Laura Hayden of Anteros

Anteros. A four-piece from London, who have released their debut album, When We Land, featuring a collection of modern indie pop fusions pulling influences from 70s new wave and 80s synth pop.

Ahead of their Key Club show – the last night of the UK tour – I was lucky enough to talk to their singer: Laura Hayden. We spoke about what it’s like to be a woman in the music industry as well as what it means to be a woman in our modern society…

E: How did you first get into music? Was it through school and learning about music in an academic capacity or was it through being introduced to music by family?

L: I’ve liked music since I was a little girl, my earliest memories are of me singing and all through school I was always doing theatre. I didn’t grow up in a musical background, I lived in a very Catholic Spain and because it wasn’t a world that my parents knew, they were very on edge with the idea. So, I put it aside for a very long time, but I remember when I was about 22 that I woke up, and I said that I need to do this now otherwise I’m going to miss my chance; that was when I moved to London and started a band.

E: What was it like being a woman of that age with that plan of starting a band?

L: Well, I started doing a bit of song writing but I was a bit lost. I was in my 20s which, is a very difficult time for a woman. I don’t know any woman at that age who hasn’t struggled with some kind of mental health issue. It’s part of being a woman, like I feel that society expects you to have all your life sorted out at that point. It’s almost as if you’re a blank canvas an everyone is projecting what they want you to do onto you.

E: You end becoming what other people want to see you as, rather than your own person. It’s almost like you’re not used to it, so that idea of being happy with yourself and everything you’re doing makes you feel uncomfortable.

L: Not only that, but your body is also physically changing, you know? You’re getting ready to have children and then this pressure builds up surrounding having your life figured out. Like you can end getting in mountains of debt especially with student loans.

E: So, it’s like you get all this unnecessary baggage?

L: Yeah, not that university is unnecessary but there’s so much extra stuff that’s just not needed. There’s lots of people I know that didn’t do what they wanted. And I feel like, it’s set them up for life to just follow what people are expecting from them. That’s my biggest fear: the idea that I lost control of my life because I’m not doing what I enjoy. 

E: So, I guess when you were facing all this underlying prejudice, how did you navigate the music industry at that point?

L: It’s hard! Everyone that I met had some kind of link or they knew someone with one, they all had big networks along with a supportive family. I think there’s a reason that for so long bands have been middle class white men, because they were the people that could afford the lifestyle. Obviously, that’s changing now, but it makes sense! I had to build a support system from the bottom, and I found that there weren’t a lot of women in music. We’re still massively misrepresented within the industry, so we don’t have as much of a voice. Generally speaking, if you look at a group of guys, you’ll see that they’re all different [they all have different interests] but, if you look at a group of girls, more often than not they’ll all look very similar. And I think that’s because, our whole life we’ve constantly put into marketing categories. Since the beginning of time, women have been the vessel in which men sell their products. So, we’re made to feel like we have to similar in order to fit in.

E: Again, it’s that pressure that’s in every situation, to always be at the top of your game so that no one can pick any faults. 

L: I’ve found it difficult in music more than anything – it’s still a very catty industry. Probably because it’s so male dominated and then the women are all constantly being compared to each other. Like guys don’t really get compared with each other even when they’re making the same music.

E: It’s those very traditional views of a woman in society, she is subservient and therefore everyone needs to understand everything that’s going on in her life. And that then feeds all the scrutiny that we face. We end being made into a package.

L: Yeah! And we live in a world where, everyone is screaming ‘Feminism’ but, when you actually look at it, what’s actually being done about it? Men have a way longer lasting career in music. And there’s that Little Mix album cover where they had all the words written over their bodies, but then they’d been heavily photoshopped! That’s how superficial society is! But, then there’s also the over-sexualisation of women, and the idea that when we get to a certain age and younger girls can’t relate to us, we’re irrelevant. Not only that, but I don’t think that men are ready for women on stage, it makes them uncomfortable.

E: It’s interesting to hear it from someone who’s in that situation now, rather than just seeing statistics everywhere.

L: Well I mean, it’s still such a boy club. It’s much easier for a guy, but for a woman, you’re still considered an object. Like it’s very difficult for you to be you. When I was starting out, the amount of times that meetings ended up becoming dates, its either you get seen as this object they can sell, or you’re tossed aside. It’s getting better, there’s definitely more diversity, but women need to work together so much more.

E: I think, because women are scrutinised for everything that we do, we end up judging and comparing ourselves to one another. Like, there’s only room for one so you have to be the best. And maybe that’s why we don’t work together as much as we should?

L: That’s because we’re seeing ourselves through a man’s eyes. I spent a long time just trying to be one of the guys but then I was like no! I’m going to stop apologising for being hormonal, and I’m going to stop hiding tampons and we’re going to talk about it. 

E: From such a young age we’re kind of put into these groups and we’re judged, that it becomes hard to be around girls that have completely different backgrounds to you.

L: Yeah, like I’m not a pro-Brexit person at all, I voted to remain. But I genuinely feel so bad for Theresa May because not only are people talking about her politics and the way she’s handling the situation, but she’s being shamed for what she wears, how she looks. No man gets that. She was genuinely thrown straight into the deep end. It happens in music all the time, female artists get shamed for everything, and then we end up fighting against ourselves. It’s even worse in the back. Like Cardi B’s album, all of 12 producers that worked on the album were all men. The men aren’t going to change this, it’s the women that need to demand more women. 

As a girl, we’re always being told how in-equal the music industry is, but it was interesting to talk to someone who has been there for a long time and really experienced it first hand. Eye-opening. The only people that are going to change the situation is us. We need to encourage each other, and we need to support each other in all the choices that we make.