Pip Millett on Friendship, Loss and Her New Single 'Ride With Me'

Manchester singer-songwriter Pip Millett is a rising star. You may know the singer from her sensational performance on COLORS Berlin with her debut ‘Make Me Cry’. She’s back with her first 2022 track ‘Ride With Me’ which uniquely focuses on friendship and loss. Pip spoke to our Community Editor Halima Jibril to discuss her latest single, how everything is copy and what she’s most excited about this year.

Wellness check! How are you? 

I’ve been alright! The first half of the month has been a bit up and down then I would have liked, but I’m alright. I’m powering through it, and I’m still excited for the year. 

Reading your bio and interview with Clash in 2021, you’re very honest about the fact you were a shy kid, and you were kind of hiding behind musical instruments. How did you build your confidence musically, and what advice would you give to other shy musicians? I feel like people don’t expect musicians to be shy. 

Yeah - people really don’t expect musicians to be shy! A lot of people have said to me, “as if you’re the one to go up on stage!” when there was a time when I could barely speak. But, to be honest, even though this sounds so cringe, it’s all about faking it, and suddenly when you start to get more into it, you start to feel the appreciation that other people have for what you do, and I think that definitely boosts your confidence. I don’t think there’s any other way than just throwing yourself into it. You just have to do something scary, and now I love doing scary things. Even if you feel like a fool doing it, it’s just life! You can’t be afraid of everything all of the time then; you’re just limiting yourself, and you leave room for regret. 

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What’s the latest thing you’ve been really scared of doing - but have done? 

Honestly, I was always really scared of going for a meal by myself or going on holiday by myself, but I’ve done both those things in that last year, and now, I will always do those things. I continue to eat alone in a restaurant, and I do not give a shit! Doing things alone is really empowering. 

You actually studied Music at university, right? What university was it? 

Okay, so I never like to say what uni I went to because I don’t want to give them any attention! I was so close to being thrown out. I’ve never even told my mum that. The amount of angry emails I was getting because of my attendance was shocking. I don’t think they ever appreciated me! The annoying thing was, it wasn’t like I never handed in my work - there was only ever one paper that I handed in on the dot, but It got capped, and I never did that again. It was truly an accident; I didn’t mean for that to happen. I always got the grades, though! I came out with a 2:1, so that’s all I wanted! I got it, I left, and I never looked back! 

“I don’t think there’s any other way than just throwing yourself into it. You just have to do something scary, and now I love doing scary things.”

Did you find your musical education beneficial? Has it impacted the music you make now? 

Emm, I’m sure parts of it have been beneficial, but I think it has more to do with the people I met at university. When you’re meeting other creatives, that’s always a great thing, and you learn so much from them. So that was definitely a good thing for me and helped me grow. But a lot of what I learned was probably from before I went to uni. I had a really good Guitar teacher who was always super supportive; even though I felt really shit at guitar, I use it now to write songs. I think a great teacher really changes everything. I had a great English teacher in high school, and it really changed the way I looked at words. So I don’t think it was uni that impacted me, but my prior education definitely did. 

You never hear a creative person talk about how much they loved their creative university experience. Like you never hear that. 

It’s true! You really don’t. For some reason, it takes away some of the creativity, and it’s incredibly frustrating. I think it’s quite hard to grade creative stuff, in my opinion. It’s such a biassed thing. It depends on what you’re into, and it depends on who’s marking it. 

You released your EP ‘Motion Sick’ in 2021, and you mention in your interview with Clash that “all these songs is that they are all about change and moving forward.” When listening to the EP, especially ‘Hard Life’ and ‘Braid It Back’, I was reminded of Marvin Gaye’s album ‘You’re The Man’, which is also about change, resistance and race. I wondered if you could tell us about the musical inspirations behind the EP? 

To be honest. I’ve been listening to a lot of the Nas album. A lot! But I can’t even say that about the single Hard Life because I recorded that in my first year of university when I was mega depressed. It kinda just came out of me. I wasn’t really listening to anything of that style then. So for the rest of that EP, I listened to a lot of Nas and ‘Hard Life’ again because I wanted the rest to match you with that feeling and emotion. I was getting really scared that everything else I do after that was not gonna be as passionate or as political. I was really worried about that because I don’t want every song I do to be a love song. I know that sometimes, some of my songs that have been about me and my depression, people have thought they were about a relationship, even though I’ve been in like one relationship. Like yes, I’ve seen people, but a lot of my music has not been based around a boy! 

In your bio, it mentions that your music has elements of Joni Mitchell’s confessional lyricism, and that’s so true. This makes me think of the Nora Ephron documentary ‘Everything Is Copy’. In short, the documentary showed how she would always take things from her life and put it into her art - no matter if it hurt people. I wondered if you believe in that saying, and to what extent is ‘everything copy’ for you? 

I think that music is incredibly therapeutic for me, and some days it makes me very emotional and sad because I’m letting a lot out, and everything is copy! Everything I write is based on my life, and my music is like the only way anyone will ever really know anything about me. I don’t even think I’m mega open with my emotions to my family and things like that. I think I’m quite protective of the people around me, and I don’t want to upset them with my own shit, so my writing is my place for that.

It’s scary because it does mean I’m letting a lot of people in and telling them where my head is at, and that’s really intense. I always hate when people ask me what a song is about, especially when I don’t fully feel ready to be open and speak about a certain situation. It feels so much easier to sing it than to say it. All of my stuff feels so close to me and close to the people around me. Anyone who has fucked me over for sure has a song written about them, no doubt! 

Your next single, ‘Ride With Me,’ comes out March 4th and is about leaving behind bad friendships.” I think it’s a significant topic to tackle in music. It’s kind of unique. People don’t talk about the heartbreaks of losing a friend or learning that it’s time to end a friendship. We are kind of obsessed with romantic love that we don’t see platonic love in the same way. What made you want to tackle such a unique topic? 

You’re right. It’s quite strange. I don’t hear a lot of music that tackles or is written about friendships. It’s a weird one for me because It makes me question if people have not had the same friendships I’ve had. I think a lot of people are quite scared to leave certain friendships, so they’ve never had to write about it, and they always just kinda stayed in them. I’ve had those kind of friendships that have ended, and a couple of years later, we’ve ended up on a good path again - but I think for me, relationships should all have that same kind of core. My friendships always come first.

Even when I was in a relationship, I always wanted to be friends with that person first. I was best friends with my ex, and I think that’s what made the relationship work for a long time, even though we both grew out of it in the end. You still have a lot of love for that person, even if you’re no longer in love with them. You’re still losing someone. At the end of the day, loss is loss, and it still hurts, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. 

What’s the one thing you’re super excited about in 2022? 

I’m really excited to travel with my music. That’s something I haven’t really done. I loved going on tour in January. It’ll be so exciting to do that in a whole new country and do festivals abroad. I’ve only done a few festivals, so all the live stuff still feels so new to me. 

Words: Halima Jibril