We sat down with Erin Bloomer, the 19 year old rising star and internet sensation, as she prepares to follow up on her debut EP, Cherry 3101.
Despite her age, Bloomer has already worked with the likes of Oscar Scheller (Ashnikko, PinkPantheress), Future Cut (FKA Twigs, Lily Allen) and dance producers Imanbek and Rasster. She’s also just back from performing at FUTURE KARMA festival for ones to watch in 2022. Before that, her previous performance was on her school stage.
How did you get into the world of music?
Well I’ve been singing since I was very little. I had piano lessons and guitar lessons during school, and I was in the choir – all of that jazz. Then when I was about 12, I started posting covers on Instagram and I had one of them go viral. I got a lot of attention from that and realised, Oh, maybe I can actually do something with this! That was actually how my manager found me – through my singing videos on Instagram.
I was around 15 at the time. Five years later, here we are.
How did it feel suddenly going from posting videos to being a viral success?
It was nuts. And I had the same thing with my song, ‘F U & F HER TOO’, because that got nearly 5 million streams. It started with just a video of me in the car, talking about a song I wrote with a friend who he got knocked over by a mate. It really took me aback. It was such a shock to the system. When the song came out, I think it hit number 25 on iTunes, literally on the day it was released. I’d never felt so supported and appreciated and I had so many people messaging me and telling me their stories and how that song had helped them and they stayed up till midnight. Honestly, it was the best feeling ever.
Were you a musical family?
They love music, my family, especially my dad who grew up listening to a lot of Queen covers. He was definitely a big influence on me with his love for music.
He had this thing where he would only ever play the live show CDs because he said everything sounds better live. He still does it. I’ll come home, pull into the driveway, and I can hear him blowing up the speakers listening to Freddie Mercury.
Who are your musical influences now? Who do you look up to?
I think Ashnikko and Doja Cat are so cool. But I think Lady Gaga has always been a very big influence, Avril Levine as well. She was my girl crush back in the day. Those are probably the top four.
Talk me through the Debut EP, Cherry 3101?
It’s been amazing. So Cherry 3101 is my very first EP and it was actually named after my Moshi Monsters character. It’s about me still being in school and finding myself, so I wanted that connection to my younger self. Looking at it now, it’s like, gosh, I’m not that baby anymore.
Tell me about coming out of lockdown, having done your A-Levels, and then moving into a music career in London?
It was chaotic. I think with lock-down, musically, you could either use it to work with you or against you. And I really found that it gave me a kick up the bum to start doing more on social media. I started doing these little videos, making playlists. I really tried to take it in my stride with the lockdown. It definitely was a shock coming out of that because when I finished my A Levels, the plan was London and straight into music, but obviously that whole world was closed. So I started doing my zoom sessions, which was so weird. Working with someone in person, it’s just so different and you really don’t have that same energy over a webcam. But now with the world back to normal, it’s magic! Everything’s coming together.
What’s it like collaborating with others now?
One of my favourite collaborations was when Raaster and Imanbek remixed ‘SAD XXX’. I’ve always been such a big fan of dance music, but it’s never really been my genre to be a part of. So when I got asked to do that, I remember hearing the track for the first time I was like, this is awesome. It now has over 70,000,000 streams with silly little me on it. I really like collaborating with other people. Because, everyone’s good at different things. I could do the vocals, but they were the crazy cool DJ, and that’s what really brought it together.
Talk me through the release of Therapy, and the world of mental health?
I’d always had to deal with mental health, stress wise, I really let it get to me. But I think after the lockdown is when I really started suffering from anxiety. And then it kind of hit me like a truck. I ended up going to therapy and I found it super, super helpful. As much as therapy is now more acceptable than ever, I still want to carry on de-stigmatising it. Especially with men that are not good at talking about their feelings, and especially with each other. I really don’t think you need to be going through deep mental trauma to go to it. I think therapy is all about bettering yourself, not just for you, but for everybody around you as well.
What about performing, how did you find that experience?
My first show, in January this year, at the Cotton Club was so much fun. But going into it, I had awful anxiety about performing in front of people, because I’d only ever really done it at school. But weirdly that was harder, because everyone knows who you are. I was ‘that girl with the singing page’. It was nice being kind of put in a space where it wasn’t like that. I didn’t feel like every part of me was being critiqued. And I had four days of rehearsals before the actual show and at the end of that I knew the set perfectly.
I actually did start enjoying myself, which I never thought was gonna happen. It’s such a surreal feeling listening to your music being played that loudly, thinking ‘I wrote that’.
