The 1975: What We Learned From Their Observer Music interview

The 1975 are currently in the midst of a nationwide tour showcasing the bombastic pop tunes that make up their upcoming second album, due in February 2016. We’ve compiled all the information surrounding ‘I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It’ in this blog, but more light was shed on the record and where Matt Healy’s head is at in yesterday’s Observer Music Magazine. Here’s what we learned.

The new album is long, but for a reason

The track listing for the new album is 17 tracks long but Healy insists it needs to be a mammoth record to take in all his new experiences. “I do want to talk about what’s happened in the past three years, and what do you think has happened to a kid who’s gotten in a fucking big band? Everything! I’ve done drugs, had girlfriends. I’ve changed! I’m not scared of saying that shit.”

Healy is unashamedly honest about his drug habits

At several points in the interview, interviewer Michael Hann approaches the topic of Healy’s drug habits. Healy is vocal about his relationship with cocaine and reveals there’s even a song about it on the album called ‘Ugh’. “That song is me being flippant about cocaine: ‘Stop pacing round the room using other people’s faces as a mirror for you.’”

Advertisement



Healy still has a troubled relationship with the press

Earlier this year Healy was romantically linked with world-beating pop star Taylor Swift, which spawned an intense media interest in him. Healy reveals that nothing happened between the pair but that media presence that follows Swift, which shifted onto him, was particularly disconcerting. “The day after she’d been to a show of ours, someone sent me a screenshot of E! News with the headline ‘Who is Matt Healy?’ That freaked me out. I’m not ready to indulge in that world and I’m not ready to be judged by that world.”

He wants to be an icon and a guiding figure to young women

The 1975 have become a gargantuan crossover between both pop fans and indie fans, but a large patch of their fan base consists of young women. Healy however wants to harness this energy and be an icon to them. “I have 450,000 young women [followers on Twitter] and I genuinely believe the empowerment of young women is the most important thing in the world and will lead to the destruction of injustice. So what do I do with that? I try to guide them.”

He has some strong views on organised religion

Last August a young Muslim woman challenged him after he tweeted some controversial thoughts about religion. [One tweet said: “Isis are cutting little girls heads off and you want to challenge a non-religious, humanist perspective? I don’t understand the world at all.”] The now 21-year-old, who was running a Harry Styles fan page, received a hostile reply from Healy saying, “I resent being ‘educated’ by a Harry Styles fan account”. Speaking about it now Healy says “What I was really saying was: don’t start trying to educate me on fucking Islam when you’re 13 [sic]. If you’re telling me to stay in my lane, stay in your lane.” Hann suggests that this could be seen as incredibly contradictory if he wants to empower young women, but tries to censor their responses on a public forum. Healy admits that, “I may not be as progressive as I’d like to be.”

You May Also Like

Advertisement

TRENDING

Advertisement

More Stories