B&TF: I want to talk to you about your music a little. I saw a few videos on YouTube because I couldn’t go to UK to your gigs. I heard about your collaboration with Jill Jackson. Those who saw you on stage said that you have so much fun. Who came up with that idea?

Heather and Jill – Photo courtesy of Dawn Kilner

HP: (laughing) It was weird. We had a “Lip Service” last episode party that two girls put on in Glasgow. They’re called Great LezBritain and they do a article for AfterEllen. And they said, “Oh, come up.” And I said that it’s kind of two days out of my time and I’m really busy but if you could organize it as a gig there then I’ll come and do your party as a gig. It would worth for me coming up because it’s a flying for me, I’m from Brighton. So that’s what they did.

 

They organized the gig and they said, “Oh, by the way, we gonna get some support for you. Jill Jackson is there who’s a fantastic guitarist and a song-writer. We got on really well and jammed on stage together and it really worked for the audience. We kept in touch and then the UK tour happened and I wanted to take Jill with me not just as support but as part of my band. That’s just happened and we became really great pals.

 

B&TF: So you are one of those musicians who talks between the songs and make it entertaining or just sings?

 

HP: So far I’ve only done small-scale stuff; I’ve just done about 30 gigs around the country. Just me and the guitar and that’s it. And I started doing Q&A sessions just because I didn’t know what I was going to sing and the audience was between 50 people and a hundred and twenty so it felt very intimate. It will be a little bit less intimate on the main tour because there are 500 and 600 seats a venue so you can’t connect so much with the audience but I will have Jill Jackson and Lisa Tring on drums and the banter between the three of us is what’s gonna carry us. I think everybody’s funny. Jill is very bad-behaved and quite frankly, interjects far too much for my liking, so we’ll just see what happens (laughing). She’s really bad.

Heather Peace at L8 – ©L-Word.com

B&TF: When you write your songs where do you get your inspiration?

 

HP: Life. I wish I could say I could just write like Burt Bacharach or even someone like Gary Barlow, where you can just write songs to order but I can’t. Most of the stuff has been stuff that happened. Certainly, that’s where the inspiration comes from, isn’t it? Hopefully, I don’t just write loads of sappy love songs now because I’m in love (laughing). I did write a really miserable one, called “Better Than You” on a piano and my girlfriend was really worried, and I said, “No, it was something coming from the sub-conscious from somewhere in the past.”

B&TF: So if you start singing something like, “I’m breaking up with you” she’ll know.