With some artists, it’s never just about the music. You feel their highs, share in their lows, and find yourself defending them from online trolls you’ve never met. Billy Nomates, aka Tor Maries, is one of those artists. Fiercely independent and unafraid to do her thing, she’s also one of the most vital talents in the UK right now.
SNACK caught up with Tor to discuss new album Metalhorse, health, grief, that Glastonbury day, online abuse, and the end of the world. Just as well we’re no longer stressing the small stuff.
With the recent release of Metalhorse, you’ve released three albums in less than five years. Has it felt fast to you?
It’s interesting. It’s almost gone in slow motion. I think the first two records and even then I did an EP in between my first two albums actually, so I did three pieces of work really in the space of three years.
And because it was COVID times for two of them, it actually went in slow motion. The days were just longer, weren’t they? We weren’t really kind of rushing the world. So in a strange way, it’s not gone that quickly, no.
And then sort of having a bit of time in between Cacti and Metalhorse and there were a lot of changes, life happens and big events happen. So it’s weird. When people say to me like, oh you put your debut out five years ago, I go, oh yeah.
I don’t know if that’s a long time or a short time. It’s really hard, but to contextualise it is really hard because three of those years were affected by COVID. And I think any artist that was operating at that time, especially where you’re making work consistently, it’s just a time warp.
That whole time feels like a real strange time to look back on. But yeah, I suppose to answer your question, I’ve not done a very good job of that, but neither here nor there, people tell me five years and I go, five years, huh? Funny.
Your current band features two Scottish musicians – how did that line-up come about?
I met Mandy [Clarke, bass] and Liam [Chapman, drums] separately at shows that I’d done. I did a gig in the QMU in Glasgow that got postponed and eventually met them both. And like all love affairs, we started stalking each other on Instagram. And for about a year, we never talked music.
We were just like, how you doing? How you cracking on? They were really sound and I thought they were nice people and we’re similar ages, you just have a lot in common as musicians at similar ages, being self-employed and navigating it all. You have such similar experiences, and to be able to talk to people about that before anything else and relate to people on that level was really nice. And it’s something I’ve really, really missed actually.
So that laid the foundations for it. And from there, I thought, I’m going to ask them if they want to come in on the next thing. And I got some funding from PRS and yeah, that’s enough to kick start it.
I certainly don’t know how I’ll continue to do it, but that can kick start the recording and let’s just see where it goes from there.
I was at a gig last Wednesday night. Again, like yourself, it was a solo artist, but Liam was drumming for her and he was amazing. It was such a good night.
Yeah. Yeah. He’s great. And Mandy’s similar, you know, she’s out with bands as well. They’re both just worth their soul. I have such a love for Scottish people and they’re just good craic.
How has it felt moving from solo performer to playing with a full band?
It’s an interesting shift. It’s a new dynamic, it’s interesting because it doesn’t feel that different.
It feels like we’ve elevated parts of the music, elevated the energy. I was concerned thinking, oh, is it going to change the focus? Is it going to feel like a whole different thing? But it ignites the songs in a new way. I was afraid of toying with that because it’s fiercely independent in all aspects of songwriting and performing and everything.
But it didn’t feel like that with them. And even the crew, my sound man, Ed, who I’m out with, we’ve become so familiar with each other.
I’ve put my faith and my trust in them that they’ve got me, from behind me and at the side of me. And I feel it was a time in my life where I needed that. I needed to turn to somebody and smile on stage. I have that now and I feel like it’s only added to the strength of it now.
You played the Rum Shack in Glasgow with the full band – how did you feel going into that tour?
Yeah, yeah, it was great. It was a bit of a suck it and see, because I’d never been out with a band as Billy Nomates. I branded it as an acoustic tour, thinking that maybe people would come and see it and then sort of snuck them in. It was just a real test for them, but it was a total success. And I felt so confident after that, that I was doing the right thing.
I speak to a few comedians about this and they sometimes tour a work in progress. But with a musician, you have to cut your teeth somewhere. And it’s harder to go back and start something again, from the bottom up. So it felt like a challenge. But we had a blast.
And I hope and I think that so did the audience. It felt like we were on the cusp of doing something exciting. It feels like it’s in us, it’s getting stronger and stronger. And we’re developing something more and more exciting.
Metalhorse has been called your strongest work yet – it’s typical for an artist to say they don’t care about critics when they criticise, but does this change when they’re praising you?
Oh yeah. I could lie and say, it doesn’t matter but, it’s definitely easier. It gives me an easier ride. But I fundamentally believed there was an element with Metalhorse that I had made my best record yet. So it truly didn’t matter what happened. And it still doesn’t, because I’m really proud of it.
And sometimes as an artist, you do make work that you go, ‘it’s good. It’s not my best, it’s good’.
I do it all the time, with demos and stuff, but if you stay working long enough, you progress. I was confident that I’d made the best thing I could make with the knowledge and the tools and the budget and the skills that I had.
So that in itself is a success. I was just happy with that given the year that had happened and everything around it, as usual, it’s just a success when a record gets out there. You look around at the minute and you think, anything could happen, so to get a record out and to get it on the radio and to be on Jools Holland with it. It’s fucking great.
How has your own relationship with the record changed since recording and releasing it?
Yeah, it does shift. It has to, to stay sane and to keep it exciting. I don’t delve into it every day. I save it for rehearsal. We have rehearsal time for shows or for tours, so I ignore it completely until we’re back doing it because that way it stays fresh for me.
When you’re writing it and you’re about to put it out, you’re holding it close every day, and for me because I’m part of the production side of it, every note and frequency has been touched by me in some way. I’m incredibly close to it for a long time and then I get to let it go, which I really enjoy because I feel confident about it. It’s like you’ve just taught your kid how to tie his shoes, and now it’s up to them to go and kick a ball around.
There’s a line about the end of the world on the album – and honestly, it feels a bit closer these days. What was going through your head when you wrote that?
It feels imminent, doesn’t it? It feels very close. Everybody’s just a bit hot under the collar. You have today, it’s a sunny day, there’s people sitting on the grass, but they’re looking at their phones and a potential World War III. There’s weird contrasts we live with, and have lived with for a long time now. That’s one aspect.
And then for me personally, I feel like I’ve been through a few different personal end of the worlds, like a death or you get a diagnosis and you have to live in a new world in a new way.
Sometimes it’s reframing what an end of the world can be, it can be literal, it can be metaphorical. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be bad. It sounds like a bad thing and that’s why the line is there but weirdly, it can also be liberating. ‘What if the world has been pretty shit? Maybe it should come to an end, you know?’
I know I meant it at the time, but the way it’s in there, it’s like the end of the world should not come between us, and you can take that in a romantic sense or a wider sense. Whatever your politics are at the moment, we’re pretty fucking divided and it’s pretty tense.
In relation to ‘Comedic Timing’ on the record, do you feel you’ve been misunderstood, especially around the kind of humour you use in your music?
I think every artist wants to be misunderstood secretly. Yeah.
That’s our schtick maybe. I think for a long time I felt like a bit of a joke act, if I’m being honest.
The way I performed and people’s reactions to me, it was either hardcore punks that thought it was super cool and I’d go to Europe and I’d feel super cool, and then I could go to places in the UK and they’d be like, ‘who’s this karaoke drunk mum?’ Even at Glastonbury, I had that said about me and you just go, oh, right.
With ‘Comedic Timing’ I actually wrote a long time ago. It never found its place on Cacti , so I remastered it for Metalhorse where it felt like it fitted very well, actually. Strangely, the words made more sense now than they did then.
I’ve always related to comedians because they’re this one person, this one person’s show that holds an audience and is there to kind of appease themselves and an audience. And I’d always felt that way about Billy Nomates shows. It was this weird life I was living where it was giving me a lot, and I hoped it was giving the audience something, but it wasn’t always.
‘Comedic Timing’ tried to touch on that.
Are you at peace with the fallout after that Glastonbury?
Yeah, I’m at peace with it because the life I’ve had for the last two years since that has really put it all into context. I really, truly, on a cellular level, feel like it does not matter. But at the time, of course it did, at the time it was a weird thing because I also had a really good show and was like, fuck, I can’t believe this is happening.
The whole thing just feels silly, and that’s not to downplay when people get abused online, because at the time it’s very direct and it can really bring someone down. But now, I laugh at it and go, do you know what, Steven from York, who’s got, lovehearts and family in his bio and is saying all kinds of horrible shit to artists online, ‘Just fuck off. Just go away.’ It’s just white noise now. It cannot pierce through in the same way it used to.
Now you’re playing live with a full-band, are there any older songs that feel brand new?
Interestingly enough, on the Metalhorse tour, we might revisit something, a couple of things from the first album, which I haven’t done in a long, long time.
I think we can breathe a new lease of life into them and with Mandy, Liam and with sort of instrumentation. I’m looking forward to that, because songs aren’t old, they’re just songs. For songs, age is a strange thing because they just exist. Especially from five years ago, to somebody, they’re always new. I constantly live in the 80s. I live by Greatest Hits Radio, whenever they’ve got an 80s night on, I am there.
Songs like ‘Heels’, I’ve never done that with a band because it has that electronic drum beat to it and a mechanical rhythm, but we might investigate that and how that could maybe play out live.
Similar question, what song or songs from Metalhorse are working best for you live?
‘Plans’ always goes off. So far that’s been fun, but I haven’t had a chance to do the title track and to bring some live keys and start playing with the instrumentation on that. I’m looking forward to doing that. It’s the stuff you don’t normally get to do that I look forward to doing.
You’re playing Fringe by the Sea in August – how do you approach one-off shows like that?
Physically, I’ll prepare by coming to Scotland for rehearsals. I get into a Scottish frame of mind, eat from some brilliant curry houses in Glasgow. It’s quite the summer but stuff like Fringe by the Sea, it’s exciting because we all look forward to it. Everyone’s out doing other things at the moment, and then we’ve got those days to put something together.
And the energy is quite one off when you do one off shows. I’m expecting it to be a lot of energy. I’ve arranged a quieter summer for a few reasons, largely because I’m starting my medication for MS and I’ve had to be home for a bit more. By the time Fringe by the Sea comes around, I’ll be absolutely revelling in doing some performance. I really can’t wait. It’s something I’m really looking forward to, so expect a lot of energy and excitement, it’s going to be great. I’ve never been, but I’ve been told it’s like a completely luscious festival in an amazing environment.
And while you’ve been taking it easy of late, it looks like you’re pretty busy to the end of the year from here?
So we’re off around the UK and actually back up in Glasgow early October, SWG3. Then we have a bit of a break and then we’re back out doing a few dates in Europe in November. We’re trying to pace it.
It’s a different kind of year for me. We want to pace it and ensure everyone’s well and everything’s up and running. I feel lucky in that I have a really loyal fan base that wants to support me and come to shows. And if I pace things, I feel like my audience are very happy to accommodate that. If I were younger, you maybe don’t do that because you feel you have to be on the road to pay the bills, but I’m lucky and the luxury that comes with pacing it is all of our energy will be going into these shows.
It’s going to be great fun, we can’t wait, we’re so excited to get going.
You’ve been through a lot in recent years, are there any lessons you’ve taken from it?
You have to embrace the good times and acknowledge when things are good. It’s easy to take good, calm and steady for granted. As an artist, you’re always chasing better, higher, more this and more that but the real joy is making something you like with people you like, and with an audience who are loyal to your records, and not worry about anything else.
I truly don’t stress the small stuff anymore. It just isn’t important, that’s the real positive thing to come out of a crap few years, there’s no time for it. I’m grateful for that, honestly.
How far ahead are you looking?
I normally try to have a year ahead of me. I’ve been home more this summer, so I’ve started work on the next thing, tinkering around. I’m not entirely sure what it’s going to be, I never am, but by the time festival season rolls around next year, I expect something to be around. That’s all I’ll say.
Having seen many of your shows, they’re a great watch, but why should people come and see you this year?
If you come to a Billy Nomates show, especially this year, expect high-energy, authentic, heartfelt songs that come from dark places that are trying oi change and twist that energy. If you want to engage and feel that, you can. I encourage anyone to come, come by yourself, your friends, with your mum and dad, your kids. It’s just an explosion of music and energy.
Also, there are softer components to my music now, just trying to capture feeling at its most authentic.
Metalhorse is out now via Invada Records. Available here.
Billy Nomates plays Fringe by the Sea alongside Hamish Hawk and Cloth on August 8th, and Glasgow SWG3 on October 3rd. Tickets for Fringe by the Sea here and Glasgow here.
