Can you believe it is basically June?! 2014, you're flyin' by faster than any of the other years.
So in January I came to LA. My music manager and a bunch of my close friends live out here. Acting has become a new thing for me, America has been a supportive, inviting place over the last two years, both career-wise and emotionally. So I thought ok, I'm gonna give this a try until Coachella and see how it goes... Well it turns out a few months is an awful amount of time to give yourself to achieve stuff in a new city. It's kind of like you just get going and settle yourself into your nook, but haven't quite found your feet and then you see your first bathroom cockroach and you haven't actually done anything so you get really anxious and put pressure on yourself and then you'd be jumping on a plane home again.
It just didn't make sense to not stay longer. SO PLEASE BRACE YOURSELVES. I signed a lease on a house in LA for a year. I have moved to LA. I know, I can't believe it either. I honestly used to write people off for even saying they liked LA, but, hear me out.
The past five months have not been the smoothest. Are they ever when it comes to me? Let's face it, when have I ever even had a smooth two months consecutively? I would say I've had a smooth month before. Or probably at least a smooth three weeks, probably two. Anyway, on a personal level I had a big ol' rug swept from beneath my feet as usual and this one was quite a shocker, lemme tell you. My personal life was planned out one way in my head and then taken away pretty fast and it shocked me. It threw me off course and it hurt. I was certain at one point that I was just gonna pack my bags, get on a plane and fly home to cry to my mum and hug my bunny who I miss so fucking much.
But I went on tour instead. Thank you Universe for throwing me the greatest timing of my life. I met with my Girl Gang in St. Louis, Missouri. There were three tornados and I had gone mad and dyed my hair pink - as I do in times of crisis. My bass player Emma thought I was wearing a wig. My sister Helen thought I needed medication and my lighting gal Paula and guitarist Linda loved it.
Tour as usual saved my life. Tour is the best thing a human can do in the world, especially me because I have the best fans in the world and the best touring party in the whole world. I have the sweetest, most fun, cutest people in my crowd to look at and jump around like a mad woman to and the most fun, maddest, greatest freaks I've ever met to ride around in a van with and share hotel rooms with. It helped me get my head back to focusing on what I wanted to do.
Sometimes in a crisis I get so wrapped up in my head in all the bullshit and 'cause I'm a Cancer, I think everything is a sign. I also feel things really heavily and cling on to whatever it is I'm feeling to the point where I can forget myself. Well tour is good for knocking yourself out of that. I imagine any kind of road trip with friends is good for that.
Coachella was pretty special. It felt like all the hard work we've all done over the past two years, and I say we intentionally because I mean my fans, friends and supporters as well. It all kind of built up to this exciting moment where I felt a change. It's hard to explain, but I just felt a shift. I felt like the next phase was swooping in. Since getting back from Coachella I have been working on a lot of new material. I've been working on personal new record stuff and musical stuff. The director of Only Gold (Broadway play I'm working on) is coming out here soon and we will finalise the show! There are a few things that I wanna announce over the next few weeks and I wanted to get started on doing that and reconnecting with you. Step one had to be me explaining I am a Brit living in America, right now.
Living in a new city is by no means easy. I have a lot of moments where I really do wanna fly back home to my family. And I mean let's face it, it's far too hot for a vampire like me out here. My skin is basically see through. I'm terrible at sorting out real people things like getting your water turned on and paying bills 'n' stuff. So five days of my water being turned off and it being 100 degrees outside was, you know, fun. HELP ME, DAD. I thought there was someone on my roof at 3:00am one time and had to call my landlord to come and check it out - at 3:00am. Poor guy. But it's America and the criminals here have guns! HELP ME, DAD. It turned out it was raccoons and now I have a baseball bat by the side of my bed in case of emergencies. I will now bat the guns out of the criminals hands, I guess.
I still get lonely and attract stray animals and put them in my car and have to find them homes even though I just want to keep them all.
And honestly, probably the most annoying thing about living in LA is that there are basically no newsagents. You can't just nip 'round the corner and get a newspaper, a can of beans, some kitchen roll and a Smirnoff Ice. Doing little things like that seem to take forever 'cause you just have to drive everywhere and then park. BUT WHATEVER, there are TONS of amazing things about being here too and I have come to love the city. Living near the beach, mountains, the desert and the city all at the same time is pretty cool. I have some good eggs out here and there are some great weirdos in LA to be friends with. My favourite food, the avocado, tastes way better out here and my house is super cute and it's red and I have a porch and now that I'm used to the raccoons, I totally love it. I invested in setting up my own first-ever home recording studio and learnt to use Logic and now I am writing a bunch of new songs. And honestly there are a lot of crazy good career opportunities out here for me that there just aren't in England right now. And it's an exciting, almost starting from scratch point of my career, but as a grown up.
I'm older and wiser and I know what I want now, so I'm sticking it out. I'm giving it a go. London, know that I love you and if Ukip become a genuine threat to us I would jump on a plane in a second to protest, but I just wanted to update you on what I'm up to right now, starting from scratch and living in Los Angeles.