A Chat with Sofa King (28.07.2020)
Sofa King is the solo music project of Dianne Burdon which came to life from the ashes of other failed bands. Her gothic and experimental style is on full display on her concept EP Edie. The idea all came while she was singing a song to her friends cat. We sat down with Dianne Burdon (DB) to talk about the EP, her future plans, music and much more!
OSR: How did you become a musician?
DB: I’ve been playing music for as long as I can remember. I started with drums because they seemed like the most fun and then moved onto bass, which is my spiritual home. I’m not sure what it was about the rhythm section that grabbed me, maybe my dad’s love of The Clash, mixed with my mom’s love of ABBA, but it’s definitely the part of music I connect to the most.
OSR: What is your creative process?
DB: It’s very much a scatter shot of different ideas that slowly pull themselves into a cogent series of thoughts.
OSR: What is the concept behind the EP Edie?
DB: It’s the story of party girl Edie and her interaction with a bystander they met on a night out. The first track is the introduction of Edie and her target, the second song is Edie’s return into their life and her dragging them down into a pit of despair, and the third and final song is Edie’s death and passage into the next life.
OSR: Which track on the EP was the easiest to create and which was the hardest?
DB: The easiest was definitely ‘Edie’s Finally Kicked It’. I’d come up with the main riff a while ago and then just recorded myself playing that over and over, the rest is just improvisation over the top. It was very much whatever I put down was what the song was, so there wasn’t too much pressure. ‘Edie Returns’ was definitely the hardest. There are so many layers of sound that it was hard to get it all to work together.
OSR: How does your personal experience impact your music?
DB: I don’t think I can point to anything specific, but I guess I’ll see something funny and sing a little song about it.
OSR: What do you enjoy most about being a musician?
DB: Getting to think of ways to mess with an audience is fun, nailing a sweet harmony is pretty neat too. To be honest, I’m getting kind of bored, but I’m enjoying finding new areas to push out into, I wanna get real weird. Oh my god, once I got recognised in Gales and honestly, I’ve been riding that high ever since, shout out to Bronagh.
OSR: Are you planning to tour after the pandemic?
DB: Maybe? I think what is holding me back is the fact that I know how many key figures in the Birmingham music scene, where my formative years as a musician were spent, are abusers of women, using their position of authority in the scene to manipulate people into protecting them. I know Birmingham isn’t the exception, and so I would like to see the UK live music industry as a whole go through some sort of sea change before I feel comfortable actively engaging with it. For now, I’m comfortable building up a network of people I am happy to work with when the pandemic is over.
OSR: Do you sing while cooking? If so, what is your go-to song?
DB: I usually do sing while I’m cooking, usually just silly little phrases narrating what I’m doing, like cooking onions, to fun melodies bouncing around in my head. I occasionally let out a burst of ‘Baby I Love Your Way’ by Big Mountain, or if I’ve had something on repeat that’ll make it in there.
OSR: What is the best advice you have been given?
DB: It’s okay to say no! Just say no, it’s easy, do it now, say it, no.
OSR: What is the one thing you would like people to remember about your music?
DB: Please don’t.
Thanks to Sofa King for chatting with us! You can find more about her on her Facebook and Spotify.
