Laura- Mary Carter, known for being part of Blood Red Shoes, told David Hennessy about her new solo album, big Irish family and being an anomaly as a female in the rock scene.
Laura-Mary Carter, Known as one half of cult rock duo Blood Red Shoes, has just released her single June Gloom and announced the forthcoming arrival of her debut solo album Bye Bye Jackie to follow next month.
The singer, from a big Irish family, will also play a run of intimate European tour dates this winter, including a stop at The Grand Social Ballroom in Dublin on 13th February 2026.
Even though she grew up in London, Laura Mary’s Irish roots always remained strong.
Her father played county football for Meath, and her grandfather, Bert Hyland, was an Irish middleweight boxing champion.
“My family is fully Irish, and that’s always been a big part of who I am”, Carter says. “Even though I’ve lived in the UK most of my life, Ireland has always felt like home. It’s in my blood and always will be.”
You must be excited the new single June Gloom is out..
“Yeah, I’m really excited because I’ve been doing Blood Red Shoes for years and this is my first solo debut full length album.
“I’m really excited to get it out because it’s so different to anything I’ve done before.”
Does it feel different to be doing your own thing because you’ve been part of Blood Red Shoes for so long?
“Yeah, it’s good.
“I think doing something for so long- I know how to do Blood Red Shoes, the motions and playing live, I feel very confident.
“But going solo, it’s taking me out of my comfort zone and I think that’s a really good thing.
“Being a musician, you need to push yourself.
“And it’s the opposite kind of style of music.
“I’m singing more, it’s quieter so it’s learning how to perform that without this big, loud noise I can hide behind.
“And it’s kind of going back to this music that I grew up listening to so it’s sort of full circle for me to do this and I wanted to do it for years so it’s a good feeling.”
You say there is no loud guitar to hide behind. It must be exposing but it sounds like you’re thriving off that..
“Yeah, I think it’s because I’m used to playing loud guitar.
“It’s more scary for sure.”
You made June Gloom the first single, do you feel it’s representative of the album?
“I think it’s the most different thing I’ve ever recorded and written.
“I think the sound of it is so far from anything I’ve done and that’s why I wanted to put that one out.
“I feel like it’s got a cool vibe and I think it does sum up the record for me a bit, just to show that this isn’t going to be a Blood Red Shoes record, this is something completely different.
“And also my friend Lee Kiernan, who’s from the band Idles played on it so that’s cool as well.”
I like the video you did in Tokyo using the same karaoke room used in the Academy Award- winning film Lost in Translation..
“I was there playing with Blood Red Shoes in Tokyo and in June so I was like, ‘Well, let’s make a video’.”
Are you a big fan of the film then?
“I absolutely love it.
“When I first went to Japan, I felt like that was the feeling I had.
“The way that in the film Bill Murray has all these people around him, that was what it was like when I first went there because my band did really well there when we first started and we had to do all this press and promo.
“And it was before phones worked out there so you really felt like you were in this alien world, so I really relate to that film.
“Now it’s funny, phones do work in Japan and it’s a bit of a different experience.
“But I felt like this song June Gloom kind of suited that feeling of feeling a little bit out of place or alien like and it’s got a lyric about UFOs so I thought, ‘Yeah, Japan kind of works’ because when I first went there, I did feel like Lost in Translation, a very different world.”
I wanted to pick up on another couple of tracks on the album. One is Elvis Widow, where did that song come from?
“Well, I am a massive Elvis fan and that was the last song I wrote for the record actually.
“Basically I got involved in making a short film about Elvis tribute artists.
“We went and filmed it in Wales at this festival that they do out there so I was surrounded by all these different Elvis tribute artists and everyone being obsessed with it.
“I just loved the idea of sort of thinking about all these people.
“They’re all in love with Elvis.
“It was like a mishmash of a personal thing I was going through but kind of incorporating the idea that all these tributes are like Elvis’s widows and just waiting for something that never comes.
“I released that song myself before I did the proper album so technically, actually, that’s the first single.
“I felt like Elvis Widow is like the idea obviously Elvis is dead so you’re waiting for something that doesn’t come.
“That’s kind of my idea behind it and I like the imagery.
“And because I’m an Elvis fan, it just kind of worked.”
Another track on the album I wanted to pick up on was Keep Sweet. Does that perhaps come from your experiences of being a female in the rock industry? Have you been expected to ‘keep sweet’?
“Absolutely. Yeah, it comes from that.
“When I started music, it was very male dominated.
“I think I also was referring to certain relationships I’ve had.
“I actually got that phrase from watching this Mormon documentary.
“There was this moment where there were these women that were told, ‘Keep sweet…’
“And I thought, ‘That’s a cool phrase’.
“But I felt like it was relevant in a lot of things that I’ve done in music and my personal life as well.”
Was it difficult being a female in the industry? I have read about you being inspired by Justine Frischmann, Courtney Love and other women in rock, did it come as a surprise then that some parts of the industry itself were not as receptive to women with guitars?
“Yeah, I didn’t really think about it too much because I was so young and I just didn’t really think I’d be in this world.
“I guess I just wanted to play but then I was in this world.
“Now there’s so many female artists playing guitar but in 2006, I was kind of an anomaly.
“There was a point where I was the only woman playing on the main stage at Reading and Leeds.
“But back in the 90s, there were loads of these women playing guitar.
“It just kind of changed and it became a lot of men playing indie so I felt a bit like an anomaly.
“I would be the only woman playing at a festival or playing guitar and people always used to be like, ‘Oh, you’re not bad at guitar for a girl’ and all this stuff.
“It was an interesting career but I’m glad things have changed now because there’s a lot more women playing.”
If you were the only female on bills sometimes, did you get mistaken for not being a musician and stuff like that?
“Yeah, a few times I’d go up to do a line check and I’ve been escorted off the stage because they thought I was just going on the stage for no reason.
“I’ve been locked out of getting backstage even though I had my pass, they thought I was just some girlfriend that was trying to get in.
“It’s been loads of that but that just seems to not be so much the case now, I don’t know whether it’s because maybe I am more confident.
“I am definitely more confident but when I was younger, I didn’t feel like an imposter but sometimes it would just be quite intimidating when it was just loads of older men everywhere.”
The album as a whole struck me as reflective, self deprecating or perhaps I should say not taking itself to seriously, ‘honest’ was another word I noted down, would you agree with those impressions?
“Thanks for saying that it’s honest because it really is.
“That’s what I thought, ‘I’m just gonna write this honestly’.
“And I don’t take everything so seriously.
“Obviously Irish family, we take nothing serious.
“We do take stuff serious but we find the humour in things so I feel like that’s me.
“I like that it isn’t completely just deadly serious.
“I love back in the 50s when there would be songs, Patsy Cline and stuff like that, and it was very literal.
“It was very like, who, like, oh, like, songs like, Who’s Sorry Now.
“I wanted all the titles to be a bit like those old 50s love songs that are just very straightforward and to the point.
“So yeah, it’s very honest.
“It’s very reflective as well because I think it’s just me.
“Obviously in Blood Red Shoes, I’m singing with my friend and we sing about different things but this can be just me so it’s very honest but not too dead serious.
“I like a little bit of just myself in it which is not take it too seriously.”
Let’s talk about your Irish background. I understand your family came from Ireland to the London area and you’re the only one of your siblings to have been born in the UK, is that right?
“Yeah, my sisters were born in Drogheda.
“I think they went to school around Slane because my dad’s from Navan.
“My mum’s from Ballyshannon, Donegal.
“Most of my dad’s side live in Dublin or Meath and then my mum’s side is more Galway and Donegal so my whole family are Irish, I’m the only born in the UK one.”
You say Ireland feels like home…
“Obviously I’ve grown up here but I spent so much time as a kid in Ireland.
“All my cousins are there and so I have a real connection and obviously having Irish parents and grandparents and everything.
“I loved going to Ireland. I was very lucky I had that.”
“It’s so ingrained in me.
“Growing up is different to my friends that I knew from London.
“It’s just a different way, I think.
“It’s hard to explain it but I do feel that because that’s all I know in my family.
“Every time he rings, my dad is like, ‘Anything strange or startling happening?’
“And my friends are like, ‘What? Oh my God. What does that mean?’
“It makes sense to me but if I’ve got it on the speaker my friends are like, ‘What does that mean?’”
Your father played Gaelic football for Meath…
“That’s right.
“He was quite well known in that team.
“And then my mum’s dad (Bert Hyland) was a boxer.
“He was born in Dublin but they lived in between Ireland and London and wherever he was boxing.
“He boxed all over the place.
“He boxed in America and he was Rocky Marciano’s sparring partner.
“We were very close but he’s passed away about 10 years ago now.
“He was great, a really, really great granddad.”
Do you think your time in Ireland had anything to do with you being inspired to follow music?
“I think so because it was just music everywhere.
“As a kid I’d get dragged to the pub and I’d have my crisps and my coke and there was the band playing.
“I think it definitely had an effect on me.
“I was always around it and everyone at weddings would have to do a song so I feel like it definitely played a big part in in that.
“I feel like whenever I hear Irish music, it just feels so nostalgic and feels just like home and family to me.”
What has been a big stand out moment of your time in Blood Red Shoes?
“I think there’s a few things.
“Reading and Leeds main stage because I went to Reading festival growing up so even though we have done lots of main stage festivals, that one was a big moment for me because I never thought as a kid looking at the stage I would ever do that. That was cool.
“And then also there was this festival called ATP festival that used to happen.
“A band creates the lineup and The Breeders asked us to play.
“That was really amazing because I love the Pixies, Kim Deal is a big deal to me so the fact that she personally asked us to play was a really great moment.
“And then going to Japan, actually getting to travel.
“It’s just amazing.
“And to places I never thought I’d go.
“I’ve been to all kinds of places.
“We played in South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, it’s just mad so I’m so grateful for the fact that music’s been able to bring me around the world.”
We never spoke about the title track, Bye Bye Jackie.
Obviously that means a lot if you named the album after it..
“Hopefully he’s not reading this but I used to have a relationship with someone called Jack so that’s where that comes from, but it’s not about him.
“I guess I use it as a metaphor for saying goodbye to not great relationships and maybe old habits and hello to just a new chapter in my life.
“I guess I like the idea of a funeral for sort of some of the old ways, things, people and experiences and sort of a new fresh start in my solo career and just being a bit more wise now.
“I guess it’s coming of age, just growing up.
“That’s kind of where that name comes from.
“I really liked the name and it kind of just summed up everything but the whole album isn’t just about this one person.”
June Gloom is out now.
Bye Bye Jackie is out on 26 September via Jazz Life.
Laura- Mary Carter plays Yellow Arch, Sheffield on 25 November, McChuills in Glasgow on 26 November, Deaf Institute in Manchester on 27 November, St Matthias Church in London on 28 November, Lantern Hall in Bristol on 29 November and The Grand Social Ballroom in Dublin on 13 February 2026.
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