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time, that was kind of my favourite thing to do. And then I met a few people along the way, lots
of local great bass players who gave me a lot of tips and obviously, I was very fortunate as I think
you know, that I met my big mentor, Norman (Watt-Roy), from the Blockheads. And there's
another guy called Phil Curtis who was in Arthur Brown's band back in the day. He lived in Devon
and Cornwall. He was a great bass player, and he was another big influence and they both used
to show me loads of stuff and kind of point me in the direction of cool basslines and essential
things to think about as a bass player. So yeah, that's kind of how I've learnt over the years, you

know.

BiTS: Do you read music or are you solely by ear?

SL: So I tried and failed basically to read music. I did, for my sins, go to music college and I can
read very slowly. But to be
honest, I'm solely an ear player.
Norman Watt-Roy
That's what I enjoy and I'm not
the sort of player who if you put
a sheet of music in front of me,
I'd be able to seamlessly do it.
You know, I'd have to think
about it quite hard [laughs].

BiTS: Over the years, Sophie,
you must have played with a
number of bands. Was there one
place where you were playing
when you thought to yourself,
good grief, what am I doing
here? This is wonderful.

SL: [Laughs] Yeah, I've been
fortunate to have a lot of those.
Most recently, actually, I would say that was the case with Vince and I. We were playing at a blues
festival in California, and it's in a natural auditorium sort of thing in the woods. It's amphitheatre,
sorry, not auditorium. And it's in the hills, the valleys in California and it's just stunning. Obviously
to be playing there with Vince was, you know, a real privilege for me and I kind of was looking
at him and going, oh, this is amazing. Like what are we doing here? Especially me being a jammer
from Plymouth, a pirate-sounding nobody. I was like, wow, this is really special. So that's one
thing that kind of stands out in my mind. I've been very fortunate that I've played with a lot of
people that I really love and care about. So you know, off the top of my head, that's the most
recent one I can give you [laughing].

BiTS: I gather that you have a label attached to you which is ‘the Lord of the bass’. How do you
feel about that?

SL: That's so silly. That comes from me being a cheeky git when I was a younger teenager and
because my name is Sophie Lord, obviously, it was a sort of in joke amongst my friends and then
when I first met Norman and those people, I really cheekily – I look back now and I cringe so
hard. I said to him when I first met him, bow down to the Lord of the bass, and he thought it was
hilarious. And to this day he still has on his phone Lord Sophie. That's what I'm listed as. Like I
said, now I'm older and I'm like, oh, you were so necky, you know? But yeah, so that's where that
comes from and like I say, I definitely cringe about it now, but at the time, it gave a good laugh,
so what you going to do?