Eastbourne’s Scarlet Fantastic back with a song to catch the mood
Scarlet Fantastic singer Maggie de Monde explains: “I feel like we are turning the corner. It has been tough, but I think with the onset of spring and the evenings getting longer and the fact that the vaccine must be working with the cases falling, things are getting better.
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Hide Ad“And Better Day must be part of that. It is just about feeling positive in tricky situations. We all go through life situations, whether it is love or lockdown or whatever, and it is just about being positive.
“And for me, I have always found that nature has a really good healing effect. I think when you are looking at the sea or the sky, it takes us out of our heads. We tend to overthink things, and I think in situations like lockdown we can find solace in nature, the fact that the birds are still singing, the fact that the waves are still coming in.
“I always tend to be positive, and I write songs to make myself feel better. And I think people want to hear positivity. I wrote the song a little while ago. I thought I would change the title and managed to record it just before the last lockdown, at the end of November, I think. I have got a studio at home and live just off the seafront at Eastbourne We moved down from London quite a few years ago. It was quite a big change!”
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Hide AdScarlet Fantastic was originally active in the late 80s: “I was the singer-songwriter. We were a duo, and we had come out of another band called Swans Way. We had an album and we toured and we had a hit with Soul Train. That was more jazzy, and we started Scarlet Fantastic, me and Rick and did more dancy, poppy stuff. We had a song called No Memory. We started in about 86 or 87 and carried on for a few years. The initial Scarlet Fantastic stopped at the end of the 80s. I have made a lot of records since with different people, but the last album I did in 2016 was stylistically different to the earlier Scarlet Fantastic, but a lot of the themes that I was visiting were reminiscent of the earlier Scarlet Fantastic so I decided to resurrect the name and use it. And I just carried on using the name. I am known for that name. There is a lot of my stuff up on Spotify under that name.”
But Maggie is a different Scarlet Fantastic now, she concedes: “I am older! I have now got a son who is nearly 21 who is an amazing drummer. Life has taken its toll. I have learnt a few things – and I have not learnt a few things. We won’t go into that! But I have travelled a lot. I am more worldly-wise. I am older.
“When you are in your 20s or teens, you think that things don’t have an end. But then you realise as you get older that if you want to do things, you have to get on and do them. And that’s what I think has been so frustrating about lockdown. We have been stopped. Our freedom has been taken away. Of course, I understand why. But it is difficult when you want to do things and move on. And of course, so many friends in the performance arts have had such a terrible time. It really has been tough. But you have just got to keep the optimism going.”