Inspiration does not seem an appropriate word for My Friend. Its creation was a visceral reaction to the tragic death of Chloé’s former band mate Joel Dever aged 25. More than a best friend (in a tribute she called him “the core of her existence”), his passing just before the release of Battant’s second album meant the end of the band and began what she calls “this really crazy dark period”. 

“We had all of these tour dates booked and I decided to tour the album even though Joel had died. I think it gave me something concrete to focus on.

"So we got session musicians and went out on the road, and it was a horrible experience, just horrible. I was with these three boys and a tour manager - so four guys I didn’t know - travelling around France…Joel was like my best best pal. He was like a soulmate, somebody I shared everything with.

"So at the same time I'm dealing with this massive chunk of my heart ripped out, with these blokes I don't know and don't have much in common with and then there's all the crap which comes from being on the road, plus getting on stage and performing this body of work we had written together...it really was horrendous.”

Writing My Friend was a type of therapy for Chloé. It was as if she had to write music to massage her soul, to make some sort of sense of the event, to restack the disturbed neurons. She talks of it almost in physical terms.

“I had all of this emotional shit that I had to get out and that’s how C.A.R. started - it was just me. When you talk about things being a cathartic experience, it really was - I had this thing I had to get out.”

Despite the circumstances, My Friend is not a depressing piece of music. If anything the overall tone is upbeat. But there is no denying the underlying current of unease which perhaps heightens both polar emotional opposites - there is darkness but there is hope.

“I haven’t thought about there being a narrative to it or anything but actually I think it tells the story of getting through something in your life, dealing with something and hopefully in a way that’s non-specific enough that people can relate, that you can kind of take stuff from it. In a way it’s a blessing to have something like that.”

Her writing with Battant also tended towards the darker edge of the palette (the C.A.R. press release interestingly calls it ‘washed out sarcasm’) and Chloé believes that’s a reflection of her personality.

“I’m quite cynical the way I see things in a humorously dark way. [C.A.R. stands for 'choosing acronyms randomly'] If you listen to my lyrics in Battant they’re really dark and twisted - I’ve always talked about things like rape and imagined all sorts of crazy scenes and murder. 

“I can only write from personal experience and I think C.A.R. continues to evolve in that way - it is me on my own and all I really know how to do is express me.”

If personal experience is an artist’s source material, how does that affect friends, family, relationships? Do romantic partners worry that she will write a song about them or worse, about a previous love-interest?

“I’m quite aware of that and I think that’s why a lot of what I write is quite cryptic and I try not to draw out something really specific, and if I do I will shroud it in metaphor. I’ll do everything I can to disguise it just because I wouldn’t want to hurt somebody.”

And family?

“God yeah - my mum reads into my lyrics all the time. But no matter what I say, she thinks all my songs are about her. I’ve now given up [trying to persuade her] all I can say is they’re not.”

She recently found herself explaining to her dad that the line “Dad you’re such a big mistake” in her track Glock’d was not about him - such are the pitfalls of songwriting and taking on different personas. The lyricist walks a line between speaking powerful truths and alienating those closest to them.