It’s been 3 years since we last caught up with DAISY CLARK, I remember the day as if it were yesterday, she had just come off stage at Boardmasters Festival and we were hunkered down behind a bale of hay to try and shield ourselves from the booming funk emanating from The House of Marley. I don’t remember what we chatted about, probably some of her songs, how she enjoyed playing at Boardmasters, standard festival related questions no doubt!

Fast forward 3 years and Daisy is due to launch her brand new single ‘Battle Scars’ in less than 24 hours, we were lucky enough to get a 15 minute slot with her to chat about the new single, her life in lockdown and a bit of reminiscing about the time BILLIE EILISH showered her with praise following her cover version of ‘Bellyache’, read on to see how we got on….

Daisy, please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do

I’m Daisy Clark, I’m a singer songwriter from Cornwall, I started out by performing lots of cover versions on YouTube and a few of them did quite well, especially ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’ and I grew my social following from this and then started to write my own songs as I’ve always been interested in songwriting and creating my own music. I gig all over Cornwall, I’ve played at loads of festivals all over the place and I’ve played some great shows in London too and Im using this time to concentrate on getting some more original material out there, my new single ‘Battle Scars; is out on June 2nd!

Tell me a bit more about the track, how did it come about?

I actually started writing the song back in 2016 so it’s been a LONG time in the making! I remember putting it on YouTube at the time but since then, I’ve revamped it a little and the latest version is what is being released on June 2nd. The general gist of the song is that it is very reassuring, telling people that you love that you are there for them, I think this is very nice to hear at the current time with the situation we’re in so I think it’s a great time to release it, people can easily connect and music is a medium that everyone connects with. It’s also the first song that I have written on the piano and I think it’s my favourite song right now.

So it wasn’t written as a ‘lockdown’ song then?

Exactly, it does relate to what is currently happening and I’m so glad that I waited to release it, I had a few different songs over the past couple of years since the cover of ‘Hopelessly Devoted’ and I honestly think that I have now found ‘my sound’, ‘Battle Scars’ is a great representation of my sound and what I am as an artist.

You have performed loads of cover versions in the past, do you think this was an important step in becoming noticed by people?

I’ve been playing covers for so long and I guess I wanted to start out like this, it was very tough at the beginning and I think it’s the same for any artist, you need to mix in covers with your own material in order to get the audience to engage with you. If they are familiar with a song, they’ll sing along and from there, you get more attention and then people start to listen to your original material as well. I’m at the stage now where people know me and I think that they have grown with me as an artist and enjoy my own music as much as the covers.

I read that you received a comment from Billie Eilish after you posted a cover of her track ‘Bellyache’, how did you find out about this and how did it make you feel?

It was really weird, I was at the BBC Introducing Live event in London at the time, I received a very random email quite late at night (as it came from America), it was from a magazine asking if they could Skype me, they then showed me a video of Billie watching the video of me on YouTube and it took me by surprise. You can clearly see in the video how surprised I was….. (Daisy is on at around the 10 min mark)

Did you think that it was a prank?

I really had no idea, they said it was something to do with Billie Eilish but they didn’t elaborate at the time, that video has now reached over 127 million views and I have gained so many more YouTube subscribers which I am SO grateful for, it’s also nice being able to share this with my fans and it goes to show that sometimes, people ARE listening out there!

We chatted to you at Boardmasters Festival in 2017, what key achievements would you say have occurred between then and now?

There are so many things that have happened over the past couple of years and it wasn’t until you mentioned the Billie Eilish thing, that brought back a flood of feelings and emotions, that was definitely a highlight for me! I also did a cover of ‘Complicated’ by Avril Lavigne, that was really cool, it was also played on Love Island in Australia so that was great. One of my favourite TV shows is ‘Dance Moms’ which is completely ‘cringe’ but I love it….they did a dance to the song as well and every time I hear the song, I can’t listen to it without thinking of the dance! I guess all of the festivals that I’ve played have been amazing, so many highlights, far too many to talk about!

I saw that you’ve played at Ronnie Scott’s club in London, tell me more…. 

On Tuesday’s they open the upstairs bar for smaller artists to perform, I played a couple of tracks along with a few other acts and it was just so cool to say that I have played there!

Wow, to say that you’ve played at Ronnie Scott’s is enough to let people know that they’re dealing wit a true heavyweight!

What did the cover of ‘Hopelessly Devoted’ do for you? Did it help you garner a few more followers?

Interesting, as I did a live stream the other night and I asked people how long they’d been following me for and so many people said that they discovered me after hearing the cover of ‘Hopelessly Devoted’ , so I guess that the main benefit was acquiring lot’s of long term, loyal supporters just from that one song. The week after that cover went out was CRAZY, the press were in contact with me and I think that it just gave me a platform to be able to share my own material and know that there are people out there who will listen to all of my music, not just the covers, that’s very nice!

You certainly have that engagement with your fans, that’s clear to see!

‘Hopelessly Devoted’ was lifted from the film Grease, if you had to compare yourself to a character from the film, which would it be and why?

(Laughs) - Oh, the one with the pink hair….Frenchy, I would like to say her but I think those that know me would liken me a bit more to Rizzo, part of me is Frenchy and part of me is Rizzo…..

We’ll refer to you from this day on as FRIZZO (a blend of Frenchy and Rizzo!)

So, it’s looking like all live events in 2020 have been cancelled, have you started to look at 2021 yet?

I have an idea in my head of what I’d like to do, I just want to get new music out and start performing again but nobody really knows what will happen and with that, you just can’t make any concrete plans at the moment. As soon as we know when things will return to normal, I guess I can start to put my plans into place. I’ll keep planning but nothing is set in stone at all. I’ve been doing LOADS of writing during lockdown and it’s been nice to concentrate on the release of ‘Battle Scars’ during this downtime.

Are you receiving enquiries from festivals?

I was in February and March but obviously things have quietened down somewhat since then. I’ve been chatting to people about an online festival with live streams, they’re certainly out there and will hopefully allow me to ‘perform’ for people in a safe way whilst we can’t all congregate in a field somewhere, other than that, nothing more.

You mentioned new material, please tell me a bit more about that, does it reflect your ‘lockdown’ mood?

I think it’s a bit of everything really, it’s actually nice to have the time to write, normally, I’m either gigging or travelling, as soon as I finish a show, I’ve got to think about getting to the next show. I never really know what I’m doing and I don’t really have a structure so being at home for a decent amount of time has allowed me more time to think about what I want to do. I guess some of the new material has been inspired by the current situation but I wouldn’t say that it has ALL been impacted by it.

Quickfire Round (no pauses, no hesitation, there is only one answer allowed)

• Coffee or Tea? Coffee

• Burger or Hot Dog? Burger

• Ice Cream or Candy Floss? Ice Cream

• Sunday Lunch or Fry Up? Erm.…..S……Fry Up!

• Beatles or Stones? Beatles as I recently did a cover of one of their songs

• Frenchy or Rizzo? Frenchy

• Beer or Wine? Wine

• Acoustic or Electric? Acoustic

• ZOOM or SKYPE? ZOOM

• Cream first or Jam First? Jam First (she is Cornish after all!)

• God or Google? OMG….I’d probably say I’d go to Google more!

You just about managed to get through the Quickfire round without any ‘Battle Scars’ (do you see what I did there….?)

That was a tough one!

Daisy, I’d just like to thank you for your time today, we here at musomuso wish you every success for the single release on June 2nd and for the future and we hope to see you at a festival soon!

I hope so too!

Keep up to date with Daisy Clark by searching ‘Daisyclarkmusic’ on ANY social platform including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok.

‘Battle Scars’ is available NOW on ALL major streaming platforms, including Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music & Amazon Music.

Interview by Steve Muscutt