Machine Gun Kelly dedicates song to ‘unborn child’
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Sophie Lloyd grew to fame as a YouTube guitarist, never dreaming her first big tour would be alongside internationally renowned musician Machine Gun Kelly. Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk at the Download Festival launch party, Sophie shared what it’s really like on tour “with the boys”.
It’s been a big week for the 26-year-old, as she released her original song, Do Or Die, last Friday and will be on stage with MGK and the Sellouts this weekend in Florida.
The guitarist was thrown in the deep end when she first appeared on the Mainstream Sellout stage earlier this year, having received the job over social media without any formal audition with the band.
Originally, Machine Gun Kelly, who she casually calls by his real name Carlson, messaged her on Instagram asking if she was in Los Angeles and she hastily said yes despite being in London at the time.
The next day she was on a flight to LA, practised with the band for a couple of weeks and returned to London to get her visa just hours before the tour started.
“A whirlwind” to say the least.
Now that she has travelled across the globe, Sophie takes a moment to breathe in the absolute absurdity of the last few months, including the very personal souvenir she received in June.
She told Express: “I got my first bra thrown at me and I actually still have it.
“It was at my second show, it’s my little trophy. It’s going to have prime position above my bed.”
She also now has MGK’s iconic double X symbol tattooed behind her ear, saying she’s an official “part of the family for life”.
Admittedly as the only woman in the band, and one of the very few in the entire touring crew, Sophie had a few nerves going on stage.
She shared: “The fans of MGK, you see a lot in the media about him but my experience has been he’s so f**king awesome, he’s incredible, he’s caring, he’s so loving and passionate and his fans are exactly the same.
“They welcomed me with open arms. Like if someone falls in the moshpit everyone stops to help him up.”
Sophie also became the bands’ adoptive “little sister”, saying they would “step in if there was anything weird” and looked out for her constantly.
Regardless, she still needed some fellow feminine solidarity, adding: “The stylist Alyssa was on my tour bus, luckily, and we got such a great bond. Sometimes you just need some p***y power next to you.”
Like any rockstar, the guitarist also revelled in the “sexy stuff” that rock tours hold, as she usually found herself being the first to point out flashers in the audience: “I was like ‘Oh my god look at those tits!’ It was very exciting.”
There were also some unfortunate, and painful, downsides to touring that the internet-famed guitarist hadn’t fully experienced before joining Mainstream Sellout.
Sophie explained one grisly scenario, revealing that her long, platinum blonde hair does tend to get stuck in her guitar.
She said: “It causes me anxiety every single day but it’s worth it for the hair flicks.
“I wear extensions so I’ve had it where like my extensions have fallen out. I got these really bad ones and the security guard had to run on stage and pull them off! It was so embarrassing.”
The entanglement can also cause different tunes to splurge out of her guitar, but Sophie takes these with a pinch of salt, labelling them as “hair-monics” that she says “helps me play guitar”.
Sophie revealed that it wasn’t just the hair-anxiety playing on her mind at the time, as one of the few women, and the only Brit on tour, she found herself incredibly homesick, saying it was “some of the most incredible and lowest moments of my life”.
Nevertheless, the rocker has come out of the hurricane in one piece and has an album planned for springtime next year, another surreal moment as she collaborates with people she “used to have as posters on my wall”.
She shared: “Everything I do is for my 15-year-old self. I want to make that girl who was depressed in her room, I want to make her happy, make her proud, that’s what gives me fire in my belly and I think she’d think it’s pretty f**king awesome.”
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