INTERVIEW: Mimi Webb releases new single 'Ghost of You': "I wanted to write a fun song where people can feel vulnerable with it but also have a laugh."

The UK’s Mimi Webb has been one of the biggest breakout global stars in music of the last few years. Despite only releasing music for two years, she has already racked up over 730 million global streams, scored two UK top 10 singles, made inroads into the US charts and performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and ELLEN.

Today she releases new single ‘Ghost of You’. Written by Webb with Phil Plested and produced by Stuart Price (Madonna, Kylie Minogue), the song opens with a hypnotic synth beat before Webb’s husky, emotive vocals slide in before developing into a mesmerising electro-synth-pop power chorus with delicious melodies tumbling over each other. Lyrically, the song tells of the pain after a relationship ends ‘I know you’re gone / But I’ll still hold onto the ghost of you’, she sings.

Webb has recently completed her very first tour of Australia and New Zealand and is now in the middle of her first headline tour across North America, which will hit NYC’s Bowery Ballroom on October 11, before concluding in Washington DC at Union Stage on October 13.

With her unique and powerful husky voice, and her ability to create both upbeat, carefree pop songs alongside soulful, mature ballads Webb is an artist who has everything you want and need in a pop star and with her debut album coming soon, she is only going to get bigger and better. We recently caught up with her to chat more about ‘Ghost of You’ and the phenomenal rise in her career.

Hi Mimi, so great to chat to you. How is everything going with you, especially after your first ever shows in Australia and New Zealand?
It's been amazing. Thank you so much. We had such a warm welcome. I really didn't expect it, I thought I'd turn up to five people! It's been amazing just to see those fans and see there's a fan base here and that my music’s been growing out here. Being so far away, with me living in the UK, you don't really know what's going on until you to reach these places so I'm just so happy to have come here and be able to see how it's working.

On that note of performing live, you came to prominence at the beginning of the pandemic and it must have been quite weird for you in that you had that you had music out there, but you couldn’t actually go anywhere and promote it. Now that you can, I'm curious to know what has that experience been like for you, to actually go out into the world where you've been a “pop star” for two years but with no-one having seen you before?
Yeah, it's been awesome just seeing how it grows. Coming out of this pandemic and seeing how being an artist actually works, because I didn't start off in the traditional way, it was all on social media. So to be able to really experience doing all the interviews and travelling around and going off to the different places to help your music grow, it's been amazing. You just handle it day to day, let it soak in and enjoy every step.

Has it been overwhelming in the respect? For a lot of us coming out of pandemic, it was hard enough to leave the house after two years let alone before in front of hundreds of thousands of people!
Yeah, when I did my first show it was 50 people and we did a sit down, socially distanced show and that was a nice way to get introduced to it. Straight from there I went into a 15,000 person festival in the UK so it was jump right in, very intense. But that's what my journey has been like, it's all been so fast paced. I've been so many places and it's been so quick and sometimes it's so easy to forget [what I've achieved] with everything going on. You just keep moving on to the next thing. I've been trying to soak up as much as possible but it's been just so fast paced, you just keep moving and your adrenaline kicks in.

You have a new single out today, 'Ghost of You' and it is brilliant! Can you tell me a little bit about the song and what the inspiration was behind it?
Yay, thank you so much! I wanted it to be about trying every day to get through normal life, get through work but you've always thinking about your ex 24/7. I wanted to be able to write a fun song where people can really feel vulnerable with it but also have a laugh. It's got a sassy touch to it and dance the pain away sadness.

There's a great electro-synth-pop vibe to the song, when you first started releasing music you had songs like 'Good Without, 'Reasons' and 'Dumb Love, these really powerful soulful ballads, sort of the polar opposite to 'Ghost of You' and 'House on Fire’. You do both styles so brilliantly, which is the mark of a great pop star. When you started off with music, was there a particular genre or musical route you wanted to go down?
I always wanted to be a pop artist and I'm really influenced by a lot of different genres of music. I always knew my voice had the husky tone but you never really know your sound until you do start to release music, and start to see how the releases are working. When you start to see the build of it all and the songs working, that's when you really know you've formed your own sound. It takes time and took me a while to understand how that works. To be able to find my little niche spot in that was was really cool.

Do you think the music you're making now with 'Ghost of You' and 'House On Fire' Is the style you want to continue in?
Yeah, I think a mixture, having the emotional ballads and the songs that can really connect with people. I've always wanted the goosebumps effect with my music, that's something I've always wanted as a child. I've always said to myself, 'I want my music to make people feel something’, like Adele and Amy Winehouse, Nat King Cole, all these insane artists from all different genres of music that can just really touch you, I always wanted that as well. I don't want my sounds to be one thing. I want to be able to do both.

Speaking of 'House On Fire, I love this song so much, it's a genius song. The thing I love the most is the lyrics, they're so clever and so witty about how you've plotted this whole scheme to get back at your ex without getting arrested, just so good. Where did the inspiration for this song and the lyrics come from, because it's so well done.
Thank you. Everyone, even all the writers involved, we all had so much fun with it. Everyone just knew it was gonna be one of those songs that were just going to be out there. It was so fun to write with my friends, they're so talented, and to be able to see how everyone was just going crazy about it, even though it's so out there, it felt like a risk we were willing to take.

I guess there could be some wacko conservative people out there who are saying, 'Mimi Webb is encouraging young children to set houses on fire'!
I know, yeah. It's definitely a character of myself, and just one of those songs people can scream in their cars and have fun with. It's definitely very out there, but I've made sure, even in the music video, we had a bit of a laugh.

Going back to what we were talking about in the beginning and starting your career in the middle of the pandemic. When you first started writing music, you had no other options, so you built a studio in your bedroom and recorded everything in your bedroom. Now that you're out there recording in studios and in the 'real world' has that at all changed your creative process or how you are in your creativity, because you've got so many other external influences apart from being in your bedroom at home with your family? Yeah, I feel like with everything now going on, I'm doing the travelling and the promo, things that you didn't do in the pandemic, social media TikTok now isn't the priority as such. You've got to make sure you do everything else as well and balance it all out. Trying to figure out what's more important than others, what to prioritise, what not to, and it always changes, things always flip. It's just being as flexible, really, and making sure your team are able to do that too.

Your story is very much intertwined with TikTok, where you first went viral. When you're a pop star today, there's so many things you have to do. You're not just there to sing and perform, you've also got to be a creator and create content for social media. I can imagine that can sometimes bring a lot of pressure to always be on and always creating content. How do you manage that?
It is prioritising things that you need to do now, and go 'right that can wait'. You've got so many people on your team, everyone have different opinions, but this is your career, you have to be the one that has the last say. I'm 22, I'm still growing up and into the world and trying to figure out how this whole adult life works, and you have to just learn to dig your heels in and be able to stand up for yourself and your sound, and what you've created and what your dream is. You've got to make sure that you love it all and you give your 100% to everything. Also, mentally being able to keep moving. It's so easy to get stuck on things and be like, 'Oh, my God, they want that, they want me to do that, or I should do that'. It has to be 'no, we've passed that, there's something else we need to do, we need to focus on that now'. You just have to keep moving, because as soon as you start getting cut up on things and going back and forth, that's when you waste time. It's just being able to have a plan, organisation and balancing it out so you are able to do it all but in really healthy and balanced ways.

Going back to the point you made about being only 22, and you've got to put your foot down: this is my career, I'm going do what I need to do. Have you ever been in situations where you felt that maybe your voice hasn't been heard because people look at you as 'she's just a young girl'?
I love to listen to people's advice, that's the whole point of having team isn't it? But when you've got so many different opinions, even they sometimes will have opposite opinions to each other and you sometimes have to be the middle person. Recently, because I'm so busy, I have to be able to be 'This is what I can humanly do, what am I doing, it's either left or right, which one do you want me to do?' You have to be able to do that as an artist, because once you spread yourself thin, you don't come across the way you want to come across. You start half heartedly doing things and then it starts to be like 'Oh, Mimi isn't the best, she's not giving her all' you know. I think I've always been heard but now I'm able to be more involved in what we organise, what we're doing and just making sure we're balancing everything and keep moving, get more ideas, exciting things.

You're now a role model for many young girls around the world, because a lot of young girls and boys look up to pop stars as role models. You're only new to music, but knowing what you know now, for all those people that look up to you, what kind of advice would you give if someone asked you about becoming a musician?
I would say just enjoy it, because there's some amazing times with your band, with your crew, when you're on tour on the road, you will make the best memories. And just learn. Don't be tough on yourself, you're gonna make mistakes and you're gonna learn, it's like any job you're going to keep learning more about how to make it work. And don't ever compare yourself to any other artists because everyone's story is different. Everyone's got different teams, everyone's got different ideas, you just have to go with what you believe in and you believe in yourself. That would be my biggest advice.

Finally, I'm sure you get asked this question all the time, but I'm going to ask it again, what else do you have planned for into the rest of this year and into next year?
I've got my American tour, I'm very excited that's going to be really fun. I haven't ever done my own headline tour in America so that's going to be so good. And then Christmas shows, bits and bobs there, release some new singles, keep the music flowing. Next year, hopefully get another tour in, I'd love to get around the whole world again and just exciting new drops.

'Ghost of You' is out now. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Mimi Webb you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Read more about Mimi Webb’s career in our four page feature in issue 11 of Women In Pop magazine.