In Conversation with LIO

Features

Claudia Downs

17 Jul 2018

We spent a sunny afternoon in the park with LIO.

Leonie Sloots, aka LIO, is a Dutch singer-songwriter who’s making quite the name for herself in Sheffield. Known for her captivating, melancholic indie and striking voice, she’s racked up a number of festival performances, released a single, Jealousy, and recently gained a supporting band. Now, she’s gearing up for another year of Tramlines and the release of a second single.

“I’m originally from a very small village called Riethoven, in the Netherlands, which is very close to Eindhoven, one of the bigger cities in the South. But I’ve always had this complete connection with England. I mean, it’s based on absolutely nothing apart from English TV series I watched,” she laughs. “Not even the cool ones. But shows like Keeping Up Appearances and Fawlty Towers. I just remember thinking ‘oh my god, this accent is amazing’. I love the language.

“So I’d always really wanted to study here, but it’s so expensive. Then I had the opportunity to study abroad through my home university in Tilburg, and that’s how I got to Sheffield in 2015. And I just loved it straight away. It was the first time I moved out, so I was really excited, but also quite nervous - as I guess anyone would be moving to a new country!"

Moving to Sheffield is quite the upheaval, but LIO has firmly carved her place within the city’s diverse music scene. What did she think when she first arrived? “It’s got a great atmosphere. Everyone is so warm and welcoming. For me, [Sheffield] is this place where I can be totally myself. You’re surrounded by people who believe in you and support you, and it’s given me this new sense of freedom that I hadn’t felt before. So I went back to Tilburg to do my masters, then I came back to Sheffield the day after my graduation in 2016, because I had Tramlines shows to play! And I’ve been here since.”

In May, she sold out popular local venue Cafe Totem with her single release. “I think it’s one of the nicest venues to play in Sheffield. It’s a really nice size, with a great atmosphere. Plus, you hear yourself so well on stage, which can be quite a luxury! The gig really stood out, because it was the first time I played with a band, and the first time I’d put a single out on Spotify. So it was a really special night, and everyone there was so excited and so supportive.”

Supporting LIO at the single launch was local dreampop group Heavy Lids. “I think they’re going to do really well, because they have a sound that’s not really around in Sheffield. But there’s so many bands in the city that I love. I really like Ten Eighty Trees - technically from Newcastle, but they live in Sheffield now so I’ll count them. Cora Pearl are great as well, and I’m really intrigued to see what they’re going to do. Because we know each other quite well, as we both work with English Rain, and they have a lot of crazy ideas. But I think they’ll actually act on them! I also love the music of Humbar, although I’ve yet to see them live, which is a shame. [Julia Guest] has such an amazing voice. It’s so soft and smooth and jazzy. And I’ve got to give Brooklin a shoutout, because my band is half of Brooklin! They’re absolutely amazing, of course.

“It’s also just refreshing to see that less and less Sheffield bands are trying to be the Arctic Monkeys. It was really funny because when we practiced at Pirate Studios, the new Arctic Monkeys album had just come out, and we heard so many bands practicing covers from it. I was like ‘come on, do something else! They don’t even live in Sheffield anymore!'

LIO cites a wide range of influences for her current sound. “Daughter and Nothing But Thieves have always been big inspirations,” she tells us, “especially when I was first starting out and trying to find my own sound. Writing your own songs is great because you have the freedom to do anything, but you still have to know your voice and know what suits it. So I listened to them to figure out how they structured songs, how they visualised everything and portrayed emotion. The first time anyone compared my music to Daughter, my heart jumped a bit!

“Also Rae Morris and Stevie Parker. They’re amazing singers, and they have this ability to take pop music but make it really special. Not just generic pop: pop that sticks in your mind but is still a bit experimental and different. And that’s what I hope my music is as well. I’d never really try to write according to a certain genre, but as a songwriter you want to write something that’s special and that connects with you as a person, but that’s catchy as well.”

 LIO has certainly achieved that with Jealousy, a haunting track that is both perfectly controlled and communicates a powerful, raw heartache. “It’s one of my favourites - the meaning of it is so important to me. I wrote it last year around August, during a big change in my life. A close friend of mine, who I’d previously been in a relationship with for three years, broke off our friendship. To this day I haven’t really found my closure in that. It was so sudden, and I never really had the opportunity to tell him my side of the story. I’d known him for six years, and all of a sudden we couldn’t talk anymore. So I thought ‘if I can’t talk to you about how I feel, I might as well write a song’. He was one intense connection I had to the Netherlands, and it had just evaporated into thin air.”

The other song LIO is most proud of is her upcoming single, Growing Pains. “Every new song I write becomes my favourite. And I think it should - you want to progress and be a bit better with every step.” But it wasn’t an easy path: “I had a very tricky relationship with that song at the start, because I wrote it at the start of this year when I was feeling a bit down. So it’s just me trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life.

“The song’s written with one person in mind, a person I got really attached to because I didn’t really like myself at that moment in time. So when that didn’t work, I hit a really low point. But I needed it; it made me realise you can’t rely on other people for your own happiness. So that’s what the song is about. But when I started writing it I just couldn’t make it work. It was so frustrating. But then I got a new pedal for my electric guitar and put it on a certain setting. And that worked! So that was a really nice moment. It felt like I’d finally reached a moment where I could reflect on that and move on.”

 LIO’s music may offer personal catharsis, but it has clearly struck a chord with the public too. She has toured the country with her music, even supporting While She Sleeps in London. “Through mutual friends I knew the band a bit, and they’d seen me play Peddler Night Market a few times. So they did this intimate show at St Pancras Old Church, and they asked me if I wanted to support. It was sold out, obviously, because While She Sleeps are massive. It was nerve-wracking because they’re a metalcore band, so the crowd were expecting that, just a bit stripped back. And then there was going to be me, who the crowd hadn’t heard of, playing a bit of acoustic guitar music. But it was amazing. I’ve never had a crowd be that quiet, and...I don’t want to say ‘in awe’, but kind of that, because they had no idea what to expect from me! And it just sounded so great, from all the natural reverb in the church. It was such a great experience, to stand in front of a crowd where no one knows you, and they accept you and cheer you on.”

Sufficiently intrigued by LIO? You can catch her and her band over the summer at Tramlines and Y Not Festival. “We’re playing two Tramlines shows: Cafe Totem on the Friday and The Great Gatsby on the Saturday. Then we play Y Not a week after, probably with a stripped-back version of the band. Then I hope to play some more shows around Sheffield in the autumn, to gain some traction and some new fans. But that'll be after we’ve finished festival season - and had a bit of time to actually chill!”

It sounds like some time to chill has been well-earned. In the meantime, you can check out LIO on SpotifySoundcloud and Facebook.

Photo credits (in order): Natalie Lam, Stephen Harrison, Natalie Lam, Mal Whichelow, Natalie Lam, Marcia Richards