INTERVIEW: Banoffee releases new single 'Idiot' and announces new album 'Teartracks'

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Australia’s Banoffee (real name Martha Brown) has been releasing music since 2013 and her mix of electropop and indiepop has steadily gathered her critical acclaim with praise from global outlets such as Billboard and NME. Along the way she has collaborated with Empress Of, Cupcakke, SOPHIE as well as supporting Taylor Swift on her worldwide tour as part of Charli XCX’s troupe.

Today she releases her new single ‘Idiot’ and also announces the release of her forthcoming album Teartracks which will be out on October 8. The album was inspired by a breakup during the pandemic lockdown last year and what is both confronting and rewarding about the album is it unashamedly focuses on that one topic - embracing every aspect of a romantic breakup without trying to justify or navigate a way out the heartbreak. “Teartracks is for people who just want to stay indoors and aren't really willing to try and be picked up yet,” Banoffee says. “I want people to cry in the car listening to this, driving at night, in the shower — I want someone to think ‘I want to feel sad, I’m gonna put on Teartracks’.”

With her breathtaking creativity, immersive lyrics and soundscapes and her remarkable ability to straddle genres without confining herself to any single one, Banoffee is always an incredible listen and Teartracks looks to be a highlight of 2021. We recently caught up with her to find out more.

Hi Banoffee. It is such a treat to steal some of your time today. You make such beautiful music and visuals. How are things with you?
Thank you, that's so nice. Good, although I've got a broken foot at the moment, which is very frustrating. I fell down the stairs in my apartment. Everyone assumes I was drunk, but I was just in my socks, and they’re wooden stairs and I just slipped and it's quite a fall! I’m trying to get my album done and all the visuals and trying to do it on one leg, which is a little more challenging, but it's still a lot of fun.

You've recently released 'Tapioca Cheeks', which I can confirm makes anyone listening immediately stop what they're doing come closer. It is such a beautiful track and quite possibly my favourite one you've ever done. Talk me through it.
Thank you so much. That is so nice to hear. You make songs for yourself and then just hope that other people like them. That song's an interesting one because I wrote it just before the pandemic hit. I had one session when I was back in America, before I realised the world was crashing down and I came back to Australia. I'd just fallen in love and it was just that overwhelming feeling when you almost can't breathe, you're just sort of obsessed with someone and anything about them is so endearing to you. And then it really took a twist because, like a lot of people, living with my partner during quarantine was super difficult and we ended up splitting just before Christmas last year and then I recorded the video. It was so different because I was grieving in the video instead of being in the midst of this heart pop. So I like this song because it has this strange eeriness to it, which is kind of what falling in love is.

Your videos are always such a visual treat. You're clearly a visual person as much as you are a sonic person. How important is that visual aspect to your songs?
It's so important to me, because I don't see Banoffee as a music project, it's more of an art project, or even like a brand or a company. It's much more than just music to me. I've never wanted to just play music, or just be video artist, I've wanted to really try and do a lot of different things and make things more of an experience. Digital platforms, whether it's streaming or video, they're limiting. And when you can mix them together is when you really invite people into your world, which is something that I wish I could do more often with music. So it's really important to me. I often come up with video concepts as I'm writing a song, it's not like it comes after. Every song on my upcoming album has a video concept, even though half of them won't be made into videos, it's definitely a part of the writing process for me.

You’ve been releasing music since 2013. How do you feel that you've grown as an artist since your early releases?
Most of all, I feel much more in control of my project. To begin with, I was very timid and quite scared of the music world. I was nervous to tell people what I wanted, how I wanted things to go. My production has really become crisper and more decisive, my songs a lot fuller. I feel like I've grown up. In a lot of ways that has come from just being jaded as well. When you're a solo, young, female musician, you get pulled in so many directions, and you get promised so many things, and you get flown around the world. And then you end up sitting alone in your bedroom again, wondering what you're going to do with yourself. Those sort of things really shape you as an artist.

You did divide your time between Los Angeles, and Australia. With regards to pure pop music, Australia has historically been White Man Rock Central. Was that one of the reasons behind your move? Because you felt that there just wasn't the support here for your sound?
Definitely. Within the time I've made music, my biggest growth has been overseas, in terms of fan base. In Australia, what I love about coming back home is I have the people who have generally been coming to my shows for a long time and are very devoted, loyal listeners. And so supportive. But I found it really hard to grow. It's taken a lot of convincing and a lot of that convincing has been me going 'Americans listen to my music! People in the UK listen to my music! Europe listens to my music!', and then people are like ‘oh, maybe we should listen’. It's hard. It's really hard here making left of centre pop. If you're not pure pop that can be played on commercial radio, then indie radio often thinks you're too pop for indie radio. So you get stuck in this sort of limbo, which doesn't really exist that much in other countries. I think some other countries are much more open to sort of that grey matter in between. I've always loved coming home to Australia because of that beautiful, loyal fan base, but I do find it challenging trying to make music here as someone who doesn't really fit in to the three or four categories that do really well here.

So, 'Tapioca Cheeks' is out doing its thing, ‘Idiot’ is also out now and you've got an album coming in October. What else is coming up for you? 
Well 'Idiot' is out now and it's got a really fun video with it, I have a broken leg in the video, which is quite funny. I've got a moon boot on my foot. So that was really fun. And I'm really looking forward to releasing this album. Because it's really different. I went quite hi fi with my last record, it's very polished, everything's fine tuned. This one is sort of going a little backwards. And, you know, I made it in COVID, most of it in a tiny little cabin by the beach where I didn't have a lot of equipment and over email with collaborators, so it's really different. The entire record is about one subject, which I've never done before. It's a sad record, it's about losing love and I wanted to make a record that didn't have a redemption song, because I think I've done that a lot. I wanted to have a record that people can just put on when they're really sad and they want to feel sadder. It’s really nerve wracking for me, it's definitely a very revealing record. There are a lot of songs that are very raw and there's a lot of songs that completely give away all of my cards, I'm not hiding anything. I'm admitting humiliation to the world and just being really honest about something a lot of us experience. It’s one thing that everyone has in common, everyone's had their heart broken, and everyone knows that when you're in it, it feels like the worst pain in the world. So I wanted to do a record that just really honed in on that, and all the different angles of how that can happen.

‘Idiot’ is out now. You can download and stream here.

Teartracks will be released on October 8

To keep up with all things Banoffee, you can follow her on Instagram and Facebook.