Lucy Rose: “Life was definitely upside down – I couldn’t walk or move, and breathing was excruciating”

When Lucy Rose finished touring her fourth album, ‘No Words Left’, in 2019, she was ready to hit pause. For years, she had toured relentlessly, taking her music around the world, but she needed a break. ‘See you soon in another lifetime,’ she thought as she removed herself from the road, unaware of how true those words would become.

In 2021, the singer-songwriter became a mother for the first time, but the joy of starting a family turned to agony when she developed debilitating back pain. For months, she struggled to find an answer for what was happening to her until her partner took matters into his own hands and paid for a private MRI scan that revealed she had broken eight vertebrae in her back. A bone density scan revealed she had a bone density of -4.4 – a healthy level is between -1 and 1 – and, after much research, Lucy worked out she had severe (and rare) pregnancy-related osteoporosis.

“I don’t want any other new mum to have to go through that,” she tells NME from her home in Brighton. Her new album, ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’ (due for release on April 19), captures some of her experience in upbeat, breakbeat-backed songs, and she’s determined to use the record to raise awareness for the condition. “A lot of issues I found were just out of lack of awareness – when we discovered what it was I had, my GPs said, ‘We didn’t know this existed or was a condition we should be looking out for’.”

Lucy Rose joined NME for the latest in our In Conversation video series to talk about her experience with pregnancy-related osteoporosis, how Logic and Paul Weller helped restore her confidence, and her new album.

You were always planning on taking a break after your last album, then the pandemic happened, then had a baby, and then your whole life got turned upside down. Talk us through what happened.

Lucy Rose: “I was hoping to have a break. I think my last show here was the Barbican. I was thinking I was gonna have maybe a couple of years off or take the pressure off to go straight back into writing and recording. And then the pandemic happened, which happened for everyone. And then I had a baby, which was absolutely incredible, really the best experience of my life. And then I started going through this trouble with relatively OK back pain to start with, which just increased over the months after having Otis to a point where life was definitely upside down. I couldn’t walk or move. Breathing was virtually excruciating all the time until I found out that I had broken my back in multiple places.”

You were going back and forth between doctors and physios in those months. How long was that process of trying to find out what was going on?

“Months, really. I think my back pain stepped up and got really bad around when Otis was about five weeks old. And again, because this is my first baby, I really had no gauge on what was normal – what was regular, ‘normal’ back pain, what your body should feel like after having a child or any of it. Otis was born in July, and I didn’t get a diagnosis until December. It was a really long period of not knowing.”

That must have been really frustrating to be telling people there’s something wrong with you and not having them listen, or look at your back even.

“It was deeply worrying, to be honest. And I genuinely started to question my own mental health, really, because I went repeatedly to the GP and explained what was going on and got told repeatedly that it was completely normal. So, at that point, it was like, ‘If this is normal, what is going on? I can’t care for my baby; I can barely care for myself right now. I’m being told repeatedly that it’s normal and I should just keep going on.’ So, at that point, I didn’t really know where to turn. And [it was] probably the only time in my life I really needed medical help – desperately, desperately needed help. I didn’t really know where to go with it.”

What was that moment like when you finally got that diagnosis of pregnancy-related osteoporosis and realised how severe this thing you’d been living with was?

“Very strange. I remember talking to the doctor at the hospital, and he said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got your MRI here; we’re going to talk you through your spine. This vertebrae has broken, and this vertebrae is broken.’ Immediately, I was like, ‘I knew it’. I was relieved in a way; I just really was. It was this huge adrenaline rush. I remember having, with this information and [being able to tell] everybody who’d been a part of my life over that few months [asking] ‘What’s going on with Lucy and her back?’ and [being able to] be like, ‘This is what’s going on. I have the piece of paper here. We can all look at it and understand it now.’ So [I was] weirdly relieved, and then I think probably 24 hours later, suddenly very concerned about why that had happened.”

As well as dealing with the physical side of this, it must have been such a strain on your mental health as well – you’re already recovering from having a baby, which is a big change in your life physically and mentally, and then you also have to deal with this.

“Yeah, to be honest, it is very hard to even remember a lot of it now. But yeah, it was an extremely difficult time. It was very, very scary. And on top of having a new baby that was solely looking for me and my partner to look after them, at that point where I felt so vulnerable and myself that I couldn’t do anything, it was like an out-of-body experience. Until then, I felt like I was a strong able person and resilient. At that point, it felt like my entire character changed in terms of who I was because I felt very unrecognisable.”

At that point, you didn’t know if you’d be able to make music again either because you probably didn’t know if you’d be able to walk again.

“To be honest, it did drop down the old list of priorities [laughs]. At that point, I was like, ‘Will I not be able to walk again?’ and a few doctors [were] saying, ‘I’m not sure, we’ll have to see how your back heals’. But yeah, most said, ‘Your life will be very different from now on’. To be honest, luckily, I’ve got to a point where it isn’t drastically different at the moment, other than back pain that I suffer with, which is manageable, and not being able to go skiing or horseback riding, which I’m fine with. Touch wood, the life that I want, I’m able to have still, which I’m grateful for.”

Before you recorded your album, you went to New York to work with Logic on some of his music. He talked to you about these ideas of closed creativity and open creativity – what are they, and how did they impact your album?

“Yeah, he’s such a fascinating person. When we went in, he had a finished record of songs and beats and his parts all down. But he wanted to add textures, so it was keys or real bass, or vocals, or strings, and wind instruments and all those different things. He said, ‘When I’m writing my lyrics, and when I’m writing the song, I’m in closed creativity. But now, in the studio with you guys, I’m completely open.’

“So it’s really about getting people in the room that you trust, and who you like what they do, and then letting them do what they do best without controlling it too much, which I think is a trap that anyone can fall into, and probably I have in the past. But it was very freeing to be able just to sing ideas that I had and put them down and do that. I just thought, ‘I need to do this when I get home because it seems like a much more fun experience than doing too much talking’.”

When you got back and started recording this album, Paul Weller was someone who played a part in this record. He let you use his studio and gave you free rein over it because he was so impressed with what you were making.

“Probably also because I was asking him [laughs]. He has always been amazingly kind to me. He’s one of my favourite people I’ve met on this journey musically. He’s always been really supportive and asked if I want to write a song together. I have been too nervous a lot of the time – and probably too insecure – to take him up on stuff. Coming out of my back and regaining this part of my life again that I really thought was lost forever, I just was a braver person to a certain degree. I messaged him, ‘Can I actually borrow the studio that you probably offered me five years ago and just record some demos for a day?’ I got a phone call from him a couple of days [after recording] being like, ‘These are brilliant, these demos are great’. The fact that he’d gone into the studio and listened to what I’d done felt massive to me.

“[He told me I could] use the studio and these weren’t demos. He was like, ‘You don’t need a producer, you just need to keep coming here and laying down your music, and if you want any help with strings or direction, I know string players, I know these people. You just give me a call, and I’ll help in any way that I can.’ So I was absolutely buzzing because I do find thinking about how to make a record feels insanely daunting, so that was massive.”

When it came to releasing the first song from this album, you talked on social media about having this fear or trepidation around whether people would still be interested, if you’d still be relevant. How has it been actually putting out songs and seeing the reaction from people, and being able to reconnect with fans?

“Very joyful. Everyone talks about how you’ve got to keep churning out music to keep up momentum. It’s all about momentum. So, having an enormous break, and then, it sounds bad, but feeling slightly older – and I don’t know if it makes a difference being female or not, but it feels difficult to come back and feel relevant still. But I’ve been really pleasantly surprised that people are messaging and commenting on the stuff and listening to it. Some of my friends have said they were at the pub, and one of their friends said, ‘Have you heard of this new artist Lucy Rose?’. That’s really cool. The fact that someone could even perceive me as this new artist is exciting to me because it feels like it’s reaching new people, and I’m old and washed up in my head.”

Lucy Rose’s ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’ is released April 19

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