Early in her music career, Heather Baron-Gracie discovered the internet was a cruel and unforgiving place. “I do feel people are the meanest and the rudest at the very start,” says the Pale Waves lead singer. “That’s when you get the most hate. But why do people care? That’s what I don’t get. I guess it’s because they’re not happy in their lives.”
It’s been 10 years since Baron-Gracie and her friend Ciara Doran formed Pale Waves, a north of England indie outfit that combined the drizzly, dreamy dazzle of Cocteau Twins, the jangling pathos of The Cranberries and the bubblegum punch of Paramore. But while the band was warmly embraced, there was negativity, too. Trolls were especially exercised by Baron-Gracie’s dress sense – a combination of mascara, Wednesday Addams frills and Alice Cooper hair. She was being herself. That didn’t stop the haters.
“It bothered me a lot when I was a few years younger – when we were starting out,” says Baron-Gracie in her soft Lancashire accent as Pale Waves prepare to release Smitten, their gauzy, emotion-soaked fourth album. “It bothered me quite a bit. I was way more insecure than I am now. It is weird when strangers feel they can comment on my appearance or the way I sing.”
Jangling indie pop isn’t for everyone, and she had few illusions about Pale Waves being universally loved. “Which is fine. I don’t expect everyone to like Pale Waves. It’s when they go into details and get mean. You should maybe get a life. I don’t go online commenting on things because I have a life. I don’t want to be that person.”
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We had sex maybe once a month. The constant rejection was soul-crushing, it felt like my ex didn’t even like me
A decade on, she is better at screening out the negativity. “I feel a lot more confident than I was. It doesn’t bother me. Overall I’ve accepted that people will do that. That’s how people are. I can’t let it affect me.”
Pale Waves have built a cult following since their 2017 debut, My Mind Makes Noises. The NME praised that first album as “emotional, arresting and endearing”, while Kerrang! acclaimed Unwanted, their post-lockdown punk-pop LP, for its “spry sugar rush of squeaky-clean riffs and melodies that are easy to love but hard to forget”.
They have notched up some influential cheerleaders, too. Matty Healy of The 1975 directed the video for their 2018 single Television Romance, a tune he produced with his bandmate George Daniel.
Healy, a rumoured ex of Taylor Swift – he is supposedly the target of her flensing break-up ballad The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived – is widely regarded as a throwback to the preening frontmen of the 1960s and 1970s. He is also a cause of controversy. Last year, at a festival in Malaysia, he came close to provoking an international incident when he kissed The 1975’s bassist, Ross MacDonald. The set was cut short, the festival was cancelled the following day and the organisers are suing the band.
That came on the heels of an incident at 3Arena in Dublin in early 2023 when, in response to a chorus of “Olé, olé, olé”, he observed of the Irish audience, “You are a simple people”.
Baron-Gracie is all too aware of Healy’s Marmite qualities, but she is also grateful to The 1975 for their early backing. “He is a very nice man. He does say some wacky things. They were supportive of Pale Waves at the start,” she says.
“They helped us out a lot and took us on tour. We had some of the best times of our lives, performing in America for the first time. We had one song out and we were supporting them at Madison Square Garden. That was mind blowing. We’ve been lucky enough that they’ve supported us from day one.”
Much of the new album is inspired by a relationship Baron-Gracie had in her late teens, when she had just come out. She recalls her life at that time, growing up in Preston, 40km north of Manchester, as thrilling and unmooring. That feeling is beautifully conjured by the bittersweet surge of the band’s single Glasgow (“When I left you in Glasgow / I remember crying all the way home”) and Perfume, a Cranberries-like chronicling of the rush of young love (“When I saw you I knew it was over, I just lay down and surrendered”).
“At that age everything feels intense, doesn’t it? Not even relationships but in terms of general self. I would never freak out about something today that I would have when I was younger. That comes with age and maturity and confidence. The lyrics I write are usually quite general – with this [album] I wanted to be descriptive and personal.”
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The relationship was playing out while Baron-Gracie’s musical tastes were developing and she was discovering artists such as The Cranberries and their singer, the late Dolores O’Riordan.
“They were one of my favourite bands ever. I love Dolores’s voice. She was iconic. She dressed how she wanted to dress, acted the way she liked to act and was authentic – as real as a person as she was as an artist. I always take inspiration from them, always take inspiration from Dolores. They were such a great band.”
Baron-Gracie is proud to front an old-fashioned rock band – which she and Doran started at the Bimm music academy in Manchester – and believes the energy created by a group of friends joining together to make music is unique. Don’t get her wrong, there are some great solo artists at the moment. But the world could badly do with the us-against-the-world mentality of a pop group.
“I do think there needs to be another rise of bands,” she says. “There needs to be another wave of guitar music. I don’t feel there’s a lot of bands these days. It’s amazing that The Last Dinner Party came around,” she says of the frock-favouring indie quintet. “I hope they encourage more bands. It does feel the scene is full of solo artists these days, which is fine. Bands are cool. It’s cool to do solo stuff and whatnot. But I do feel there’s a missing piece.”
She is also part of a generation of artists negotiating a new reality where the revenue from streaming and album sales remains negligible but where the rising costs of touring mean live performance is no longer a guaranteed money-spinner (unless you’re Oasis enthusiastically mashing your big red Dynamic Pricing button).
“It’s a struggle in terms of touring. It’s difficult for anyone to tour in America, for example. It is so expensive,” she says. “If you’re not at the point where you’re playing for thousands of people a night, selling out shows, you’re not going to be able to do it. It costs too much. You don’t have the money to do that. It’s crazy how you can get paid X amount to play a show and then you see so much of that is drained from costs. It’s absolutely mental when I look at a spreadsheet and think, How is that costing that much?”
Baron-Gracie has had to develop a tough skin, to ignore the jibes that come her way now and again. But she still has a vulnerable side, as can be heard on Smitten and its moving recounting of her experience of coming out and reconciling herself to her queerness.
“It definitely was a journey. I struggled a lot at first – for a few years. It does take a lot of navigating. And time, I think,” she says. “It took me a few years as an artist, as well, sharing and talking about my sexuality. I feel I only started doing that on album two with [the love song] She’s My Religion. Purely because I wasn’t ready. But now I feel comfortable singing about my experiences. I feel it helps a lot of people too. It feels like there’s a wave of queer artists now: Reneé Rapp, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan. It’s so good.”
Smitten is released by Dirty Hit on Friday, September 27th
