Meet Luvcat, the singer bringing back mystery and smoky romance to music

A quick cursory online search of Luvcat’s name reveals, apparently, that the singer was born in the bowels of a Parisian tugboat moored on the banks of the River Seine. Dare to take a deeper search and you’ll discover that she once ran away with the circus and ended up having an affair with the ringmaster before things went south and she had to call it a day.

A sizeable pinch of salt is needed here, for sure, but it’s a perfect reflection of the mystique that surrounds Luvcat and the reason why she’s developed a burgeoning cult fanbase who travel from across the continent to see her. There’s the mystery in the backstory, but it’s backed up by enchanting songs that feel contemporary and classic at the same time. Her new single ‘Dinner @ Brasserie Zedel’ feels like it belongs in a smoky jazz club in the small hours, but her tales of doomed romance take on their own timeless quality too.

By her own admission, she harks back to a time when “there was an element of mystique and a bit of playfulness” in music. Now, she’s on the cusp of delivering that to a much wider audience once more.

You can read our whole Q&A with Luvcat below.

Congratulations on writing a song called ‘Dinner @ Brasserie Zedel’. It’s about time that place got the recognition it deserves. I’ve got to say it’s very affordable.

I really love it. It’s my favourite spot in Soho and I was just going there over the years and every so often I’d think I’m going to marry the first man who takes me here on a date, so that’s why I wrote that song.

And has that happened?

Yeah, there’s been a few. I think the place should endorse me and give me free prawn cocktail for life now.

For someone who hasn’t heard your music before, how do you describe Luvcat?

I think, sound-wise, it comes from what I’ve grown up listening to. It’s my dad’s record collection combined with my grandad’s. My granddad raised me on Sinatra, the Rat Pack and musical theatre, while my dad raised me on The Cure, Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. It’s all about mixing those two into this strange cocktail of Gothic romantic drama.

There’s a lot of mystery in the theatrics of your backstory too. Your bio manages to speak of being born on a riverboat in the River Seine and running away to join the circus…

Well, I guess I got a little bored of knowing the ins and outs of artists that I love. I miss those old days when there was an element of mystique and a bit of playfulness where you don’t quite know where the line is drawn between truth and fiction. Isn’t that just a bit more fun?

And I grew up with bands where they had fun names you know, like Rat Scabies from The Damned. I love all that stuff, rock and roll has lost a bit of mischief and playfulness I think. It also came from when I was just sitting at home and I had to send a bio for the first show we played in Paris last year and the promoter wanted a biography about Luvcat. I sat there and thought I could state the facts, or I could have a bit of fun. I wanted to dance that line because the stories I sing about are real, but some of them are even toned down because I choose that life of chaos.

You live in London but still have strong ties to Liverpool. Do the two cities influence your creative process, and what gives you inspiration?

When I was very young, my dad was a big Smiths fan and told me that Morrissey always carried this this little black book around, so he bought me one and said anytime you’re having a thought or a couple of lines, whatever it is, write it down in this little black book and you’ll get in the habit of it.

And then when you sit at the piano or whatever, it’ll pour out and you’ll be able to tie them all together. Obviously that became my phone because I don’t want to carry a book around with me all the time, but I still have stacks at home. I’m just constantly writing things down and then I revisit them when I get a chance to sit down at the piano.

These artists you’ve mentioned so far, have any of them really informed the sound and aesthetic of Luvcat?

I’d say that Tom Waits has been a huge pillar in how I want it to sound. I was really influenced by the industrial sounds he uses and then the general spookiness of it and the smokiness. I would always describe it as being like Tom Waits in silk panties. I don’t necessarily sound like him because I am a girl navigating being a woman, but he is just someone I’m totally in love with and everything he does.

I wanted to talk about the mystery and allure that you’ve developed. Quite often you’ll find that artists doing a similar thing say it’s their way of holding something back so their whole personality and life isn’t laid on the line for audiences. Was that the case for you?

That’s a good question because I’ve never thought of it like that. I remember reading a quote about Joni Mitchell’s Blue album and someone saying you need to keep something for yourself, and I do totally get that, because there’s not a lot of privacy in the nature of my songwriting.

A lot of it involves metaphors and and whimsical imagery, but it’s all rooted in real stories and relationships and heartache, but I don’t know if it’s a defence mechanism because I think I’m at my most gritty and raw when I’m doing what I’m doing now. It might be dressed up in feathers and lace and whatnot, but it still stems from my own very personal relationships and I just can’t really write about anything else.

The name Luvcat…does that stem from your love of The Cure?

Absolutely, they influenced me since the age of maybe six or seven when my dad first showed me the ‘Lullaby’ video of Robert Smith in the candy striped pyjamas and the dead marching band.

All of that was just me all over because I was obsessed with vampires and dark stuff growing up. He showed me that and it went hand in hand. The tunes are so cool and when I was naming this project I had a few options for names. One name was Elisa Day from Nick Cave and Kylie’s ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’, but Luvcat just felt fun and summed it up. The minute it came out of my mouth it felt like everything else made sense.

There’s been a pretty receptive reaction among your fans too…

It’s been really overwhelming. I’ve been making music since I was a young teenager, but this feels very much a whirlwind all of a sudden. Suddenly, quite a few people care about the tunes I’m writing and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to comprehend that. You know, people are flying in from Berlin to come to a show at the Kazimier Garden in Liverpool and last year I was begging my family and my mum’s mates to come down. I was just talking to the boys in our band and we did a rehearsal yesterday because we’re going to Paris at the weekend for our first headline show. We had this nice rehearsal room and we had it for six hours.

I’ve never done a rehearsal more than two hours with the boys because I couldn’t afford it and we used to rehearse in an ex-public toilet the size of a postage stamp in Kentish Town under the ground. And now suddenly we’re in a nice room. That’s all I wanna do, you know, be in the room with the lads making music and then being able to go on the road. That’s the difference of 12 months.