“I don't get why people hate on pop – it's the best kind of music. Everyone listens to it. It's way more credible than people think, and it's way easier to write some sort of metaphorical bullshit on an acoustic guitar.” 19-year-old singer, songwriter and your new favourite pop star L Devine is the sort of artist you wish you could manufacture. While other pop artists can struggle to translate their personality into their music, Devine's attitude-filled, melody-heavy strain of intelligent pop showcases an unabashed young woman with an innate ability to craft instantly relatable, sometimes disarmingly real snapshots of time (‘Myself’, a song she's working on at the moment, is about masturbation for example). Her debut single, the supernaturally catchy, low-slung R&B of ‘School Girls’, takes the bitchiness and alienation of teenage life and explodes it out to the wider world. “My last year at school was quite shit,” she shrugs. “In a big group of girls there's always somebody that's getting shit and I guess it was my time. But the song's also about leaving that world and coming into the 'real world' but realising everyone's still kind of like that. You'll always have those kinds of people and situations.”
Born Olivia Devine (she's had to change her name as that one's already been taken by a porn star) and raised in the sleepy seaside town of Whitley Bay in Tyne and Wear, Devine initially sought her music education outside of the family home. While her mum enjoyed Fleetwood Mac and her dad would play old Motown records, it was, at the age of just seven, the clattering call of punk that resonated. “My best friend growing up was this boy called Niall and his dad was a singer-songwriter, who Niall would copy,” she explains. “I was really competitive so I'd do everything Niall did but try and do it better. Literally everything. He was into punk so if he got ripped skinny jeans I'd do it too. So when he picked up the guitar, I got one too.” The pair started a band, The Safety Pinz, and wrote a song called ‘Safety Pins Don't Always Clip On’ (key lyric: “so tell me baby do I give you pins and needles / I'm not talking shit I'm just talking riddles”). They even appeared on a radio documentary talking about punk.
Like their idols the Sex Pistols, the band didn't last long, Devine discovering pop, specifically Michael Jackson (who paved the way for her latter obsessions such as Drake, The Weeknd and Rihanna), in a big way at the age of 11, while her cultural horizons were broadened by school summer holidays spent in Texas with her extended family. Constantly teased for having buck teeth (she was called Bugs Bunny a lot), Devine quickly learned that she could get attention by “acting out and trying to be as funny as possible with everyone”. “I was really bad at school,” she laughs. “All my teachers loved me though.”
Her lack of enthusiasm for school coincided with a re-acquaintance with her love of music, specifically songwriting. “I stopped playing guitar for a bit and then started again around the age of 14 and started writing properly about 16.” Every night after school she'd go home and start writing, often filming herself on her laptop so she could look back and study the process (see, she could study if she wanted to!). “I was writing a song one day and Beyoncé's album, BEYONCÉ, had just come out and there was this song called ‘Mine’ on there that I loved so I started mashing the two together. I sent it to a friend who's a huge Beyoncé fan and she was like 'you should put that on YouTube'. I was a bit sceptical but then I just did and it got 10,000 views in a couple of weeks. That made me realise I really wanted to do it.”
Encouraged, she continued not only to write songs but to immerse herself in the music world more generally. After leaving school she got a job at Tynemouth Surf Café, a music venue she'd played early gigs in years before. She also started scouring song credits for local songwriters and producers she could work with, eventually meeting Okan, a producer she works with today. She also messaged American songwriter/producer Mickey Valen, who had worked on one of her favourite songs, but, as she so succinctly puts it, was the only one not too big to ignore her. “I messaged him and he sent me some tracks to see if I was any good. I had this set up in my room on Logic and got to work, sent it back and he loved it. Then he booked flights from New York to London to do a two week session.” A musician (she can play bass, guitar, piano and drums) and burgeoning producer herself, Devine isn't there to just make up the numbers in the studio. “I learnt from my first sessions that if you're just going to sit in the corner and be quiet then you're wasting your time – you should go in and be confident and get a song done,” she says. “I think people are surprised that I'm 19 and working the computer and writing and singing it all too.”
Bored of shlepping back and forth to London, Devine did a very L Devine thing; she sold her car, saved up three months rent and moved to London to live with a school friend. The rest as they say is history. Well, sort of. “Then I didn't really do anything for the first month, so I was a bit like 'oh shit, what the fuck have I done',” she laughs. “I live opposite a Sainsbury’s so I was going to apply to work there.” Sainsbury's loss was pop music's gain, however, as publishers and labels (she's now signed to Warners) who heard her demos started to get in touch. “I wasn't expecting to be a performer initially – I saw myself as a songwriter first and foremost, so I moved down here to get a publishing deal. Then labels got involved and I was like 'yeah, why not? I'll sing them too'.” Don't let this youthful cavalier attitude fool you, however, Devine knows what she wants and how to make it happen: “I've got such a clear vision of what I want the songs to be and where I want them to go. It's exciting.” Exciting, too, because one of the stipulations of her record deal was that she'd get a tumble dryer; “I want to be able to wash and dry my clothes in an hour. I'm lazy.” Amazing.
Loaded with attitude, firmly rooted in reality but always with an eye on fun, Devine's songs are inspired by her life and what she sees around her. Like most creatives, she has synaesthesia, seeing music in colours and creating songs inspired by visions. “When I'm writing songs I just see a whole colour scheme and aesthetic,” she explains. “I have mood-boards for every song. For example, I saw this gorgeous picture of this big green snake and that inspired a lyric about a fuckboy that snakes girls, so I did this song called ‘Snaking’.” For first single, ‘School Girls’, the inspiration was a little more direct, but, again, it resonates on a broader scale (“welcome to the real world, everybody's still a school girl” goes the chorus). “Identity in songs is so important and I think that song showcases mine,” she says. “I wrote it on my guitar after I left school in my bedroom and that was one of the songs Mickey and I did when he came over. I just write about real stuff.” Elsewhere, on the tender ‘Panic’, she covers the anguish of falling in love with someone you shouldn’t, while the excellent, undulating electro-pop of ‘Lonely’ is about her move to London and the expectation versus reality (“and they assume I've having fun now / I've never felt so all alone now” she sighs).
Inspired equally by the classic songwriting of Brian Wilson (she saw him live at 18 and managed to get a drumstick and setlist after the show) and Max Martin, L Devine's a songwriter who can perfectly capture a moment, and a performer who can deliver that moment with lashings of attitude. At the heart of her music is a genuine love of pop and a desire to take it in interesting new directions. “I make cool pop. That's always been what I've wanted to do – make pop music that's cool and interesting. Not following fucking trends.” There's that laugh again. “There's something so amazing about crafting the perfect pop song.” She'd know.