A mum from Birkenhead went from being a mature student to a successful singer songwriter working with music industry heavy hitters.
Louisa Roach, 39, is known professionally as She Drew the Gun and began taking her passion for music seriously while as a mature student studying for her degree and a masters in Psychology in Liverpool.
Newly married to her long-term girlfriend, Louisa has just released her third album - recorded with with Ross Orton, known for his work with Arctic Monkeys, The Fall, The Kills and more.
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Wirral-based Louisa told the ECHO : "I was always into music, when I was a kid, I played in bands and learnt guitar at 13 but I didn't write any songs until I was in my late 20s.
"My son was a baby and I decided to do an access course and went to uni and because I was working with words and doing essays, it seeped into my music and I ended up writing a song and thought, 'oh yeah, I can do that'.
"I went to open mic nights in the city and that's kind of how it started."
It was the support and encouragement from her girlfriend Dawn, now her wife, that pushed Louisa to play open mic nights and local shows, developing She Drew The Gun in 2014. Just a year later, she'd bagged the attention and support of The Coral's James Skelly, who signed her to his label Skeleton Key.
Reflecting on her chosen moniker and career origin, mum-of-one Louisa said: " I decided to call it She Drew the Gun because I wanted to name it something and leave it open to become a band.
"I sent stuff through to BBC Introducing then Dave Monks invited me on to do a live session and then someone heard the session and passed that on to James Skelly and he liked it and got in touch and invited me round to his for a brew and I played him a few of my tunes.
"He really liked them and we played a few songs and we ended up writing a whole album together. It was since I met James, I thought, 'oh, maybe there's something here'.
"It's happened gradually and I think everything that happens that's positive, it makes me feel more certain this is the direction I want to go in."
Before her music career launched, the singer-songwriter had fallen into a series of low-paid jobs following a tumultuous period in her late teens, eventually becoming pregnant at the age of 24. The birth of her son, Cole, encouraged Louisa to re-evaluate her situation, propelling her to return to education.
Louisa describes her son, now 15, as her "biggest supporter". She said: "He loves it [her music career]. I think he just likes the fact I’ve got a blue tick [on Twitter] to be honest. He’s my biggest supporter - I think he wants to do music himself."
She also has the support of her mum, adding: "My mum is really behind it - when I first started doing stuff, I definitely needed her for the babysitting duties and it's been really important to have her support it and she’s really behind it.
"Now, she does babysitting duties for the dog."
Louisa's music has been influenced by growing up in Merseyside. B orn in Birkenhead and raised in a working class, single-parent family, Louisa and her brother would often be taken care of by their Nan while their mum was forced to work weekends and evenings to pay the bills.
It was through singing along to records with her Nan that Louisa first fell in love with music.
She said: "There’s a certain musical history in Liverpool that's seeped through. Left of field pop songs is kind of what comes out of the city, everything from The Beatles to The La's to The Coral, there's a sound. I definitely see as us being part of that lineage.
"We’ve just put out a new album and I hope people connect it - people seem to be liking it so far. It's one of those things where you've put something out into the world and you want to see how it gets on and how it does. I’m excited for people to hear it."
The album, Behave Myself, was written during lockdown, and is littered with references to cells, walls and bars - an idea of freedoms under threat that unites the entire set, not to mention listeners who are all too familiar with life in lockdown.
Louisa said: "This record is about asking ourselves, what kind of system do we want? Do we want women to be equal to men in the same system we have now? Or do we need to break this whole system and have one that works for women all over the world, one that's anti-colonial, anti-imperial and truly intersectional? So it’s a demand for freedom.
"There's this idea that we - as a society - don't see our common condition properly and we behave ourselves and try to fit into the existing system instead of rebelling or pushing back enough. But it feels like people are becoming more aware of what's going on, and we're getting the wool pulled over our eyes less. And I can already see those little shoots of dissent. So this album's there for people to grab hold of when they’re ready to explore that rebellious streak."
Behave Myself by She Drew the Gun is out now.
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