From ‘The Turn’ to Making All the Decisions
As the voice of Black Box Recorder, the sardonic late-nineties trio she formed with Luke Haines and John Moore, Sarah Nixey delivered songs about child abuse, suburban ennui and the mechanics of fame with the calm of a public information film. The effect was genuinely unsettling and original. Since leaving that group, Nixey has steadily built a solo catalogue known for poised, literate pop: detached vocal elegance on the surface, something more politicised and empathetic underneath. Her latest solo album, Sea Fever, is her most geographically rooted record yet: a coastal album made after she left London and returned to her native Dorset.
A Black Box Recorder reunion at the London Palladium is also imminent, partly driven by a new wave of listeners who discovered the band through Billie Eilish’s advocacy. Nixey arrives at this moment in an unusual position: back in demand for old work she has spent years not listening to, while releasing what may be her most fully realised solo statement. In this interview, Nixey speaks to Jason Barnard with characteristic frankness about the arc from naïve singer to self-sufficient artist, and the difference between performing someone else’s songs and trusting your own.
You’ve been making music for nearly three decades now, from the late nineties with Black Box Recorder through to Sea Fever. What do you understand now about making records that you were completely oblivious to back then?
In the late nineties, when I was 22 and had moved from theatre to the music scene, I had a certain mindset regarding creativity and musicianship. I was naïve about what it meant to be in a band, who could write the songs, and where I was positioned in it all. I understand now that it’s possible to evolve as an artist, writer, singer, and musician. As the years have gone by and I’ve quietly pursued my artistry, I’ve learnt that anyone can follow a creative path in music. Sometimes, what you need is just one person to encourage you to let your mind wander and to find a way to express yourself. I had a good friend from my university days who did just that.
What keeps pulling you back to songwriting when you could so easily walk away?
Songwriting is part of my life. I daydream and write songs. When I read or hear about an exceptional person or story, I often feel inspired to compose a new song. I don’t think I could stop songwriting now without missing the thrill and fulfilment it brings. I enjoy other creative pursuits, like working with textiles and planting flowerbeds, as well as other simple pleasures. Working on an album, immersing myself in the recording and production process, and sharing it with others feels rewarding. As long as there are listeners, I will continue to write songs.
The new album explores what you call “the bittersweet beauty of human life amid a volatile world.” That phrase could have described your work with Black Box Recorder. What are the parallels and differences between the group and your solo material?
My solo material is a sidestep from Black Box Recorder, rather than an abandonment of it. I explore private worlds that feel like dreams, whereas perhaps Black Box Recorder songs feel more like social case studies. I think Black Box Recorder songs can be more observational, focusing on situations that happen to people. My solo material often provides an escape. A few years ago, I chatted with someone after a gig in Barcelona, and they suggested that my songs are gothic-romantic compared to Black Box Recorder’s sometimes bleak outlook. Perhaps that’s a key difference. Parallels include the vocal being central to the sonic landscape and evocative storytelling.
You’ve described returning to the Dorset coast after years in London. How did leaving the city change what you wanted to say in your songs? There’s something quite brave about writing a love song to a neglected seaside town.
I was born in Bournemouth and grew up in the Dorset countryside. I left my family home at 18 to study at university, set up a life for myself in London, and ended up staying there for over 30 years. About six years ago, I wanted something different from my life: to look out at the open sea every day and to have space all around me. Thankfully, my husband felt the same, and when we told the children, they loved the idea. While my other albums have a city feel, Sea Fever is my coastal record, and that is a direct result of our move. The first side is almost a longing for something else; change is on its way. Side B starts with the impetus, the fleeing, and then the arrival, followed by the reality of the situation. ‘Pleasure Bay’, my love song to Bournemouth, came to me when I started going into the town centre regularly again, which I hadn’t done since my teenage years. My son had his bike stolen, and then the replacement was taken too. I witnessed many instances of blatant shoplifting over a short period. Still, there is something about the town that I love; a faded glory, astounding architecture and a longing for something brilliant to happen, with many keen local people who want to see changes made.
Luke Haines once said you had veto power over Black Box Recorder songs, but you’ve said you never really saw yourself as a songwriter back then. When did that shift happen, and what finally made you trust your own voice as a writer rather than just an interpreter?
I’ve developed as a musician and artist since 1997, and it’s happened quite naturally as I enjoy writing songs for myself. I was young and relatively inexperienced in the music scene when I first met Luke and John. They were older, practically veterans of the music scene, at least they felt that old, anyway. They had a name and an idea for the band and approached me about singing a song they had written. The roles were already set by them from the start: they would be the songwriters, and I would be the singer or ‘The Turn’ as I was affectionately referred to. After the first album, my role changed slightly to that of muse, as they knew me better by then, and wanted to keep my interest. They would take stories I’d told them and snippets of our conversations and embed them into songs. Before Passionoia was released, I started thinking about moving on from Black Box Recorder into a setting where I could make a more significant creative contribution. I began speaking with other people about cowriting and recording a solo album. My songwriting has changed and developed significantly since then, and I continue to learn and evolve as a musician. It wasn’t easy at first moving from Black Box Recorder to going solo, but thankfully, some of the Black Box Recorder audience came with me, and I’ve gained a whole new listenership, too.
Being an interpreter of songs can, in some ways, be easier than singing your own songs if you need to put some distance between yourself and the character in the song. However, when you record another band member’s song, they often want a say in how you sing it, and it can be a balancing act between how you want to interpret it and acknowledging the songwriter’s directions. With my solo work, I record and write my own vocals and lyrics, which makes it harder to be objective, but I get to make all the decisions, which is so much more empowering. Now I’m preparing for some gigs with Black Box Recorder again, and revisiting the songs was initially challenging. I had to find my way back into them, to fall in love with them again, but I’m enjoying the process and looking forward to playing live.
With ‘England’s On Fire’, are you trying to untangle patriotism from nationalism, or showing how impossible it is to separate them once the fire starts?
I’m exploring the concepts, particularly English patriotism, which is often regarded with suspicion, compared with Scottish patriotism, for example. Patriotism expressed at sporting events can be a unifying force, as we saw at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. People wave flags joyously and proudly, with affection and devotion to their country. While some may squirm at the idea, I don’t mind a bit of patriotism when it comes to sport or large-scale national events. By contrast, nationalism centres on supremacy and can be polarising, increasing division and xenophobia. This escalates when governments and the media stoke the fire. We’ve seen a rise in nationalism across the UK over the last fifteen years, particularly since Brexit. Family finances are being squeezed, people are losing their jobs, and blame is being assigned to the wrong people. A smallish portion of British society raises its voice every so often and feels empowered by certain political movements and media owners to whip up hatred. This has led to aggressive, territorial behaviour. England’s On Fire combines both ideas and the enduring blaze of the fire.
‘Witness Tree’ uses the folk tradition of leaving tokens and photographs at sacred trees. “Bearing the secrets / Of these poison charms.” What drew you to that image of human hope as something both precious and potentially toxic?
Witness Tree has another meaning, too. In America, there are ancient trees that serve as living monuments, having survived significant historical events, and it’s the combination of these two ideas that resulted in my song. I love old folk traditions, and I find these gestures of leaving tokens on trees, usually a silver coin or photograph, intriguing, along with the idea that these huge trees hold a connection to the past, therefore bearing secrets in both ways. By leaving these tokens, we can cause something catastrophic, such as poisoning the tree itself. So, as human beings, we often can’t see past our own needs and desires and sometimes, invariably, destroy what we seek to preserve. The witness tree signifies hope as it stands tall and continues to grow and change, despite what happens all around it.
The album moves between intensely personal events like your grandmother’s death and your grandchild’s birth, and then these sweeping political songs about Brexit and nationalism. Is the natural world, the tides and seasons and rivers, what holds those two scales together, or are you saying they’re actually part of the same story?
It’s all part of the same story. The political landscape shifts as the seasons move from autumn to a long winter to spring, as water transforms from snow to ice, and flows from river to sea. Amid all this change, a grandmother dies, and a grandchild is born. I positioned myself at the centre of it all, in the same place as the listener, witnessing and experiencing the transitions amid the treacherous elements and hopeful glimpses. I wanted the words and the music to capture this experience viscerally and evocatively. I hope I’ve managed to achieve that.
Night Walks came out of insomnia and illness, recorded at two in the morning when no one needed you. Brave Tin Soldiers you described as a fighting record, all the characters battling demons. Does Sea Fever feel like the completion of something those albums started, or is each one just responding to whatever situation you were living through at the time?
Sea Fever is a precarious journey with no end in sight yet. While I’m sure I was responding to whatever I was living through or witnessing at the time I wrote each album, they all reflect the turbulence of human life. Many artists write about difficult times, and many listeners want to enjoy the catharsis these songs can offer. I write songs I want to sing; it’s as simple as that, and that includes elements from my life and others, as well as social events. I like embellishing stories and painting images with my voice. I want people to lose themselves in the songs and see the world a bit differently than before. It’s quite a big ask, but I think it’s worth pursuing.
You’ve said you hardly ever listen to your own work, but you can sit through England Made Me all the way through. What is it about that particular record that overrides your own critical voice?
I was young when we recorded England Made Me. I look back at the younger version of myself with fondness and intrigue. I was brave and determined, and willing to take a chance on something quite different musically from anything else going on. Over the years, I developed an inability to listen to anything I’d recorded after that period. I didn’t watch any old footage or read anything written about me. I suppose I developed a self-critical voice at some point as we became more successful. I’m now having to listen back to all the old songs to check my vocals for the Black Box Recorder gigs. I’ve also watched some of the footage we’ve recently had digitised, and it’s been interesting to see how my voice and performances have changed over the years.
Black Box Recorder wrote about child abuse, fame, suburban darkness, all delivered in your pristine voice over lush arrangements. Looking back now, do you think the band was ahead of its time, or does that detached approach to dark subjects feel like it belongs specifically to that period?
Both. In the late nineties, there was a climate for detached commentary on life in England. Pulp, Suede, and Saint Etienne are bands along similar lines to Black Box Recorder in that respect. What was different about us was our calm, composed delivery. We’ve seen it before during the post-punk era, when bands treated dark subjects with a cool detachment. I sang the songs in a very English institutional way, like a public information film containing grave news. I think this style comes in cycles, and a few other singers in recent years have explored this detached approach, probably due to fatigue with sentimentality. This is in stark contrast to the confessional pop, the visible vulnerability we see and hear everywhere.
You’ve previously said you loved being on stage with Luke and John, but that playing gigs with them wasn’t the right thing to do. Now there’s a Palladium reunion happening. What changed, or were you always going to end up back there eventually?
It didn’t feel right a few years ago, as I wasn’t interested in performing Black Box Recorder songs. Now I am, and I think that’s largely because there is an appetite for the songs, plus we wanted to take ownership of them again after a few songs went viral. It may not last long, so come and see us when you can. I would like to perform more of my solo material in the future.
With Billie Eilish championing the group, what do you make of younger artists discovering that work now? Does it change how you hear those songs?
I’m truly amazed that they discovered Black Box Recorder among all the music out there. Yes, it has transformed my perspective on those songs, reigniting my interest in them. I seldom revisit my previous work, as I’m more focused on what’s ahead next week or next year. Now, I see the songs differently, from a more reflective viewpoint, which I think will add more depth to our performance later this year.
Further information
Sarah Nixey – Sea Fever – Bandcamp
Black Box Recorder: London Palladium, London. Friday 22 May 2026
