Field Dispatch
Lydia Reddy | Matt Connarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: That is Turn This Town Around, the debut single from Lydia.
Speaker 1: Ready here and this is Matt Connorton Unleashed. We are
Speaker 1: live from the studios of w m n H ninety
Speaker 1: five point three FM and Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire, and
Speaker 1: of course you can stream the show from anywhere Matt
Speaker 1: connorton dot com. Slash Live. Jenny is here as well,
Speaker 1: of course and joining us via Microsoft Teams. Let's see Lydia.
Speaker 1: Are you there? Yes, Amia, Hello, Hey, welcome to the program.
Speaker 1: Good to speak with you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely so. I love that song, very very catchy.
Speaker 1: Of course, turn This Town Around. And this is your
Speaker 1: debut single, correct, Yes, it is very good. And where
Speaker 1: are you from.
Speaker 2: I'm from Blackburn in England.
Speaker 1: Okay, wonderful. Yeah no, there's there's so much great music
Speaker 1: coming out of that part of the world and I'm
Speaker 1: curious too. So this is are you? I was listening
Speaker 1: to a podcast of you being interviewed on another show. Now,
Speaker 1: are you currently in school as well? Are you in college? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I'm in college but we've just started some holidays.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, very good. So you've got a lot
Speaker 1: going on, You're you're obviously very busy, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: with your education and the music career.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, but it's cool that, uh, you know, you come
Speaker 1: out of the gate with a very strong track, and
Speaker 1: like I said, it's very catchy. But I also I'm
Speaker 1: curious to know more about the lyrics because you know,
Speaker 1: the first time when we first got this song, I
Speaker 1: was listening to it, it's like, oh yeah, it's really catchy,
Speaker 1: it's fun and whatnot. But then the second time I
Speaker 1: listened to it, I was paying a little bit more
Speaker 1: attention to the lyrics, and it sounds like there's there's
Speaker 1: a deeper meaning to this, you know, and you're expressing
Speaker 1: some some concern about things. And I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about about what the song really means because I
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like it might not necessarily mean
Speaker 1: what I thought it meant the first time I listened
Speaker 1: to it. If that makes sense, Yeah, okay, So the song.
Speaker 2: Is about making a difference.
Speaker 3: The sound that you hear about in the chorus is
Speaker 3: actually a metaphorical sound. It's kind of a call to action,
Speaker 3: and it's pretty much shay in stop how you live
Speaker 3: your day to day life and try to live in
Speaker 3: a way that will help the earth rather than hinder it.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of the message behind the song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that, and I like that very much
Speaker 1: and when you say that too. But so when you
Speaker 1: say help the earth, do you mean in a general
Speaker 1: sense in terms of what you put out into the world.
Speaker 1: Are you talking specifically environmentally or maybe both or maybe
Speaker 1: a myriad of things. I don't know, Like when you
Speaker 1: expand on that if you would a little bit like
Speaker 1: when you talk about helping the earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when I originally wrote the song, I had
Speaker 3: the idea of, like the lyrics, lights of blurring into
Speaker 3: one and our eyes are blinded. That's kind of the
Speaker 3: lights are lights from all this technology around us, and
Speaker 3: our eyes are being blinded because of that to the
Speaker 3: bigger impacts that living in this way has on the earth.
Speaker 3: So it is mostly environmental, but it's also thinking about
Speaker 3: how you can change in ways that you may not
Speaker 3: think will affect the environment, and just become more knowledgeable
Speaker 3: about the earth in general and what's harm in it.
Speaker 1: What I think is interesting about that is because that's
Speaker 1: a pretty serious message, but it's a fun, catchy song
Speaker 1: and I I feel like that's that's a pretty effective way. Historically,
Speaker 1: you see this in music where uh, if you can,
Speaker 1: it's almost a trojan horse because maybe somebody, maybe somebody
Speaker 1: thinks they don't want to hear a serious, important message,
Speaker 1: but then they hear a song that is catchy and
Speaker 1: kind of infectious, and so they're getting the message without
Speaker 1: realizing that they're getting the message, and they're you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll you'll hear you'll hear something that's kind of fun,
Speaker 1: but but there's there's a serious message in there, and
Speaker 1: and so by by it's sort of a I think,
Speaker 1: an effective delivery system for getting someone's attention and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: here's something I want you to think about. It's in
Speaker 1: It's in a package that's gonna get stuck in your head.
Speaker 1: You know, you're gonna once you hear the song, you're
Speaker 1: going to be playing it over and over in your
Speaker 1: mind because it's so catchy. But there's some pretty important
Speaker 1: information here that you're also getting, if only on a
Speaker 1: subconscious level. Right, I mean, is that is that kind
Speaker 1: of your approach to creating a song like this, or
Speaker 1: you're going into it thinking, Okay, I've got I've got
Speaker 1: something important to say here, but I'm going to deliver
Speaker 1: it in a way that people are going to be
Speaker 1: open to receiving it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very much far, I thought, because I'm thinking, Yeah,
Speaker 3: like you said, there's a lot of times if you
Speaker 3: think it's just going to be all serious and you're
Speaker 3: not going to want to listen to it. So I thought,
Speaker 3: how can I make this is a perfect mix between
Speaker 3: being catchy being something that kind of make it so
Speaker 3: you want to know more, which is why I kind
Speaker 3: of did the whole what's that sound?
Speaker 2: You never really know, you never get the answer.
Speaker 3: It makes you want to find out more, which would
Speaker 3: hopefully help the listener then want to engage in health
Speaker 3: in the earth more because they've had to kind of
Speaker 3: work to find out what the answer is in a way.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmmmm. No, I like that. Now, what's what's your
Speaker 1: long term plan? Because I'm curious, obviously this is your
Speaker 1: day you single? Do you intend to release more singles?
Speaker 1: Do you are are you thinking about doing an EP
Speaker 1: or on an album or are you just kind of
Speaker 1: focused on the moment with turning this down around.
Speaker 3: So I have got other songs that are going to
Speaker 3: be recorded. I'm actually in the recording studio next Tuesday
Speaker 3: and Wednesday, and I'm recording content for my upcoming single
Speaker 3: the Way We're Rolling on Monday. So I've currently recorded
Speaker 3: fight No I've currently recorded for including the one that's
Speaker 3: already out. So I'm going into a come fifth. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's going to be a five track EP that comes out.
Speaker 3: That's going to be my debut EP. There'll be three
Speaker 3: single singles on that and then two that come out separately,
Speaker 3: and then following that, I've got this big idea I'm
Speaker 3: going to do kind of the Elements is EPs.
Speaker 2: So Fire, Earth, Water, and Air.
Speaker 3: Then, for example, Fire is going to be all my rocky,
Speaker 3: angry songs. Water is going to be my sad songs,
Speaker 3: and Earth is kind of going to be my kind
Speaker 3: of togetherness songs, and I have got some more songs
Speaker 3: about the Earth and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And then Air, I'm not sure it'll be calm without
Speaker 2: being sad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I'm gonna put them all into an
Speaker 3: album with a few extra tracks called in My Element.
Speaker 1: Very cool. So yeah, So when I asked you that question,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know if you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, because you're you're kind of just just starting
Speaker 1: out with this, and plus you're you're also getting an education,
Speaker 1: so I didn't know if maybe you were just gonna
Speaker 1: be like, oh no, you know, just kind of feeling
Speaker 1: my way through it. But it turns out you've got
Speaker 1: a whole You've got a whole plan, which I think
Speaker 1: is great. And I think that that level of planning
Speaker 1: is going to really help you succeed, you know, because
Speaker 1: so many people and creative people, we tend to do this,
Speaker 1: will will kind of throw some things against the wall
Speaker 1: and see what sticks and just kind of try to
Speaker 1: kind of feel our way through it. But but I
Speaker 1: think to succeed in the music industry, it really helps
Speaker 1: if you actually have a plan, and you clearly have
Speaker 1: a plan, So I think that's I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Do you know, I mean, do you have an ETA
Speaker 1: And maybe you mentioned it in there and I didn't
Speaker 1: catch it, but do you know, like when we'll see
Speaker 1: the next or hear the next the next bit of
Speaker 1: music that you put out.
Speaker 3: Yes, So originally I had said I'll do it exactly
Speaker 3: two months after the first song, but then I thought
Speaker 3: that's in.
Speaker 2: The middle of the summer holidays, so no one will
Speaker 2: listen to it.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to release it the first week that
Speaker 3: I go back to college, which is I'm not sure
Speaker 3: on the day, but it's the week commencing.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's around the first September. It's that week.
Speaker 2: I go back to college on the fourth of.
Speaker 3: September, gotcha, So I'll probably release it on the fifth
Speaker 3: because that's the friday. I go back on the Thursday,
Speaker 3: So that'll be.
Speaker 2: My next song.
Speaker 3: It's a similar kind of vibe, but most people have
Speaker 3: played it to actually prefer it to the first one,
Speaker 3: so hopefully everyone likes that one.
Speaker 2: Cool, and then I'm just going to try to do
Speaker 2: them every two months until.
Speaker 3: So for my next year, on my eighteenth birthday, instead
Speaker 3: of having a big party or anything, I'm going to
Speaker 3: put on a gig, a headline one in Manchester because
Speaker 3: that's the nearest city to where I live.
Speaker 2: Okay, and yeah, I'm hoping to.
Speaker 3: Have my first EP out and on the merch Es
Speaker 3: by then, so everything will definitely be out by next April,
Speaker 3: probably with a few from the next EP as well.
Speaker 1: Oh fantastic. Yeah, you really do have a plan. That's
Speaker 1: that's excellent. I'm curious, by the way, what's your major?
Speaker 1: Is it anything music related or performance related?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I'm currently doing two A levels and a B Tech.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you do them in America, but
Speaker 3: A levels I'm doing English language and psychology, and then
Speaker 3: for my B Tech I'm doing music performance.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it sounds like what what we would call
Speaker 1: in America. That's you know, one is your major and
Speaker 1: the other is your minor. So you're so you're you're
Speaker 1: majoring and what did you say it was?
Speaker 2: Again, it's not it's not really like that.
Speaker 3: You just kind of do the three and then it's
Speaker 3: at university you specialize in something.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see it.
Speaker 2: College it's all a bit different.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm kind.
Speaker 3: Of doing all three equally. Oh when I got to
Speaker 3: the university. I'll start university next year. So this time
Speaker 3: next year, I'll be getting ready to go and I'm
Speaker 3: hoping to go on to do PR and journalism.
Speaker 1: Oh good, good, Okay, I get it. Okay, very cool,
Speaker 1: very cool. That's that's excellent. Yeah. Yeah, And now in
Speaker 1: terms of recording, uh, where did you where did you record?
Speaker 1: Turn this town around? Because again, we live in an
Speaker 1: era where you know you can you can record in
Speaker 1: so many different ways. As I know just from talking
Speaker 1: to other guests who we've had from over there, that there's,
Speaker 1: you know, no shortage of recording studios, just like in
Speaker 1: America there's there's recording studios you can or you can
Speaker 1: record at home, or you can do it. You know,
Speaker 1: you can send tracks back and forth with somebody. How
Speaker 1: did you record Turn This Town Around?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 3: Turn This Town Around was recorded at Clubhouse Studio. When
Speaker 3: I actually recorded turnis Town Around, they were in the
Speaker 3: process of move into a new studio space, so at
Speaker 3: that time they didn't have a permanent studio, so we
Speaker 3: actually recorded it in they're called Imogen and James. We
Speaker 3: recorded it in a shed in their back garden. That
Speaker 3: was their temporary studio. Oh wow, but she'd never know
Speaker 3: because you hear that compared to the other songs I've
Speaker 3: got from them, and they all sound the same. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, we recorded that one in a shed, But
Speaker 3: then the other ones they've got their permanent place now
Speaker 3: in Blackburn.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely incredible.
Speaker 3: They've got the studio that they run, and then they're
Speaker 3: also hiring out another little space to another recording engineer.
Speaker 3: That the people who have recorded all of my brother's
Speaker 3: songs in the past for years and years now, so
Speaker 3: we know them really well and they're really good at
Speaker 3: what they do.
Speaker 1: Now, I didn't want to ask about your brother too,
Speaker 1: because I was listening to a podcast that you were
Speaker 1: on and you were talking about your brother. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because when the subject first came up, my first
Speaker 1: thought was, and I don't know if I'm the first
Speaker 1: one to ever say this to you, but my first
Speaker 1: thought was, oh, is this a Billie Eilish kind of
Speaker 1: thing where your brother, you know, does a lot of
Speaker 1: the production in places, the instruments and whatnot. But but
Speaker 1: I but actually, but then listening to it further, it
Speaker 1: sounds like you work separately, right or maybe not? Is
Speaker 1: he involved? Is he directly involved in anything that you're
Speaker 1: doing musically?
Speaker 3: So we don't write the songs together. But he is
Speaker 3: a better guitarist than me. He can play bass, he
Speaker 3: can do pretty much any instrument. He's a little bit
Speaker 3: better than me. So he goes the recorded studio and
Speaker 3: always records the instruments for me, just apart from the drums.
Speaker 3: We have James who worked at the studio or he's
Speaker 3: a professional drummer, so he always puts the drums on
Speaker 3: my track.
Speaker 1: Is it helpful having having your brother involved in the
Speaker 1: sense that because your siblings, you know, sometimes siblings have
Speaker 1: kind of a an intuitive connection when it comes to music.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you do you find that with him? Like, like,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to convey an idea to him, is
Speaker 1: it is it easy for him to get it because
Speaker 1: he's already kind of thinking, you're kind of thinking on
Speaker 1: that same wave length.
Speaker 2: It usually is quite easy.
Speaker 3: I'll just kind of sometime I'll have something in my head,
Speaker 3: and it's the same with some of my mates who
Speaker 3: are musicians.
Speaker 2: I'll go, right, I want it stud like this, do
Speaker 2: do do? Do?
Speaker 1: Do? Do do do?
Speaker 2: And then they just play it on guitar and I'm like,
Speaker 2: how did you do that? I can only play chords?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know what I mean. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that that's great though. That that now does he also
Speaker 1: he also does his own music, correct, he does?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What kind of music does he do? Is it
Speaker 1: more of a kind of a rock thing or what?
Speaker 3: So for years he's been doing kind of indie pop rock.
Speaker 3: But he's started university last year. So what he's done
Speaker 3: is he's kind of taken a year off music properly
Speaker 3: just to kind of get into UNI. But now he's
Speaker 3: got two years left at you and he INDI's properly
Speaker 3: going for.
Speaker 2: His music again.
Speaker 3: He's on a music management court and he's got the
Speaker 3: opportunity to manage himself so he can do a lot
Speaker 3: of it during his class time as well. So he's
Speaker 3: decided to do a new vibe of music because he's
Speaker 3: always kind of liked his songs, but it's never been.
Speaker 2: The kind of thing he'd listened to.
Speaker 3: He was trying to appeal to an audience, but now
Speaker 3: he's decided to write the stuff that he listens to,
Speaker 3: which is Oh Sammy, random People, kind of sleep, Token,
Speaker 3: Bring Me the Horizon, Don Broca, Anti Shikari.
Speaker 2: He's saying that he's.
Speaker 3: Doing folk metal, which has never really been done before.
Speaker 3: He's trying to merge those two genres. So it's kind
Speaker 3: of frank ternery but also kind of metal, and it
Speaker 3: sounds really really cool.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm curious, Yeah, very interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 2: I've never heard anything like it.
Speaker 3: I've seen heard bits like it, but never anything like
Speaker 3: that that he's come up with, So it's really impressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh, excellent, excellent. Now are you are you again?
Speaker 1: I know this is your first single, but are you
Speaker 1: performing live at all? Are you? Have you done this
Speaker 1: song live or is that? Is that part of your
Speaker 1: plan down the road?
Speaker 2: So yeah, I've performed it live a few times.
Speaker 3: Earlier in the year, I played it after All Festival,
Speaker 3: which is the biggest grass grassroots festival in Manchester, and
Speaker 3: that was really cool. I didn't expect anyone to turn
Speaker 3: up because I was quite early in the day as
Speaker 3: it was my first ever set of all originals, but
Speaker 3: I actually ended up having sixty to eighty people in
Speaker 3: the room and quite a few people that I knew
Speaker 3: as well, which was really nice who came to see
Speaker 3: me who were doing their own sets later in the day.
Speaker 2: So I've performed there. That was the main one.
Speaker 3: But then also I get to do a lot of
Speaker 3: college performances and various pub gigs. If they something, I
Speaker 3: usually stick to covers at pubs, but if they seem
Speaker 3: like they'd be nice and let me do one of
Speaker 3: my own, then I'll stick that in.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. Do you So when you do that?
Speaker 1: Do you do? You do covers and then you you
Speaker 1: also include this song or how does that work?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'd say the average gig is two forty
Speaker 3: five minute sets, so usually put one original in each set. Well,
Speaker 3: sometimes if you can tell it's one it's a really
Speaker 3: hyper audience that just wants to hear bangrafter bang of
Speaker 3: songs that they know that they can sing along to.
Speaker 2: Then now just call it the originals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I yeah, I understand. Yeah that makes sense. Now,
Speaker 1: by the way, is there a video for Turn the
Speaker 1: Sound Around or is it just the single?
Speaker 2: No, there isn't a video for that one.
Speaker 3: We're thinking we'll get a video for one of the
Speaker 3: songs from the EP, but I'm not sure which one yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I might.
Speaker 3: I might make a YouTube channel and do a lyric
Speaker 3: video for it, or maybe just even record myself lip syncing.
Speaker 3: So there's something there, but nothing proper.
Speaker 1: I think doing a lyric video for turn the Sound
Speaker 1: Around is a really good idea, because again, that's that's
Speaker 1: a way too. Like I said, if somebody likes the
Speaker 1: song and then they watch the lyric video and then
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, like we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: they're kind of getting the message. There's an important message
Speaker 1: there being conveyed through a song that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: fun and catchy. So I think that's great. So Lydia,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you joining us this morning. We'll let
Speaker 1: you go in a moment, and I think we'll to
Speaker 1: end the segment. We'll give turn this Town Around another
Speaker 1: spin for for people who are just joining us. But
Speaker 1: please tell us where is the best place for people
Speaker 1: to go to keep up with everything that you're doing,
Speaker 1: so they can keep an eye out for new music
Speaker 1: as has come in. Like I said, you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of new stuff coming up in the future, so
Speaker 1: we want to make sure people know where should they
Speaker 1: go online to keep up with Lydia Ready.
Speaker 3: So to see myself, I've got an Instagram, Facebook, and
Speaker 3: TikTok all under Lydia Ready music ready to.
Speaker 2: Spell r E D d Y.
Speaker 3: I do have a Twitter, but I barely have a
Speaker 3: post on it, so maybe don't go on there.
Speaker 1: Understood, gotcha? Very good? Very good? All right Lydia. We
Speaker 1: will let you go again. Thank you so much. We
Speaker 1: will definitely do this again in the Yeah, we'll definitely
Speaker 1: do this again in the future as you as you
Speaker 1: release new music. So love what you're doing. And we
Speaker 1: will close this segment with again we're gonna play Turn
Speaker 1: This Town Around, your debut single, and Lydia thank you so.
Speaker 2: Much, thanks for having me seling you got it all right.
Speaker 1: Bye bye, all right. That was Lydia ready and here
Speaker 1: it is if you missed it again, this is called
Speaker 1: Turn This Town Around.
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