is a culmination of five years of songwriting, a collection Fiona describes as “a really good representation of the past, like, all my life up until this point.” She really wanted to capture the critical transition from adolescence to adulthood. “It’s about that big period of change, where you go from being a kid to being an adult,” she reflects. “It’s about a lot of the really uncomfortable growing pains that everyone goes through in some way or another.” Her tracks explore themes of loss — be it fractured friendships, first heartbreaks or the grief of losing a friend.

She tells me a little more about the track ‘Lavender’, and how she aimed to capture the contradiction of craving independence while fearing its reality. Written during a period of debilitating health anxiety while living with her parents, the song explores vulnerability and the desire to retreat to childhood security. “I just wanted to feel like a little baby again,” she admits, highlighting the complex push-pull of growing into an adult.

These past five years have also led to changes in Fiona’s songwriting process and sound. In the past, she wrote all her songs by herself, starting with lyrics jotted in her phone (formerly in notebooks), followed by guitar exploration. “You have to kind of just let the song write itself,” she explains, acknowledging how “hippy dippy” that might sound. Recently, she’s really been enjoying experimenting with co-writing. Working with other musicians also led Fiona to move away from her solo acoustic beginnings, instead landing on her vision for something “really big and exciting and almost euphoric, uplifting.” She says that getting “into a room together and just play[ing] these songs” with former Catfish And The Bottlemen drummer Rob Hall, was particularly formative, allowing everything to fall into place. Looking ahead to 2025, assembling a full band for live performances is one of her key aspirations. “I want to be able to bring the feeling that I’ve created in the EP to people live in a room,” she explains, noting the limitations of a solo guitar performance for capturing her evolved sound.

Despite more collaboration in her music, Fiona is keen to stay involved in the production side of things as much as the songwriting itself. This hands-on involvement evolved naturally over time, and she finds it really important. “I think, especially as a woman, it can be really hard to say what you want and put your ideas out there because it’s so male dominated,” she reflects. Beyond making one’s voice heard, she keenly emphasises the importance of patience for other young musicians. “Don’t stress about time. Take your time to get to know who you are as a person,” she advises, adding that she’s “a really big believer in manifesting.” Whilst she knows it’s cheesy, she insists that she really does believe she’s manifested this life, and that believing in oneself is of utmost importance.

Throughout our discussion, one thing becomes abundantly clear: this is an artist who values authentic expression above all else, hoping her music allows listeners to “feel empowered in being vulnerable.” As she poignantly observes, “We’re all just humans trying to fucking get through life… You can have such a horrible experience but then make it into something so beautiful,” and this EP is just that.

Listen to Nothing Compares To Nineteen here: