In Conversation with Indoor Foxes: The evolution of Scotland’s coolest anti-pop star.

Indoor Foxes is Martha Barr’s creation, an alias for a sound that has grown with her and continues to do so, accompanying her through difficult relationships, hard times, and the pitfalls of girlhood. With a sound that is both pretty and punk, shifting from angelic vocals to gut-wrenching screams, Indoor Foxes is inspired by iconic female artists like Phoebe Bridgers and Wolf Alice. Fresh out of playing her first set at Reading Festival back in August, we spoke to the energetic, fast-talking and full of life Martha Barr about her influences, the Scottish music scene, London headlines, future plans and more. 

Emma: Is Indoor Foxes a band or more of an alias for a solo project, like Luvcat or Blondshell?

Martha: It’s more of an alias. I have a band that plays with me and it’s the same people every time, but Indoor Foxes is just me. It’s more like Lady Gaga – one person. 

Emma: Why did you choose Indoor Foxes to represent you and your music? Is there any significance?

Martha: Kind of, I guess. It was my social media handle before I did music. I had copied this influencer when I was like thirteen who I thought was super cool and she was called ‘Feral Creatures’, so I was like okay, feral, indoor, creature, foxes. But when I first started making music, I originally made it under my name, but I was like ‘this is boring, why am I doing this?’ So I started posting it under the Indoor Foxes Instagram. I just kind of committed to that, and when I started taking music more seriously, I realised I’d have to change all of these handles if I wanted a new name, so I just went balls to the wall and committed to Indoor Foxes as my name. 

I thought that [if fans shortened my name] they’d be like ‘oh hey, foxes’. But, people refer to me as ‘indoor’? Why? Such a weird choice.

Emma: You say you’ve been doing music for quite a while – what was your first memory of music?

Martha: The thing is my Dad, it’s not his job, but my Dad’s a musician and I remember a video he did of us to ‘Mr Bluesky’ and I’m hitting pots and pans with spoons and he’s holding up his bass to me and I’m playing his bass. I’m probably like four. 

But, I think even earlier than that – we had a piano in the house and I remember just smacking the keys and calling it the ‘dragon’, conceptualising the low and the high and how music conveys images, and how, to me, the piano was like a dragon sneaking up on someone. I didn’t have any concept of playing the piano, so I was just hitting the keys in the rough areas. 

Emma: Your music is quite versatile, you’ve got some quite emotional and chaotic tracks. If you were to sum up Indoor Foxes in three words to a new listener, what words would you use and why?

Martha: That’s really interesting because I’m in the studio this week and next as well so I’ve been thinking about that a lot at the moment. I think I would say that my music is girl-rock. I’m putting that as one word, girl-rock – just because it’s kind of fem and exciting. I’d say emotional, definitely emotional, and I’d probably say Scottish. I think my music is quite specific to the Scottish music scene and how we, as a culture, engage with music and make music. I don’t think I sound super different from the other bands up here.

Emma: Could you go a bit more into that, the music scene in Scotland. You hear a lot about Irish music at the moment with CMAT and Fontaines, but not a lot about Scottish artists, so what is the music scene up in Scotland like?

Martha: I think the scene is so vibrant and rich. It is quite similar to the Irish scene, I think. In Glasgow, a lot of people like to say they’re Irish and they’re just not, but there’s a lot of celtic, historic identity wrapped up in the music of all these places. I think, in particular in the indie scene and rock scene, there’s a real emo, slightly shoegazey thing going on right now. Really guitar heavy music and people going for shouty vocals, really emotional and raw.

We’ve also got an incredible electronic scene – the amount of DJ’s in Scotland is insane. It’s very rich and diverse. 

Emma: Your cover of ‘Daft Punk Is Playing at My House’ is your most recent single, and it’s a lot different to your other music – it’s heavier, angrier. Is 2025 a new era for you?

Martha: Honestly, I think yes. ‘Daft Punk Is Playing at My House’ is an LCD Soundsystem cover. We did it live and my label loved it so much that they were like ‘we have to put this out’. It’s more like a live session, that’s one of the reasons why it sounds so insane, it’s because we're all playing together and we're getting really into it. It was so much fun to record, but I think that for 2025, I’m definitely moving away from the synthier, poppier music. ‘Church Music’ has been such an incredible song for me but I maybe won’t do music that sounds like that as much. 

I don't know though, I’m only like one song into this EP. You never know, I might change my mind. But, I think it’s funny when people talk to me about the eras of Indoor Foxes. I'm sure that from the outside perspective, you can see all these different eras of my life, but for me, my life just keeps going. I’m on this continuous path and developing slowly over time, so I think there’s a real maturity to the new music and a sort of rawness. 

I just try to make music which I think sounds cool, I try not to box myself in too much and just do what I like. And at the moment, that’s kind of emo, kind of rock, kind of emotional doomer music. That’s probably gonna be the direction of the next EP, like loser-core, Weezer-y, ‘I have no sex’ music. 

Emma: You have an EP coming out, are there any solid plans for that?

Martha: I don’t know, it’s coming. It will happen. I am contractually obliged to make it happen. It will come, I just don’t know when. We’re recording at the moment so hopefully it won’t be too long until you start to see those singles come out. 

Emma: So, you’ve done a lot of shows in the past year. You’ve done a London headline at Paperdress Vintage – how was that?

Martha: That was amazing. It was the craziest experience as well. The venue flooded and we thought we were gonna have to pull the show but we managed to get the venue drained just in time for sound check. We were sat in the venue, twiddling our thumbs as the promoter and the venue staff were dealing with the situation. There was like two or three inches of water at the bottom of the venue. We didn’t think it was gonna happen, but it did end up happening and it was great.

Emma: What was your favourite song to perform that night?

Martha: I really like to do ‘Maggot Brains’ because I throw out condoms during that song. I have these pink branded condoms which have the Indoor Foxes logo on them and a QR code to my website, and I chuck them out during ‘Maggot Brains’. People were like blowing them into balloons at that London headline and I was like ‘this is the funniest thing ever, I love this’. I was going to do it at Reading and Leeds and I completely forgot to bring them. We were like thirty minutes down the road in the car and I was like ‘I forgot the condoms, no!’ Just freaking out about it. 

But I just remember that moment [at Paperdress Vintage] being like ‘this is really fun, I’m really enjoying myself’. But, after the show I had to go round the venue and pick up all the unopened ones because I’m not wasting them. It was the most embarrassing thing ever. 

Emma: Is there a significance of condoms to the song ‘Maggot Brains’?

Martha: I just thought it was a really fun piece of branding. And, despite the fact that I describe my music as quite incel-y, or for people who have no sex, I try to be quite sex positive and open about getting tested and using protection. It’s really important to me that that message is conveyed. It’s important that what I’m giving to you, you’re getting to hear my message and feeling my morals and my values and that’s one of the ways I’ve been doing it. And it’s also funny. When you throw the first handful, people are like ‘yay!’ and you see them react ‘oh’, like it’s not what they thought.

Emma: What’s been your highlight of the last year?

Martha: That’s really hard. I’m off the back of Reading and Leeds, and right now, that feels like such a high point. That was incredible, it’s probably one of the biggest festivals in the UK, apart from Glastonbury, and it was such a wild moment. 

I’ve got to say though, TRNSMT has been a highlight of this year just because it's the biggest festival in Scotland and we all dreamed about playing TRNSMT. I was nominated for BBC Introducing Scottish Act of the Year, and one of the prizes was a slot at TRNSMT, everyone really wanted it. I didn't win it but I still got my slot, so I was cheesing about that. TRNSMT for me has got to be my number one moment of the year.

Emma: The Hello Kitty guitar you use, I’ve never seen a guitar like it. Is there a story behind it?

Martha: My Dad got it for me for Christmas last year. I remember one of the first gigs I played it at was at Tuts, and I smashed my cuticle against the string and it just exploded with blood. Blood all over the guitar. I didn't notice it because of the adrenaline and it didn't really hurt, it was just really messy. There's a whole blood splatter across the front of the Hello Kitty face and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I hairsprayed it so it wouldn't come off, I’m never wiping this off. This was the most on-brand thing that has ever happened to me in my whole life.

It’s such a basic guitar. It’s one pick-up, only got a volume knob, no bells and whistles. I really love it. It’s so punk.

Emma: To anyone reading this article right now who has been introduced to Indoor Foxes for the first time, what song of yours would you recommend they listen to first and why?

Martha: Hm, it's kind of between two songs. My initial thought is ‘Plant Pot Song’, I just think it encapsulates everything that Indoor Foxes is in a three and a half minute, easily digestible rock song. But, from a personal point of view, I want to say ‘Manic’. It's the only song on ‘Sadolescence’ that I wrote 100% by myself. I had the privilege of writing with one of my heroes on that EP, but that song has always just felt like such a beautiful distillation of who I was when I wrote it. It’s a bit longer and a little bit slower, but I think it's just me.

Emma: If you could support any artist on tour, dead or alive, who are you choosing and why?

Martha: I’ve got two. The first one I wanna say is Phoebe Bridgers. I love Phoebe Bridgers. I used to cover ‘Kyoto’, and when we swapped covers to ‘Daft Punk Is Playing at My House’, that’s what we replaced. My favourite Phoebe Bridgers song at the moment is ‘You Missed My Heart’. I just love the storytelling, it’s really visual. But, the song that really inspired me the most is ‘I Know The End’. When I heard that screaming I was like ‘woah, I want to do that!’ And now I do it for like every song. 

The second artist who I would support is 5 Seconds of Summer. I would love to support them! It’s kind of embarrassing because they’re such a guilty pleasure band of mine and I know it's not on-brand grunge, alternative for me to say 5SOS but I’ve been a fan since I was 11. 

Emma: Do you have a favourite 5SOS member?

Martha: Me and a group of four girls in school all loved 5 Seconds of Summer. And I wanted Luke Hemmings but I was beaten out by this other girl who was like ‘I’m having Luke Hemmings’. Bare in mind, we were like twelve years old at this point. So, in the end, I got Ashton Irwin who has really grown on me and given me a bit of a thing for drummers which I’ve had to get over. I went through phases with all of them though. I could've told you all their middle names, it was really unhinged. 

Emma: Ok. Kiss, marry, kill the members of 5SOS. But maybe you have to kill two of them.

Martha: I think I’m gonna kiss Ashton. I’m gonna marry Luke. I’m gonna have to kill Callum and Micheal but I think they might be the nicest ones in the band so this is probably gonna be a bit of a regret. Imagine if they read this, like she wants to come on tour with us but she's deciding which one of us she's gonna kill. 

So, kiss Ashton, marry Luke and kill Callum and Micheal. But I don’t really want to. I want to hug all of them, though, and be like ‘your music is so great, thanks for that first album, it made me feel so seen’.