Ivor Novellos: Last News

Tom Grennan has spoken to NME about his recent attack ordeal in New York, as well as revealing that work is almost complete on his third album.Last month, the singer-songwriter was the victim of an “unprovoked attack and robbery” in the US, which led to him suffering a ruptured ear, torn ear-drum and issue with his previously fractured jaw – forcing him to postpone a number of shows.After telling fans that he was in “good spirits” and that “the show must go on“, Grennan last week told NME that he was feeling “positive” and looking to move past the incident.“To be honest, I’m trying to take positives from it,” he said. “The guy was obviously in ill health.

Bat For Lashes has spoken to NME about how her upcoming sixth album ‘The Dream Of Delphi’ poses a “cosmic, raw, maternal look at love”.Previous Ivor and Mercury Prize nominee Natasha Khan – AKA Bat For Lashes – was in attendance at the Ivor Novellos on Thursday (May 23) to present the award for Best Film Score which was won by Jerskin Fendrix for Poor Things.“I love film,” she told NME on the red carpet. “I’ve made short films, I’ve got a film coming out next week, I’ve won an Ivor Novello for a BBC drama series soundtrack.

CMAT has spoken to NME about the impressive cultural footprint of her native Ireland, as well as plans for her next album – which could arrive sooner than you think.Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson was speaking to us on the red carpet of the Ivor Novellos in London this week (Thursday May 23), where she was nominated for Best Album for the acclaimed ‘Crazymad, For Me‘ – but was already convinced that she wouldn’t win due to the competition she faced. The award was later picked up by Yussef Dayes.“Lankum are nominated for the award, who’ve already beat me for Irish album of the year – also RAYE, who won 75million awards at the BRITs and I just sat through that, twiddling my thumbs, not winning anything,” Thompson told NME.

Lana Del Rey celebrated female expression in music and changing attitudes towards domestic violence in her Ivor Novellos acceptance speech this week.The singer was speaking from the stage of the Ivor Novello Awards in London on May 23, where she picked up the Special International Award.She took the chance to address how perceptions of artists like her have changed since she emerged in the early 2010s.“When I started, I think a lot of things were written about how the songs were sort of naval-gazing just about my experience with challenging relationships,” she said.“Now, what we’ve seen is that those songs were not written about a small microcosm of people and women; we’re seeing an acute amount of things written about difficult relationships. Even when COVID began, the second epidemic in the United States was interpersonal relationship violence – it increased by 300 per cent.“I think it’s amazing that female singer-songwriters have the freedom to write about absolutely whatever they want,” she continued.

Master Peace has spoken to NME about plans for his “wild” second album – looking to “go crazy” and explore the sound of indie sleaze much deeper.Peace Okezie was speaking to NME in the winners’ room of the Ivor Novellos this week, after picking up the coveted Rising Star Award – beating off competition from the likes of Nino SLG, Elmiene, Chrissi and Blair Davie.The artist explained how we was feeling “appreciative, glad, happy, shocked – a lot of shock,” adding: I thought Elmiene was going to take it home, personally.”A post shared by NME (@nmemagazine)Explaining the process behind his acclaimed debut album ‘How To Make A Master Peace‘, Okezie said: “The album was clear from the start – I knew what I was trying to do, I knew how I was trying to make it the best album possible for me.“I think to make a masterpiece you need to be authentically yourself and not caring too much about what people think too much. I’m bringing indie back, 100 per cent!”He also went on to explain how the record was inspired by the sounds of indie sleaze – a direction he was looking to explore much further for the follow-up.“Indie sleaze to me is MIA, Santigold, The Strokes, LCD Soundystem.

Lana Del Rey has revealed that she wrote a song for the James Bond film Spectre, but it was rejected by the franchise’s producers.The singer was speaking backstage at the Ivor Novello Awards in London this week (May 23), where she picked up the Special International Award.As the BBC reports, she was asked about the prospect of recording a Bond theme, to which she said she had already given it a shot, before beginning to sing her song ‘24’, from her fourth album ‘Honeymoon’, released the same year as the film.“I wrote that for them,” Lana said. Listen to the song below:The eventual theme for that film, ‘Writing’s on the Wall’, was recorded by Sam Smith and became the first Bond theme to reach Number One on the UK Singles Chart.“Sam, you did a wonderful job,” Del Rey quipped, before saying she had not given up hope at making a song for the film series.“But I’m going to continue to do my little Nancy Sinatra thing every now and then and just pretend it’s the title track,” she added.It was not the only time that Bond producers turned away a stellar music name for the choice of Spectre’s signature song.

Alt-J frontman Joe Newman has revealed to NME plans for his “Americana, Motown, soul” influenced debut solo album.Newman was speaking to NME on the red carpet of the Ivor Novellos yesterday (Thursday May 23), when he told us that the UK trio were “taking a break as a band” – following their extensive touring for their acclaimed fourth album, ‘The Dream‘.“I’m doing some solo work at the moment,” he said. “I went to LA and I’ve been working with producer Carlos de la Garza [Paramore, The Linda Lindas, M83, Cold War Kids].

Lana Del Rey has spoken to NME about the “music business going country”, what to expect from her new album ‘Lasso’, and feeling “playful” rather than “vindicated” after proving naysayers wrong. Watch our interview above.Speaking to NME in the winners’ room of the Ivor Novellos yesterday (Thursday May 23) after picking up the Special International Award, the ‘Video Games’ icon was in a jubilant mood as she reflected on her career.“Because I met my managers 15 years ago, they spoke about this award since the minute I met them,” Del Rey told NME.

Sting, James, Harry Styles and Raye were among the winners at this year’s Ivor Novello Awards with Amazon Music. The former Police frontman performed a special rendition of his song ‘Message in a Bottle’ at the ceremony held at the Grosvenor House hotel in London on Thursday (18. 05.

RAYE has spoken out about the challenges facing young songwriters, and what needs to change with major labels in the shifting musical landscape.The singer made headlines when she parted ways with Polydor Records last year after claiming that the label had refused to release her debut album, despite signing a four-album deal in 2014.Speaking on the red carpet at last week’s Ivor Novellos – where she was nominated for Songwriter Of The Year among the likes of Adele, Dave and Coldplay – the singer told NME that she had “found peace” with her former label, but that many more changes were still needed in the music industry to make songwriters feel valued and financially stable.“Songwriting is a craft that people don’t see, because it’s done in the darkness in studios and behind closed doors,” said RAYE. “I don’t think people realise how essential songwriters are in an industry based on songs.“Things need to be put in place to protect our future songwriters – to nurture them and make them feel special and important.”The singer told NME that the shortlist for her category at the Ivors proved that there was “an openness that there hasn’t been before in styles, flavours, genres and different types of expression” in modern music, and how the major label model needed to respond to this.“For the first time, we’re seeing that the ‘we need a hit’ model is fading,” she said.

NME at the Ivor Novellos yesterday (Thursday May 19), Elbow frontman Guy Garvey talked about the “honour” of playing the Queen’s Jubilee concert, the power of their song ‘One Day Like This’, progress on an “energetic” new album, and when and where you can expect to see them at Glastonbury 2022.Garvey was in attendance at the London ceremony at Grosvenor House to present the Ivor award for Best Album, and caught up with NME on the red carpet just a few hours after Elbow were announced to perform at the Queen’s upcoming Jubilee concert alongside the likes of Queen, Diana Ross, Elton John, Duran Duran, Craig David, Eurovision singer Sam Ryder, Ella Eyre, Elbow, Alicia Keys, Hans Zimmer, Mabel, Jax Jones, Celeste, Andrea Bocelli, Sigala and Nile Rodgers and more.“We’re going to do a turn for Lizzie! It just feels like another party and we’re honoured to be asked,” he said. “It’s lovely and we don’t take anything for granted any more.

Sam Fender has discussed how getting the approval of Scottish comedian Limmy was “probably one of the best fucking moments of his life”, as well as discussing working with the likes of Sigrid and Sting, and sharing advice for young songwriters.The North Shields singer-songwriter was in London yesterday (Thursday May 19), where he was awarded at the Ivor Novellos for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for his acclaimed second album ‘Seventeen Going Under’.As well as being named as NME’s Best Album of 2021 and winning both Best Album By A UK Artist and Best Album In The World at the BandLab NME Awards 2022, Fender has also recently won BRIT Awards among other accolades.Speaking to NME in the winners’ room about where he was putting all of these awards, he replied: “They’re in the pub! I got them turned into beer pumps! I think this one might come home. I might give this to my dad; I think he’d be really chuffed.”And what has he done with his NME Award?“I might turn that into a beer pump, or leave it in the pub for loads of dafties to do drugs off it,” he said.During his acceptance speech at the Ivors yesterday, Fender used the opportunity to pay tribute to his former manager at said pub, North Shields’ Low Lights Tavern.“A very good friend of mine passed away last week,” Fender told the audience.

The Cure have spoken to NME about progress on their long-awaited new album ‘Songs Of A Lost World’, as well as what to expect from their upcoming tour.Having long teased the band’s long-awaited “merciless” new record – after telling us that two new albums were on the way back at the last NME Awards back in 2020 – Smith revealed to NME earlier this year that one of them would be “real very soon” and would be called ‘Songs Of A Lost World’.Then today (Thursday May 19), after he and bandmate and songwriting partner Simon Gallup picked up the Icon Award at the Ivor Novellos, Smith again gave reassurance that the album was on the way and would be out before their upcoming winter tour.“We will be releasing a new album,” Smith told NME. “I get fed up of saying this now! We will be playing from October and the new album will be out before then. We walked on [stage at the Ivors today] to a bit of new music, actually. Hopefully no one recorded it!”At this point, Shakira interrupted the interview to shake hands with “her favourite band of all time”, before Gallup replied: “It is a surreal day”.Back to ‘Songs Of A Lost World’, Smith then confirmed that “it’s almost finished”.“Reeves [Gabrels] our guitar player has come over from America for the day just to finish a couple of solos, I’ve got to finish a couple of vocals,” he revealed.

At the start of the millennium, a 19 year old Craig David was taking over the charts with his debut album, Born to Do It.