Emmy The Great has many things. Like a really good single (out now), some gigs, delicious cake recipes, talented friends and a cool name to go by.

Platforms Magazine talked to Emmy at a nice little Cafe in Camden. Interview by Roy Marmelstein and Rob Miles.

Roy: What's next?

Emmy: What do you mean?

Roy: What are you working on?

Emmy: Um, I'm writing the rest of my album.

Roy: When do you plan to have that out?

Emmy: I don't know. I'm planning to finish so that I have 20 tracks to choose from by the end of January, and then I'll think about the rest of it...

Roy: ...and in the meanwhile you're performing?

Emmy: I'm just finishing off this tour and I've got one headlining show and then I'm going to New York to play over there.

Roy: Who are your favourite New York musicians?

Emmy: Um..like, Adam Green, or...Diane Cluck is my favourite artist of all time, she lives in Brooklyn I think, and er...I really love The Strokes.

Roy: Regina?

Emmy: Yea, yea maybe, but...not really

Roy: Ok. Fine.

Rob: When you're making music, what influences you, musically...? I suppose you've just said that...

Emmy: No, It's more erm, like loads of different... for each song it's different. I wrote one song while I was listening to the Arcade Fire for a day, and there's another song where I've been listening to Leonard Cohen... It depends on the song really.

Roy: Do you associate your songs with a feeling or a visual image?

Emmy: Yeah, loads of stuff, like you visualise things... if I'm stuck I'll try and remember what I felt like when I first started writing ...like there was this song I was writing at the beginning of the summer that I only just picked up again and it was really hard to finish it 'cos I was like, er how did I feel, and so I had to actually really really try and remember what I was doing when I first started writing it.

Rob: Are you influenced by art or books or poetry?

Emmy: Yeah, obviously.

Roy: But is there anything in particular, like an artist or...

Emmy: There was a line...I just written a song where I'd quite strongly pilfered like, alot of books. You know in T.S Eliot, you know 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', the line that goes, 'till human voices wake us so we drown'... I took that. Because I'm a pop musician, I can actually rampantly steal from people who have put alot of thought into what they're writing, and get away with it.

Roy: Who's your favourite poet?

Emmy: Probably Philip Larkin. I like it 'cos it's so mundane, the things he writes about are so domestic and local, and it's a certain feeling he evokes of like, Radio 4 England...but it's also really dark and it's quite dirty...

Roy: Apparently he had a thing for like, twelve year olds...

Emmy: Really?

Roy: Yea, he wrote stories about a boarding school and twelve year old girls touching each other...

Emmy: Really? Well it was alright back then... They didn't even call them Paedophiles they called them Pedorists. Sounds much better.

(READ MORE ON LARKIN AND LITTLE GIRLS)

Rob: If you were a super hero what super hero would you be? Or super villan?

Emmy: Maybe one of the X Men. Like, possibly Jean Grey, 'cos she doesn't have to do anything active, she can just sit there and have a think. But without the dying and becoming rampant flame woman...

Rob: If you weren't doing music what would you be doing?

Emmy: I think I would probably be making cake.

Roy: What did you want to be as a child?

Emmy: I wanted to be a helicopter...or a train. I actually really, genuinely wanted to be a 'My Little Pony'.

Roy: Marco Polo?

Emmy: My Little Pony

Roy: Oh. Sorry.

Emmy: But you know you get to a certain age and realise that not every dream can come true. It's really sad.

Rob: Do you see yourself always making music, like in 50 years time?

Emmy: I think so. During the summer I was thinking maybe I shouldn't be a musician, you know I'm not always thinking about it...and I went through that at the time I was always on MySpace and always answering messages on MySpace, and I was thinking not about the stuff about being a musician, but about the stuff about being...all the other stuff that was periphery to making music, and I kind of lost the plot, and then I suddenly, just a few weeks ago, I just remembered that it doesn't really matter anything else like record labels or like, which venues you're playing and whether you're supporting or headlining, or any of that, and I realised I probably will always be puking up songs...

Rob: Can you speak any foreign languanges?

Emmy: I can speak Cantonese. I used to be able to speak German quite well, but now I can say a few words.

Roy: Can you say something cool in Cantonese...

Emmy: Do you want it to be rude? Or...

Roy: It can be whatever you want.

Emmy: Ok, erm... [ho hojimee yamtima]

Rob: I'm never going to be able to write this down...

Emmy: No, you won't, there's not even a phonetic system for Cantonese.

Roy: I tried to learn Mandarin last year.

Emmy: Mandarin's much easier.

Roy: There is a phonetic system for that, but it's still quite difficult.

Emmy: They speak quite quickly as well, Chinese people.

Roy: My teacher said it's all about the speed...

Emmy: When you're in Hong Kong, and you don't understand Chinese, it does actually sound like people are being rude to you constantly, it's really agressive.

Roy: Do you like Chai?

Emmy: Yea I do, do you?

Roy: Yes.

>Rob: If you were a DJ, or an MC and would have to have a name...

Emmy: I've got a DJ name... Emmyroid. DJ Emmyroid.

Roy: Yes!

Rob: Like Emmy-Roy?

Emmy: No, like Haemmarroids, but Emmyroids....

Rob: So not like your and his name together?

Emmy: No. Sorry. And also my boyfriend's name, well he doesn't DJ ever, but we thought DJ CJD was quite good.

Rob: My favourite is DJ Mid Life Crisis.

Emmy: My ex boyfriend used to say DJ everything, like if you'd lost your shoes, he'd be like, alright DJ No Shoes, and if you were eating a sandwich, he'd be like, alright DJ Ham Sandwich, it was actually quite annoying. When he was in bed he'd be like, I'm DJ Not Getting Out Of Bed Today...

Rob: The builders in my street occasionally drive a big truck outside my window, and on the side it says, you know how builders are like P D Contractors, he was called DJ Haulage. It's amazing... What is it about the Christmas season coming up you're most looking forward to?

Emmy: Nobody telephoning me. I have no reception at my parents house. I'm telling my friends, anyone who's not my family, I'm going there a week earlier than I actually am...

Roy: What do you think of the new James Bond?

Emmy: I don't know much about James Bond, I really liked Pierce Brosnan, he was quite stylish. But then I've seen all those posters, and the new one looks quite good as well, he looks pretty hardcore, he looks quite mean.

Rob: We interviewed Seb Rochford. He doesn't know you but his question is: What do you look for when looking for a member of a band, or someone to play with you.

Emmy: Well, they have.. I have just found two people and the best thing about them is the fact they are really really funny. Charlie, who is in a band called Noah and the Whale who are really really good, he's actually really hilarious and it's actually quite hard to get through a rehearsal. In fact the other day I was actually having sex and I suddenly thought of something that Charlie said and I started laughing...

Rob: Could you draw us a self portrait:

Emmy:

Roy: Have you been thinking of cover art for your album? In know it's early.

Emmy: Not really. I'll wait til I know the name of it.

Roy: Ok, complete the following sentence, 'David Cameron is...'

Emmy: '...the leader of the Conservatory party'

Roy: Come on you can do better than that...

Rob: That's good, she's right. What new music excites you at the moment?

Emmy: I don't know, I'm not very in tune with what's going on right now. I'm yet to hear Lily Allen on the radio, and I know that it's on all the time. I've been listening to Radio 4. I want to get Digital Radio so I can listen to BBC 7. I'm not that interested in music radio, because if they're not pandering to playlists, the people who have their own choice, they've actually got really bad taste... they'll just play anything thats never been heard of by anyone else, so they'll just pick up some shit demo, and think, 'Oh my god no one's ever heard of this band' and stick that on...

Rob: What's your favourite part of London, if you have one?

Emmy: I guess I should say Camden.

Rob: Why?

Emmy: Because it's where I live... I pay the council tax here. We don't call it Camden, we call it Crackden.

Rob: If you had unlimited funds to pursue a realistic project, what would you do?

Emmy: I would like to buy a puppy.

Rob: What would you call it?

Emmy: Mister something or General...

Rob: Doctor...

Emmy: Yeah, Doctor...

Rob: Doctor Stumpy

Emmy: Thats good, you have to amputate it's limbs or something...or maybe it'll amputate it's own limbs if it's a doctor...

Rob: Someone said if your choosing a name for a cat or dog, it has to be something you're prepared to shout out in the street alot.

Emmy: My manager went to a rescue centre and she fell in love with this dog, but unfortunately he was already called Jedi... so now when people ask her, this is like a respectable lady, she dresses really well and she has really shiney hair, and goes to nice places and people ask her what her dog's called and she has to tell them he's called Jedi...

Roy: If you were a Jedi what colour light saber would you have?

Emmy: Green.

Roy: Why?

Emmy: 'Cos It's good.

Rob: what colour would you have?

Roy: The red one, that double ended red one, the cool one.

Emmy: But that's evil.

Roy: But it's double ended.

Rob: It would be really hard, you'd stab yourself.

Emmy: Yeah you would, you'd be constantly like, slicing you body off. No, you would die.

Rob: You said you'd be making cakes if you weren't making music. Do you make cakes anyway?

Emmy: Yea, actually I don't know if you've been on my MySpace, my friend's put on a night called VivaCake... I bake for it. When I was thinking in the summer that I didn't want to be a musician, we were thinking of expanding our empire and starting like a catering business for gigs and stuff. we are actually starting a magazine called 'The Home Front' for like, crafts, the W.I...we had a tea party, we made sock puppets, we do like recipies...

Rob: I haven't really discussed this Roy but my intentions are to potentially open a Platforms:Cafe which would be like a venue, an art gallery space and things...

Emmy: In Brighton?

Rob: Not sure yet...

Emmy: Do you want to do the crossword?

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