Soccer Mommy: ‘The whole thing with Liam Payne is really sad. The industry is very hard on people’s mental health’
Amid peals of fuzzy postpunk guitar, songs such as Lost and Changes are frank about the pain she has gone through. The LP doesn’t delve into specifics, despite the often unflinching lyrics. But this isn’t her first time grappling with trauma. Soccer Mommy’s 2020 album,, was about coming to terms with her mother’s long-term struggle with cancer.
Allison has come a long way in a relatively brief career. A short seven years ago the singer from the Nashville suburbs was studying at New York University when her grungy song Your Dog went viral. Six months later she was on the road with the, the emo mega group , as support on an arena tour. This was a huge adjustment, and she remembers those early days as challenging. She recalls being ambitious and also a little wet behind the ears and having to grow up quickly.
Going on the road as a young artist is psychologically and physically draining, she says. “That first year I was touring, it was exciting. It was thrilling. It was also like a living hell.” “Even when I was younger I would drink on tour – I wasn’t getting crazy drunk, because we had to leave in, like, seven hours. It’s too much. People can do it and feel comfortable, but I think when you’re doing it all the time it’d be the same thing as going out and getting drunk every night. It’s just crazy.”
Nashville is touristy, she says, “but it is part of the here too. When I was younger, growing up, it wasn’t something I was into.” The city’s musical heritage is everywhere. “I went to a performing-arts high school, and we’d have country artists come in, talk to us and do stuff. It is a big part of the city, country music and Americana. There’s a lot of other music going on, too. In high school there was a lot of garage rock and psych rock kind of happening. And there was some hip-hop.