Q&A: Coupdekat Talks London Music Scene, New EP & Collective Loud LDN
“EVERYTHING I DO REVOLVES AROUND HAVING A BACKGROUND TRACK” — Dreamy, electric, and heady, London-based artist Coupdekat makes music twenty-somethings want to dance to. Much of her journey as an artist was shaped by her experiences in lockdown, and her recent projects are a celebration of the music community coming together again after a few years of separation.
“I think most people my age would say that we had some years stripped from us, and so we're making up for it now,” she shared.
The indie music community was always a formative group for Coupdekat, but upon moving to London post-lockdown, she found it difficult to connect with other artists. With no ready-made community, she cultivated her own through the creation of Riot Grrrl-esque Loud LDN. The collective is made up of 100-plus female and non-binary artists in the London music scene and is intended as a space for underrepresented voices in the music industry to connect. Loud LDN has quickly gained traction in the local scene and even boasts a recent event collaboration with Spotify.
“What we really want is for people to create their own Loud in their cities,” Coupdekat said.
Coupdekat’s latest EP, FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY, out today, is an ode to her time since lockdown. Full of upbeat dance tracks and reflections on her move to London and struggles with identity and belonging, this EP is sure to be one of your top-streamed this summer. Read on below to learn more about Loud LDN, Coupdekat’s journey as an artist, and her new EP.
LUNA: I’d love to hear a bit about your background as an artist and how you got into making music.
COUPDEKAT: I started making music when I was like 14 or 15, in different bands and stuff at school. Then it got to lockdown and the band kind of fell apart. So I thought it was [time to] do things solo and have that confidence, and not have to be publishing it or doing gigs and stuff… Like, I could try it out for a bit without making it an official thing. So I went for it and never looked back.
LUNA: How would you describe your sound? Do you label it within a certain genre, or do you like to keep it open?
COUPDEKAT: I think a lot of artists right now are trying to keep things very genre-fluid, in a way. With social media and TikTok, you're seeing so much all at once, and you're kind of overexposed to all these different things that you end up mashing it all together in your music. I'd say my roots are indie rock, but then having the time to make music in my bedroom and learning DAWs and how to produce, it kind of became a bit more bedroom pop-y.
And then [I came] out of lockdown … freshly 18 and [wanting] to party because I've never done that before, so then I got into dance music, and that's all mixed together. So my sound is very much indie dance or indie pop, but I don't like to genre-fy it that much.
I like a lot of music, and that then has an effect on the way I make music. I'm inspired by everything around me. I think now with streaming platforms and stuff, you can just listen to anything — the options are endless. You can listen to random genres that you wouldn't have listened to before. The options are endless, and so then the inspiration is endless.
LUNA: You’re based in London, and you mentioned that the nightlife was a big inspiration for you. How would you say that has influenced you?
COUPDEKAT: I've always been the sort of person that gets up very late and goes to bed very late. I've always loved going out and being able to go to a space and listen to music that I like. At house parties I always wanted to be the DJ or wanted to have the aux in a car. Everything I do revolves around having a background track. Recently I’ve very much been going into clubs and seeing my friends DJing and stuff. I don't know, I guess I'm surrounded by it, and so I've been affected by it. I think turning 18 in lockdown and not being able to go out at all for two years really accelerated the amount of times I went out after that — probably too much. I think most people my age would say that we had some years stripped from us, and so we're making up for it now.
LUNA: Yeah, there's this whole generation of us who are very influenced by that.
COUPDEKAT: Definitely — I think that's why there's such a rise in songs [that are] really sped up. Most of my songs are not under 160 BPM … they're above that most of the time, which is just ridiculous. But I think it's because we want it to be played in a club. We want people to enjoy it in that space. I think everyone has this energy because they had two years of recharging their batteries, and so everyone wants something to dance to and dance to fast. It's the same with speeding things up on TikTok and stuff. For some reason we have this urge to get faster and faster. Most of my songs aren't over two minutes, and it's because they’re so fast.
LUNA: You mentioned that you love the community aspect of music. Would you say that community is a big part of your love of the music scene?
COUPDEKAT: Definitely. I'd say with most of my best friends, we bonded over music and going to gigs when we were younger, or we met at gigs. I would be so against being friends with someone who didn't listen to the same music as me, which was so lame. But I really did feel like we weren't gonna get on unless we could vibe like that. Now I'm a lot more open, but that's how I formed friendships when I was a bit younger.
I'd say now in the London music scene, to be honest, I found that it was quite difficult to make friends. I felt like it was quite gatekeepy and a bit cold. So that's why me and my friend Maisie started Loud LDN, because we weren't really enjoying being in it and we felt like something was missing. Especially for female and non-binary artists. Now it's grown into something wonderful, and I have this whole new community and this new friendship group that is supportive, and I feel really good about it now, but definitely a year ago I didn't.
LUNA: That’s awesome — I would love to hear more about Loud LDN and how it works.
COUPDEKAT: Yeah, so it started as just a small group chat. Maisie and I made it and we just kind of added our friends who we knew did music full-time like us. Then it grew — it got traction straight away. People were really, really wanting to be part of it. It really seemed like there was something missing, and we created something to fill that. It grew so quickly, and then it got a few months in and we [knew] we were gonna have to be a bit more selective [to make sure] everyone was on the same page. So we started doing applications, and [we] had hundreds of applicants.
Now we have 120 members, and we've moved to Discord, just for organization. We have separate channels for giving advice and meet-ups and gigs and self-promo. There's people [who] use it because they've just moved to London and they're doing music and they want to meet up with people in the same boat.
We also host parties, where members will just jump up on the decks and do a song. We've been given loads of opportunities to do festivals this year and take over the stage for the day and stuff. It's grown so quickly, and we've had a lot of opportunities that we're so glad we can give to our members that maybe they wouldn't have had before. What we really want is for people to create their own Loud in their cities.
LUNA: I love that. I saw that you did an event with Spotify recently.
COUPDEKAT: Yeah, that was so much fun. Spotify gave us a space and they basically did anything we wanted to do, so we were like, “Yeah, let's just do a party.” They decorated the space with Eliza Williams — she did the decorations and it was beautiful. It was just a wonderful night and it felt like all our hard work came together. It was just really magical, actually. We had temporary tattoos and we had tooth gems and we had performances and … free drinks.
LUNA: I hear you have an EP coming out soon — I'd love to hear more about that.
COUPDEKAT: Yeah, it’s coming out June 22. It's called FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY, and it's my second EP. The first EP was very much focused on my life in lockdown, my relationships [at the time], and online love. I lived in Paris at the time, so it was all kind of based around that. And now the second EP is my time post-lockdown, partying and having fun, my feelings about London and my struggles. I talk about sexuality and identity and things that I've had to deal with coming out of lockdown. I feel like I've been through quite a lot since then, so it's all about that.
I'm really really proud of it. I met my producer Dom seven months ago; I had all these tracks, and he just took them to this world that I could never imagine. It's been such an amazing experience to work with someone who is so passionate and who gets me and gets my sound, and he just made them so beautiful. I have a very emotional connection to this EP. I feel like I've found a best friend through making it, as well. I've also been working with my favorite artist, she's called Kelly Ficcara. She makes comic strips and stuff, and I just felt like her look and style would suit the EP. I'm very obsessive with visuals to go with music, and I just felt like she'd do such a good job. I'm really excited to share it.
LUNA: Do you have any long- or short-term goals for your music or Loud LDN?
COUPDEKAT: With music, I just want to be able to share it with as many people as possible and really find my audience. With Loud LDN, I'm just excited to keep it going. I'm pretty chuffed with how it's all going, so just keeping the community, and hopefully more opportunities come our way.
I'm excited about making new music. I'm gonna go away for the summer and write. I'm gonna go to Italy and maybe do a bit of solo travel. I like to go away and sit by myself for days and days and write an EP or an album or something, and then go to a producer and make it that way. It's very much an emotional process for me. I haven't been able to do that for a few months because London never stops and you never get to think about anything. I find it’s the only way to fully tap into my emotions, because when I'm in London I can never switch off. I hate my phone, and I like the thought of just turning it off and being separated from that for a bit.
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