Heather Baron-Gracie

Heather Baron-Gracie was born in Preston, Lancashire.[1] Around the time she started secondary school, Baron-Gracie experienced a debilitating back injury: "I didn't have an accident. It just happened," she told the Evening Standard in 2018.[2] "I was complaining for ages that my back was in pain but people just thought I was just growing. I was doing sports with a broken back for ages."[2] The injury – which was severe enough that Baron-Gracie required spinal fusion surgery – very nearly paralysed her, and it forced her to miss an entire year of school.[2] It was during her recovery that Baron-Gracie got deeply invested in music: "I was always into [music] ... But when that happened, I was staying in my house and wrote music loads. And ever since that, this is what I want to do."[3]

Baron-Gracie attended the British and Irish Modern Music Institute (BIMM) in Manchester, where she met future Pale Waves drummer, Ciara Doran.[4] The two connected via a college-sponsored Facebook group and, thanks to their similar aesthetic and personality, they quickly befriended one another.[5]

Originally called "Creek", Pale Waves was founded by Baron-Gracie and Doran in 2014.[6] The band later expanded to include Hugo Silvani and Charlie Wood.[7] Pale Waves is signed to the independent label Dirty Hit and has released an EP, All the Things I Never Said (2018), and two albums, My Mind Makes Noises (2018) and Who Am I? (2021). A third album, Unwanted, was released in August 2022.[8]

Much of the music Heather Baron-Gracie has written has been inspired by musicians from the 1980s, including The Cure, Prince, and Madonna.[9] When discussing Pale Waves's second album Who Am I?, Baron-Gracie further cited Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morissette, Courtney Love, Liz Phair, Michelle Branch, The Chicks, and Kacey Musgraves as inspiration.[10][11] In terms of specific albums, Baron-Gracie has also cited The Cure's Disintegration (1989), Paramore's All We know Is Falling (2005) and Riot! (2007), Lucy Rose's Like I Used To (2012), Daughter's If You Leave (2013), and Muna's About U (2017) as inspiring both her and Pale Waves's musical style.[12]

In an interview with The Irish Times, Baron-Gracie cited Dolores O'Riordan as her main vocal influence, saying: "I love The Cranberries. They were amazing. I definitely looked up to Dolores O'Riordan. She has one of my favourite voices of all time. She gave off that attitude – she was totally herself. I loved her fashion sense, she was such a cool person".[13]

Baron-Gracie is known for playing Vox Phantoms. She received her first of these guitars as a birthday present from Matty Healy of the 1975. However, due to the guitar's size, Baron-Gracie struggled to play it during live shows, telling Magnet magazine: "It sounded amazing, it played amazing, but it was a 12-string, and it was difficult to play live. I'm a tiny person and this guitar was just as big as me. It kept falling down." Jaime Oborne, the head of the record label Dirty Hit, subsequently reached out to a guitar enthusiast that he knew. This individual built Baron-Gracie a custom black Vox Phantom six-string that she could use during live performances.[14]

Heather Baron-Gracie, performing with Pale Waves in 2018

Baron-Gracie is known for her visual aesthetic and fashion sense, which has often been described as "gothic".[15][16][17][18] In an interview with the Evening Standard, Baron-Gracie explained: "I've always been into dark fashion, the gothic side of things and vampires ... I like funeral clothes more than summer clothes. It comes from feeling like an outsider."[19] The juxtaposition between Pale Waves's "high-fidelity pop exuberance" and Baron-Gracie's "obsidian gothic aesthetics"[20] has engendered critical discussion: Owen Tanner of the Milwaukee Record described her look as "Taylor Swift going as Beetlejuice for Halloween"[21] and Jessie Atkinson of Gigwise called it "Avril Lavigne Gothicism".[22] Baron-Gracie's aesthetic has often led many to assume she performs in a metal, metalcore, or screamo band—an assumption that Baron-Gracie has deemed "one of the biggest misconceptions" about Pale Waves.[20][23] The contrast between Baron-Gracie's visual style and the style of her band has occasionally resulted in accusations of "goth-baiting"[23]—"on the first album," she told Nylon, "we received so much shit for basically ... wearing eye shadow and then playing essentially like pop music"[20]—but Baron-Gracie has rebuffed these criticisms many times: In the aforementioned Nylon interview, she emphasized, "I don't have to wear anything to play the kind of music that I want to play", and in an interview with Magnet, Baron-Gracie further stressed, "If I want to look like a moody vampire, let me!"[23]