Delilah Bon: “Before, I felt like I was screaming on my own. Now people are screaming with me”

“I have had so many tantrums,” Lauren Tate admits when we ask how she’s really doing.

It’s an understandable reaction, given her workload for the impending album from her alter-ego Delilah Bon, the bluntly titled Evil, Hate Filled Female.

Not only does she perform as Delilah, but Lauren is responsible for pretty much everything behind the scenes, too: from designing merch and fulfilling the orders, to creating costumes for live performances, marketing, content creation, social media… and that's before we even get to the fact she's written and produced the entire record herself.

To stop herself burning out, Lauren has since hired her younger sister to help with merch orders, such is the demand of Delilah Bon. She's been traversing the UK all summer, too, dominating stages at Download, Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds.

Ahead of the imminent arrival of Evil, Hate Filled Female, we caught up with the brat-punk trailblazer to discuss throwing paper penises from school balconies, and how that inherent lust for mischief informed her new record…

You’ve been so busy this year, but it's paying off big time. Are you decompressing a bit now?
"Uh, I’m trying to? I find it really hard. If I go out on the weekend, I’ll be thinking about all the things I need to finish, but I know the pressure is all my own. Sometimes it’s easy to always be looking forward, and I have to remind myself to look back at the things that I’ve done – I played Glastonbury and Download this year! They’re such huge moments, and when you do them, you enjoy them in the moment, but then you’re on to the next thing. I started writing in my diary more, and journaling, so when the year has ended, I can read back and take it all in because it’s all happening so fast, and you just get lost."

How are you finding journaling?
"I hope no-one finds it, because I am so honest. I write very honestly, and then I hide my diary, and I think, ‘No-one can see this because I write about everyone and everything.’ Honesty is just part of my expression. When I express myself, I want to look back at my work and my art, and really see myself in it – especially now, with the new album, I’m truly speaking my mind. And it’s so freeing. I wanted to be unapologetic, I wanted to say everything that was on my mind and not hold back. And I’ve always been a very angry girl. Most of my life, I had nowhere to put it. Like, I did put it in my music before, to some degree, but I think the more honest I am in my music, it feels authentic to me to be angry. And to get onstage, I am angry, but when I’m singing it with my fans, it’s more empowering now. It’s cathartic, it’s therapy, the way I scream. But the way I’m doing it with other people now, compared to my band before where I felt like I was screaming on my own, people are screaming with me. I’m not screaming into a void anymore. It’s a community."

Speaking of that community, you recently changed your venue in Glasgow due to safety concerns from fans.
"Because it’s so important to me. I care about my fans, I don’t want them to be uncomfortable, so after several messages from fans about concerns, I told my agent that we needed to change the venue. Safety is the main priority at my gigs. If people are coming into an environment [where] they already feel unsafe, it’s not the show I want to have. Because I’ve been that girl in a crowd and felt unsafe, so now it’s my responsibility to facilitate better spaces.

"When I was younger I used to go to my dad’s shows, so I went to see Slash, Guns N' Roses, and I’d see these majority-male audiences – I remember getting groped and feeling men's hands on me – and feeling uncomfortable all the time. So, when I became the girl on the stage and that uncomfortable feeling was still there, even though I wasn’t in the crowd, a lot of my anger came from that. Like, even though I’m the person holding the microphone, I still feel uncomfortable. So, if I have to make men feel uncomfortable at my shows, and prioritise women’s safety, that is what I will do."

How did all of this form the foundation for Evil, Hate Filled Female?
"The album is about my entire journey from the beginning to now. Finally, I can stand here and sing these songs to my fans, and when they scream it back to me, it’s like they’re validating how I feel because they feel the same. I have, literally, an army of angry women behind me – Bon-Bons – so now, when I do get onstage, I can be that evil, hate-filled female. I can be confident in myself.

"The album name came from a comment on Twitter of a man saying, ‘Delilah Bon is nothing more than an evil, hate filled female.’ And my fans instantly jumped on it and said, ‘No, she’s empowering.’ But, reading what he said about me, is the misconception that men have. They look at me and think I’m this evil person, but to my fans, they know I’m not. It’s playing on what people think of me, the people who listen to me, and knowing that isn’t the truth. But, we can have fun with it, and be sarcastic with it."

Listening to the record, there is an essence of, ‘Slim Shady but if he was actually a decent person.’
"That's what my dad said! When I was younger, there was one CD I couldn’t listen to, and that was Curtain Call by Eminem. I wasn’t allowed to listen to it, so naturally, I was curious about it all the time. As a kid, I can’t remember the misogynistic lyrics in the way that I hear them now, it was more the sarcastic character and the mischief in him that I noticed when I first discovered it. With songs like Drop Dead Delilah, there’s a lot in it that’s quite childish. I thought of finding [Eminem’s] songs as a kid and thinking it was so mischievous, and channelling that mischief and sarcasm because that’s a big part of who I am. And I’ve not really been able to express that before. People who get it will really get it, and people that don’t get it will hate it so much."

How does it feel being able to express that?
"Me being vulgar in this record is me having fun. I hated school so much that when I left school, I cut out all these penises – I can’t remember, I must have cut out a hundred or more penises – and I stood at the top of the balcony and threw them all down, and I watched them floating. I was always in detention; I was always in trouble at school. That silly, naughty, mischievous part of me has not died at all. And what excites me is being mischievous and shocking people, because I really love shocking people."

What were your crimes of choice in school?
"I was a very disruptive girl. I was trying to make people laugh all the time, I argued with teachers about different things. One time, I argued with a teacher about religion, and I wouldn’t let it drop because he said something anti-religious and we had a few boys who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Then the teacher ended up refusing to teach me because he said I made him uncomfortable. I had a lot of male teachers who would say that I made them uncomfortable because I would argue points with them. Most of the time, I found school quite boring. And I tried to find a way to entertain myself."

Evil, Hate Filled Female seems to be the result of independence, mischief and the experience of women in this day and age – both from a personal and a wide-lens view.
"Yeah, there’s definitely a mixture. The first track, Hey World, and Volatile are very personal to me and [about] my journey, and certain knock-backs I’ve had, and people early on in my career gatekeeping or promising me things that never, ever happened and being let down. But, there’s another part of the album, is a bit more fantasy – it’s more of a character that I’ve created, channelling the mischief. And songs like The Internet, where I’m looking out at other people and looking out at society, and how it’s impacting the people around me. Ultimately, the record is filled with things that either annoy me, or excite me."

Evil, Hate Filled Female is released September 13

Read this next:

• Delilah Bon: “People’s responses to my music has given me fuel. I’ve not even started yet!”
• Good For Her: Are we finally realising the power of female rage?
• Delilah Bon: “I was held back… Now, I’m unapologetic, and loud, and scary”