Singer-Songwriter Twinnie Talks Mental Health Advocacy on New EP, ‘First Job’ Working With Queen (Exclusive)

Rising singer-songwriter Twinnie just dropped her new EP Welcome to the Club, a project that finds the English singer exploring the importance of mental health advocacy through country-inspired pop music. PopCulture.com had a chance to chat with Twinnie about the project, as well as her musical influences and her “first job” working with rock icons, Queen. Offering some background on the origins of Welcome to the Club, Twinnie shared, “Well, I feel like as a writer and just an artist in general, I’m very big on concepts and I love that for the listener.”

She continued, “I wrote ‘Welcome to the Club’ and this body of work in lockdown, and I saw a lot of division and a lot of sad, angry people. And it became quite clear to me that we are way more similar than we are different. And I just wanted to put something out in the world that had that kind of message, but really could make people dance, could make people cry. And I think Welcome to the Club…just highlights the human experience and all these feelings that we have. So yeah, it’s like a metaphor for the world, like welcome to the world.”

The result of Twinnie’s hard work, Welcome to the Club, is a four-track offering of soul-bearing songs, with the songwriter pouring her heart out and showing the world her vulnerability through acoustic guitar-driven pop tunes. Some of the songs, such as the title track, are big and catchy, encouraging the listener that “we’re all human, just doing what we’re doing.” Others, like “Dying Inside,” are candid expressions that sometimes it’s easier to “pretend I’m alright.” The notion these songs explore, learning that none of us is ever as alone as we think we are, is the foundation of Welcome to the Club, Twinnie explains.

“I am such an advocate for mental health and therapy, and I really wanted to highlight that as well,” she told us. “And especially in the pandemic, I wrote ‘Dying Inside’ on the 23rd of December, 2020. And it just has this feel to it that it’s got the weight of the world on my shoulders. I feel like the time that I wrote it as well, Christmas, you really do reflect on your life, what’s been going on that past year. And then we end with ‘Welcome to the Club.’ So it takes you through this whole journey of all these feelings.

She added, “And at the end, obviously, ‘Welcome to the Club’ is this celebration and call to action for everyone to be authentically themselves. And I fully believe that just in life generally, and being an artist… My label, I think, really celebrate the people that they’ve got on their roster of their individuality. And they just let me run with it. And yeah, I’ve let people into this world. Welcome to the Club, essentially, I wanted to create a place where everyone didn’t need an invitation. They could be who they wanted to be and feel loved for exactly who they are. And yeah, that was the message. So hopefully I’ve done that.”

Twinnie’s journey to Welcome to the Club started years ago when she was just child doing musical theater, an early career that found her directly working with members of Queen. “So I’ve been on stage since I’ve been four years old and was very much a singing, dancing, acting kind of a stage school kid,” she said. “And my journey into music was not straightforward actually. I started out in the musical theater, so your equivalent to Broadway.” Twinnie then quipped, “My first job was with Brian May and Roger Taylor from Queen, just that small band.”

Twinnie then went on to share some of her biggest influences, saying, “My heroes were Queen and Billy Joel and Gilbert or Sullivan, Tupac, all these amazing songwriters, just brilliant. So that was like a dream come true. And I did a few musicals like that and I found my first music manager. And in between, I was always playing gigs trying to figure out the music industry, which I’m still trying to do. And yeah, I’m an actress as well. So I was doing a lot of things to support my music career.”

She continued, “Always been a massive fan of songwriters, amazing lyrics. That’s really what got me into music. So my grandma and grandad were listening to the Rat Pack and my dad was listening to Queen and Billy Joel, and my mom was listening to Gilbert or Sullivan. I grew up with Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, The Spice Girls and very female empowered. Everything that was dancing… I was that kid at school that was bossing all the school children around like, ‘Five, six, seven, eight.’”

After years of working with big artists like Robin Thicke, Pharrel, and Michael Buble, Twinnie discovered the Nashville, Tennessee music scene, and says that, after some brief hesitancy, she felt like it was the perfect fit for her. “I got my first manager and he was like, ‘You’ve got this twang to your voice. And I think you would really love Nashville.’ And I’d heard about Nashville, but it wasn’t really in my mindset,” she shared. “So I went over and I was really lucky that I met Lucie Silvas, who’s one of my best friends. She was on my first trip and a guy called John Green…all these amazing songwriters, producers, artists. And they really took me in. They were so brilliant at not making me feel like the outsider.”

Finally, reflecting on how her new EP encompasses where she’s come from and where she is now, Twinnie said that “Welcome to the Club” perfectly “captures everything that I like and what I’m about.” She added, “But also I feel as a songwriter, I try and write from personal experience, but say it in a way that nobody’s ever heard before. And yeah, that is my favorite part of being an artist, actually, the songwriting and then being on stage. All the rest of it in between I can do without, but those two bits the beginning and seeing it connect with the audience, I just, yeah, that’s what I live for basically.”

Fans can click here for links to stream “Welcome to the Club” right now. Additionally, Nashville fans will have multiple options to catch Twinnie live, as she’ll be performing at CMA Fest 2022 on June 11, Nashville Pride on June 25, and in the May We All country musical at TPAC on June 28th. Tickets to the aforementioned events can also be found at the above link.