Alice Merton's roots are showing...

Seemingly miles aways from being lost, lonely, and misunderstood, Merton is a commanding presence with a professional delivery as she tears through a set filled with brand new material. Having officially released just four tracks – five if you count "Back To Berlin", released as part of a Spofity Live recording – the new material forms the backbone of the night, and thankfully everyone is into it.

Opening the show with the stomping power of "Hit The Ground Running", Merton's meticulous eye for detail is present not only in her songwriting, but in the arrangement and lighting adding new elements to this now familiar track. In an instant it's clear we've yet to hear the best of what Merton has to offer. Tracks like "Holes" and "Speak Your Mind" combine the energy of "No Roots" with soaring pop melodies, unexpected ferocity, and an intricate understanding of exactly what it is that makes a pop song – if you'll excuse the pun – pop.

A highlight of the set is "Learn To Live", which Merton explains is about her experience of panic attacks (which intesified as her world began to change) and her sometimes pessimistic outlook which always sees her imaginging the worst possible outcomes. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the show is the diversity of sounds, not constrained by genre in any way and held together by both lyrical honesty and – of course – her voice, which has a similar gutteral depth to that of Marina Diamandis. Merton slows things down with tracks like "PCH", about dreamy drives along the Pacific Coast Highway and getting existential with the view, whilsy "Honeymoon Heartbreak" is more expert balladry. At the same time, she's more than equipped to deliver a mind-blowing EDM-flecked banger like "Make You Mine".

The last song, before an encore of more new material, is the now widely known "No Roots". Even better live, its face-melting breakdown is taken to a whole new level. It's a track Merton's had with her for a long time, and there's no chance of it going away any time soon. It looks like the UK is finally ready to embrace it, over a year after its release, and play it as loudly as it deserves.

We caught up with the singer/songwriter just before she took to the stage, to find out a little bit more about her wandferlust-filled life, the rest of the European tour and, of course, the music.

Welcome to London for your first UK headline show. How’s your year been since releasing the No Roots EP?

It’s been crazy. Everything has been really unexpected, like a whirlwind. I try, every now and again, to see things from a different perspective and look at what’s happening. I’m just enjoying it day by day and I’m happy I get to do this.

You had this nomadic upbringing referenced in title track "No Roots", can you break down for us exactly where you’ve lived?

I started in Frankfurt. Three months after I was born we moved to the US; Connecticut, it’s near New York. Then from Connecticut we moved to Oakville, which is near Toronto, and we moved twice in Oakville. Then, when I was 13, we moved to Munich and and twice near Munich, then when I was 16 or 17 we moved to Bournemouth. Then after a while in Bournemouth I moved back to Germany to Alsebourg to study, but then I got accepted to another university in Mannheim, so I moved to Mannheim. Then I moved to Berlin, so was going back and forth between Bournemouth, where my parents live, and Berlin.

How did you find living in the UK?

It was nice, actually. Every time I come back here it feels like I’m coming home! It’s really weird, I didn’t expect that, but even today arriving here it was so cool. I can go to Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencers, get some yum-yums. It’s a nice feeling. I know what things I can get when I’m here and today after the show we have an off-day tomorrow. The guys are heading off to Brussels for the next concert, but I’m actually going to head home to Bournemouth just to come back down and relax, because it’s been a long few weeks. Last week we had a show every single day and before that I was in the studio finishing the production on the next single that’s going to be released in April. That’s really exciting and I’m so happy that’s finally going to come out. I just need a day to relax and do nothing.

Do you have any plans for the day?

My Dad and my Mum are working, so they’re not really going to be there, but I think I’m going to go to the beach actually, if it’s not too cold. Sometimes there are kite surfers so I’m just going to watch the wind and the kite surfers, it’s my favourite thing to do.

You’ve been playing shows across Europe, how are you holding up?

I’ve been enjoying it! I mean, I definitely am tired. I’m definitely sleep deprived – it is so hard to sleep on a tour bus! It moves around so much and we have really weird time schedules. We’ll be done at the venue at midnight, then get into the bus at 1[am] because everyone needs a shower, and then you’re only really falling asleep at 4 because you’re talking and still buzzed about the concert. Then you sleep until 8 or 9, then you sleep for another two hours and repeat once the show is over again after waking up in a new city!

How have all the different cities been?

They’re been so different. We’d never played in Poland before and it was the craziest crowd we’ve ever had, 500 or 600 people. They knew all the words to all the songs on the EP! They were so happy and cheering the whole time and they wouldn’t stop. It was such a nice feeling. Then you go to Amsterdam, they were very nice, but a little more reserved and held back, but still lovely people. And in Germany, because we started there at the very beginning, we’re playing in front of crowds of like 1,000 people and it’s crazy. It takes me a while to warm up to that, because you go to playing a venue that’s very intimate to that in a bigger hall. Adjusting to the differences takes a little while for me. Each crowd is different – I have no idea what London is going to be like!

Back in Germany, you studied songwriting. For a lot of people that seems like an alien concept, but how do you actually study songwriting?

You’ve got to think of it like, "how do you study art? How do you mark art? How do you give someone an A or a B?" You don’t really learn how to write songs, you learn to develop as a writer and you get to meet lots of musicians and figure out what kind of sound you want. You have the time to just develop and try different styles and that’s what I did. Whenever I wasn’t in Mannheim studying, I was on my way to Berlin to work with different producers from the industry.

There were also courses about how to run a label, how to do management, and lot of it was very theoretical, but when me and Paul actually started the label that’s when we started to use the knowledge we had learned. There was this one distributor called RecordJet, they’re completely independent, and we decided to work with them as an online distributor, because none of the labels wanted to sign it. That was one of the big things we learned at the university. I had a course where they talked about that and how to get attention and grow organically, rather than with a label that pumps a lot of money into it, and that’s what we did with the blogs.

With your label, Paper Plane Records, where are you in terms of independence an artist?

At the moment, for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, we have basically the rights for everything and originally we had it for everywhere, but for America we needed to work with another team, because that is impossible to do if you have a small record label from Europe. You need to know people, you need to have a huge promotion team and that’s why we decided to work with an indie label called Mom + Pop, and with a promotion company, also independent, called Red. They’ve been doing promotion for us. It’s been really good team work with them, I really can’t complain, it’s been great. For the rest of Europe we signed a distribution deal, because we’d be sitting in our office packing up CDs and taking them to the post office, so we decided we needed help. Everyone understands all creative decisions are mine and that I get to choose what goes on the album, and we still keep the rights for a few countries. It was really nice to have an agreement where they understand that I need to have that freedom.

Is creative freedom something particularly important for you, then?

Very important, I’ve even noticed now I’m working with different parties in different countries, I do still get their feedback and some times they’ll say "I really think this is what the production should sound like," and I’ll have to remind them that it’s my decision. It still feels like I’m fighting to some extent. They obviously want the best for the artist, but there’s always both sides to it. I think they understand now that it's very important for me to have that creativity and to be free in my thoughts.

Having studied music business as part of your degree, does it gives you a unique perspective compared to artists who don’t have this knowledge?

Totally, I feel like some artists I meet, they feel like they need to do everything possible to their music so that the labels will like it and then the labels will distribute it. At the end of the day, it’s not the labels buying the music, it’s the people out there, and you have to be behind the music and not anyone else. You’re the one representing it, you’re playing it for everyone, you’re doing promotion and travelling around the world. That’s you representing that song and if you don’t like the song you’re not going to have fun doing it. That’s how I see it.

You’ve seen that connection, with the people, through playing shows and even online.

Yeah, we never expected “No Roots” to become this big. We never thought it was going to grow that quickly or to that extent, so I never went into it thinking, "I’m going to write a hit song" or that the next one has to be a big hit. I just want to write songs that I like and that are portraying emotions. I do this to deal with stuff and if people like it that’s awesome, but I’m not hit-driven in that sense. I just want to release songs I really like.

What is the most important thing for yourself as an artist?

Being completely honest to what I think sounds cool and what I want to put out there. I trust my producer, I trust my manager and I trust the people I work with, but at the end of the day they know that it has to be honest and it has to be what I vision it to be. I’m not going to release something just because they think it’s the next hit. It’s not what everyone wants to hear, but that’s the way it is.

So the next single is out in April, tell us more.

I’ve been saying very little about this, because we’re not even playing it in our set. It’s very very new and when I wrote it I had this feeling that there was something about it that I really liked. It has anger in it, and it has to do with the fact of everything that’s going on with women breaking out and showing people it’s not okay to be treated like that. I’ve just felt a lot of anger in the past few months, even when deciding what the next single should be, and that you’ll feel in the song. It’s not going to be heavy metal though.

In terms of new music more generally, an album is coming soon, where are you at with that?

An album is coming and if everything goes well it will be out in the fall. I don’t want to take too much from the EP because for me it’s really important for me to put new stuff on there, but it’s going to be a bunch of different styles. I remember once a label told me that I had to have just one kind of direction and I don’t like that. I like trying different things, mixing soul with pop or pop with rock or having some songs that are rockier. I think it’s just going to be a variety of emotions and feelings and that put to music basically. I would say 70% is finished. The songs are there, we just need to work on finishing the production.

Where do you want to go with this record?

I just want to keep on touring and to be able to play live for lots of people who want to listen to the songs. To be honest, I don’t know if I have a goal thinking it has to chart anywhere; I want it to explain how I’ve been feeling over the last couple of years and that’s what it does, that’s what the songs do.

No Roots is out now.