YRB Magazine

by Steven J. Horowitz

Photography by Edwin Tse

Like many of her British contemporaries, English singer-songwriter V V Brown has taken her sweet time bringing her music to an audience across the Pond. With a career that’s taken years to unfold, Brown has layered her foundation brick by brick, releasing her debut album Travelling Like the Light overseas in July 2009 and using the subsequent months to spread her music across the English terrain before even thinking about breaking the continental divide.

“I think it’s very important for me, or any artist, to make sure they try to get some kind of a connection to where they’re from,” she says. “And it was really important for me to release my music in England first, and I’m not in any rush. I want to be in this industry for a long time, so I believe good music is good music, and eventually, people will hear it.”

Even with her laissez-faire attitude, the 26-year-old Northampton native feels that now is the time to make some noise overseas, with the Stateside release of her debut hitting stores this winter. Though the album consists of tracks like “Crying Blood” and “Game Over” that have already made ripples in the European market, Brown has made sure to beef up the full-length for American listeners by tacking on a special track that adds a little more spice to the mix.

“I’m really excited about this new song, ‘Caroline,’” she exclaims. “It’s very different. This song is just straight up ‘I’m not happy,’ and the music sounds like I’m not happy, and it’s big. It’s wicked, man.” 

It’s a change of pace for an artist whose biggest hit, “Crying Blood,” juxtaposes a sunny ‘50s pop-brushed melody with lyrics that excoriate a boy that’s wronged her to the point where she’s in such agony that she sheds red tears. Her career sprang from the same sort of inner anguish that developed after a botched trip to Los Angeles where she was looking to find herself as an artist, only to be told that she should try to be more R&B and wear “short, hot pants” to make her dreams a reality.

“I was kind of doing the whole Dick Wittington story, trying to make it out there,” she says. “I was living in L.A. for about two years, and when I got back, I was pretty depressed and I was broke. And so I bought this one-string guitar from a charity shop, and I just really got roots-y and back to the beginning, and I literally wrote the album in about a week.”

Back in the U.K., Brown made a name for herself with her fresh batch of recordings, stirring up so much commotion that even Diddy caught wind of her music. “We did a little showcase for him and I came with my one-string guitar and I played the piano, and he was really nice,” she says. “But I just felt, for me, I wanted to be in England. I’m a British artist, and if my music’s ever going to go anywhere in the world, I think it’s important for people to embrace me from a British beginning.” With Britain finally on her side, Brown is ready to take the world by storm A even if the journey has her traveling much slower than the speed of light. that.”