 I'm Heather and from Pale Waves. We're a band and we're from Manchester. This is our first time ever at Great Escape. I've heard so many great things about this festival. It's really well known and there's a lot of industry people here and it's just a really great festival to be a part of. There's nothing quite like playing the songs that you wrote, seeing people sing your lyrics back to you. It's still mind-blowing for me. There's just not a better feeling than performing the other songs. I grew up with my dad playing guitar around the house and me and him would just always stay up really late and just play music together and really annoy my mum. You know, I do it for a reason to escape but as Pale Waves is getting bigger you definitely consider the fans way way more when you're writing something that you're really proud of you just can't wait for them to hear it as well and we give a really honest performance. We just want everyone to have a really good time and enjoy themselves. My name is Dermot Kennedy and I am a singer-songwriter from Ireland. I was in a band for years and then we split up so just because I was back on my own I started doing more acoustic stuff with that kind of intimacy whereas it's grown now to a point where there's four of us in the band and it's kind of like a much bigger production than what it was even two years ago. It always just pushed for kind of intimacy and people sitting down and chilling out and kind of just people being completely focused and I just realized you can kind of have both and it kind of exists in the music as well dynamically like there's moments that are still acoustic and there's moments that are much bigger. I started writing before I started playing nearly and then it was just almost a vehicle to kind of get those songs across. If you just try and kind of focus on yourself and not worry too much about like pressure from anybody else it's just purely about the music, there's nothing else and if you can kind of make that lane for yourself where you can connect with a large amount of people and for it always to stay the same and to fill rooms with people that are only there for the music I just think that's what I'd like to be known for. You know us being from Canada this is a great way for us to be exposed to some more UK audiences and it's great how it's in all these small bars and little venues. We're like a live rock and roll band so we really excel in playing like in small venues where people can really feel us out you know so it's really great to be a part of this festival where there's so many opportunities to play those sorts of venues. To us playing live is the most important thing we rehearse every day when we're home we make sure we play as a band every single day together and I think that helps translate with our live show and our album we also recorded part of it live off the floor as well so we really hold that near and dear to our hearts. I hate to bring up the girl thing you know people might have that expectation when they see you that you're not going to be good because of your gender and age so you have to be better than the dudes that are playing you have to be as good and better than them to compete in this market so that was something that we had in our heads getting started so performing has been really important to us to make sure that we make a strong impression every time we get up on stage. I'm Alma, I'm a singer, artist, songwriter and I come from Finland. I think when I started to just know who I am as a person then I started to feel also more comfortable. If somebody don't like me they can go away but I'm not going away so like I love that feeling. Typical Alma show is very energetic a lot of emotions and feelings a lot of gay people and gay people are the best people in the world so I'm just enjoying and they hopefully are enjoying a lot of energy and good vibes. It's important that there is small clubs and there is a chance for new artists to conquer the world. Do everything if it makes you happy if it's not making you happy then do something else. I don't even care like I can do hundreds of interviews if I get to be on stage and sing and see the fans you know it's just for me it's just why I do this it's so important.