Horsham date will be Hollie Rogers' biggest headline date so far

As she explains, technically it is her third album: “But the first one came out when I was about 18 which is a long time ago and then I released the second in 2014 when I was teaching full-time in Horsham.”

Since then she has moved to London – and moved back again.

“I came back to Horsham in January this year. I had moved to London about three or four years ago before the pandemic because I was finding I was doing lots of networking and conference things and gigging in London and I was travelling more and more. But when the pandemic hit I was there for most of it but the whole music scene had dried up obviously and I just thought, about 18 months into it, why am I still here. I realised that I didn't need to live in London and also it was just really expensive so I decided to move back. A lot of the shows I am doing are all around the country so really I just didn't need to be in London anymore and it's really nice to be back. I feel very much at home here. I don't think I realised just how much I had missed it.”

The new album is called Criminal Heart and was released on September 9, ahead of a Horsham date on her national tour. She will be at The Capitol on Sunday, October 30.

As Hollie says, the Horsham date will be the biggest headline date of her career so far, a lovely arc from when she won the Battle of the Bands in Horsham a few years ago: “It is quite a big venue but within 24 hours of the tickets going on sale, they had sold 120 already. It's just unbelievable to have that support locally and also to have my fanbase coming down from London which is lovely.”

Criminal Heart is her first album as a full time musician: “It is not a lockdown album. Only one song was written during lockdown and some of the songs go back as long as four years. It took a long time to get it off the ground and recorded. I had to figure out how to do it financially so I did a crowdfunding Kickstarter thing and I got twice as much as my target was which meant that I was able to do a couple of extra tracks and also do vinyl.

“I'm a singer-songwriter and I would put myself in the Americana folksy bluesy world. My influences are people like Joan Armatrading and Joni Mitchell and Debbie Harry. The album has definite themes of love and lust and forbidden love, I suppose. It's loosely telling a story although I like to leave things open to interpretation. My audiences do often say that my lyrics are quite relatable, so yes there are themes of love and lust on there, things that everybody has experienced.

“It is really exciting. There have been lots of people working really hard on this for a long time and it's great be so close to the release now. It is definitely the biggest project that I've ever done.”