Keep it Real in the Music Industry – Ruth Royall on Confidence, Community and Touring While Pregnant
I think I'd seen a post where somebody was like writing on themselves and they were writing like positive affirmations on themselves.
And I said, Oh, well, why don't we write hashtag keep it real somewhere on our body and post an unfiltered image of ourselves? we'll all do it on this day. And it trended. We had all of the drum and bass like major labels joined and posting the hashtag. We got re shared by Drum&BassArena. Loads of, the like main artists like big artists, shared it.
it was loads and loads of women, but not just women. It was men as well. but it was very led by women, which I think is a really important balance to have. Um, you know, often there'll be women in men's spaces, especially in drum and bass. And this was, there was loads of men in women's space and we were like, come on in, join the party, you know, get involved.
This is A Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher.
Hello and welcome to This Is A Voice, season nine, episode eight. The podcast where we get vocal about voice. I'm Jeremy Fisher. And I'm Dr. Gillyanne Kayes. And she's back. We've got Ruth Royall back again. Such an interesting podcast last time. Oh, hello. It's lovely to be back. So we're going to jump in with the next topic.
How important is it for the artist to have confidence in themselves? You've already mentioned this, you know, to sort of believe in themselves?
Yeah, I think it's really important. I think it is a really big part of it, to believe in yourself and trust yourself. The people that you surround yourself with is really important. if you're with people that are championing you and believe in you and support you, that makes a huge difference whether that's friends and partners and family or, the team that you're working with, I think that's important.
But At the end of the day, you've got to love what you do. You've got to believe that you're good at what you do for other people to believe it. I do think it plays a big part, a big part. and often recently I've been doing a lot more, artist mentoring alongside vocal coaching.
And actually a lot of the time, That's what we talk about. we talk about taking up space. We talk about, you know, what does that mean? What does that look like? who are you as an artist? Why should I listen to you as an artist? All these sorts of questions and actually becomes quite profound.
There's also who aren't you as an artist. And it's when you do the negative boundaries that you go, no, I'm not going to do that. And actually that makes, somehow that helps you clarify who you are and where your boundaries really are. Yeah. Finding the moment when you can say, no, that doesn't work for me.
Or that's, that's not me. Yeah, you're right. You know that song, Sorry, Sorry seems to be the hardest word? No, I think no is the hardest word. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, I'm, I'm only really just getting to that point of saying that's not what, that's not right for me. This is right for me. This is what I want to do.
And turning things down, which is terrifying as a, So a self employed, you know, artist, you always say yes and work out how to do it later, right? Yep. and I'm only just getting to that point where actually going, actually, that's, that doesn't, that doesn't work for me. That's not, that doesn't fit for how I'm seeing my own growth.
yeah, I don't think it's, the easiest thing to, just switch on and say, Oh, I'm really confident in myself now, but it is extremely important. that's really useful, I think, for other people to hear. I wonder if we should move to talk about being a female in the industry, because, for people who don't know you, Ruth, I think we should tell the listeners you are currently sitting on a pregnancy ball.
I am. And you are seven months pregnant. Um. I am indeed. And even before, you started to grow the bump, you and your partner, were talking about keeping it real and it seemed to be linked with the industry and you have your podcast called Keeping It Real. I was going to say your podcast is called Keep It Real.
So, talk to us about keeping it real because to me that seems to fit with what you've just talked about. Yeah. The whole self worth thing. Absolutely. So, I mean, Keep It Real actually happened by accident, in lockdown. As do a lot of good things. Yes, and it's one of the things that I'm the most proud of.
I love it and the community that's sprung up around it is just incredible. in lockdown, I was using my phone, all the time, scrolling my phone and just seeing, so many perfect images online. And I was using a lot of filters, in my Instagram stories and things like that.
starting to become very kind of self aware in the wrong way. you know, worrying about how I looked and really editing photos before I put them online and all this kind of thing. And I was like, this is not making me feel good. this makes me, feel like I don't look nice if I don't edit the photo.
and so I put up a story to say I'm not, I'm going to stop using filters on my, Instagram because it's not making me feel good. so there, I'm just gonna stop filtering myself. And I had, I had so many people resharing the post, being like, we're with Ruth Royall, we're gonna do the same thing, we're gonna boycott these unrealistic beauty standards that are just everywhere.
And, you know, of course, very prominent in music, because we are on camera a lot of the time, we are, visible a lot of the time, and we are judged a lot of the time. And it was amazing, like, all, I started getting loads of private messages of like This is also affecting me, and this is amazing that you're doing this and we're going to do this. And I thought, Oh my God, this is this what's happened.
what's going on? There's this whole movement starting. And so I set up a Facebook group called Keep it Real. In fact, at that point I hadn't named it. I was just starting. doing a thing. And it was, it was the Facebook group that we were like, what should we call it? And, it was keep it real was the hashtag.
And it was amazing. Every day people were sharing unfiltered images of themselves with stories, things like, I used to really not like this photo of myself, but I'm going to post it here. And, you know, this is the thing that I do feel confident in and that all the comments would be like, you're amazing.
You look amazing. Just this positive, incredible community sprung up around this Facebook page and I was like, oh my god, this is Amazing. We need to do something with this. So I suggested doing an Instagram takeover. cause I'd seen a post where somebody was like writing on themselves and they were writing positive affirmations on themselves.
And I said, Oh, well, why don't we write hashtag keep it real somewhere on our body and post an unfiltered image of ourselves? we'll all do it on this day. And it trended. We had. All of the drum and bass like major labels joined and posting the hashtag. We got re shared by Drum&BassArena Loads of, the like main artists like big artists, shared it.
it was loads and loads of women, but not just women. It was men as well. but it was very led by women, which I think is a really important balance to have. you know, often there'll be women in men's spaces, especially in drum and bass. And this was, there was loads of men in women's space and we were like, come on in, join the party, you know, get involved.
And, it was just so joyful and wonderful. This kind of just celebration of ourselves. And, from there we've done, events. So we did Women in Drum and Bass where we collaborated with Hospital Records and we had loads of workshops running on the day. and we had loads of talks, like panel talks.
and we've set up a podcast, where we discuss all things keep it real, which is very broad, you know, kind of goes from impostor syndrome to DJing as the only woman on a lineup, you know, things like that. backstage safety, things like that. we've covered all sorts of stuff and we've had some amazing guests as well.
So go and check it out if you haven't. and we now have a radio show as well on KoolFM, which is much more sort of music heavy, but we have, it's all women that come on and it's all kind of, we'll have like big snippets from the Keep It Real, podcast of interviews and things like that.
And. Yeah, it's just this really positive thing. And when we come, well, I say when we, when we and baby, when we come back off, maternity, the plan is to do more live podcasts, so live events and, where women and everybody can kind of come together and celebrate. Cause that's been the thing that I've loved is the live events that we've done to just kind of meet the community and, yeah, have that person to person interaction.
And, and also, you know, hear what. the podcast has done for a lot of these women. We did the hospital event and, um, it was really strange because you guys must find this as well. When you have something like a podcast where you're recording at home, you're behind your microphone, you're putting the thing out into the world and you're like, is anyone listening?
I think so. I don't know. And then you meet the people that listen to the thing that you create. And I had, these women coming up to me being like, I've just got into music and I had the confidence to do it from listening to your podcast. Or I did this in a studio because I'd listened to your podcast and, you know, this happened and they had all these kind of almost like monologues that they prepared to like, tell me when they met me on the day.
And they were just such incredible women, you know, and We had somebody there from Russia, like, we had people traveling over from Germany to come to the event. it was amazing, so I think that's just something that I'm the most proud of, really, and like you said, community is really important to me, so to have created this, little community around something so positive is really, really special.
And we will put all the links in the show notes for this one. And when you do the live events, let us know, we'll put that in, we'll update you on the link as well. I love this, that you're a positive activist. I have just started reading Africa Brooke's, The Third Perspective. It's a book that's newly out.
I'm not very deep into it yet, but we're really talking about this business of how we've come into a world now. We've created this world of social censorship. And self editing. What you're talking about is, you know, this culture on Instagram of looking a certain way, and particularly a culture for women in the music industry, is that there's this constant self editing, and suddenly this, public face isn't you.
Yeah. And then you have to somehow live up to that. And then there's this mismatch and you're right. It doesn't just happen with, with women. It also happens with TV personalities. And I just love that you're doing, you've done something so positive within your arena for that. And it's touching so many people.
Yeah. It's, I think it can have, quite a negative impact that, looking perfect because nobody looks perfect, you know, and it changes how you feel about yourself. When, since I've stopped using filters, I don't think about it anymore. I don't, I mean, I'm doing this podcast. I don't have any makeup on right now.
I feel completely comfortable about that. I don't think I would have done a few years ago. I think I would have felt like I had to look a certain way and maybe have the filter thing on the zoom, to make sure all of that sort of stuff. it helps you with yourself to just let go of, of those things.
And the best way to do it is just do it, I think now is the time to, move to talking about going on tour with bump. He is a very well traveled baby and he is not yet in the world. yes, we went, I was three months pregnant and we toured around, New Zealand and Australia.
He's been to the French Alps. He's been to the Netherlands, to Germany. yeah, he's a very well traveled little boy. but yeah, it was amazing. It was tough, definitely tough doing it pregnant, but I'm really glad that I had the opportunities, of course. I love playing in New Zealand and Australia.
the crowds out there are just like nothing else. although it was physically pretty gruelling, I think, I've had quite a difficult pregnancy anyway, just in terms of, I've had a lot of morning sickness and I had a lot of fatigue and then I was travelling, I was flying between different time zones,
which just really messes with you anyway. And then if you're pregnant, you know, messes with you more. But I've have friends who have been touring pregnant and they've been fine. So I think it's just, I wouldn't say let that put you off. Like it's, it's just the luck of the draw, I think. but no, it was amazing.
And, and I got very, very well looked after, by the promoters were incredible. My agent has been amazing. Just making sure that I'm comfortable and have everything I need. And, you know, especially in Australia, we were performing in 41 degrees, one of the shows was. And, yeah, which was pretty intense.
And, they, I got buggied on directly onto the stage. So I was in constant shade. They'd set up four fans. And it was this, they made sure that the decks were covered, and then I had a bucket with ice and water and a flannel in, and my partner would occasionally just like put a flannel around my neck while I was DJing to keep me, keep me cool.
So, you know, it was, I was really I'm gonna have that as my next rider. I insist on being buggied onto the stage. Yes. And then a cold towel. Actually, that would be very useful. Exactly. But Ruth, you've mentioned that some other, friends of yours in the industry have been on tour while pregnant.
I mean, how usual is it? I think it's becoming more usual. I, made the decision that I was going to be very open about it. And I think which just goes hand in hand with my Keep It Real stuff. It's, I almost can't help but do that. You know, I have to just be open with my fan base. And, We announced the pregnancy when I'd hit that 12 week mark, just before I went on tour.
and then I did a lot of updates on my socials about how I was finding it, and like practically how I was finding it, you know? So, what the flying was like pregnant, what I was needing to do more, like how fatigue was affecting everything. and I had, it was interesting actually, because I had artists who hadn't revealed that they were pregnant getting in touch with me being like, this is so interesting. Like I'm following this and I want to ask you a question about this. And you know, so, I thought that was really nice. but yeah, this year, there seems to have been a lot of women announcing pregnancies.
And, you know, I guess it's the age range as well. A lot of us are in our thirties, so it's kind of the time that feels right for us. but I think it's really nice that everyone's being more open about it and continuing to work, you know, continuing cause we've, we've put our whole lives into, into these careers.
and I've certainly noticed my team have been fantastic and, it was really, ridiculous timing because I, I was looking for management, and I'd been in loads of meetings and hadn't quite found the right fit and was going through all this thing and then I just found my current management who are fantastic and I was in, I was still in the trial period with them.
We'd just been offered this massive tour in, Australia, New Zealand. we'd actually also been offered a tour of the states, which I hadn't done yet, which would have been in October. And then I got pregnant. I was like, and my first reaction, am I allowed to swear on this podcast? Yes. Oh, yeah. My first reaction was fuck.
I just thought this is the worst timing, but I called, a good friend of mine, Eva Lazarus, who is, an incredible MC and vocalist, drum and bass, hip hop dance artist, and, I called her because she has a son, and I was like, what am I gonna do?
I was like, what, do I tell them? do I not tell them? You know, how does, you know, How should I handle this? And she was like, if they react badly to the fact that you're pregnant, they're not right for you. Yep. It's like, be honest, be, you know, this is what you want. You're really excited about having this baby.
So, yeah. Be open with your team and that will inform you of what to do next. And so I was like, okay. So I called my manager and he was fantastic, you know, and he was really excited and he was like, wow, okay. And they've just been like, okay, so this is different. let's kind of make this work.
And my, I, 'cause I have a few different people in my management that do different roles One of them has just had a baby, so she's been fantastic, and she's been really helpful, and yeah, this has just been all positive. My agent was great as well, because I've had to turn down some of the biggest shows that I've been offered of my career this year because my baby's decided to come mid festival season.
in fact, we had, we got offered with my new live project. We got offered Glastonbury at, Glade Main Stage, which is quite a big stage. I didn't tell the promoter that I was pregnant. And then he said, Oh, could you do this festival in August as well? I was like, I can't actually do August cause I'm having a baby in, in July. And he was like, hang on, Ruth, you're having a baby in July. So how pregnant will you be at Glastonbury? I was like, about eight and a half months. And he was like, Ruth, we can't, our insurance just cannot cover that. It's like, if you go into labor, we'd have to helicopter you out. And I was like, come on, it'll be fine.
And my partner was like, Ruth, no, we can't do it. We're just going to have to do it next year. But, yeah, I think that's my very unrealistic goals there. But, um, but you know, it's, it's, It's been great and I've, I've had amazing support from everybody around me, just making sure that, that I feel confident and healthy and, not making sure that I don't feel stressed as well as, as been the thing that I've picked up the most from what my management have done,
It's so good to hear. You mentioned your new project. Yes. Royall Sound. Is that, is that right? Tell us all about that. Yeah. So this is my other baby. this is, my new live dance music project. going back to the start of our conversation, when I toured with Fred V and Grafix all those years ago in 2018, I remember thinking, this is what I want to do, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be, and I really wanted to do that for myself and I basically kind of spent the past few years of building my name and building releases to have got to a point where I'm like, right, this is what I'm going to do. I have an incredible drummer, female drummer, Rhiipercussion, who performs.
I have, APH who DJs with me and she, she's also the co host of my podcast and radio show. she's amazing. And then I have a three part horn section and, my partner Sam is the trombone player. He's very fantastic. we launched it in December last year and I would have been very early on pregnant and nobody knew that I was pregnant apart from the band and my agent who was at the show and I nearly threw up halfway through one of the songs.
Brilliant. Like, oh, is she gonna, no, no, she's okay. And I came back on stage. that was an incredible show and we worked with a promoter in the Netherlands and I love doing shows in the Netherlands. we play there a lot. they really, I mean, the budget just kept getting bigger and bigger. And I kept coming back being like, Oh, we're going to do this.
And we're going to bring in this. And they were like, Oh God, okay. I'm like, we need to hire these mics now. And he's like, okay. You know, and they just said yes to everything, which was, you know, taking a punt on a, on a brand new act is quite a big thing. And We were on the bill with a load of other DJs, so we were the only live act.
this promoter really champions, he's actually, a classical player, and he merges classical and drum and bass, and that's sort of his passion. Love that. it's amazing, he manages, keeno does his own sort of like classical drum and bass events. And there's kind of like another little niche scene growing for the live drum and bass people.
But yeah, so that went amazingly well and then we went out and we did some shows in the Alps for apres ski, which was really fun. And then I decided that I wanted to do my own, show in Bristol because I don't actually play in Bristol that often. I'm often abroad. It's often the way. Yeah. So it was, I was like, I want to do this homecoming show before the baby comes, you know, just kind of really cement this or like prove the concept, I guess, of this show.
So then we can go into next year and we've got really great content and you know, we've proved that it works and we did that show and it was incredible. It was so so good and I think it was because I wanted it to look really extravagant. Like I wanted like the outfits to be really over the top and it to be, you know, real female heavy energy.
Like I get a lot of women come to my shows as well, which I really like, like a lot of young women. and we, we, we said that the, one of the things that was, we were putting diva and drum and bass and so big diva energy going on with this like real heavy, heavy dance music. and yeah, it's, it's, It's great and I honestly can't wait for next year because we're gonna take it on the road and, you know, really, really get it out there because I think it's, people who came have really enjoyed it.
Everybody who's seen the videos of it have been like, wow, you know, what is this thing? And it's just totally been my vision for a really long time. So to see it all come to fruition is really exciting.
I was just wondering, I mean, there are a couple of ways we could go.
We could have a listen to, another song. I think we should do that. and I mean, we're definitely going to have to have Ruth back. and see how things are going. Let's have a listen to, just tell us about this song, Ruth. This is your latest, is that right?
Yeah, so this is my latest solo, release called Electricity, and it's first release on my own label, which is also called Royall Sound, which is great. And it was produced by Sigma, who I'm a huge fan of and have been a fan for many, many years. So it was pretty crazy to be working with them in the studio.
It's a very euphoric song about getting lost in the lights and dancing and just having a real good time. Excellent.
Late nights when I need you,
Look inside like I'm see through,
Tell me the truth about what we do.
So high then we hit a wall, Promised you so much more, I'm losing my head again. You keep telling me to fall,
Step off the edge of the world, Yeah. But I don't trust myself to know If it's too soon to let go. If it's too soon to let go.
We were lost, but we felt so free
Lost in the lights and electricity Feeling alive with all the energy.
Is it too soon to let go? Is it too soon to let go? There's something going on underneath, and when you first sing your opening lines,
you've got something going on an octave underneath you, is, what is, what's going on there? Mm hmm. It's my voice has been dropped down an octave. I love that! That vocals really, it's quite heavily produced on a heavily processed on that which is really nice. I've kind of been learning about a lot of Vocal, processing of, different kind of vocal process, on production and, yeah, just all the different things that you can do and manipulate the voice with, it's, it's great.
But yeah, I really liked that effect you just got. We still know it's you though. Yeah. it's definitely you. I really enjoyed that actually. Listening to something the second and third time, you always get more out of it. Oh, I'm glad you like it. Well, we should probably, we should probably wrap up.
Yes. So, um, keep us posted. Obviously we'll put all of your links in the show notes. so, uh, let us know how it all goes and then come back, please. I will. Thank you very much for having me. It's been really nice to have a chat and see you guys. Yeah, it's been a pleasure and I know that our listeners are going to absolutely love this podcast.
Yeah, we'll see you soon. Okay, bye.
This is A Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher
