Issue 14
Liverpool
By Alex ZamoraPhotography By Rebecca Miller
Candie Payne
Standing out as a solo performer in a city renowned for its bands, Candie Payne comes from a distinguished set of musical siblings. Her brother Sean drums for The Zutons, and her other brother Howie was a former member of The Stands. After leaving art college, Payne was nurtured by the Liverpool scene, singing with various local bands before setting her sights on working solo.
Her 2007 album I Wish I Could Have Loved You More saw her turn back the clock to the sounds of the 1960s, while still remaining contemporary. Since its release, vocal comparisons to the likes of Dusty Springfield, Françoise Hardy and Portishead frontwoman Beth Gibbons, have gradually filtered through the U.K. music press, but, while flattering, Payne keenly insists that her style is all her own.
“I always sing as me,” she explains. “I’d never try to contrive to sing in a certain way. It’s got to come from your soul and you can’t interfere with that.”
Although born in Liverpool, Payne and her family uprooted to Queens, New York, when she was just four, returning to England when the singer was 10.
“I don’t think it particularly influenced my music because I was too young,” she says. “Between the ages of four and 10 you just listen to what your mates are listening to in school, but I think it had an effect on me and my character more than anything. I think it’s given me a lot of confidence.”
The transition back and forth was made somewhat easier, says Payne, by the similar qualities the two cities share, including their strong individual identities: “There’s nowhere else in America like New York. It’s a totally individual place and I think the same can be said of Liverpool in contrast to the rest of the U.K. One of the special things about Liverpool is that it doesn’t look outside for its influences.
It doesn’t look to London or anywhere for what’s in fashion or what’s happening in music. I wouldn’t say it’s insular, but it’s certainly not concerned about what’s going on outside.”