'Pop should be weird': Shura channels a gentle outsider spirit on 'Nothing's Real'

Shura will open for Tegan and Sara at two shows this week in Los Angeles.

By Mikael Wood

Sept. 28, 2016 3:45 PM PT

At first, Shura figured, the spilled drink didn’t seem like cause for alarm.

“I saw a bit of residue on the keyboard, but I thought it’d be fine,” the English pop singer said of a moment not long into her show Monday night at West Hollywood’s Roxy when Prosecco came splashing down on her instrument. “Then I started playing and was like, ‘Oh, those are not the right chords.’ So I tried again — still wrong.”

Turns out the synth — crucial to a sleek, ’80s-inspired sound many have compared to early Madonna — had sustained serious damage, enough that Shura had to make use of a replacement while the other was sent out for repairs.

“But breaking things onstage at the Roxy on Sunset?” the singer said over tea the following afternoon. “I’ll claim that rock ’n’ roll moment for sure.”

From small-time tragedy to pop-star triumph — it’s a path Shura knows well.

Two years ago, this London-based artist, who recently turned 25, posted a song online called “Touch,” in which she mourns the impending death of a relationship: “There’s a love between us still / But something’s changed and I don’t know why.”

Luscious and slow-moving, the ballad swells sonically but stays life-sized in sentiment; it never shakes the feeling that the singer is divulging something deeply personal. And yet almost as soon as “Touch” hit the Internet, the song went big time, racking up millions of spins on SoundCloud and YouTube and attracting interest among gatekeepers at music festivals and major labels.

Before long, Shura signed to Interscope, which released her critically acclaimed debut album, “Nothing’s Real,” in July. Now she’s on tour as an opening act for Tegan and Sara, the popular Canadian twin-sister duo. In Los Angeles, they’ll play the Wiltern on Thursday, followed by the Orpheum on Friday.

“Pop music for introverts is an idea I wanted to explore,” Shura said as she sat curled in a chair at YouTube Space, a sprawling digital-media compound near LAX where she was due to shoot a live performance for the video site.

Dressed in the same grungy denim jacket and ski cap she’d worn onstage at the Roxy, the singer added that, as a kid, she “knew that what famous pop stars were singing about wasn’t stuff I was feeling. I couldn’t identify.”

She hits her target on “Nothing’s Real,” which sets beautifully nuanced thoughts about love and young adulthood against sparkling, neo-“Breakfast Club” arrangements full of machine beats and disco guitars.

“How can I not be everything you need?” she wonders with breathy dejection in “Kidz ’n’ Stuff,” while the buzzing title track recounts a panic attack in vivid detail: “Call up my relatives, tell them I’m done / I’m a dead girl walking / I need medicine.” Like her breakout “Touch,” the song humanizes its drama.

“Pop production can be so focused on being euphoric and larger than life that even the strongest vocalists can feel muted or one-dimensional,” said Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara in an email. “I think Shura has found a way of using her voice without losing the pain and substance behind her words.”

Perhaps that’s because she doesn’t view herself as being so far removed from her non-pop star background. Born Aleksandra Denton to a Russian mother and English father, Shura grew up along with a twin brother in Manchester, where she focused much of her attention on soccer.

Her passion for music didn’t spark until later, when she discovered acts like Nirvana that seemed to address her introverted mind-set. Tegan and Sara were an inspiration too, she said, partly because of the twin aspect and partly because “they’re openly queer, which was really important to me. I felt a connection to them.”

Shura grew up in Manchester focusing on soccer.

Shura went on to study literature at University College London (and work jobs at a chip shop and the clothing retailer AllSaints) but found herself increasingly drawn to writing songs. A manager introduced her to Joel Pott, a songwriter and producer who also plays in the British band Athlete; they bonded instantly and eventually created “Touch.”

For her album, Shura spent time in L.A. and wrote two songs with Greg Kurstin, known for his work with Adele and Katy Perry. But even those tunes, including the ultra-bubbly “What’s It Gonna Be?,” retain a gentle outsider spirit.

“Pop should be weird, and I realize as I say this that I’m not the weirdest person in the world,” Shura said with a laugh. “But if that means a girl sounding like Kylie Minogue and looking like Kurt Cobain, then so be it.”

Of course, as she continues to professionalize her operation — to find herself onstage every night before fans that expect her to give voice to what they can’t — the risk is that routine might end up dulling her edge.

Shura said she’s less worried by that prospect than by a more immediate fact of modern stardom.

“The hardest thing is having to do selfies even when you’re on your period and you’re queuing at Superdrug to get ibuprofen,” she said. “That’s when I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t feel like Shura today.’”

Twitter: @mikaelwood

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