Thrust into the limelight in her early 20s, Little Boots’ Victoria Hesketh’s debut album, Hands (2009) was a top 10 hit, introducing her to a raft of big name co-writers and producers to help shape her love of disco and ’80s synthpop. Later albums Nocturnes (2013) and Working Girl (2015) were similarly collaborative.
Whilst grateful for the input of others, such loss of control meant Hesketh was slowly losing confidence in her ability to write and record independently and needed to return to a more DIY approach. As the pandemic struck and isolation became the norm, it wasn’t long before Hesketh was forced to make good on her promise to take full ownership over her music.
The result is her fourth album, Tomorrow’s Yesterday. Both nostalgic and future-facing, and almost entirely written and produced by Hesketh, it’s arguably her most cohesive and consistent collection of songs to date. We also reveal the Little Boots star’s frenzied excitement at being chosen to play a key role in ABBA’s upcoming ABBA Voyage live production.
How have you found the experience of using Patreon to fund the recording of your new album Tomorrow’s Yesterday?
“I was a little sceptical at the start, but obviously when Covid hit, all of my gigs were cancelled overnight and I was wondering what on earth I was going to do. Thankfully, the realisation that musicians were going to be screwed for quite some time seemed to resonate with a lot of people. I’d done a Kickstarter the year before and people had been saying I should give Patreon a go, so I gave it a whirl and got an amazing response. Luckily, the one thing that’s kept me going through the last decade or so is that I’ve got a really loyal core fan base to support me. They basically funded the whole record, which was great because when you release music on a label there can be an ulterior motive. Patreon’s a lot more personal [than Kickstarter]. There are different levels
