London Grammar’s Hannah Reid Talks Truth Is a Beautiful Thing
The singer also opens up about stage fright and how touring made her "more concerned about the world"

She tried to look away, but couldn’t help herself. When vocalist Hannah Reid was playing a recent UK concert with her outfit London Grammar, her attention was repeatedly drawn to one particularly obtrusive audience member, who was experiencing the show in a cold, clinical way. “I do think social media has changed what it means to be a performer,” sighs the 27-year-old, whose cascading, gale-force style helped win the trio (which includes guitarist Daniel Rothman and keyboardist/percussionist Dominic “Dot” Major) a prestigious Ivor Novello Award for its 2013 If You Wait debut, presented by Jimmy Page. “There was a guy who literally filmed our entire show on his phone, and he was watching it through his phone.”
Don’t get her wrong, she cautions—she feels honored and privileged that fans flock to see London Grammar, and that they gobbled up its new Paul Epworth/Greg Kurstin co-produced sophomore set, Truth Is a Beautiful Thing. So an artist can’t really get annoyed at the way their craft is being consumed. “But standing up there onstage, I was just marveling at how every other person had a phone and was filming us, and that footage will exist forever, and it may exist online. It changes the pressure, I think social media—it makes it a little harder.” She’s hoping that in the future fans will put their devices away to enjoy firsthand elegiac new English-folk-flavored anthems like “Big Picture,” “Rooting For You,” “Who Am I?” and “Leave the War With Me.” But she understands the cellular urge, she says, “because we’re not just giving a one-time gig anymore.” She expounded on this and other subjects in a rare interview last week.
Paste: Do you remember the first time you sang for others?
Hannah Reid: I have memories of singing for maybe a couple of people, like a music teacher at school. And probably the only other person was Dan [Rothman]. And I remember singing well, but those moments kind of came and went, although I guess they might seem more significant now.
Paste: Were the teacher and Dan both blown back in their chairs like the Memorex tape guy?
Reid: The teacher was. In fact, he almost fell off his seat. But I think when you’re young, you don’t really believe in it all that much. He said that I should be in the choir, and I did join for a bit. But I actually was more interested in going out with my friends at the time. But that teacher let me record the songs I was writing at the time on my lunchtimes in his little music studio. My songs then were probably a bit more teenage-angsty. I remember my first boyfriend dumping me, and that was pretty devastating. So I ended up writing about him, which is kind of funny now to look back on. They were probably all really terrible songs. But it’s weird—the important moments you don’t really remember. So I seriously don’t remember Dan’s reaction. But my voice is something that’s changed a lot over the years. I’ve really become a much better singer now. And I do have that folky voice in some of our new songs, so I think my voice has definitely matured and our song ideas have matured as well.
Paste: How did you guys even meet?
Reid: We went to university together in Nottingham, and I was studying English and art history. And I had no plans to end up being a singer in a band—it just kind of happened. Daniel saw a picture of me on Facebook with a guitar, and he just asked me, “Do you write music?” And I said, “Yeah, I do—I write songs.” And he said, “Oh, I’d love to hear you play.” So I just went to his room, because we were in the same residence hall, and we kind of played this song together. And he didn’t say much. He was a man of few words, in some ways. But he was like, “Yeah! We should jam!” So I met Daniel, then Daniel met Dot, and we just built something together over a long period of time.
Paste: Your voice is such a delicate instrument, you could easily blow it out on tour. Which you actually did, right?
Reid: Yeah. That did happen. And it was a really weird thing, because you don’t think that that can happen to your voice, so I didn’t really know what was going on. And it is a muscle, so it was sort of like being an athlete, in some ways—I had to learn how to schedule our time properly, and learn what my voice needs. And there was just no point in going against that, because otherwise you just end up canceling shows. And it was very disappointing for fans sometimes at the end of that period, when we had to keep canceling. But it happens so much to bands an artists, because you just start touring and you don’t really know what you’re doing. So I got vocal treatment options, and now I actually use Manuka honey [from New Zealand]. A lot of singers use that.