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| Lauren Laverne: ‘More charisma than any woman presenter of her generation’ | Lauren Laverne: ‘More charisma than any woman presenter of her generation’ |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Lauren Laverne’s big break came when Bob Stanley stumbled across her band Kenickie’s single in a record shop, loved what he heard, and called the number on the sleeve. Laverne was the band’s lead singer and, this being the mid-1990s, it was her home phone number. “She was very cool about it and not acting shocked when I rang,” says Stanley, a journalist and musician with the band Saint Etienne, who at the time was running a small imprint of the record label EMI. “But I think they were quite excited about EMI calling up. Obviously she lived with her parents at the time – they were only 16 then.” | |
| Two decades later, Laverne is a wife and mother, an enthusiastic user of social media, the author of a novel for young adults, a newspaper columnist and a multi-talented TV presenter who can turn her hand, seemingly effortlessly, to everything from pop music to high culture to comedy and current affairs. | Two decades later, Laverne is a wife and mother, an enthusiastic user of social media, the author of a novel for young adults, a newspaper columnist and a multi-talented TV presenter who can turn her hand, seemingly effortlessly, to everything from pop music to high culture to comedy and current affairs. |
| She is also, of course, one of the most popular and respected radio DJs in the country, and when it was announced this week that the BBC station 6 Music, on which the Sunderland native hosts a daily show, had reached its biggest ever audience of nearly 2 million listeners, much of the station’s success was credited to Laverne and to the same mix of likeable enthusiasm and easy cool that she has not lost since her days as a teenage pop star. | She is also, of course, one of the most popular and respected radio DJs in the country, and when it was announced this week that the BBC station 6 Music, on which the Sunderland native hosts a daily show, had reached its biggest ever audience of nearly 2 million listeners, much of the station’s success was credited to Laverne and to the same mix of likeable enthusiasm and easy cool that she has not lost since her days as a teenage pop star. |
| The success of 6 Music is all the more striking given that it is only four years since the BBC revealed it was planning to close the network, saying it delivered “relatively few unique listeners to BBC radio”. A month after that announcement, the station was nominated for an unprecedented seven Sony awards – two of them for Laverne. | The success of 6 Music is all the more striking given that it is only four years since the BBC revealed it was planning to close the network, saying it delivered “relatively few unique listeners to BBC radio”. A month after that announcement, the station was nominated for an unprecedented seven Sony awards – two of them for Laverne. |
| Today the digital-only station claims an average of 1.99 million weekly listeners – more than three times its audience before the threat of closure and, notably, more than Radio 3, which this month led to calls for 6 Music to be given the classical station’s coveted FM frequency. | |
| The station has an impressive roster of DJs, a number of whom, including Shaun Keaveny, Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie, and Mary Anne Hobbs, all recorded record audiences in the last quarter. But its most popular show, broadcast each weekday morning from 10am, is Laverne’s, attracting 868,000 listeners, and if there is such a thing as a face of Britain’s most vibrant radio station, it is hers. | The station has an impressive roster of DJs, a number of whom, including Shaun Keaveny, Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie, and Mary Anne Hobbs, all recorded record audiences in the last quarter. But its most popular show, broadcast each weekday morning from 10am, is Laverne’s, attracting 868,000 listeners, and if there is such a thing as a face of Britain’s most vibrant radio station, it is hers. |
| To Stanley – who used to receive lengthy letters from Laverne that she had written during lessons, detailing plans for artwork for forthcoming singles – his old friend and former protege’s success comes as no surprise. | To Stanley – who used to receive lengthy letters from Laverne that she had written during lessons, detailing plans for artwork for forthcoming singles – his old friend and former protege’s success comes as no surprise. |
| “I had always assumed Lauren was going to be on TV or have a chatshow or something. She is just so charismatic. I remember when I was a journalist interviewing Richey [Edwards] from the Manic Street Preachers very early on and thinking, you are going to be very famous – and it was the same with Lauren. With some people it’s just really obvious.” | “I had always assumed Lauren was going to be on TV or have a chatshow or something. She is just so charismatic. I remember when I was a journalist interviewing Richey [Edwards] from the Manic Street Preachers very early on and thinking, you are going to be very famous – and it was the same with Lauren. With some people it’s just really obvious.” |
| Thirty-six-year-old Laverne was born Lauren Cecilia Gofton in Sunderland, the daughter of an atheist academic father and a Catholic teacher mother who is now a Labour councillor in Sunderland. While bookish and politically committed, the family was more bohemian than it might sound: her father had played guitar in the band that went on to become Roxy Music, while her mother had been involved in the Greenham Common protests and ran the only reggae club in the north-east. | Thirty-six-year-old Laverne was born Lauren Cecilia Gofton in Sunderland, the daughter of an atheist academic father and a Catholic teacher mother who is now a Labour councillor in Sunderland. While bookish and politically committed, the family was more bohemian than it might sound: her father had played guitar in the band that went on to become Roxy Music, while her mother had been involved in the Greenham Common protests and ran the only reggae club in the north-east. |
| One grandfather, Laverne frequently reminds interviewers with fierce pride, was a miner, the other a shipbuilder, and if her BBC role precludes her from being too outspoken about her politics, she has said “people can draw their own conclusions” from that. (It’s not too difficult a task, in truth – she once called the Spice Girls “Tory scum”.) | One grandfather, Laverne frequently reminds interviewers with fierce pride, was a miner, the other a shipbuilder, and if her BBC role precludes her from being too outspoken about her politics, she has said “people can draw their own conclusions” from that. (It’s not too difficult a task, in truth – she once called the Spice Girls “Tory scum”.) |
| By her own admission, the young Lauren Gofton was always the coolest girl in the class – “I had plenty of friends and I would never have been bullied because I was quicker than everybody else” – and with two classmates, Emma Jackson and Anne Marie Nixon, and her brother Pete, she started a band. They named it after their favourite character in the film Grease, and each took on cartoonish stage names, which has served for Lauren Laverne’s professional career ever since. | By her own admission, the young Lauren Gofton was always the coolest girl in the class – “I had plenty of friends and I would never have been bullied because I was quicker than everybody else” – and with two classmates, Emma Jackson and Anne Marie Nixon, and her brother Pete, she started a band. They named it after their favourite character in the film Grease, and each took on cartoonish stage names, which has served for Lauren Laverne’s professional career ever since. |
| Compared with some of their peers, Kenickie were not an enormous Britpop success, scoring only four top-40 singles, but their young, street-smart members, the frontwoman in particular, gave them a profile beyond their chart success. | Compared with some of their peers, Kenickie were not an enormous Britpop success, scoring only four top-40 singles, but their young, street-smart members, the frontwoman in particular, gave them a profile beyond their chart success. |
| “Once we signed them, EMI gave them a fairly big advance and paid for them to have a flat in London and a cab account and everything, which kind of was the downfall of the band, really,” says Stanley, “because clearly they weren’t going to sit around writing songs, they were going to go to parties like teenagers in London with their own flat and a cab account.” | “Once we signed them, EMI gave them a fairly big advance and paid for them to have a flat in London and a cab account and everything, which kind of was the downfall of the band, really,” says Stanley, “because clearly they weren’t going to sit around writing songs, they were going to go to parties like teenagers in London with their own flat and a cab account.” |
| Laverne was presenting assorted music TV programmes before Kenickie disbanded in 1998; by 2002 she had joined the London indie station XFM, and moved to its flagship breakfast show three years later. | Laverne was presenting assorted music TV programmes before Kenickie disbanded in 1998; by 2002 she had joined the London indie station XFM, and moved to its flagship breakfast show three years later. |
| Despite her expanding TV and radio CV, there were still some raised eyebrows when the former singer, still forced to shake off attempts to cast her as a stereotypical ladette, was appointed as the main presenter of BBC2’s flagship arts programme The Culture Show in 2005. | |
| “I just thought, ‘Fuck it,’” says Edward Morgan, the programme’s then editor, who appointed her. “Why can’t a woman who happens to have an accent but who is unstuffy and witty and knowledgeable and smart – why can’t someone like this hold together an arts programme?” | |
| The show tried to ignore narrow definitions of high and low culture, he says. “And I always thought Lauren had the eclectic curiosity to embody that.” | The show tried to ignore narrow definitions of high and low culture, he says. “And I always thought Lauren had the eclectic curiosity to embody that.” |
| He is, needless to say, a “huge fan”, and chooses the same word as Stanley to account for her appeal. | He is, needless to say, a “huge fan”, and chooses the same word as Stanley to account for her appeal. |
| “It sounds really naff, but Lauren just has charisma. Maybe more charisma than any woman presenter of her generation.” | “It sounds really naff, but Lauren just has charisma. Maybe more charisma than any woman presenter of her generation.” |
| She joined 6 Music as a regular presenter in 2008, moving from a weekend show to inherit the departing George Lamb’s daytime slot. Laverne’s appointment, according to Tom Pakinkis, deputy editor of Music Week, contributed to “a lineup that boasts some real expertise”, which he sees as the root of its current success. “Laverne, along with the likes of Steve Lamacq, Shaun Keaveny and Gilles Peterson, has really helped establish a team of heavyweight music minds and personalities.” | She joined 6 Music as a regular presenter in 2008, moving from a weekend show to inherit the departing George Lamb’s daytime slot. Laverne’s appointment, according to Tom Pakinkis, deputy editor of Music Week, contributed to “a lineup that boasts some real expertise”, which he sees as the root of its current success. “Laverne, along with the likes of Steve Lamacq, Shaun Keaveny and Gilles Peterson, has really helped establish a team of heavyweight music minds and personalities.” |
| Such is Laverne’s stature that she was invited to guest-edit Radio 4’s Women’s Hour earlier this year, part of a select group of women that has included JK Rowling, Kelly Holmes and Doreen Lawrence. | Such is Laverne’s stature that she was invited to guest-edit Radio 4’s Women’s Hour earlier this year, part of a select group of women that has included JK Rowling, Kelly Holmes and Doreen Lawrence. |
| Her career has not been entirely without bumps, all the same. Channel 4’s attempt at a late-night current affairs comedy show, 10 o’Clock Live, which Laverne hosted for three seasons alongside Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell and Jimmy Carr, struggled to find its voice and achieved only patchy ratings and mixed reviews. | Her career has not been entirely without bumps, all the same. Channel 4’s attempt at a late-night current affairs comedy show, 10 o’Clock Live, which Laverne hosted for three seasons alongside Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell and Jimmy Carr, struggled to find its voice and achieved only patchy ratings and mixed reviews. |
| And whether because of her gender or the way she looks, Laverne still occasionally finds herself forced to defend herself from accusations of triviality, notably when her 6 Music stablemate Huey Morgan described her presenting style as to “just show up and play on Twitter” after she beat him at a radio awards ceremony. | And whether because of her gender or the way she looks, Laverne still occasionally finds herself forced to defend herself from accusations of triviality, notably when her 6 Music stablemate Huey Morgan described her presenting style as to “just show up and play on Twitter” after she beat him at a radio awards ceremony. |
| Comments she made in 2011 about having had her children relatively young – Laverne has two sons, aged seven and four, with her husband, Graeme Fisher – were interpreted as a criticism of women who wait to start a family, something that Laverne vehemently denied was her intent. | Comments she made in 2011 about having had her children relatively young – Laverne has two sons, aged seven and four, with her husband, Graeme Fisher – were interpreted as a criticism of women who wait to start a family, something that Laverne vehemently denied was her intent. |
| Fisher, a DJ and TV producer, is the main carer for the boys and does most of the cooking at their north London home, while Laverne describes herself as the breadwinner. | Fisher, a DJ and TV producer, is the main carer for the boys and does most of the cooking at their north London home, while Laverne describes herself as the breadwinner. |
| Though she is careful to protect her family’s privacy, the DJ’s chatty, intimate manner on Twitter and Instagram, sharing snaps of her weekend runs or her children’s artworks, has won her a large following, which to some observers only increases Laverne’s appeal to her audience. | Though she is careful to protect her family’s privacy, the DJ’s chatty, intimate manner on Twitter and Instagram, sharing snaps of her weekend runs or her children’s artworks, has won her a large following, which to some observers only increases Laverne’s appeal to her audience. |
| “I think she has just got better and better with experience,” says Paul Scaife, publisher of the music industry website Recordoftheday.com. “She’s got more comfortable in her presenting role, she’s great on social media, she’s a genuine music person, and yet is a very accessible personality.” | “I think she has just got better and better with experience,” says Paul Scaife, publisher of the music industry website Recordoftheday.com. “She’s got more comfortable in her presenting role, she’s great on social media, she’s a genuine music person, and yet is a very accessible personality.” |
| For the DJ herself, accounting for her growing success on the station is simple: “With 6 Music, I feel like me and the listeners really get each other. It’s like all the kids who were picked last for games, who wore weird clothes: we’re now grown-ups and have congregated together.” | For the DJ herself, accounting for her growing success on the station is simple: “With 6 Music, I feel like me and the listeners really get each other. It’s like all the kids who were picked last for games, who wore weird clothes: we’re now grown-ups and have congregated together.” |
| Curriculum vitae | Curriculum vitae |
| Born 28 April 1978 | Born 28 April 1978 |
| Age 36 | Age 36 |
| Career Achieved minor Britpop celebrity as lead singer with Kenickie while still at school, moving into TV music presenting and later radio on XFM. Joined 6 Music in 2008. | Career Achieved minor Britpop celebrity as lead singer with Kenickie while still at school, moving into TV music presenting and later radio on XFM. Joined 6 Music in 2008. |
| High point Currently presents the most popular show on 6 Music, attracting almost half of its 2 million listeners. | High point Currently presents the most popular show on 6 Music, attracting almost half of its 2 million listeners. |
| Low point The critics didn’t love Channel 4’s late-night current affairs comedy 10 O’Clock Live, which she co-presented for three series. | |
| What she says “I just can’t be arsed any more to prove that I’ve got a brain and Miu Miu high heels on.” | What she says “I just can’t be arsed any more to prove that I’ve got a brain and Miu Miu high heels on.” |
| What they say “Crikey, the BBC are lucky to have Laverne. Immensely experienced in both radio and TV presenting, she wears her vast pop knowledge as lightly as she wears her lovely clothes.” – Miranda Sawyer | What they say “Crikey, the BBC are lucky to have Laverne. Immensely experienced in both radio and TV presenting, she wears her vast pop knowledge as lightly as she wears her lovely clothes.” – Miranda Sawyer |