Theo Bleak is a rising Scottish star and about to release her latest EP ‘Pain’. A regular at Glasgow venues such as King Tut’s and the Poetry Club, we spoke to Theo about the city’s music scene.
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00:00 My name's Theo Bleak and I'm an artist from Dundee in Scotland.
00:05 So I've got an EP coming out on Halloween called Pain and it's just a look at my relationships
00:10 and I guess being a victim of things but also causing harm as well and just having a more
00:17 balanced look at my experiences.
00:19 Theo Bleak as a character I guess was just an escape from myself and I've always appreciated
00:28 artists that kind of had a stage name or like a stage presence so it was quite fun to, I
00:34 don't know, see this character grow over the years like stylistically and aesthetically
00:37 and also the sound, like it's like watching something you've created just grow into a
00:41 fully formed thing which is really exciting to me.
00:45 And yeah, it's definitely helped me channel things through more of an unbiased perspective.
00:52 So I'm originally from Blairgowrie and then I grew up in Dundee but I lived in Glasgow
00:57 for a year at one point when I was in my first band and was really trying to kind of like
01:03 get into music and I think the scene here is really busy.
01:06 I think it's probably the centre point of Scottish music or it's considered that anyway.
01:11 However, since going back to Dundee it's been quite cool to see there's amazing musicians
01:16 all over Scotland in the north and in the east as well that sometimes probably miss
01:21 out a bit but it's good seeing those scenes kind of like develop and find their own sort
01:26 of community.
01:27 I'm noticing that in Dundee in particular there's a lot of really cool new artists and
01:32 people who are actually wanting to get out and support live music.
01:35 I think I'm probably somewhere between alternative rock and shoegaze indie, sonically.
01:46 But I love a lot of stripped back things.
01:47 I love musical theatre, I love soundtracks, I just take a lot from everything that's kind
01:53 of around me but I kind of want the project to be more than just sound.
01:58 I want it to be quite a visual world and a place to escape to because that's how it's
02:03 felt for me.
02:04 I actually planned on becoming a doctor a couple of years ago when I was like 26 and
02:10 I didn't really know what to do next and I'd done a masters in cognitive science and philosophy
02:18 so I was thinking about going into psychiatry but I just knew that I'd probably be able
02:24 to get through the course and I'd probably be able to do it but my heart just wouldn't
02:26 be in it whereas my heart is in music and it's always been and I think my philosophy
02:31 was well even if I get older and think I'm never going to think wow I'm really glad I
02:38 didn't pursue the thing I loved.
02:40 I mean there's always time to do something different if it doesn't work out but I think
02:44 there was just a voice in my head that was like you will regret not trying and I've always
02:51 not really felt good enough or faced struggles like all people do but there's obviously a
02:57 lot of misogyny in music too so that was overcoming that and pursuing it anyway regardless of
03:02 what other people think.