how r u is the Belfast-based slowcore lo-fi Indie project of Irish singer-songwriter and producer Thom Southern.
Since forming in April 2024, how r u has since built a small but devoted following with the project’s lo-fi, introspective sound TikTok amassing nearly 100k + TikTok creates and driving over 9 million global song streams.
Southern channels a markedly softer dimension of his writing and production, sharing stages with Evan Dando (The Lemonheads), a sold out a Belfast headline show, performed at Gazefest Belfast 2025 and even had his song “need some rest” featured in an Instagram post by rapper Drake.
Just to start Thom, I know you’ve been away for a few years living in Liverpool and in London, are you back living in Northern Ireland?
Yes, I’m just outside Belfast, up north in Helen’s Bay near the sea, a forest, and everything. I’ve been sort of based here for a couple of years now, so that’s had quite a nice impact on my music and the visual stuff to my music. I think that people will probably get that.
You started out busking on the streets of Belfast and you committed to being in this life as a musician and making music. I know it’s been a roller coaster and up in the air feeling at times, but have you settled into music as a career and lifestyle, or is it still challenging?
I think life is challenging, you know, for everybody. I think I’ve always had a very good perspective on stuff. I’ve had my downs, big ups and big downs, but I just love it. I think, I find it easy to just keep going, especially since I started this how r u project.
I think that was kind of a breakthrough moment for me creatively and just to find a space in the world where I could do what I do best, and people relate to it in a don’t rely on any kind of classic promotional tools like the radio or press or anything like that.
If that comes along and somebody wants to talk about it or promote what I’m doing, it’s just an added bonus. But it’s the first time I don’t really need that anymore. There’s just a space on the Internet that just suits what I’m doing.
I think this has probably been the most comfortable time I’ve ever had creatively and as my job. I’ve just found this effortless the last year since I started.
You have been prolific. I was just looking back at your 2025 output and all the music that you released. It included three albums, a bunch of singles and had so many collaborations with artists such as vhs ghost, Theo Bleak, link3, sunniva, LochHaven, mellorush, friendly to crows and most recently with your sister Lucy as “ghoulgirl”.
I thought the for james album was one of the most beautiful albums to listen to while I was commuting.
The biggest compliment that I can give you is it’s not just the calming effect, but there’s a restorative effect of it that is just like a treadmill for your brain. It is just so mellow. I don’t know if it is the arrangement or repetitive tones or what exactly it is, but you simply drift off into somewhere else for that listening period.
Honestly, Damien, that’s exactly what I’m going for. You know the goal for me is that I just want to create the most consistent experience. If people come on the “how r you” journey with me, from day one right up until now, my goal is just that I remain consistently like that forever. Also, that’s what I’m getting out of it as well. When I make music, it just feels like what you’re hearing as well.
I’ve released so much music, and that’s what I was saying. This space on the Internet allows for that.
So, with classic kind of promotion and release stuff with other genres, artists are very restricted to releasing a song every four to six weeks. You also have to kind of have all of it in a package and then get it to the radio months in advance so that you can kind of work, ahead of yourself. Whereas with this, if I write a song that I think is good and I record it that day in a few hours, I can put it out next Friday, that’s the way I work. I think that’s been the most liberating thing for me as a musician.
I think that’s why the music feels so effortless in that way is because I’m personally finding it effortless to just put it out there.
Then if the song doesn’t connect, I just move on; I don’t care. I think it’s so liberating to not be too attached to your music and just let it go out and be what it is in a moment. If it’s just a moment, that’s fine. And if it resonates with people, awesome!
I feel like there’s just this idea of the younger generation and even I think it’s rubbing off on everybody now, that there’s just this overwhelming sense of human beings just wanting a calm like quiet.
This genre from slowcore, blue core, nostalgia core, hopecore and dark ambient music that leans into liminal spaces and liminal hashtags and all these genres that blend under the lofi umbrella. All of that is doing so well online because I think that we’re all craving some kind of connection, and it comforts something in all of us, a kind of trauma.
One of the things I find is slowcore is often grouped with shoegaze. I can see why when the vocals can also add a sort of textural layer. I’ve interviewed a bunch of different shoegaze bands, but one of the reasons that I think there’s been a resurgence in shoegaze as well is some of what you mentioned there about people wanting to feel a connection.
I think with the post-COVID introspection as well, people want to feel some sort of emotion with music. I think that slowcore and all the different genres tap into something there as well, even some of the post-rock kind of quieter moments.
When I think of slowcore music, I think of it starting with lo fi sounds from bands like Galaxie 500 and others such as Duster and Codeine. Slowcore is building on that scaffolding that was laid down. But there’s nowhere I can look at the map and say it started there, there’s no real geographical location to slowcore as it seems to be a sort of online phenomenon?
Yes, I think all of that’s true because it’s like I never even knew the term slowcore, until 2024, and my friends told me about it. I was getting into the lo fi chill genre. Some of my friends are the big producers in that world online, and they’re doing millions of streams every month. It’s absolutely crazy.
One of the guys, George, who’s in a slow core project called l o v v e r said to me Thom, you need to get on this new genre, it’s going to be the new lo fi chill. It’s blowing up and there’s this kid from Donegal called a sign crushes motorist.
The music is so nice and they’re putting out songs every week and collaborating all over the world. It’s incredible and I wanted to get into that.
I got home, opened my laptop and I literally made ‘only ghosts’ that day as my first track and it’s probably one of the best things I’ve written, I think. I wrote that and recorded it in four or five hours, went down to the beach that night with my sister, and she took those photos of me with my hood up and pretty much what is still the look of how r u. I came up with the logo the next day, put it up on SoundCloud, came up with the name, how r u. It all happened so quickly.
I’m going to be focusing a lot on instrumental, more sort of ambient guitar, that sort of side to the how r u project right up until about May. There’s lots of that coming your way.
How R U has recently signed with Los Angeles based Record Label‘Listen To The Kids’ and is working on his next album which will be released later in 2026.
Get more music from how r u on Bandcamp.
Well done! Thom has worked so hard and he a fantastically talented musician. Deserves all the praise and future success.