After a six-year break from releasing music, Shura is back with a new sound and album about navigating a dark period in her life.

It may have been a while since Shura’s last album forevher, but she’s been working hard. From
writing for other artists, like Mel C and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, to becoming a Pro Twitch streamer,
she has kept herself busy. Shura’s debut, 2016’s Nothing’s Real, was an 80s-synth-led coming-of-age masterpiece that amassed a strong following of fans, which included Elton John. It had a large impact on a feneration of queer kids and her songs featured in Netflix’s coming-of-age drama Heartstopper. By 2019, she released her second record forevher, an album full of dreamy love songs about
meeting her girlfriend in New York, but the pandemic brought her album campaign to an early
stagnation. Lockdowns and medical issues took their toll, and Shura took a break from writing and became increasingly isolated from her loved ones.

Her new album I Got Too Sad For My Friends, out tomorrow, details that period with dark and honest lyricism. The album follows a new path sonically with more of an acoustic sound that becomes almost psychedelic in places, with lots of the electro-pop glimmer that we’ve become used to from her. Despite the anxious theme of the words, she often creates an uplifting and maximalist sound to bring herself out of the darkness, which is why, even though it may sound a bit different to her previous releases, it is quintessential Shura. Recent single and album highlight “World’s Worst Girlfriend” has quickly become a heavy hitter in a back catalogue of synth bangers.

Shura sits down with 1883 Magazine to talk about being too sad for her friends, the music industry, famous fans, and more.

Hi Shura, it’s been a while since your last album, forevher, so why has there been such a
gap and what’s changed in those years?

Yeah, it’s been a while. It’s a big gap even for me. I definitely think I’ve always been someone
who takes their time, and it’s not easily rushed. Maybe, I could afford to be more free, but it’s
just I enjoy production and I enjoy recording and I enjoy the details of building a sonic landscape. I just like spending time in that world.

The timing of the pandemic was a few months after forevher came out and the campaign completely stopped. Yes, once the album’s out, people are hearing it, but then you’re expected to tour for a year and do festivals. I don’t really write when I’m touring, so I wasn’t ready to just start writing again. The first song I wrote for [IGTSFMF] was “Richardson” and that’s now a six-year-old song, which is wild to me because on Nothing’s Real the oldest by the time the album came out was “Touch” and it was only two years old so to be putting out a record where some of the songs I’ve lived with for like five years is kind of wild to me.

And then it took about a year to record. We did four days in a studio tracking the main body of it, but all the overdubs, the lyrics, you know, recording all the vocals. We were supposed to do it in three months, and then we missed that deadline, and then we were having to squeeze because the producers have other albums, and you’re like fitting in and trying to do it. So yeah, what can I say, I’m a snail job.

It’s good to be taking your time to get it perfect.

Yeah, but I think also I’m the queen of overthinking, so that’s a flaw, I would say. I think that one of the most important things for any creative, whether you’re a songwriter, whether you’re a writer, whether you’re a filmmaker, it’s knowing when to stop. Until you’ve stopped and put it out, it doesn’t exist. Like, you haven’t actually made anything until you’ve made the decision [to put it out]. Weirdly, it’s only made once you make the decision to stop making it.

I Got Too Sad For My Friends is quite a dark and sincere name for an album. Can you talk me through why you chose that title?

The album title I’ve known for about five years. I remember when I had a collection of demos, maybe four or five songs, I kept calling the playlist on SoundCloud, ‘I got too sad for my friends’. [The title appears] as a lyric, in ‘World’s Worst Girlfriend’ and actually that was the second iteration of it because in ‘Richardson’, the oldest song on the record, there’s a line which is “I got too down around my friends”. It is a recurring theme, but I just loved the directness of it. 

I think for one, it’s sort of a long sentence. Both my album titles before have been short and snappy with Nothing’s Real and forevher. I wanted to have a little play and, of course, it’s quite sad, but it’s evocative in different ways.

I think on one level it’s deeply kind of “oh oh sad”, but because it’s so long, it almost has a sense of humour to it too. And it’s like, “What do you mean you got too sad for your friends? Do you mean that you got too sad and they all ran away from you?” Is it with an ellipsis or is it with a question mark? I think there are multiple ways in which it can be taken. It lives in this world where you can receive it in a different way depending on how you’re feeling. I love playing around with stuff where it’s like, this could make you laugh, but it could also leave you devastated and crying. So, I think I like the running theme of maybe my entire discography might make you smile, or might make you cry into your pillow and question the universe. 

I think that sums up this album quite well. I had an idea of what your answer would be to that question, but that was so much more. 

What did you think it would be? [laughs]

I just thought it would simply be that you got too sad for your friends.

I kinda did! [laughs]. I think my instinct is that when you’re writing about things that might actually be quite difficult, there’s a tendency to bring along with it a sense of humour. One thing that this record is good at is whenever you feel like it maybe gets a bit too much, then there’s some lightness to bring you back. Whether that’s because the next song is upbeat, or whether the lyrics are sad but the music is fun.

It felt to me that sonically it was quite upbeat a lot of the time, and it was like you were coming out the other side of that feeling of being “too sad for your friends”.

Yeah. There are definitely songs in there that are deep in the black hole of pits of despair [laughs]. But, I don’t think I could have finished a record if I hadn’t come out the other side of it. I think that’s part of the message of it. I’ve made this album for myself selfishly; I’ve made one for me. I haven’t made it to go “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine”. That is because nothing is ever fine. In this timeline, everything’s fucked [laughs]. The lessons, I think, that we learn when we go through anything, whether it’s highs or lows, are that they’re all sort of ephemeral and temporary, and they pass. The good bits pass, and the bad bits pass. 

It’s been over ten years since [breakthrough viral hit] ‘Touch’ and nearly ten years since [debut album] Nothing’s Real. What have you learnt in that time, and what’s different? 

I’d like to have learnt more! [laughs] I mean, on a very basic level, I’ve learnt to do things like stream, which, you know, I feel like I’m cheating every time I do an interview and I turn up with my gorgeous light over there and I feel a bit mean. On a serious note, I guess what I’ve learnt, and it’s not that there wasn’t joy involved in making Forevher or Nothing’s Real because absolutely there was, but I think more so than with any record, I’ve really done exactly what I wanted to do. 

I’ve really honoured my inner child, my inner nerd and all my hyper fixations. I think maybe when Nothing’s Real came out, it was like, “Yeah, she loves space, she likes dinosaurs, she’s a bit anxious”. The record label are trying to package it and mass market it and I think with this, I’ve just gone, “You know what? I fucking loved Baldur’s Gate and I want to dress up”. I think I’ve just gone “How do I squeeze the most joy out of a mad project?” It’s a mad process, not everyone gets to do this. So, if I’m going to get to do this, how do I do this in a way where I get to tick as many boxes that bring me joy, that feel true to me, and that get my personality across, even if it puts some people off. 

They’re like “I did not realize she was so into this nerd shit”. I do wonder actually whether that’s a result of having gone through a difficult period, having come out the other side. I’ve been a huge gamer my whole life, but that was a huge part of the pandemic for me and for a lot of people. I always go like “What if I never get to do this again?”.

When you take six years to make a record, there are points where you’re not certain you are going to get to do it again. I didn’t have a label for a bit, and I had four songs. I didn’t know whether anyone would like them because they didn’t sound like the old ones.

Relating to the point about record labels, I wanted to ask you about Chappell Roan’s Grammy acceptance speech, where she talked about how record labels should have more of a responsibility for their artists. You’ve previously been signed to a major label, so I just wanted to see what your thoughts are on what Chappell said.

Well, I’ll start by saying thank fuck for Chappell Roan. What an amazing story and I think so inspiring, not just for queer artists, but for all artists. I think, really an example of just believing in your own creative process, not really compromising and just not giving up and how that can pay off. 

Another really great example of someone just being completely uncompromising in their vision, and it particularly paying off in the last year, obviously, is Charli xcx and, you know, Brat being a phenomenon. I think firstly, thank fuck for artists like that. 

I think what Chappell said is really brave and really important. Something I was saying to someone the other day is, I think that record labels, particularly majors, but honestly, I think all record labels, if you’re signing an artist, you need to allocate resources to looking after them. And that means paying for therapy. 

If someone at a label’s going to say, “Well, we don’t have the money for that”. Well, sign less artists then. 

If you look at a rise as meteoric as Chappell’s, that is an enormous mental and physical unnatural challenge for any human being to go through, and they need to be supported. If you’re signing artists, you need to be paying for their therapist, if they want one. 

Just as a piece of advice to any artist who wants therapy, you definitely need to speed date therapists; don’t just pick the first one. I was really lucky with mine, and the first one was great, but you need to find the right one for yourself. 

I will say that I’ve been signed to a major and I’ve been signed to an indie. I signed for an indie again that’s just been taken over by a major, so I’m back at Universal again, sort of. I think that all of these places can be brilliant and can be bad, and usually they’re a bit of both, and they’re a bit of both in a way that’s completely different from the next one. 

I think there’s a lot that can be done to make life easier for artists because it’s very vulnerable. It’s like “I made this, here everyone”, and if in the process of you doing that, you also then become someone who gets recognised when they’re going to the shop, that’s a tough one to deal with. I can’t say that much because I did get recognised today on the tube and it was really sweet. Someone came over and showed me a forevher jumper and I was like “This never happens”.

Are there plans for an IGTSFMF tour? You’ve got a couple of shows in London coming up in June at Bush Hall, but will there be more?

Absolutely, the plan is to tour. Is there an actual tour planned as of this very second? That’s something we’re putting together. I don’t even know how I’m going to play [IGTSFMF]. I’m in the process of figuring out how to play this, because, for anyone who’s listened, it is a different record. It’s not that you can’t play the other songs alongside them, and, absolutely, we will play other songs, but it’s finding the perfect way for them all to fit together. 

Sometimes you just need to do the song exactly as it is, even if it doesn’t fit, because that’s what people want, and that’s okay. That’s almost the curse of it being popular, and you know what, what a brilliant curse. I’ll accept that curse any day of the week. Curse me with being popular! [laughs] I love touring and I feel like there was some unfinished business on forevher. 

Are you going to swap the big hats for the knight’s armour on this tour? 

I’ve got it like it’s mine, so I can. I don’t know if I can wear the full arms because playing the guitar would be hard. You know what, the days where I feel a bit shit, I could wear the helmet and just sing through there and people would be like, is it even her? I think it will make an appearance.

I saw a couple of months ago Elton John played your song on his radio show. How mad was that for you? 

So, a little secret is that I did know that Elton John liked my music already. Many moons ago, when I released the first record, I got a call from my manager saying, “Oh, if you get a call from an unknown number in the next half an hour, pick up, it’s Elton John”. And I was like, “What?!”. So, I did, and I picked up, and we had a lovely half hour conversation. 

I think it’s something that he does with new artists. He’s so supportive of other artists and so engaged in new music. He’s arguably one of the greatest songwriters of all time and absolutely pays it forward. So, I did know that he liked my music, but I fell off the face of the earth for six years, so I was very thrilled to see that he’s still keeping tabs, and that was really moving. It inspired me to dig out that footage of myself as a baby singing along to him because I knew it existed. 

Another famous fan of yours is Sporty Spice, who you were lucky enough to work with for her last album. How did that happen? Do you think you could end up working with Mel C again? 

Oh, I’d love for it to happen again. I will always write anything and everything for and with Mel.

I was Sporty Spice growing up, so it’s one of the few occasions where I’ve asked for a selfie in a session. 

I can’t remember how it came about. I think Mel C already followed me. I would have definitely freaked out and screenshot that and sent it to all my friends being like “what the fuck is going on?” That still happens actually, when people follow you that you’re a fan of because you are just like a normal person, just doing a not very normal job. 

I love writing with other people. It’s nice to get to put on different hats. I think when you’re embarking on the process of making a record, you’re very conscious about the narrative of the record from start to finish. It’s nice to leave that hat at home, that’s like “does this fit into the body of work? Have I talked about this too much already, so do I need to cut this song?” It’s really nice to just go and put on a different costume. I recently worked with Sophie Ellis Bextor [on 2024 single ‘Freedom of the Night’] as well, and that was really fun.

I like hanging out with people and making music.

You’ve got a few collabs coming on IGTSFMF, so how did they come about? I know, especially with Cassandra Jenkins, who features on single ‘Richardson’, you’ve talked a lot about how you were a fan of her. 

I’ve collaborated a couple of times before, but it’s never made it onto the main record. It’s always been like a post-album single, or it’s been on the deluxe. I was looking back when I was making this and thought, “I’m such a collaborative person. I love working with other people, and I’m such a fan of other people”. It’s never been that I’m like, “I have to be the only voice on this”. It’s just for whatever reason, never come together. 

So much of this was written when I was in New York, and about my time when I was there. I love New York. I had a great time being there, so I don’t want to be like, “by the way, don’t go to New York, you’ll be miserable”. It’s one of my favourite places on the planet. These were all artists that I had connected with when I was there for whatever reason. With Cassandra, it was going to a show, and she was the support act. I wasn’t familiar with her work and was just really blown away. We connected on Instagram, and she later put out this record that I was then like “Jesus Christ”. It’s like I’ve been transported to an astral plane or something. We’ve been talking on and off for years about how it would be so great to work on something. 

That happened with Helado Negro [who features on another song on the album], who I met where my partner worked and he would DJ and we were just friendly. I didn’t think I’d necessarily have imagined that I’d write this love song and be duetting with him in my ultra sapphic world. But I love it. These voices just sound so gorgeous together and his vocal really took that from a song that I kind of loved into a song that I was like “damn!”.

To end on something a bit silly, what is a muscle mummy? 

Muscle mummy! [laughs]. Have you seen Love Lies Bleeding?

I have not.

What?! Well, muscle mommy is just like a hench mummy? Basically, I watched Love Lies Bleeding, and it was quite transformative. Katie O’Brien plays a body-builder and it just looks fucking incredible. And I was like “I’m gonna be like that” and then I started trying and I was like “I am not going to be like that” [laughs].

I just got really into really strong muscley women and I just thought that was the coolest fucking thing. When I first started working out, I remember people being like, “Oh, I don’t want to do my biceps because I don’t want to have big arms,” and I’m like, “No, I’m a big arm truther!”. So yeah, big big supporter of muscle mummies. 

Thank you so much Shura, this has been so lovely.

Lovely to chat, thank you so much for this.

Shura’s new album I Got Too Sad For My Friends is out tomorrow.

Follow Shura @shura

Interview George Press

Photography Sophie Williams