dodie

When dodie was just about done writing her remarkable sophomore album, Not For Lack Of Trying, she still found herself searching for answers. She’d spent the last three years turning inwards to pen what would become the “sibling’” to her acclaimed 2021 debut Build A Problem, packaging her reflections on everything from falling in love and breaking up to comparison culture and struggles with depression. But she couldn’t quite find the thread that tied all of these intimate portraits of her life together; that was until she finally landed on a title that gave her the clarity she was seeking. “Not For Lack Of Trying is so simple, so sad and it really painted this picture of all these songs, of me trying to figure it out,” she explains.

After that breakthrough, dodie wrote the pensive title track as a natural coda to a record which finds the North London-born singer-songwriter striving for meaning in a challenging chapter of her life. “Lend me joy I can’t see mine / But not for lack of trying,” she declares in the grounding final moments. “It was one of those songs that feels like it's already written, so you're trying to find it,” she says.

For over a decade now dodie has been the fiercely honest voice of a generation growing up in a hyper-digital world seeking to understand their own journeys with mental health, relationships, sexuality and all the imperfect in-betweens. With the early years of her career unfolding on camera with a ukulele in tow for masses of devoted fans online, her first three independently released EPs — Intertwined, You and Human — all entered the UK top 40, with the latter two breaking the top 10.

She went on to sell out London’s Roundhouse before her first record had even come out and has since sold out over 100 consecutive shows globally with tours across the UK, US, Europe and Australia. With the release of Build A Problem in 2021 landing at number three on the UK charts, dodie’s quietly affecting vocals and exquisite orchestral arrangements reintroduced an artist with musical ambitions even grander than her most loyal fans could have anticipated. Following that up with 2022 EP Hot Mess, her music has now amassed over one billion streams to date — leading to more than seven million followers across all platforms — and in 2023 her rise was recognised with a place on the prestigious Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ list.

Growing up, dodie was a “very dramatic” kid who loved musicals and writing her own songs. She learned the theory through playing the clarinet and studied music at GCSE and A-Level, soaking up the influences of artists like Demi Lovato, Oh Wonder and Regina Spektor in her teen years. “I always knew that I had music in me and I wanted it to be a part of my life,” she recalls. “I didn't ever say to anyone, ‘I want to be a musician’. Actually, I wanted to be a YouTuber, because that's what I loved at the time. But the only thing I could really give to YouTube was music.” Her original songs instantly resonated with viewers who have grown up alongside dodie, finding comfort in the safe space of her unfiltered lyricism and vocal authenticity.

After 14 years of releasing her own music, dodie dramatically switched gears two years ago to perform in FIZZ, the supergroup she formed with close friends Orla Gartland, Greta Isaac and Martin Luke Brown. The technicolour quartet released their lauded album The Secret To Life in 2023, marked by a UK and Ireland tour and an epic Glastonbury performance. “I think FIZZ taught me how easy writing can be, and it just reminds me of how fun music can be as well,” dodie shares of her

impactful time with the band. “Because I was hidden behind three other voices who were very loud as well, it gave me permission to just yell a bit, and that broke my fear of sounding really bad.”

As she redirected her focus to resume work on her second album — written mostly between London and Los Angeles and produced alongside Joe Rubel (Maisie Peters, Griff, Sigrid) — dodie was thinking a lot about the passage of time ahead of turning 30 in April. “My career is so linked to my life and my age, so I'm constantly thinking about where I am, what I'm doing, what I'm saying, who I am now, and what I've learned. It can be overwhelming,” she explains. Initially starting out as a concept record with an allegorical narrative arc, she soon discovered those confines weren’t always conducive to her best work.

dodie has spoken out in the past about her depersonalisation disorder (she’s now an ambassador for the charity Unreal) which has led to recurring episodes of depression throughout her life. While finally discovering a name for what she was experiencing has gone a long way to help regulate her emotions, the anxiety she felt surrounding her looming milestone birthday was compounded by the distressing death of a family member. “My brain was thinking about that image a lot, and then spreading it to everyone I love. I got stuck in that hole,” she adds. “This album took a long time to come out. I can’t even tell you how often my brain was freaking out. I felt sort of paralysed; I was really stuck in this.”

‘I’M FINE!’ was the obvious choice to return with, marking dodie’s first new single in three years and her first since signing with new label Decca Records. “It really sums up where I've been the last year or two in my brain,” she says of the potent track. “One year left / To figure it out / Big Brave Girl, 29 now / I’m fine now, really I’m fine now,” she declares sarcastically atop a militaristic drumbeat courtesy of Mathew Swales, unfurling to reveal a vast, hollowed soundscape.

Arriving with a music video directed by close creative collaborator Sammy Paul with interpretive choreography from Miranda Chambers, it’s also the track that encapsulates where dodie wants to be musically. Melding the familiar muted rhythms of a rubber bridge guitar, undulating strings and haunting harmonies with renewed intensity, her minimalist meditations are elevated to bold new territory. “It was the perfect song to come back with to update people and welcome them into this new world.”

Other moments across the album see dodie share honest reflections about boundaries (‘Hold Fire’), sexuality (‘The List’) and breakups (‘The End’). ‘Now’, meanwhile, challenged her to write from a place where she longed to be. “I wrote that from the perspective of being the happiest I could be at a time when I was feeling really bad,” she explains.

She also plays with perspective on the profoundly moving ‘Tall Kids’, which revisits the mind of a younger dodie who makes a celestial plea to god for a boost up the social hierarchy. “Let me be with the tall kids, I will make it worth your while / They will see something in me, no they won’t run a mile,” she sings as her echoey vocals reverberate against ripples of haunting piano keys. “I really enjoyed writing the song so innocently,” she reflects. “It's really simple and really sweet. And I think that makes it sadder as well.”

She also found comfort on the sweet and playful ‘Darling, Angel, Baby’, which is dedicated to her beloved cat Mrs, with whom she shares with her flatmate and FIZZ member Greta Isaac. “In an

album full of pain and confusion and figuring it out, Mrs is such a big part of my life and she brings me so much joy,” she shares.

There’s also the sonically adventurous ‘The Answer’ — co-written with Peter Miles (Orla Gartland, FIZZ, Nina Nesbitt) at his Middle Farm Studios in Devon — which plays with a snappy pattern of clicks and pops blurred into a cocktail of colourful synths, and features a guest spoken word verse from dodie’s mum, Astrid Clark.

Elsewhere, the bossa nova-inflected ‘I Feel Bad For You, Dave’ arrives as a fiery riposte to keyboard warriors after she watched her close friend endure racist abuse online. “I did not know what to do — I wanted to just drag them down, I wanted to reply to them and make videos about them,” she remembers. “And I was like, ‘OK, I can't do any of that, so I'll just write a song.’”

Other recent projects from Dodie include writing the lead song ‘Someone Was Listening’ for the award-winning adventure game Life Is Strange: Double Exposure and recording her rendition of ‘Old Devil Moon’ on the album Chet Baker Re:imagined. Later this year she’ll be heading back out on the road to tour across the UK and Europe, culminating in a return to London’s Roundhouse. “I’m excited about it, because I know I will get there and I will find out what it's going to be,” she says. “I think the last tour I went on was so perfect, I really figured it out, and then I took a big break, and now a lot of my team has switched up. I am excited for the challenge.”

More than anything, dodie is learning to be patient with her own process, trusting that she’ll find the words when the timing is right. “I think I've finally learned now that the way I write is just very different. I just need to have so much more patience with myself — it just takes the time that it takes.”