Louise Distras is an English singer, songwriter and musician from Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
Early life
Louise Distras was born in Wakefield, a city in the North of England, in 1987. She taught herself to play the violin at an early age and later learned to play guitar by "bunking off school and smoking cigarettes" and listening to Nirvana's debut album Bleach. Distras ran away from home in her teens. In a 2019 interview with The Chronicle she said "being able to escape into song-writing is what got me through."
Career
2012–2015: Early career and Dreams from the Factory Floor
Distras started performing live in 2012 holding her first shows in pubs and open mic nights. At one of her early gigs she met Anne Scargill (a prominent figure of the Women Against Pit Closures movement that supported miners and their families in the UK miners strike of 1984–1985) who sang 'Women of the Working Class' to her. "She told me to write a song that's just for women, so that's what I did," said Louise on X (formerly Twitter). Distras uploaded her first single 'The Hand You Hold' to YouTube on International Women's Day, picking up media attention from The Guardian, The Independent, and BBC Radio 1. She was invited by Billy Bragg to perform on the Leftfield Stage at Glastonbury Festival and he tweeted "Maybe we'd have done better at Eurovision if Louise Distras had been our entry?" In 2015, she released her debut full-length album Dreams from the Factory Floor and performed across America, Canada, Scandinavia and Europe, opening for The Damned, Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers and Television. Music journalist John Robb called her "the most important protest singer we have" in a review on the Louder Than War website.
2016 – 2019: Rising profile and Street Revolution EP
In 2016 Distras premiered her new single 'Aileen' via Kerrang!, marking a change in musical direction. Kerrang! named Louise Distras a 'Star of 2017' saying "Louise Distras is the most exciting voice in UK punk right now!" 'Aileen' received radio support from Huw Stephens (BBC Radio 1), John Kennedy (Radio X) and Rodney Bingenheimer (KROQ). It also featured on the Hugs for Chelsea benefit album which premiered on Rolling Stone.
She embarked on a UK and European Tour with The King Blues and performed on the main stage at Punk Rock Bowling Festival in Las Vegas. Distras headlined the Nick Alexander stage of Frank Turner's Lost Evenings Festival at The Roundhouse in London, and performed at Glastonbury Festival for a second time under the invitation of Billy Bragg.
In 2018 Distras announced she was working on her second album and premiered the music video 'Land of Dope and Glory' by MTV VMA nominated director Lewis Cater. "It's inspired by Black Mirror and looks like Crass joined forces with Barbie to create a dystopian TV channel," said Louise in an interview with Loudersound.
In 2019 she released the 'Street Revolution EP' and received more praise from Kerrang! who said "Louise Distras has the kind of voice that could charm the paint from a car". The title track 'Street Revolution' was made John Kennedy's 'X-posure Hot One' on Radio X and named as one of DJ Gary Crowley's top tracks of 2019 who described 'Street Revolution' "as a song for our times. It leaps out of the radio".
She also performed in Germany, supporting The Subways, The Interrupters, Dead Kennedys, Dropkick Murphys and appeared as a special guest on the new King Blues album 38 Minutes.
2020–2022: Covid 19 and creative pause
In a post on social media, Distras stated her new album release had been pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on the music industry and being subjected to online abuse.
On 4 November, Distras released a new single "Black Skies", with a spoken-word introduction from Steve Ignorant of Crass.
In an interview with Backseat Mafia, Distras revealed she had to crowdfund her upcoming new album as she had never been paid for the sales of her debut album Dreams from the Factory Floor.
2023: New album Beauty After Bruises
On 27 January Distras released 'Girl in the Mirror' and announced her second album 'Beauty After Bruises' would be out on 28 April via Ministry Of Love Records, saying "I don't want to make music that's a space for the best, glossy version of myself so Beauty After Bruises is about the ugly truth. This album is messy just like me and it's about honouring the parts of myself that I looked away from."