Enjoy a Blonde moment

Her first record as Du Blonde, Welcome Back To Milk, is a very different proposition.

From opener Black Flag the sound is darker, heavier, simpler and more aggressive, with only second to last track, Mind Is On My Mind – a duet with Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring - an indication of the more complex folk-orchestrated sound she had created on her debut as Beth Jeans Houghton And The Hooves Of Destiny.

Speaking to The Guide she says Du Blonde came from a desire to reinvent herself after the long-awaited release of Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose in 2012.

“I was going in one direction and I wasn’t sure which direction that was,” she says. “I didn’t have as much self-confidence, I was taking on a lot of people’s opinions about music. It can be really dangerous – you lose sight of what you want to do, and it becomes an amalgam of other people’s opinions. The beauty of creativity is you are never going to please everyone, so you should just please yourself.”

A completed LA album was dumped, and her old band The Hooves Of Destiny was let go.

“I think that was the hardest change,” she says. “They were a huge part of my life for eight years. We went through a lot together, but I had got to the point where I needed to be with no-one and figure out who I was again.”

She sees her return as Du Blonde as part of a movement which was quite common in the 1960s and 1970s.

“Mainstream music was about people being themselves, and that was celebrated,” she says pointing to icons like David Bowie, Marc Bolan and Captain Beefheart.

“Now a lot of mainstream music is manufactured – it’s whatever sells. There is so much music around in the underground, but for anyone to make any money you have to conform.

“Change is a natural thing – it’s not like it was a premeditated plan to fulfil someone else’s wish. A lot of people are under the impression that this is a new character I have created, but it is not. I had gone so far as Beth Jeans Houghton that it wasn’t actually me anymore. When I had stripped everything away it made sense to change the name so it was obvious to people that it was a different thing. It’s more me than it ever was before.”

The aggression is what leaps out on first listening to Welcome Back To Milk, especially on songs like Black Milk, Chips To Go, Hard To Please, Young Entertainment and Mr Hyde – many of which were written in one fast blast of creativity after a conversation with a friend about her abandoned West Coast album.

“She said, Beth – you’re really angry – this isn’t angry at all. You've got to be honest."

That said there is some tenderness in there too, such as the piano-driven After The Show and wistful psychedelic lullaby Isn’t It Wild.

“I wouldn’t really have liked the record to be just aggression,” she says. “It wouldn’t have been honest. There are sensitive sides to people, and if I’m going to paint a portrait of the last couple of years of my life I will need to acknowledge those things with more soulful and slower songs.”

Onstage Du Blonde’s approach has changed too. She is ditching the theatrical fashion - having become sick of reading reviews that were more about what she was wearing than the music -and is refusing to hide behind a guitar.

“I wanted to be in a place where I just had a mic,” she says. “It’s a lot simpler, there are less people, less instruments, not that many things to plug in apart from guitar pedals. It makes the whole experience more enjoyable, I can focus on performing the songs.”

Those seeking out the Du Blonde album won’t have had too much trouble picking it out from the record shop shelves owing to its fairly lurid cover.

“It was an outtake from another photoshoot with my friends,” she says. “It was the end of the day, and we said ‘Let’s make a merkin’. “There’s a lot of humour in the photograph. I felt like it represented me well. The pose wasn’t premeditated or planned. The stance and look on my face is very much of the moment – I didn’t think anyone would see it, so I was completely myself.”

Doors 7pm, tickets £11. Call 01273 606312.