CARRIE LYELL MEETS WRITER, POET AND MUSICIAN LUCIE BARÂT

“ We’re all rock and roll”

It’s a sunny and crisp November afternoon in London, and I’m heading to a pub in Borough Market to meet Lucie Barât. The Brighton-based writer, poet and musician is sipping a brandy when I arrive, looking cool as a cucumber in a black Fred Perry polo shirt and grey jeans. I order a pale ale and we get down to it.

DIVA: Poetry, screenwriting, music… you do it all. How do the processes involved in creating each differ?

LUCIE BARÂT: You spend a bit of time in one discipline. I did loads of poetry, and then I did Little Episodes [using art to de-stigmatise depression and addiction], and then books. It was all about using poetry to say stuff. But then my songs are bastardised poems anyway, so it’s not dissimilar. I might have a melody idea, but usually it’s the lyrics. TV’s my day job – but that’s very different because you’ll come up with a whole world, characters and a story you want to tell. It’s a lot easier because then I package it down and give it to my agent, and my agent matches me with producers. Whereas, with the music, I’m driving a lot of it myself because you need to know where you want to place that and how you want it to sound. I guess it’s a bit different. I’m always doing music and writing, TV writing. Poetry’s when I get an extra breath.

How is this new solo project different from being in a band? And is it quite exposing, having just your name attached to it?