Emma Harrison
Aspiring journalist who is fond of music and writing about it. You can probably find me in a crowd with a lukewarm pint of cider.
With her debut mixtape ‘TEASERAMA! The Greatest Show That Never Happened‘ out on 22nd January, we chat to rising pop artist Alfreda
“It didn’t start with “oh, I want to be a singer”. I just knew that I wanted to use myself to perform and tell stories”.
Alfreda always knew she wanted to take to the stage and this is something that she makes clear in every drama-soaked track that she releases. With a theatrical blend of Hollywood glamour, burlesque boldness and Chappell Roan-esque eccentricity, Alfreda is without a doubt one of the most unique voices emerging in indie-pop right now.
Alfreda tells us that she has always been incredibly creative, throwing herself into making things at a very young age: “I’ve always told stories through different mediums, like writing, making characters, recording skits, or writing films and putting on cabarets, which I used to do. I spent a lot of time fiddling with GarageBand and iMovie and all the stuff that was on an app on my Mac”.
Growing up as an only child who was “shy at school” and “just kind of in the background”, Alfreda confesses she had “a lot of time on [her] hands”. She filled a lot of these moments of boredom with creativity, noting that “I just had a lot of time to do that, which is so funny, because people don’t really have as much time anymore and everyone’s distracted all the time. I’m the last generation where we actually got to get bored.”
Creating and performing at such a young age ultimately led her to her love of songwriting, a skill she has honed and channeled into her theatrical indie-pop project, which she described as “sincere but silly”, naming artists like Rufus Wainwright, Talking Heads and Charli XCX as some of the influences behind her eccentric sound.
Despite her unique and eye-catching aesthetics, Alfreda is not an alter ego. “Alfreda is me”, she states, adding that “I use the stage and my performance style as a way to exaggerate myself. It’s a way that I can communicate certain things that I might feel embarrassed or ashamed about, without having to do it when I’m dressed down”.
When the stage is taken away, she admits that she is different to what people may expect – “I’m actually quite quiet. I like to be in my own company and I get really overstimulated by too many people or too many social things. Aesthetically, Alfreda looks like I’m really out there, but actually, I’d just rather be where I am right now, in my room.”
Steadily collecting a discography of thought-provoking singles about identity, feminine expectations and romantic woes, Alfreda looks towards a bigger project, ‘TEASERAMA!‘, which she anticipates will be “the best thing [she’ll] ever put out”.
‘TEASERAMA!‘ is “more sure of itself”, with Alfreda adding that “it’s been a really interesting journey of understanding what I like and who I really am as an artist. I feel like I went into things just trying lots of different stuff, because that’s kind of what ‘TEASERAMA!‘ is about. It’s just chaos and how everything’s not fully formed, but it’s kind of falling apart at the same time because I never really felt totally confident in myself.“
So it’s like a physical representation of that feeling, because it’s all meant to be this archival, broken retro piece of music that was buried underground for years and then recovered. That’s how I feel about my life. I feel like I’m just half arsed with everything.”
Delving into the concept that inspired this melodramatic pop project, Alfreda adds that it’s “meant to be the greatest show that never happened. There’s this TV show, ‘TEASERAMA!,‘ and people put loads of money into it, into its production, that fell apart before it got to go to stage. That’s how I see this record, and that’s how I see myself. I’m a star, I’ve done all this stuff, but I stop before I get there. It’s an all encompassing project about not finishing things.”
Taking to the stage this November, Alfreda will be supporting CATTY on her UK tour in November, and, as a parting gift, Alfreda shares what the audience can expect from her performances this Autumn – “expect chaos and fun, and to be slightly frightened and worried about my mental health”.
‘TEASERAMA! The Greatest Show That Never Happened‘ is out on 22nd January.