Heartworms Tickets

Jojo Orme is militant about defying her detractors. Growing up in her hometown of Cheltenham as a teenager, Orme frequently dealt with discrimination about her mixed ethnic background. When she went on to study Production and Performance at South Gloucestershire and Stroud College, she faced sexist remarks on the predominantly male course which gave her an idea of how she’d be received in the wider music industry. 

But overcoming the odds made Orme increasingly self-reliant, a characteristic which defined her early life – having left home at 16, teaching herself to play guitar, and beginning to craft her own songs. Influenced by the post-punk leanings of indie revivalists like Interpol, PJ Harvey, The Cure, and The Shins (whose 2017 album, Heartworms, gave Orme the name for her musical project) the budding songwriter began to mould how Heartworms would sound and look. 

Scroll through Orme's Instagram and you'll only see black and white. She posts her own poetry, pictures with fellow post-punk poet John Cooper Clarke and The Libertines’ Pete Doherty, and shots of herself in combats and a beret that she self-describes as “gothic military fairy”. Heartworms’ stark, commanding visual aesthetic coupled with their unofficial 2020 debut single ‘What Can I Do’ began to turn heads in the South London scene that she’d been admiring from afar before relocating there, snagging support slots with Sports Team and Lime Garden.

One crucial head Orme turned was Dan Carey’s, the cult music producer and co-founder of seemingly omnipresent indie label Speedy Wunderground that has championed most bands from the Brixton Windmill scene (as well as having produced Wet Leg and Fontaines D.C.). But rather than having to relinquish her creative control, he came on board as a collaborator. “Before I met Carey, I idolised him. He sees me the same as I see him,” she gushed in a recent interview. 

In late 2022 came Heartworms’ official debut single, ‘Consistent Dedication’, which consolidated Orme’s determination, her mysterious and macabre lyricism, as well as her varied influences - the funk-fuelled lead guitar riff was a direct nod to the Scissor Sisters. ‘Retributions Of An Awful Life’ followed shortly after alongside increased hype, with one magazine calling Heartworms’ 2023 debut EP, A Comforting Notion, “a masterclass in making an entrance”.

Heartworms head out on tour in 2023 in support of A Comforting Notion, playing shows in Brighton, Manchester, Cardiff, Birmingham, and a homecoming show at London’s Village Underground later in the year. Despite the busy schedule, Orme still finds time for her passions outside music by volunteering at the RAF Museum in London, saying: “I also collect loads of military clothes, proper 1940s pieces. I just get really excited about that stuff. I guess we all have something we love, don’t we?”