Bronte Beat

“I think a lot of romance is bullshit!’ declares Shaefri.

This you wouldn’t have guessed from the songs on the 18-year old singer’s debut EP Venture, all of which deal with relationships of one form or another. In fact you’d be forgiven for thinking that Shaefri was something of a serious-minded romantic, rather like a modern-day Brontë.
“I appreciate romance. I can be quite cynical about it too,” she continues. “I suppose I can be serious and it comes out in my writing. It’s something I normally keep to myself. I am quite sarcastic, in a light-hearted way. I’m vulgar as well. It just comes out – I can’t help it!”
There is certainly no need to do so on HP’s account.
“I find it easy to write sad songs but it is not really a reflection of how I am. I was listening to my EP the other day and thinking, ‘God, you sound really fucking depressed. Live a little!’” she laughs. “I have a lot of songs that weren’t ready when I was recording and they are all a lot more happy and sort of cheeky.”
Cheekiness paid off during a work experience stint at Universal Music after Shaefri forced her home recordings on her boss.
“He got me a day at Metropolis in Chiswick, which is an amazing studio. I recorded two songs, just me on the piano. They asked me back six months later, me and my band, to do proper versions. It was brilliant.”
The London-based singer has Irish roots and was, she tells HP, named after the Sheeffry mountain range in Mayo.
“I’m not convinced it’s a real name!” she laughs. “I dropped my surname for the stage so it’s quite convenient.”
While the EP might be more serious than Shaefri in person, her crystal-clear voice is a delight and the lyrics more mature than those of singers twice her age. The title-track ‘Venture’ opens up with the line, ‘So young, so naïve’. Given her youth I wonder if this is how the singer imagines others see her.
“Yes! That’s the reason I wrote that line. I get a lot of people saying, ‘Oh you’re only 18!’ I find that slightly irritating. Okay, I am. It doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Her lyrics, she says, are musings regarding how she imagines other people may feel under certain circumstances.
“It’s boring and monotonous to spend a whole album going, ‘Oh, these are my feelings.’ While I think [Adele’s] 21 is a brilliant album. it’s quite self-indulgent. I find it difficult to listen to the whole way through. I might present it as if I am going through something myself. I am never that specific because like it when people are able to connect with it themselves and project their own interpretation.”
‘Self-indulgence’ notwithstanding, Adele is something of a template for Shaefri, who admires her career and her steadfast refusal to go down the semi-naked bootie-shaking route.
“There is too much attention paid to the way female singers look. It is a sad state of affairs. Adele is the exception to the rule. Rihanna is practically naked on stage. You have to decide what you will compromise on, and 99% of the time people will. I’d like to think I wouldn’t. Music is a very tough industry to crack. There is no way I’d go beyond a certain point because I think it’s pathetic. If people told me I needed to lose weight, I’d say fuck off!”

Venture is out now