**GQ: What was the biggest change you noticed about yourself in the five years since your last release? **
Kate Nash: Oh my god so many. I would say becoming more stable and working towards and getting rid of the negative stuff in my life. As you get older, you start to realise negativity is really bad. I invited a lot into my life. I am very open and some of that can be quite damaging and I think it is just learning how to put yourself first, which I didn’t do before. That is my goal, being happy. That’s really about being comfortable with yourself.
With five years worth of work, there’s a tendency to be a perfectionist ...
I think it is really good to let go, nothing’s ever going to be perfect, especially if it is your own work. You could work on it forever. It’s just going like f**k it, got all these songs, I’ll get them out.
**Done **
Just done.
What did you learn most about yourself from working on GLOW?
That you can do so much more than you think you can. I think the wrestling is so liberating. The first day of training I remember seeing stuff and being like, f**k, ughhh, I don’t want to do it, and now I am pushing myself to do things I never would of thought I would be able to do. It is really amazing what you can do with your body and learning that your body has skills and a purpose, as a woman you are always taught that your body is like in the way, too big or just not perfect …
My body is like a political mad thing where I realised that, doing nude scenes, how much that was in my head, then how liberating it was to just be like fk it, a body is just a body, you have to accept who you are. In wrestling that is what you are taught, don’t worry about your weaknesses, whatever you can’t do you just won’t do it, then we will find what you are really good at and just like work that. That’s what wrestling is, just to be able to walk in and do the opposite of what I have been taught: be big, large, and loud and mental. That’s usually not what the world wants you to be as a woman, and to just fking unleash that is so freeing, so cool, and so emotional to learn how do these physical things. We are all really capable of so much and that’s a nice focus, rather than like do I look good enough? It’s so boring and tiring to constantly be thinking that.
**Were you athletic before? **
No, I mean I have always been a bit freakishly strong. I grew up fighting my sisters, I do actually funnily enough believe that is why my best move is taking a front bump, which is being thrown basically on your front. I do actually think I get that from fighting my sisters and just throwing each other around when my mum and dad weren’t there. I wasn’t particularly sporty, I did swimming when I grew up, but that was it really, so I hadn’t had like a strong level of fitness or anything and now like that’s become part of my life.
There was a thing before, I’d be too intimidated to go into something like that, and now I like stand in the ring, and do crazy st, and I'm like fk, I would have been so scared, I have never done anything like this before.
**Has that translated into a live performance and your day-to-day? **
Yeah. I think I hold myself in a different way and I know the thing holding me back from most things is mental. It's shone a massive torch on that for me, physical health and mental health are so connected, and the more we can be physical the better, because if you can spend this energy, you’re not going to spend it in here [points to head] as much.
I really recommend it, to build a new physical relationship with yourself, and just do it on your own terms, and your own time, it can just give you a different sense of self-worth, and then help with your mental health too.
It's a predominately female cast, Marc Maron was really outnumbered, what was that experience like?
It is so good. I literally feel like blessed everyday walking on to set, I know this is rare. Sometimes you go through experiences, f**k I didn’t even know I had this at the time, and with this I totally realise what I have, it’s so special. These women, I love them so much. I know that’s rare as well to actually have a group of women that care so much about each other, not saying that about women, but just, you never know in any working environment that you’re going to like bond or not. We could have maybe just not clicked, but we’re actually close.
These are like my sisters, we are there for each other in a true way, maybe that is to do with the wrestling because we had to learn to be this. We were very intimate with each other immediately, so we spent a month training and we were all quite scared. By the first episode, we were like really tightly bonded, and to have that female energy I think it is really powerful. I think it is magical, and I mean that in many ways. It gives me confidence and I can take risks because of it, and have a support system in my life, I think it has made me more of an advocate of myself.
There are decisions I have made, that I think are defiantly because of the support from these women. They wouldn’t allow me I think to not respect myself in a certain way, they really show up for each other and its f**king amazing.
You recently tweeted about Buzzfeed's article [Kate was featured on their list of 33 Singers That Only Exist In The Memories Of British Millenials], has that been something you've seen a lot of?
I have seen stuff like that before, definitely, everyone has. It’s random, because I am in a good place now. It was easy for me to see it and go this is fked up and you should not be writing st like this, because some of the people on this list might not be ok.
Artists in general are usually mentally ill, and it is really fking hard to have a career. I don’t think it's ok to go, you’re not cool because you’re not rich and famous, what the fk is that? That’s bullying. That’s saying we value fame and money, and I think the music industry is notorious for destroying people and not nurturing careers, that to me is a list of people that should have careers, and some of them probably don’t, and some of them are really fighting to have them independently, and also what if I wanted to quit music? I am totally allowed to decide to have a life outside of it, and I don’t think it’s cool to make fun of that.
Honestly like if I read it a year or two ago, when I was really trying to figure things out, I might have been really f**ked in the head by it, but I was like sitting in my trailer, doing GLOW season two and I was like well, you know, I’ve lost my DMs actually and I wish I knew where they were, but like, that’s not really accurate is it? I just think people need to change what they value as success because I don’t think that, especially now when everyone has one of these [holds up phone], everyone has their own level of fame, and that’s not valuable. It does not bring happiness and it’s dangerous.
Obviously it's freedom of expression and you're allowed to say anything you want, say what I am doing is st, but don’t say I don’t exist anymore, because I fking do. Even if I did just go off and wear DMs and a cardigan whatever, I still exist, humanity matters, so don’t say that.
That point you said about the music industry and there being a lot of mental health issues which aren't supported is something I've heard a lot about. Moving forward, do you think the music industry is going to have its Weinstein moment soon?
I am wondering, everyone is taking about that, and everyone is asking me about it.
It is a hard one…
No, I think we have to talk about it, I think it’s fking great that it's being exposed. I really wonder, it wouldn’t surprise me, I haven’t had experiences like that. I have had experiences that I look back on and think, oh god, you were just selling me, and you don’t give a fk about me as a person. I have spoken about that and I will definitely continue to talk about it. The music industry is not nurturing people and is just about what’s hot right now, and then like we’re not going to give a f**k about you, that’s why these people on these lists are struggling to have careers.
But it wouldn’t surprise me, it is happening in every job, in every industry. I am supportive of whoever comes out, I think this time of shift is going to be ugly and messy but it’s so amazing isn’t it, that now you can talk about that? It’s the only way to change and the only way to really change is to then have a conversation with men that have done it, and that need to learn, and be re-educated.
You've worked in America and over here, do you sense a revolution happening with #MeToo?
Yeah, I think the pendulum is swinging against the Trump administration. There are right wing people in power all over the world, that’s when the swing against it comes the hardest, because we really feel the threat. It’s scary, it's genuinely scary, I think it has come out of this anger and fear. We are going to push forward in these revolutionary ways, so that our children, and future generations can see these movements came out of these terrible administrations.
**Kate Nash's new single "Life In Pink" is out 16th March. Her album Yesterday Was Forever is out 30th March. **Follow us on Vero for exclusive music content and commentary, all the latest music lifestyle news and insider access into the GQ world, from behind-the-scenes insight to recommendations from our Editors and high-profile talent.
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