“It was the classic sob story in school – I was a bit of an outcast and didn’t make friends. The guitar was my release and my escape”: Sophie Lloyd went from filming YouTube covers to touring arenas with Machine Gun Kelly – she recounts her meteoric rise

Sophie Lloyd

Everything was going so well for Sophie Lloyd. The 27-year-old British guitarist had recently completed her first tours of the U.S. and Europe as part of rap-rocker Machine Gun Kelly’s band. It was a heady time for Lloyd, who, despite her sizable following on YouTube and Instagram, had previously only played club and pub gigs around the U.K. before signing on for Kelly’s Mainstream Sellout tour in the spring of 2022. 

Now she was playing big-time venues – Madison Square Garden, Wembley Arena, even the odd stadium or two – and she was “going down a smash.”