Green Man Interview: Neve Cariad talks about being vulnerable on stage and her rainy festival performance

Amelia Jones

Growing up amid the historic churches, castles, and graveyards of Welshpool, Neve Cariad creates captivating songs haunted by ancient folk voices. Now based in Leeds, the musician and painter draws on a rich lineage of storytellers, blending the timeless folk craft of Joni Mitchell, Sandy Denny, and Loudon Wainwright III with the candid, modern indie sensibilities of Courtney Barnett and Julia Jacklin.

Through rich lyricism, emotive vocals, and a unique cross-genre palette, Cariad bridges historic landscapes with contemporary emotion. Her introspective songwriting and vivid soundscapes make her a compelling and original voice in the UK music scene.

Speaking with Nation.Cymru at Green Man, Cariad reflected on how her Welsh roots continue to inform her art. Her distinct musical world colors old-school Americana and 1960s folk with expressive art rock and vibrant indie pop, mirroring the visual and storytelling depth she brings to her painting.

For someone who wanders into your show and hears your music for the first time, how would you describe the world they are walking into?

I would say genre-wise, it’s quite indie folk. There’s country influences, there’s some more recently, some rock influences. I think someone said that I sound quite art-rock.

It’s quite emotional. I’m trying to work out other ways to describe it. A lot of the older songs started out talking about grief and heartbreak and just the general stuff that I was going through. And then I think as my songwriting has evolved, I’m able to then notice more patterns in the themes and style and stuff.

I’ve noticed that a big thing in my writing is a sense of place, specifically how growing up in Welshpool in Wales, my hometown, how that’s moulded the way I see the world or the way I talk about family or place. I’ve not really noticed that come through until now, now that there’s more songs to fill the pattern.

You grew up in mid Wales and then moved to Leeds. Do you think that has changed your sound at all?

I moved to Leeds six years ago, which is crazy. I’ve been there that long. I came for uni and then graduated in 2023.

Since then, I’ve just been working and doing music and art there.

Wales has definitely influenced my sound.  When I was growing up in Welshpool, I’d say it was mainly carved by what my parents listened to, very folk heavy.

I think since moving to Leeds, there’s such a great music scene there and everyone’s really supportive of each other and we’re all friends with each other.

I think definitely hearing more live music since I’ve lived there has really carved my sound. Maybe that’s partly where a lot of the rock influence has come from, seeing people have a great time creating sounds that are a bit more gritty.

Do you have a favourite track to play live?

Yeah, our set closer that we always play, which isn’t out yet, called Jigsaw. That’s the one where we really give it our all and it’s a lot heavier and a lot rockier and that’s really fun.

It gets quite fast at the end and it’s very loud which is quite different to a lot of the quieter songs that we play. So that’s really fun.

Playing Green Man means bringing your songs home. Does that change the energy and how those lyrics land for you?

I definitely felt that yesterday and as soon as we started playing it started raining and I realised that there’s three songs that mention the rain.

Then someone made a comment about it and I think that’s really nice because it’s me realising maybe growing up in Wales being in a lot of rain a lot of the time and also now that I live in Leeds it rains a lot there as well.

As a painter and a songwriter has your songwriting ever been inspired by a painting?

I wouldn’t say it’s as directly as that. I definitely think that certain themes in my life or certain experiences then manifest through the painting or through the music but I’m never really sure which. I’ve not really noticed a lot of threads yet in my music and my art.

My art looks a lot more at memory and I suppose it is very similar in that it’s all based around memory and nostalgia so a lot of my songwriting is me reflecting on the past, but I see them in different ways.

I think with painting, I look at imagery of pop culture and objects that you think of from your childhood and it feels like a different style.

Which song in your set was the hardest to finish writing?

I wouldn’t say any of them were difficult. I think usually with songwriting there is an element of ease with it because it doesn’t often feel like an effort when it comes. It can be an effort to start a song if you’re wanting to write but I think usually if the stuff is there it will come out.

I would say one of our songs, The Walls, which is also not out yet I kind of wrote it in chunks so I wrote the first verse as like a short poem back when I was at university, and then I didn’t really look at it again until maybe a year, a year and a half later I wrote a second verse for it and then I think the chorus or the end section like even later than that and then it suddenly kind of slotted into two and that’s happened a couple of times in my songs where it doesn’t all come out in one.

Have you ever written a line that felt slightly too personal but you decided to keep it?

I think that with a lot of my music. It talks about family a lot and I was quite fearful of that I think at the beginning but actually it’s definitely kind of benefited my life.

I think there’s one song that’s on the unreleased album called Deathbed which we don’t actually play live because it’s more of a solo song that I play and there’s a couple of lines in that which definitely even when I sing them now maybe make me cringe a little bit because they feel so personal.

I think maybe I don’t even really resonate with them anymore so it can feel quite hard to sing them but I kind of think that’s a good thing maybe that it makes me cringe now.

Traditional folk music often channels historical figures of mythology, do you ever find yourself doing that when you perform?

Well a friend asked me this recently, we were talking about clothing on stage. When I see people wearing different outfits than they would wear in real life on stage and I think I’d like to dress a little bit better on stage but I always like to be comfortable and I feel a little bit self-conscious kind of being a bit too risky with stuff.

It then led us to talking about personas and the personas that people take on stage and so many artists that I love have different personas.

I feel like I’m very myself on stage which means I’m very shy and I don’t really speak and I find it quite hard to even just move to the music. I feel a lot more like in the zone but on stage because it’s so personal and there’s no alter ego.

I can find it hard to show my vulnerability in that way maybe but I’ve considered like but I feel like it would be quite difficult to now just create a persona because then the music would probably end up being different as well.

I’ll hopefully grow into it over time, the more I play , the more I feel like I can be myself on stage and not worry about how I look or how I’m being perceived.

You can listen to her here.

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