I met Vera Daisies at The Great Escape in Brighton, where she played two shows across the festival: Green Door Store on Friday and The Prince Albert on Saturday. Vera Daisies is the solo project of Margaux Jaudinaud, formerly of the duo Ottis Cœur, making “raw and incandescent indie rock." Exhausted but happy, Margaux spoke about stepping out as a solo artist, self-taught guitar confidence, community, loud music, and the comic book she is manifesting into existence.
Natasha: How are you finding the week?
Margaux: I am exhausted, but it’s amazing to be here, surrounded by so many amazing artists, and at this incredible festival as well. I wasn’t expecting to be part of it. I’m a very new artist, so I usually don’t expect that to happen.
Natasha: Vera Daisies is your solo project now, right? You were in a duo before?
Margaux: Yeah, and now it’s just me.
Natasha: How does that feel – performing and it just being you?
Margaux: I’m playing with my best friend on stage. I’m playing with Emily on drums, so it’s great to get to tour with friends. But the process of writing and producing music on my own is different. I struggle sometimes to find the motivation. It’s very different from being in a band.
Natasha: When you’re in a band, you’ve got other people to pull you along as well.
Margaux: Yeah, exactly. Creativity is different when you’re with other people. But the show went so well. I really enjoyed the venue as well – Green Door Store. Everyone was so nice. I wasn’t expecting people to show up because I don’t know anyone here, so it was great. Really, really nice.
Natasha: Were there any songs the audience responded to differently than you expected?
Margaux: There’s one song I play just on guitar. It’s a sad song, and I was so scared to play it because I was expecting people to talk. At a professional festival, people don’t always pay attention when someone is playing. But it turned out well. People were very focused, and that was really, really nice.
Natasha: Is that different from what you usually see when you’re performing back home?
Margaux: It depends. Most of the time I play very angry guitar and very loud music, and then at some point in the set there’s one song that’s very calm. I think that’s cool, but when there’s a bar in the venue, there’s always noise. But it’s fine. It’s part of the game, I would say.
Natasha: How long have you been performing as Vera Daisies?
Margaux: For this project, I started in 2021. My first EP was released in January this year, so it’s been quite a long time. I’ve been performing support acts, and now I’m releasing music. But I played before in bands as well.
Natasha: I heard you’re also an illustrator. Do you like combining different media?
Margaux: Yeah. When I started, I didn’t mix them because I thought it wasn’t relevant. But the more I grow up, the more it feels like me. I can mix illustration and music, and it makes something that is 100% what I want to say or show.
Natasha: It’s nice to bring all of that into who you are on stage. Do you express yourself differently through illustration compared to music?
Margaux: I feel like illustration inspired me to be more authentic in music. I always felt more confident with illustration, and at some point something switched. The process of doing illustration very spontaneously was a cool thing to transfer to the musical process. I think it helped me in that way.
Natasha: Did you grow up playing music?
Margaux: Yeah, but I taught myself how to play, so I didn’t feel very legitimate when I started playing in bands. I was the only girl playing, and everyone was like, “Oh, you don’t know how to plug your thing in.” It took me a long time to be like, “Okay, I can do it now.”
Natasha: Fighting the egos in music.
Margaux: Yeah.
Natasha: I find that just knowing other people go through the same situations helps. It makes it feel like we can do it together. Do you feel like community has helped you keep going?
Margaux: Yeah. I feel like it started when I founded the band I had before, because I was only surrounded by girls and women who were friends first. Then, when we were touring and doing things, we realised there was a problem. That really inspired me to keep going, to keep working with girls and women and queer people – and just fewer men.
Natasha: LOUD WOMEN is a big one for that. We have a group chat where anytime something bad happens at a gig, everyone is there like, “That’s awful.”
Margaux: The first step is realising something is wrong. Then the second step is, if you want to do something, you can. But the first step is getting offended and realising it’s not supposed to happen.
Natasha: How do you find going from writing songs to translating them into a live performance? Is it smooth, or does it feel strange?
Margaux: It’s actually very smooth, because I started doing support acts without having a record. All the songs I was writing were already raw on stage, in the way I memorised them. So it was quite natural, I would say. It’s a cool way to test the songs – to put them to the test of live music and performance.
Natasha: If you write a song and then perform it, do you ever change anything based on how it feels live?
Margaux: Yeah, maybe unconsciously. The dynamics might change. Maybe I want to do a loud verse or a loud chorus instead. It helps me focus the attention. You feel the connection.
Natasha: So French is your first language, but do you write all your songs in English?
Margaux: Yes, but I like to write songs in French. French is very monotone, and I would say when we listen to French lyrics, we focus on the meaning of the song instead of the words. There are no stressed words or stressed syllables in the same way. In English, everything is melodic. Every word has rhythm, and it speaks to me more than French in that way. But when I started the French band, we used to write in French, and that was interesting because I was used to writing in English. I used some of the stressing and rhythm from English and put it into French songwriting.
Natasha: Because I only really speak English, it’s always interesting to hear a different perspective.
Margaux: You can hear it when someone is speaking French. I guess it’s just different.
Natasha: What artists do you like to see when you go to gigs? Are there certain artists you always go back to, or are you always trying new genres?
Margaux: I’ve spent a couple of years now feeling uncomfortable when there are too many people around, which is weird because I play on stage and very loud. But I either enjoy music that is really loud, where you can’t think of anything else and you just get into it, or very punk music. I love going to a punk show and being surrounded by the sound. The music is so loud, there are so many things happening, and you just disconnect. I don’t really like technical music – when it’s always about performance and showing skills. It’s not for me. I want attitude. I want to experience true people, authenticity. I’m more into chaotic things than “look at me, I’m a jazz player.”
Natasha: I was never hugely into metal, but then I went to a few metal gigs and the sound was like this incredible wall.
Margaux: I wish I could go to more, because I haven’t seen a metal gig in a while, but I think I would really enjoy it. It’s not the kind of music I usually listen to, but it’s like a wall of sound. I listen to very hardcore music sometimes to clear my head. I love it.
Natasha: What artists do you usually listen to?
Margaux: It depends on what I want to listen to. I usually listen to the same song forever, and sometimes it’s random, like video game music. I’m really obsessed with Zelda music themes and Star Wars. I love John Williams as well. I wouldn’t say it’s relevant to my music, but it is what I listen to, so I don’t want to lie. I listen to soundtracks, film soundtracks and video game music. I also love listening to a scene in particular. Right now I’m obsessed with Chicago – there are so many bands, like Wednesday, Squirrel Flower, Slow Pulp. I like to look at a specific city and see what’s happening there. You can hear a similar sound, even if it’s not the same music. It’s really interesting.
Natasha: What’s next? What are you working on, and what are you looking forward to?
Margaux: I’m going to write a second EP. I’m going to stay in the UK for a bit after The Great Escape to get myself into writing and meet some people, so hopefully I’ll have a second EP soon. I’m going to manifest something: I really want to write a comic book, maybe with the album. I want to do something different – an album with an illustrated book as well. It feels so logical in terms of achievements in life. That’s my goal. Let’s manifest it together and we’ll see how it goes.
Vera Daisies’ debut EP Clever Girl is out now.