Tim Hughes talks to singer-songwriter and internet phenomenon Gabrielle Aplin, who is set to become the Next Big Thing.
SHE’s a writer of spellbinding, soul-touching music, she has an online fan base of 42,000 fans, and her debut outsold Lady Gaga and Kings of Leon. So why haven’t you heard of Gabrielle Aplin?
At just 18 years of age, this West Country college lass has beaten the bigger boys and girls at their own game – becoming a global internet phenomenon and embarking on a second national tour. But if the name is new now, it will soon be on everyone’s lips.
In just over two years, Gabrielle has gone from playing a guitar and piano in her bedroom to selling out venue after venue. The turning point came when her friends posted a video of her performing a soporific cover of a Paramore tune on YouTube.
“When it went up I thought no one would see it,” she tells me, shrugging off the cold in the garden of her home in Bath.
“When I looked a week later I had 3,000 views. I was shocked.
“I was so happy everyone liked the song that I decided to continue recording others that I liked or had written. And as I uploaded each video they seemed to gain more views than the previous one.”
So she carried on. And then came the big one – a rendition of the You Me at Six song Liar and the Lighter caught the imagination of online music-lovers, earning her more than a million plays.
Her YouTube channel now tops 3.3 million views – making it the 75th most subscribed musician channel. She has 13,000 fans on MySpace, 10,000 friends on Facebook and an inordinate number of followers on Twitter – and has reached more than 42,000 souls.
It’s not surprising then that her self-penned Acoustic EP, released two months ago on iTunes, hit number 25 in the main chart and 12 in the pop chart in its first week. It’s not a bad achievement for an anonymous student – still working for her B-Tech in Musical Performance at Bath College.
“It was such an amazing feeling to see my first release in the charts,” she says. “The fact that I managed to outsell so many amazing artists like Lady Gaga and Kings of Leon was incredible.”
He first tour took in seven cities and sold out venues.
“I was really surprised by how many people came to see me perform,” she says. “Before that I was only used to performing for my camera, so I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of turn out at each gig. To go straight from performing in my bedroom to my own headline tour was such an amazing feeling though, and it was lovely to meet all the people that had watched my videos and supported me over the past two years.”
Now the girl, who also dabbles with drums and cello and includes Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake and Bob Dylan among her influences, is heading out again – this time playing the places she didn’t get to last time – including, on Tuesday, Oxford’s O2 Academy.
Has she been shocked at the suddenness of it all? “It has been a bit weird,” she says, adding somewhat unconvincingly, “It has grown really gradually, though, so I haven’t really noticed it that much. But I am really grateful; it’s a nice way for things to happen.”
So what comes next?
Well first she has to finish her course. “It has really helped me understand the music industry and develop my songwriting,” she says. “I have been experimenting a lot with live instrumentation and putting sound effects onto my instruments. My EP was a stripped-down version of the music I want to release and perform, with big choruses, haunting vocals and a dark pop sound.”
* Gabrielle Aplin plays the Oxford O2 Academy on Tuesday. Support comes from Miriam Jones and Clearwood. Doors at 7pm. tickets are £5 from ticketweb.co.uk
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