On Tuesday afternoon the sun started shining a little brighter when I opened my Zoom-room and saw brightly coloured emerging artist Lauren Tate, who’s better known as Delilah Bon! The question we’ve all been asking ourselves is of course, where does the name ‘Delilah Bon’ come from? “I was playing The Sims and my child in The Sims was called Delilah, that became Delilah Bon, and I liked the sound of that, and it became my name! That is… The weirdest reason!”
The weekend before today I went to see Lauren live, and her stage presence blew me away. I had to know how she met the two powerhouses supporting her on stage! “I always knew I wanted to either find girls or non-binary people for my band, and I met Ruena, the bass player, at a birthday party, and we became really good friends. Ruena is crazy, she’s so fun, and we are always drawn to each other. I asked her if she wanted to be my bass player and she was like “absolutely!”, me and Ruena are best friends. I was auditioning for a DJ on Zoom and a lot of people kept messaging me saying “get Tasmin, she needs to be your DJ” and when I met Tasmin we just clicked. This tour with them is just so special because we have so much in common, and we all want the same things, we want safe shows, it’s a dream!”
Lauren’s a powerful, an empowering voice, but what does she hope her music does slash achieve? “I want to be a voice for people that are maybe too shy to get angry. I met so many girls on tour that want to scream and shout about things that happened to them, but they are too afraid to talk about it. Or they feel like they are not in a safe place to talk about it. For me to go out there and speak about the topics that are really hard to talk about, like sexual abuse, and rape, I do that for the people that can’t do that. I also want to create music that’s fun, so we can have fun together!”
The fun was certainly hard to miss, but how do those very fun songs come together? “Usually, I start with a topic that is on my mind and I want to write about. Then it’s the melody, my phone is full of voice notes of me humming melodies and bass riffs, I sing everything, I sing the riffs before I try and play them on the guitar. I can experiment so many different ways, so I feel like I never run out of songs because I can just do whatever I want.”
She takes inspiration from her own stories, those of others, as well as the news and what she reads on- and offline, even though her first album is all about how she felt in the moment and what she went through. “Sometimes it’s conversations I’ve had with friends, how we feel walking down the street, how we seem to fear men. With my latest single ‘Dead Men Don’t Rape’, I sing it for other people.” But what is it, that she loves most about being an artist? “I grew up very lonely, I never felt like I fitted in, being an artist meant that I found so many people like me. I never truly feel alone anymore, because I connect with so many people. That is my favourite part of it!” Does that mean that it isn’t lonely at all being an artist? It can’t all be sunshine and rainbows… “I dread tour ending because while I’m on tour and I’m surrounded by people it’s just such a nice feeling, and when I come home it’s lonely again. I busy myself to deal with that feeling, I go straight into the studio, I try and stay active and go for walks with my dogs and hang out with my friends.”
We return to the best and Lauren’s favourite part of making and releasing music, “the most exciting bit is seeing how the fans react. I think a lot of people focus too much on the numbers, I tend to love to read my messages and read the reactions of fans.” Yet, we do of course need the numbers to make our dreams come true, what are Lauren’s hopes and dreams? “I’d like to do a big support tour with a big artist like Ashnikko, or Rico Nasty, something big with women on the bill. I also want to go to America, I want to tour different countries! Touring has definitely become my favourite thing now.”
“Our team is basically me and my mum, and our agent, my mum’s the organiser who makes the plans, I just create and I’m not very business-minded. My mum is my manager, my tour manager, she does the merch and she drives me around. When I was younger she has always been my friend, and because we are so close I feel like I do get away with everything, but she’s just supported me through every hardship that I’ve been through and she’s the best.” Luckily tour hasn’t ended yet for Delilah Bon, they’ll still be playing Lauren’s hometown Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and they finish in Liverpool.
What we all want to know is what will happen after the tour and in Delilah Bon’s near future! “I am planning to release a song about the witch trials, for next year I hope to play more festivals and I hope to do some Pride events, that’s high on my list. Then possibly an album, but I’m not sure, I’ve written it all but I just have to organise my brain!”
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