How not to release an album in 2025 (this is NOT music industry advice)
How not to release an album in 2025:
1. Spend four months building up to release day with thoughtful emails, regular music video premieres and ads (I even did TikTok consistently for the first time!)
2. Release album
3. Fulfil music and merch items to generous fans around the globe
4. Disappear
Four weeks after my sixth solo album and second Penfriend album “House Of Stories” flew off on its beautiful wings around the world, I got the phone call I’d been dreading for the past three years of hospital visits.
Julia, my 95-year old Gran, died in her sleep six days after our last lunch together in her care home bedroom: cheese sandwiches cut into triangles, a Jammie Dodger each plus a bowl of vanilla ice cream for her.
I had long expected it would be bad, but I couldn’t have imagined the particular ways that I would feel her loss in the weeks after that sad call. Someone who was there for my entire life was suddenly gone. The woman who must have celebrated the news of my Mum’s pregnancy, caring about the idea of me even before I entered the world, screaming.
Random thoughts besieged me. I suddenly worried about what would happen to her stories. Nothing was ever written down or recorded. She is un-Google-able. I don’t want this woman to disappear: is that because I’m afraid of doing the same?
She led an extraordinary life: living on the canals, walking beside Tommy the horse as he pulled the boat along the water, feeling proud when her Dad let her steer. Moving into a small house on land in her teen years, looking after her brothers and sisters and then leaving to start her own family. Travelling to Hong Kong, Malaya (as it was known when she was there) and Cyprus with my Grandad. She glowed when she talked about those days, and over the last few years whenever conversation lulled I would ask her to tell me about it all again, and she would smile.
Years ago I suggested making audio recordings of us talking, but she wasn’t really up for it. I wish she’d said yes, but it’s not something to force on someone. Not everything has to last forever, and our stories can live on in the memories of our loved ones. Great in theory, but I suddenly felt the burden of remembering, and knew I would do a poor job, and felt like a failure.
Of my four grandparents, I’ve only ever properly known my grandmothers – they both outlived their husbands by 30+ years, and my Grandad Chris died when I was 9. I was always impressed and admiring of their adventurous natures, strength, toughness and stoicism. I don’t think they met many times, living in different countries with family members strewn far and wide, but I hope they got on well.
I dedicated my 2018 She Makes War album “Brace For Impact” to “my inspiring grandmothers Constance Kidd and Julia Briggs. Thank you for always encouraging adventure”.
My Gran looked pleased when I showed her that. Unfortunately Nana had already passed, but I did get the chance to thank her for everything before she did. And I thanked my Gran, too.
I wrote this song the day after my Nana, Constance, died:
Three weeks ago today I stood up and talked at Gran’s funeral about the butterfly effect: marvelling at how if even one small event had happened differently in her early life, my Mum, me, my sister and brother and their children would not exist.
She always enjoyed telling me about her first fiancé, the one she had to let down when she met my Grandad in a hospital ward and they fell in love. He had yellow fever, she was a nursing auxiliary. It sounds like a scene from a film. She wasn’t mean about anyone, I think she told and retold the tale as an example of trusting your instincts. And when I think of her stories now, I notice for the first time the spaces she left for me to draw my own conclusions, learn my own lessons.
My Gran never had wifi – in the 90’s she called my Mum to warn her that “The Internet” was a dangerous place and we shouldn’t be going on there – so she never shared her thoughts and experiences in the ways I’ve been doing for the past 20 years. As far as I know she never kept a diary either. For my entire childhood she didn’t talk much about her start in life; embarrassed to have left school aged 12 to start work, she often apologised for her handwriting and spelling in the letters we exchanged. I’m glad I was able to encourage more storytelling from her in the last decade at least.
When I chose the name “House Of Stories” for my latest album, I immediately thought of Gran’s house in Runcorn. She moved there in 1991, and as my family unit was so nomadic as I was growing up, it’s the only family home containing childhood memories that I still have physical access to. I vividly remember rollerskating in the back yard after Gran bought my sister and I skates from the car boot sale, redirecting my penpal letters to her address when we went to stay for a few weeks in the summer holidays, cuddling up under fluffy blankets on the sofa.
Later I stayed over on tour a few times; sitting up late one night talking to my tour buddy, we fell silent to watch a spider slowly spin a web from the ceiling right the way down to the floor, inches from my face.
It’s weird the things that stay with you.
Eventually there’s a moment when we realise we’re the grownups now, and we can (try to) have a say in how things are done. It’s tricky in family situations where roles seem set in stone, but I feel good about how I was able to show up for my Gran and my parents in the hard times, and I’m grateful for that last cosy lunch date.
If she knew how much her loss had knocked me sideways, I can just hear what she’d say to me:
“Oh ‘eck, what a fuss.”
But if I’d managed to bounce right back she might have been rather insulted.
“I have so much I want to make all the time, and it’s always frustrating that I can’t make all of it. For a while I haven’t felt able to make any of it. But I’m starting to believe that I might be able to make some of it very soon. And that’s a huge improvement.”
I had such plans for post-album 2025, and I’m going to start making them happen.
Thank you for being on Team Penfriend.
Love,
Laura xxx
PS I’ll write more about this part of the “House Of Stories” project in coming weeks, but 17 beautiful humans contributed meaningful objects and accompanying stories to create the gatefold artwork, and you can read those here: https://penfriend.rocks/basement
Creativity Essays Letterbox Process