Queeried Take A Look At The Truths Behind The New Music Sensation Rumer
Quickly becoming the lullaby that sends us off to sleep at night Rumer’s “Slow” is finally available to buy online and to say we recommend you should is something of an understatement, but we know with you all we’re not going to get away with just saying that. Just when we get ourselves a new boyfriend and girlfriend and you want to know all about it, you no doubt want to know if this Rumer girl is good enough for us all and who this woman is.
Well we’re prepared for you (mainly thanks to the lovely people at Atlantic Records who are beyond lovely and helpful).
So where Did Rumer Suddenly Appear From
Seriously you mean your parents never did the birds and bees talk with you? Well she came from her parents and spent the early years of her life in Pakistan where her father had the very important job of chief-engineer involved in the construction of the enormous Tarbela Dam (well you don’t want to be living a brick out of place on something like that do you…), The youngest of seven this meant Rumer’s life was a bit different from the rest of us seeing her being a part of an expat colony, with no TV or newspapers leading to something of an enclosed community where the kids would run wild, and the adults would play bridge, golf, and engage in the occasional spot of amateur dramatics.
And it was her that Rumer first got her taste for music. Part of a family who were “quite churchy, but in a mellow, 70s sort of way”, Rumer is far from the only musical one on the family with her siblings often singing and writing songs together and it being her brother Rob we have to thank for her debut album “Seasons of My Soul” as it was on the first guitar that gave her that she wrote all her songs!
Soon though it was all change and Rumer arrived on the good old UK shores with her family making their home in the New Forest where Rumer developed something of an obsession that many a gay man also has – watching Judy Garland on her repeat. Her excuse? Never having seen a television before. Ours? Well it’s just comes with being rainbow blooded doesn’t it..
Feeling like many of us have felt, for different reasons, that she didn’t really fit in with this new lifestyle and society, Rumer instead found solace in old films and musicals, something Rumer readily admits has influenced her music:
“My songs have elements of that folk tradition,” she says, “which is what I grew up with. But when I started writing on my guitar, I tended to combine it with these cinematic, epic chords. I am always looking for a lilting, romantic melody. I basically wanted to write the soundtrack for Hedy Lamaar walking down that spiral staircase.”
And if being thrown into a whole new lifestyle wasn’t enough, Rumer also not only saw her parents split up but also found out that her father wasn’t actually her father at all but instead the family’s Pakistani cook, a man who seemed polar opposites to her own mother:
“My mother was this well-educated and beautiful, fair haired English woman, this quite old man was working to support his own family in a mountain village. But they had a connection. My Dad was very noble about it. He didn’t treat me any differently, though yes, it has been very painful for everyone.”
Ending up leaving school at 16 and not sure what to do with her life, Rumer first began studying at Art College in Devon and then joined a fledgling indie rock band, La Honda, and with Radio 1 and NME loving them this could have been her big break, but it was not to be as Rumer’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and Rumer made the decision to move back to the New Forest to be near her.
Cue a new career that saw her renting a caravan in a wreckers yard and support herself by putting on bands at local venues, teaching drama at a local college (despite a lack of qualifications) and briefly working for the Arts Council.
Becoming closer than ever to her mother it was now that Rumer started writing her own songs, describing that “I went back to my roots in the caravan”, but just as things were looking brighter, tragedy struck with Rumer’s mother dying and her hitting rock bottom (something described in ‘Healer’ where Rumer talks of her grief – “Sometimes I feel so temporary just like those summer days…if I close my eyes, I can hear you laughing”.
Now unemployed and back in London, Rumer made the decision to do somethign with her life travelling to stately home in the countryside and lived as part of a commune, owned by a “charismatic, philanthropic baronet. I washed dishes, cooked, and made the beds. The place was full of fascinating people who for one reason or another had fallen out of society.”
Seeing it now as potentially a subconscious attempt to reclaim the sense of freedom she’d had during her childhood in Pakistan, it was her that Rumer wrote many songs, including the stunning ‘Blackbird’, that talks about her regaining the strength to go back to the real world:
“That song was the turning point … It’s about a lot of things, but mainly about being addicted to sorrow. It gave me the courage to go back to London and really try to go somewhere with my music.”
And going back to the real world was exactly what she did. Returning to London and starting again from scratch, Rumer took every job she could that would allow her to make space for her music, something that lead to something of a Peter Sellers moment:
“…someone told me I was like Peter Sellers, because they’d seen me in three different outlets in one day. I just popped up all over South London, doing every job you could possibly imagine: waitress, barmaid, deli girl, hotel chambermaid, popcorn seller, teacher, promoter, hairdresser…and I worked in the Apple store on Regent Street, where I diagnosed broken I-pods”.
Battling on long after many other wannabe musicians would have given up, it’s taken ten years for Rumer to have the success she deserves, but far from bitter about it she feels it’s made her stronger and determined:
“You have to be tough … I was constantly rejected, and I kept trying to improve. You see a lot of amazing musicians quit, because you have to sacrifice.”
So what changed it all? Well that would be when she metaward-winning TV and musical composer Steve Brown (It’s A Wonderful Life, Spend, Spend Spend), who was reluctantly watching a gig at the Cobden Club in Kensal Rise, where his bass player son was performing with his band.
Recalling meeting her, Brown said:
“I have to be dragged kicking and screaming to those open mic nights … I was only there for my son. I saw this nervous girl and her guitar and feared the worst. After ten seconds I was mesmerised.”
So mesmerised in fact that Brown quickly became Rumer’s producer with Rumer acknowledging that “Nobody would put us together …. but we’re united by a love of great music. He’s of the same tradition as George Martin, who also began his musical career in comedy, with the Goons.”
Working together to create the first album, Rumer is already winning over the masses with her first single ‘Slow’ , a stop-what-you’re-doing torch song which she describes as being “about being obsessive in a new relationship. It’s a love song, but it’s unrequited love, and the chorus has that Greek Chorus effect, advising me not to fall in love too fast.”. A treat by itself Rumer isn’t destined to be a one hit wonder with the classic soul of ‘Aretha’, that explores “the gratitude you feel to artists that sustain you through difficult times. Everyone has their own Aretha. I can’t imagine my life without them.”
And whilst Rumer’s album may not be out yet she’s already found herself mixing with the music icons of this world having sung with and stayed in the house of Carly Simon and heading out to California earlier this year to sing for Burt Bacharach.
Already being compared to the likes of Carole King and Karen Carpenter are certain to crop up, Rumer is neither threatened or annoyed by it saying: “I’m not concerned with what’s musically popular or fashionable, really. All I wanted was to make something of quality that would stand the test of time, that people could come back to, and that was rooted in authenticity. Because that’s the kind of music I listen to.”
So all in all we think you have to agree after all that effort this Rumer woman is definitely worth checking out don’t you think!
“Slow” is available to download now from iTunes and Amazon.
Upcoming Rumer Tour Dates
Sept 14
Bloomsbury Theatre – SOLD OUT
London, UNITED KINGDOMOct 15
O2 ABC – Supporting Joshua Radin
Glasgow, UNITED KINGDOMOct 16
Academy – Supporting Joshua Radin
Dublin, UNITED KINGDOMOct 17
Academy 2 – Supporting Joshua Radin
Manchester, UNITED KINGDOMOct 18
Wulfrun Hall – Supporting Joshua Radin
Wolverhampton, UNITED KINGDOMOct 19
Roundhouse – Supporting Joshua Radin
London, UNITED KINGDOMNov 12
New Theatre – Supporting Jools Holland
Oxford, UNITED KINGDOMNov 13
Calston Hall – Supporting Jools Holland
Bristol, UNITED KINGDOMNov 24
Royal Centre – Supporting Jools Holland
Nottingham, UNITED KINGDOMNov 25
De Montfort – Supporting Jools Holland
Leicester, UNITED KINGDOMNov 26
Royal Albert Hall – Supporting Jools Holland
London, UNITED KINGDOM
