Indie film-makers read on. Next year’s soundtrack is already written. Hazel Davis meets Lail Arad

“When we were about 12 me and my best friend declared ourselves hippies, stole our parents’ old clothes and records and formed a band called The Hippy Hippopotamuses,” laughs Lail Arad. “We wrote crazy psychedelic songs called things like Cutting Into Peace, completely kooky and daring, mixed in with some very teenage ‘together/forever’ rhymes,” she adds.

Luckily, the poetry has improved since then and 26-year-old Tel Aviv-born, London-raised Lail Arad has morphed into a songwriter of some panache. Her songs are Loudon Wainwrightesque, Jewish-tinged pithy numbers – the optimistically titled Hit Single (which she played at Stella McCartney’s party) starts, “I wish I was a fashion victim, but I just don’t care enough”. She’ll get the DIY-London Lily Allen comparisons. We won’t be making them here but we WILL be using the word kooky. We’re sorry.

Her influences are mixed and it shows: “When I grew out of Hello Children, Everywhere, Danny Kaye, and Woody Guthrie’s Songs to Grow On, I heard a lot of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, The Kinks, The Incredible String Band, The Beatles, Donovan. This is who my parents listened to, so it kind of runs in my blood, and I’d say I rediscovered it all with new ears over and over as I grew older.”

Of her peers, comparisons with Jenny Lewis and Kimya Dawson are obvious. But her biggest influence must be Adam Green, for whom she wrote the piss-funny tribute, Adam Green, on youtube (“this is a song for you Adam Green. It’s also a shameless self-promotional scheme”).

Her debut album, Someone New, features 12 songs, written over two years, many of which have, says Arad, “survived the test of many, many live shows.” Shows which have seen her gather a considerable London folk-scene following and the admiration of Devendra Banhart.

All artists think their work is eclectic when really what they mean is that the songs are in a different key but Arad really does veer gleefully between pop and raw acoustic folk. “I wanted to treat each song as its own boss, and give it whatever it needed to work,” she says, “so some have biggish pop production as a result – horns and backing vocals – others are very bare, voice and guitar.” Who Am I is pithy look at fashion and identity and Winter is a delicate love song (“even though we said that it would be good for us, to be alone cos we’re too co-dependent, let’s face it who wants to be free when it’s freezing?”) surely destined for a Michael Cera flick before the year’s out.

The album’s producer is Guy Katsav, a marriage made in heaven. “We met at a party and I woke up the next morning (not with him) saying ‘I met the person who’s going to produce my album’,” she says simply.

Also on the album is Roi Erez, the musician Arad’s been performing with for the last few years. She explains, “the three of us worked very closely together and our dynamics just worked. As well as them, we brought in a lot of friends and musicians (including David Beauchamp, who works with Jeffrey Lewis and Johnny Flynn, on drums).”

Arad was raised in a boho household by an architect father and psychologist mother. She says, “It means that anything was on the cards. If I decided to be a marine biologist I’m sure my parents would have been very supportive. But yes, of course I don’t underestimate the fact that I was exposed to a lot of art and a lot of creative thinking.”

Arad attended a progressive school “with friendly teachers and a lot of opportunities to perform, music and drama”. She adds, “It wasn’t a pushy school so it gave me a lot of time to what I loved. I played in a lot of little concerts, I’d get make-shift bands together with my friends and prepare covers – I think ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ by Joni Mitchell was the first song I ever performed (when I was 11) but the school definitely gave me a taste for music and singing.” She still found the time to squeeze out maths A level too.

The world of comedy song is a tricky one to write about with any authority. But Arad says she’s definitely not a comedian: “But I’m not a Serious Folk Musician either – that sounds very purist to me. I’m a songer, ‘a worker in song,’ to quote Leonard Cohen. I take what I do seriously, I do it as best I can, but that involves not taking myself too seriously.”

With “lots of exciting shows” planned for the UK and France this year, you’d be advised to remember you heard of Lail Arad here first…

http://www.myspace.com/lailarad