It all started with a Barbie karaoke machine. On Christmas Day, age 4, Phoebe Green made her debut live performance. The audience (her family) were astounded. This karaoke machine gave Green more than just a hobby, it’s given the Manchester-based singer-songwriter a career that includes releasing an array of dark indie pop ballads, and being named in NME’s Top 100 Essential New Artists for 2020.

Despite trying to go viral through webcam recordings of her performing in her bedroom at age 10, her breakthrough came about unexpectedly 8 years later. In 2016, she released her debut album 02:00AM, which was the originally just a school project. Suddenly, the lead single ‘Dreaming Of’ became a regular on BBC Radio 1, and still stands as one of her most played tracks on Spotify. Using her diary-entry style writing process, she reveals all the gory details, a snapshot of the stories she’s trying to tell, then allows listeners to assemble the rest for themselves. This brutal honesty combined with her uncanny poeticism makes for catchy melodies with a depth that lingers beyond the end of the songs.  

Now signed to Chess Club Records (Mumford & Sons, Wolf Alice, Easy Life), she released her latest single ‘Easy Peeler’ last August. It was co-written with Juliette Jackson of The Big Moon and is another personal diary-entry snapshot of her past, featuring no airs and graces.

She recalls “I was thinking about a time when I really fancied someone and just wanted absolutely everything with them. I started listing typical things that couples do, and the lyrics started to form this sarcastic portrayal of what it means to be in a modern relationship, and the way people can control others’ perceptions of them as a couple, whether it be in a virtual or real life environment. People are proper obsessed with keeping up appearances and maintaining this perfect ideal, so the song highlights the naivety of someone that is inexperienced anticipating what a relationship involves, based off what society and social media project.”

In terms of live shows, she’s come a long way since Christmas Day 2001. Naming Cher and Shirley Temple as her performance inspirations, she’s gone on to support Courteeners and Sundara Karma to name but a few, and performed at Neighbourhood Festival. Dazzling more and more audiences as time goes on, it won’t be long before Phoebe Green is headlining the very stages she’s been opening.