Words: Kathryn Scoon
“From a very young age I felt like I was on the outside of society”: Polish-born, Sheffield-based Szopa on how his Eastern European upbringing shaped his new album The Prayerbook
Raised in the small Polish town of Swiebodzin, Szopa had a traditional Eastern European upbringing centring around religion, hierarchy and conservative values. Moving to the UK ten years ago on a university scholarship, he was finally granted the opportunity to express himself and explore his natural creativity. After a 24-hour bus journey to England, Szopa started his new life here, high on the feeling of no longer living in fear.
Yet, it’s Szopa’s previous life in Poland that has influenced his musical direction. The initial sounds you hear on his new album The Prayerbook are the bellowing sound of church bells, followed by deep angelic vocals. His childhood, as many others in rural Poland, placed religion and faith at its pinnacle. Szopa’s music is a showcase of personal reflections, with free rein to explore the questions he holds about corruption and deceit within the religious institutions that raised him.
Szopa describes ‘Mercy’ as the angriest track on the album. What began as an anti-religion anthem, turned into a song for sparking critical conversation about faith and holy figures. Similarly, the punchy lyrics of ‘St Camille’ demonstrate an irony within religious practices that rings true for Szopa – one where Poland’s poor offer goods to priests, saints and clergymen, despite barely being able to make ends meet themselves. It’s these questions and moral interrogations that underpin The Prayerbook: an assessment of whether religion itself causes harm, or just those who abuse it.
Szopa’s self-released second album came out on 16th August. You can find it on all available streaming services, as well as at www.szopa.bandcamp.com, along with some very unique merch, including handmade beanies and rosary beads crafted by the artist himself.
What brought you to Sheffield?
Originally, when I moved to the UK, I started a university degree in Derby where I studied psychology. Afterwards, I wanted to move to a bigger city and see where life took me. Sheffield is very green, which was something that really drove me here. I had to do jobs as a kitchen porter and a cleaner to settle down and figure out my financial situation. That’s also when I started looking for a music producer to start working with and I met NORT who is quite attached to Sheffield’s music scene.
I don’t know what it is about Sheffield, but it has a different feel than other places in the UK. It has a very close-knit community, and whatever I find myself looking for, whether it’s a job, music opportunities or making friends, it always ends up being something bigger than I anticipated and a very positive experience. I can’t imagine living anywhere else!
What was your upbringing in Poland like?
I was born in a small town called Swiebodzin in the west of the country. I don’t have many positive memories of growing up there and it was a difficult place to grow up if you were different from the rest of the crowd.
From a very young age, I felt like I was on the outside of society. Being neurodivergent without a diagnosis, and figuring out in my teenage years that I wasn’t straight, it didn’t feel like a welcoming environment to grow up in. It’s a small town with a lot of issues with racism and homophobia, and it was a very religious community.
I was secretive growing up to avoid drawing too much attention to myself, but it’s not something that you can necessarily hide. People will notice that you might be acting a bit different or you might have slightly different preferences.
I did find an escape through art classes in the local hall with some amazing teachers and I started getting interested in music when I was about 13. Then things got a tiny bit darker when I was a teenager and I started having some mental health issues which related to not being able to talk to anyone and being a very small Christian community. Every person who was a tiny bit different just kept to themselves.
My friends and family thought I was moving to the UK because of my university opportunity, but to me it was a way to escape a toxic environment. It was a very positive experience from the start. I was appreciating any amount of free space that I was getting, even if it wasn’t great by other people’s standards. I felt like I could be myself for the first time in 20 years which was both a shocking and therapeutic experience. Having that much freedom really shed a lot of light on how my life looked prior and how much I lived in survival mode.
What is your new album The Prayerbook all about?
I started writing the album about two and a half years ago whilst I was having ideas connected to religion. One of the first songs was ‘Mercy’ which has very controversial lyrics. I started writing it after watching a documentary about a small Mormon community in the US because I recognised certain tricks that those with religious authority used.
It started off as a bit of an angry song that was supposed to be almost anti-religion. I left it for a few months and then I realised that actually religion is supposed to be wholesome, but the way it’s been undermined and personal agendas have got involved, it’s changed what it is. So I started writing more songs about religious authority. I understand how that could come across as quite abstract to someone who didn’t grow up in Eastern Europe and without certain family practises.
One of the songs that I’m most proud of is ‘St Camille’which includes some lyrics in Polish. It felt very personal, and it’s a reflection on experiencing first-hand the abuse that the Catholic Church has committed in the name of religion. And it’s a pretty ironic song that portrays an image of people who don’t have much to offer, discarding their goods to supply them to a figure of St Camille. In that song I create a role reversal where St Camille, being the patron of the sick, gains power and satisfaction from making people sick. It was partially inspired by a Polish tradition where priests visit families to bless their households, and they receive money in envelopes for doing that service.
It’s a strange thing to talk about because you really don’t want to attack other people’s comfort zones because it’s not an attempt at criticising religion itself, it’s an attempt at criticising what is wrong with abusing religion and religious influence. So it’s something that’s difficult to convey as a message and I only hope that I did a good job with that on the album.
What impact are you hoping for with your new album?
This is one of the biggest releases I’ve done and it’s been crazy. I’ve had much more confidence as a producer and as a songwriter this time. It’s an interesting and controversial subject and I feel like I did a pretty good job creating these songs. I decided to do the crazy thing of self-releasing which is an expensive endeavour with massive risk. But making music is the only thing that brings me satisfaction through self-expression, so I thought let’s print all the vinyls, let’s print all the CDs, let’s spread the word and see what type of reception I get.
In terms of what I hope to achieve, I genuinely don’t have massive expectations. I had a tiny bit of success with streams on a few songs like ‘Lore’, which was a lovely thing to see, but it wasn’t my main aim. I want to exist on my tiny little computer but be played on speakers in other people’s houses as well.
I’ve also made a crapload of merch, and I think people are going to really like it. I made handknitted beanies because I’m against outsourcing labour from factories. I made rosaries with upside down crosses that I cast from resin myself. You can find them along with my vinyls, CDs and stickers on my Bandcamp.
