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[Music] I've been given this enormous gift which I wanted my whole life.
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You know, all I wanted to do is sing.
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But is that somehow going to take something else from me that I would love to have? >> Congratulations.
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sort of beautiful and heavy and amazing body of music.
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I almost shy away from calling it a record because that would give it sort of an infrastructure definition that falls into line with other records. And it it it isn't.
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It feels to me like uh it was just a necessity, a very important thing for you to to dive into your curiosity and learn and just learn about yourself and a lot of life going on in this album.
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Yeah, I think there was like there was basically an urgency to this record.
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Like it kind of like um it like came out of me in this like furious burst.
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And it's one of those records where if I hadn't have put it out now, it never would have come out because I think I would have like how I felt about things was is so specific to this moment in time.
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And this record kind of like roared out of me and it was a record that was made almost like a coping mechanism.
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mechanism. And I think as with all records, there's usually a period of time where you think it's never going to get finished or never going to get made or like you can't find the right like person to work with or you thought you
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were going to work with one producer and then they're not available and then you're like who am I going to like >> you're an infrastructure and it's >> and then you think the record is just not happening and there was this like oh we can delay it. I was like, there's no
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I was like, there's no delaying this one.
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Like, it's either now or this record never comes out.
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I will not feel the way that I feel about this in like a couple of years.
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So, there was this like ferocious urgency to this one.
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I sort of almost like made it in like a um in like a fog, I think.
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Like I did think I had quite a lot.
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I had was still like processing what happened to me and the sort of like the had like a level of PTSD that almost like when the record was finished I was like wait what just happened? >> Yeah.
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>> I was like oh my god there's a record now.
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Um >> do you get a sense of that in the writing?
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And I feel like listening to this album it's almost like you restrain yourself from performing these words sometimes and just speaking them is enough. They hush. You hush them in.
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you find ways for the words to really hold the attention.
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And so was this just a process of writing before you even thought about like what it would do from a song per se?
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>> Yeah, I I mean that is sort of my um it's it's kind of my process.
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it's it's kind of my process. I think a few of them were written in the room but yeah mostly my process is like having a lot of words like I feel quite strange if I come to the studio without words like it usually what compels me to go
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into a studio is I have a whole song written out or I think I had one of the greats was like really long poem that I started writing on tour um and and actually yeah I started sharing a notes app with Mark Bowen from Idols and yeah, I think things get started getting added to there. It was like one of the greats,
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It was like one of the greats, Kraken, I had Buckle was knocking around and the only thing that was that thing that we really didn't have was a song for everybody scream. I just had a title.
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So, I was like the machine, everybody scream like song to come, but this is the song.
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But yeah, so I do like I do have a tendency to start with with words.
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Um, and then sometimes that can actually be kind of hard because it's like then structuring almost like it's so it's so set in what it is like that finding what it is musically can be sometimes tricky. You're like, "Oh, okay.
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This song is like fully formed, but what the does the music sound like?"
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>> It actually makes total sense cuz when I listen to your music and I feel like like like I said, the arrangements are really always following what it is you're saying.
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And and and I know that seems like an obvious thing to say, but I don't think it is.
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Sometimes people go in and there's already a structure and then they just hum a melody and subconsciously put the words. >> I've seen Yeah. Yeah.
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I've seen like I'm I'm really fascinated to see people who sing gibberish and do the melody first and I'm like I think it's quite rare for me.
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I think I've only done that like once or twice.
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Um it's quite rare for me to do that.
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Like usually there is a story or a poem that has taken shape and that's what I'm kind of coming into the studio with and then you have to like create the cinema, you know, you have to like with the music create the visual of what that song is saying.
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>> You said you wrote one of the greats or started at least a poem.
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You were writing it when you were on tour.
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M that song is hilarious and costic and defiant and vulnerable and all of these things I hear in it at least which is just this kind of like you know stream of consciousness of sort of >> stream of conscious rant like >> you know you and you and I'm awesome but man maybe I'm not awesome enough and how do I get awesome and it's just as awesome. >> Okay, I hate you.
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Why don't you fancy me >> 100%.
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So, so, so what's going on in the middle of tour or when you're on tour where that comes to mind and you have this feeling of sort of inadequacy meets defiance?
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>> Yeah, I mean that's I think yeah I think that is like I mean I think it sums up the song quite well.
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I mean the song is constantly throwing itself under the bus as well.
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It's like I'm this, oh, I'm that, you know, like like >> um and about the cycle of like I'm the best, I'm the worst, I'm the best, which I think is part of making things, you know.
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Um I think it's it was I do a lot of writing on tour actually cuz most like I like to write while I'm in motion or daydreaming and there's like a bit there's like dead time. Yeah.
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I was thinking about greatness and like the cost of greatness and how every album I'm like, I'm going to be satisfied with this one.
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I'm going to be completely satisfied.
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I'm going to have no issues with it.
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And how it almost like never happens, you know?
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And then the cost of greatness as well.
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And I guess it was processing like, yeah, I feel like it was like, well, maybe I got there, but like at what cost as well?
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Like what cost to my sanity and to my life and to the other lives I could have had.
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had. And it was sort of about the brutality of ambition and the almost like violence of greatness as well that the things that you put yourself through and that you put your loved ones through to like get there, you know, like every interaction
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or like, you know, moment is sort of like foder for the song, you know, like you miss all these family moments and it feels like this relentless thing of just like forgetting how hard it is, forgetting how you're never satisfied and every time a tour in an album is
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over being like I'm going to do it again and this one this one will be the one like it like I will be happy it will be perfect you know um and I don't think when you're young and like people aren't taking you seriously you don't really
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think it's because you're a young woman you just think it's you know like you just think it's cuz you're annoying or you're too much or you're like and it does really hurt early cuz I What's it I see it happen now to others and I'm like, "Oh, it wasn't about you." You
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You know, cuz it just feels like this cycle, but I think it happens to a lot of artists, but it seems like it happens quite particularly to young women where they are suddenly blasted into the public sphere and then everyone tells you that you don't deserve to be there.
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And like I think like lungs exploding when I was that young, you know, you can't help but sort of absorb and feel like sort of Yeah.
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Like you get the big thing, but it comes at this thing of like which is public exposure and you're pushed in everyone's faces in a way that sometimes it feels like young women just kind of eaten. You know what I mean?
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eaten. You know what I mean? like devoured and and so you're sort of like pushed in front of people too much and then everyone is like well actually no you're terrible like go away you know so it just feels like this crazy thing happens
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to you that for me I think I got which I'm so you know on some level I'm so grateful for cuz I still have this amazing life and I have the people that have been with me since the beginning but it felt like I got all that attention young and then spent the next 15 years trying to prove I deserve it. >> That's how you cope or try to cope is
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>> That's how you cope or try to cope is just by keep going and try to prove it >> or prove that that moment >> that I was worthy of that moment, you know.
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So, it's like, did I get it right? Do I win the prize?
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You know, um >> has this album break?
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Has it broken the spell of that? >> A little bit.
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maybe a little bit, you know, cuz I think it was also you can't help but just like absorb the feeling that maybe you're not good enough or you're not like you because you're not to some people's taste that there's something like wrong or you need to change or whatever.
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Like you can't help absorb that when you're young.
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And I do think like I do think I've had some sort of revelation just through keeping on making work and seeing the people that come to my shows and now honestly having like young younger people find my work and find the biggest craziest songs I've ever made and love them like love them.
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So I'm like, "Oh my god, there was like I was doing something that people loved, you know, like it feels like I think more more and more people kind of discovering it has almost like soothed so much of that early like shame about how big I was and how kind of like expressive I was.
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So um that's been like really healing.
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And I think I'm realizing that oh it's for them and for the people who it's not for, it's just not for them. And that's okay.
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and I don't have to please them.
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And I think I said that I've said that every time I've made a record where I'm like, I don't care what I don't care about what people think, but I think this is the only album where I genuinely like don't because of what it costs me. You know what I mean?
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I'm just like, it cost me so much to make this album.
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Like the people who it's not for, like that's okay, you know?
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Like I know who it's for now.
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Um, and I think that has changed.
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Can I ask you when you say what it cost me?
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When you say cost, what where did it come from?
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>> Well, it's been really interesting.
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Like Yeah, it was really interesting.
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I think like the last record Yeah, the last record was like, "Do I want to have children?"
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Like there's a song called King where it was like like do I want to be a mother?
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Like is that even like can I see myself in that role?
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Like I want it but I'm also defiant of it.
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And then I think I kind of came to the end of that tour and I don't know I felt this like freedom and excitement and there was a feeling of I did want to like you know let's I wanted to see if I could try and have a family you know after the tour the tour was like winding down.
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we only had a month left to go and um yeah then I ended up which was really wild because I mean I do I do talk about the precience of songwriting sometimes but there was this line in King which was like I never knew my killer would be coming from within and it was a song about like motherhood and you know I I have spoken in the past about the sort of strange like subconscious precience of songwriting.
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But then I actually ended up having a eptop ectopic miscarriage on stage that was dangerous and that I had to be hospitalized for.
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Um, and I had to have immediate uh, surgery cuz I had like a, you know, I had a coat can of blood in my abdomen and I didn't want to go to the scan cuz I just wanted to keep touring.
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And I was like, you know, I've been through many physical things on stage. I can get through this.
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And they were like, no, you're coming in to have a scan.
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And then I was immediately taken into surgery.
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And the I was like and then I went back on stage 10 days later and like was singing that singing that song, you know, in this like I don't know how I did that.
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I think I was just in a in like a total fog at that point.
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Um >> but do you think you were just trying to cope?
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Was that what going back on stage was because obviously there would have been people around you that would have given you the grace required to to process. >> Yeah.
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I think I didn't want to end the tour.
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Like I just didn't I didn't like I had two shows left and I was like that's why I was like um I was like I can't I don't want to I have something has something has been taken from me that I didn't want to happen.
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I don't also want to end my whole tour that I like on this, you know.
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Um, and yeah, I just like went back and and played.
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It's also going back to the only place that I feel like I I could really like feel a sense of control and power again, you know, like I um eptopic pregnancies are really painful and before I did the gig when I didn't know that that's what was happening to me, I was in a lot of pain and yet I stepped onto the stage and I felt It all just went away, you know. It all went away.
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Like all the pain went away and there was wind blowing and I was like, "Whatever is here, it's going to carry me through this moment." And I did.
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I felt like this this presence has always been with me on stage like just and it was outside. It was by the sea. The wind was blowing. It was very Gothic.
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It was like a white lace dress, but really like all the pain just like went away and I was, you know, I just was there and in the mud in the rain and with like these people and I didn't feel anything, you know, and so um and then, you know, so to kind of then go back to the stage just makes sense to me, you know.
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I I kind of want to go back to this to this place that like I kind of It's weird, isn't it?
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Because it's like you'd think something really terrible happening to you would make you not want to go back, but I'm like no.
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It's like it kind of left me more in awe of the power of performance and the power of songwriting than I kind of ever have been before, if you know what I mean, like of how powerful it can be.
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Um, so yeah, I just there wasn't really any like doubt in my mind that I would go back and do those two shows, you know?
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That's how I wanted to end the tour. It's crazy. >> Crazy. Life is crazy. >> It's crazy. It's really crazy. And it's like creepy.
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I'm just like, "Oh no, man.
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Don't like let that bit come true. That's fuck." Yeah.
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You know, like >> that's creepy. I don't like it.
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>> that's creepy. I don't like it. The whole dance fe of it all though as you rightly pointed out was I'm sure you probably thought at the time will you tell us did you think like okay this is me actually coming to terms with this
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with this part of my life and and trying to process like at what cost right how much do I put on into this versus this other side of life which I really maybe I want to explore and then >> you find yourself making everybody scream like oh I guess this isn't done like I've still got to figure stuff out. >> I basically I had like I had like a I
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>> I basically I had like I had like a I saw a like trauma specialist who she was like sometimes the instinct to try and like move past a loss like this is to just try again really quickly.
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And some people do just do that, but she was like my advice to you would be do not try again until you feel like yourself, you know.
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Um, and so the place that I feel myself is kind of making work, you know, it's kind of the only thing that I it's how I've sort of processed everything in my life is to if I can create a I don't know.
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I guess this album is is my most personal, but it's also one of the like most mythological >> deeply curious. >> Deeply curious. >> Yeah.
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I think there there was something it was so kind of bodily what happened to me and I also if I'd gotten on the plane to play that festival which I you know I'm just like a machine. I'm like no I can do it. I can do it. I'm such a hypochondric.
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Like as I've said I'm always like demanding to be taken to the hospital when nothing is happening to me. I'm like I need to go. I need to go now.
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Like you're completely fine.
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Actually when something really bad was happening to me it's serious what happened to me.
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And I think if I'd gotten on the plane to that festival, they were like, you would have come off on a stretcher or worse.
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So, but I was totally like like that morning um I just gone to get a coffee.
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I was like, I'm going to be fine.
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And I was like there's this thing that I think some of the themes that I went to in terms of like um it became so much about like life and death and earth and nature because I was like oh death is just a door away like I was oblivious to it but it was just there.
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>> Well, we're such delusional creatures, right?
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And that's what keeps us going because it's such so so much chaos.
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>> It's going to be fine. >> Yeah.
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And we and we completely ignore that there's death around us all the time.
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Like but they're just leaves on the ground.
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the ground. No, they worked really hard to grow to a point of completion to drop off >> and now we just sweep them away like it's nothing and yet when it comes down to our own existence we become it's like aience off to get a coffee and also just like a
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sense there is a feeling when you're coming to the end of the tour cuz I'd also broken my foot and played through it you know like I'd broken my foot there had I tried to play through it and >> but you broke it on stage >> I broke it on stage Actually, I've never broken anything on stage. It's
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It's traversing on and off.
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Like, so I was I you know, I just like ran too fast to get back on the stage and I hit my foot against a step and and cut it and I was like, I think I'm okay.
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I think I can just get through this and I looked down at the down at my foot.
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There was just like a pool of blood.
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So, I was like, oh no, is this a bad Is this a bad one?
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And then when I looked at the blood slightly like bubbling up through the toes, I was like, "Yeah, it's a lot."
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>> And then basically they were like so much like there was like viral footage of the Porterex coming on and like having to like mop up the from the stage.
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We were like, "Is this so?" It took them ages.
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But basically, I went off had it checked.
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They were like, "You wouldn't be able to move."
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You know, it's a weird thing with me where people are usually like, "You should be in more pain, so you're probably fine."
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But it's that strange like >> like adrenaline mixed with a strange sort of like physical toughness.
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>> But it's weird cuz I can't see like one >> like vaguely mean comment and not weep.
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Like I'm not like It's weird.
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I'm like tough in some areas and very sensitive in others.
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>> Yeah, there is definitely a defiance.
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I think even when you're not breaking your feet or going through really traumatic situations in life and still returning to the stage to perform, let's let's honor those as as really intense life experiences.
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But >> from the minute we we saw you perform, even as a as a young person, there was a defiance I always felt on stage of like I will perform this with everything that I have.
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No, it is it is like a it's almost like I'm like, well, I'm not responsible for what she does.
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I don't even know what's going to happen.
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>> You disassociate a little bit.
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>> Well, well, it is a surrender.
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I think I think people often ask me like, do you have any spiritual practices?
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And I do think it's probably the performance is the sort of place where I feel like I do just try and open I surrender to something kind of other than me and it does tend to like allow you to do slightly like inhuman feats.
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I think >> I'd love to talk a little bit about some of the the environments that you that you were drawn to in order to process uh or to write or to just express >> a node that you went and did research at the Warberg Institute which is super interesting.
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>> Yeah, they have like Yeah, that's the biggest occult library in Britain I think >> and and obviously like super fascinating to be able to go back and trace the line of lineage of image >> and and art and the way >> symbolism. Yeah.
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And how it ties us all together, even though if you look at society today, we couldn't feel like we're further away from that.
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But that must have been very interesting for you just to kind of connect the dots to some degree as a as a modern person diving into old practice.
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>> I felt so out of control of my body. It was interesting.
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I looked into like themes of witchcraft and mysticism and um and everywhere that you looked in terms of birth or stories of birth, you came across stories of like witchcraft and folk horror and myths and it just felt like it um >> deeply misunderstood as well. Like >> Yeah. Yeah.
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Well, you know, obviously some of the first women tried as witches were um midwives.
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Some of the first women tried as witches were just cuz they owned property.
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It was just like usually they had something that people wanted.
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So they like had property or land or so. So they were like uhuh.
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But it was also a lot women living in nontraditional >> as you rightfully said it would be nice if men found power >> right.
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So you have way too many sheep which which um so I mean I did end up just like boiling kind of almost like cauldrons for myself full of herbs and uh I needed natural ways to heal as well as the medical things.
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There's almost just like a sense of trying to find a different I don't know. Yeah.
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I I I think it was looking into forms of power, you know, >> you know, there's almost a timeline here and maybe I at least for me with everybody's screen beginning is this idea of like performance and connection but also what you're going through and the list at the end of the things you know that saved you ultimately which was like the spells, the injections and all of it rolled into >> Yeah, they did. Yeah, that was it.
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It was the whole like >> I needed it all, you know. I did. I needed it all.
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And but the scream of it, you know, the scream at the kind of unfairness of it as well and the fury and like I think I I never felt that there were barriers to me honestly as because of my gender like I just didn't feel them.
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I feel like I just blasted through like thing after you know I was just like no I'm just like >> defiance again. >> Yeah.
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I just like blasted through it and it was sort of only when it came to wanting to have a family that I was like, "Oh oh this is going to be different for me and like kind of the fury at the unfairness of that."
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And also the sense that like when I tried the violence of which I was shut out from it, you know, it's like, "Oh, have I been given this gift like this enormous gift which I wanted my whole life?"
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you know, all I wanted to do is sing, but is that somehow going to take something else from me that I would love to have, you know?
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So, I did um it's all it's the scream.
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I think I think it is a sort of like cruel age in lots of ways, you know, going for, you know, 35 to 40 for women cuz it's like you're coming to the peak of your powers.
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um or I or like as a professional or a creative and at the same time there is a sense that you're running out of time to have the other things you might want you know um like family or something else and I do think that sometimes that feels like a scream.
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There's a moment on the record where you uh talk about death's kiss which is very moving and this moment when it it and it's almost like you're embracing it in that moment because it either feels or breathes like life.
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I can't remember the exact lyric but >> yeah um and it tastes like life.
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Oh, that was I really like I had cuz the closest I came to death was like wanting to make life, you know, and you don't get that without desire.
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And there was a lot about desire and like like where was this feeling going to lead me?
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And it did feel really magical, you know, like when I I was really really I was really excited.
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I think that's sometime sometimes the sadness to me is like I was really it did feel magical.
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I was really excited to, you know, try and start a family.
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I I had like dealt I had like wrestled with it.
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I had wrestled with it on King.
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I had wrestled with it in Dance Fever.
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And it felt like this like exciting moment.
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And it was almost like it so quickly.
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My mind went quite badly wrong quite fast, you know.
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So, it's almost like there's been a bit of that it's that sort of grief that that experience has sort of been like taken from you, you know, to the sort of sense of being like, let's just see.
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I'm like, no, no, that's gone now.
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Um, but I think what I wanted this record to be is not just a scream, but like an embrace, you know?
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I think the only thing that goes the the kind of gift in going through something awful is that you can embrace someone who's been through it too, you know.
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And I think like it's almost like I had this feeling like I wanted to just put my arms around anyone who had experienced something like this, you know.
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And I think that is almost like what songwriting is to me is about making connection and being able to embrace someone even though you're not physically with them.
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>> What's it like actually performing these songs to tape or into the grid or whatever you had to do to capture them because it's one thing to write them, it's another thing like perfume and milk is one of my favorite songs on the record.
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>> That's so >> and it's interesting because I do feel like this album almost goes in movements.
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movements. M >> I feel like there's everybody's scream into one of the greats are sort of like all right I'm I'm kind of still trying to figure out what defiance means from a performance point of view and how it all relates to to what happened up >> then we get into the whole spiritual curiosity of it all like >> you know which is dance >> you know um >> sympathy magic
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>> sympathy magic >> and then we get into like the healing almost where it's like perfume and milk >> the you know and so what was it like actually recording like say perfume and milk because that that song to me is like obviously the connection to nature the idea of re of healing through what being close to other things that grow and fall and soil and returning to the earth. Um, I think
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Um, I think it's interesting because that song was actually the furthest from the event.
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That was like two years I think from Yeah.
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2 years from like when it happened.
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And so it was like it was like >> wow.
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>> It was like processing.
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>> It was like processing. It was about healing and like having watched seasons change and having watched other things like you know growing and then returning to the earth and a sense that like I was also part of that like nature and part of that cycle and but that my he also it
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was a real song about like healing wasn't linear you know as I was trying to tie up the album a lot of like almost like the feelings would suddenly random come back, I'd get randomly completely terrified again or I would get like or I would just suddenly be like it's happening again. It's happening again. It's happening again.
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It's happening, you know, like I would get suddenly like completely terrified.
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So, it was sort of like looking as like healing is slow.
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It comes and it goes like and I was like, "Oh, like it really it is slow a process."
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And you know, sometimes something would trip me up and I would feel like I was just like back in that terror.
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This record I really just got so much like healing I think just from being in nature and obviously Aaron's studio is in um Hudson Valley in upstate New York which is like sur and I did I stayed in a little house.
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It was very like the witch at the edge of the woods.
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Like I stayed in a little house on the edge of town and I like finished the record with Aaron and it was a sense that like I was pe like as I I was having to kind of look at how I'd heal, look at the songs that I started the record with, look at how it was going to end and like yeah like piece myself together, you know?
30:31
And I wanted to put in lots of natural flora and fauna on this record from like um we looked in to a lot of like um folk songs as well because there's that amazing period of 70s folk where they're all like into the occult, you know, like Judy Sill and um there's an amazing book called Electric Eden which is like how when like folk and mysticism all started crossing over and so we were looking a lot of that at that period of time as well.
30:55
And yeah, I was just like exploring all these different themes.
31:02
But yeah, that song kind of came out of like those kind of things.
31:07
>> Can we talk a little bit about like the process of recording it with Aaron, but just to actually get to the point of singing these songs and performing them and how Aaron made it feel safe?
31:15
>> So it start this record started in South London.
31:19
So I started it in South London and a lot of the like early stuff and the demos was recorded in South London. Yeah.
31:26
Me and Bowen sort of started it in South London and it was kind of like starting to make it in fits and starts.
31:35
Um as Bowen was on tour, I was on tour. He would go away.
31:38
Mitzky would come to the studio.
31:41
And so like people kind of came by when they were in London.
31:43
Like Ethel came and did backing vocals on one of the greats.
31:46
So like Bowen would go off on tour and then I would kind of keep chipping away at the songs that we had and then it sort of it just gets to that process with a record where you can no longer see the wood through the trees, you know.
31:58
I think it was one of the greats that broke us.
32:01
>> That song was written in one take but it took three years to finish. >> Yeah.
32:05
But you did it in one take.
32:07
>> We me and Bowen did it in one take.
32:07
It's the guitar and vocal together and and the guitar and vocal are together. >> Yeah.
32:14
>> And it was the first time I'd ever sung the song. the you riff as well. >> I didn't know.
32:18
Yeah, I think he like had a riff and he was like, I've got this riff.
32:22
>> So, he just started playing the riff and then I started singing and then the song just happened and we always meant to re-record it but we didn't. >> Yeah. Yeah.
32:30
>> But it made it a nightmare to produce.
32:34
Like an absolute nightmare because the time signatures are all over the place. It's slow.
32:38
It's like speeds up and then it slows down again and then it speeds up again and like it does time jumps. The tuning is wild.
32:43
I think someone texted me like, "Oh my god, I love that key change."
32:48
I was like, "None of that is intentional.
32:49
None of that is intentional." But it's imperfection.
32:55
Like when we tried to put it in time, it lost something.
32:58
When we tried to put it in tune, it lost something.
33:02
So we needed an absolute wizard to come on board and to help like take that song to the transcendent level it needs to go to without taking away any of its rawness.
33:12
And I think Aaron is probably the only person that could have done that.
33:17
Like he just kind of got it.
33:17
I think he was like, "No, there's not like replaying that needs to be done.
33:21
It's like tiny like and I think him and his him and his engineer Bella spent literally like days just like micro moving drums like micro. It was tiny."
33:35
But yeah, basically when I spoke to him about that track, I was like, "Oh, okay."
33:38
like Aaron cuz it's quite like a weird like project. Like it was so wild.
33:44
Some of it was like so out of tune and I was like but we need to keep all that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
33:49
>> Some of the sounds were technically like incredibly like ugly or brutal and I was like no it was like an ugly and brutal experience in pots.
33:54
Like we need those sounds.
33:56
Um but I do I think it was a confusing record for some people but Aaron completely understood it.
34:04
He was like no I get this.
34:06
So yeah, he I went out to his studio to finish it up and um and it helped that like me and Bowen were like huge fans of the national, you know, so it all just kind of made sense.
34:21
And yeah, I went out there and spent like a month with Aaron kind of finishing it up and tying it together because there was also like there was, you know, I was also working with Danny Hall, so there was an electronic element like I'd worked with Mitzky like but I was like I in with Dance Fever because of the pandemic.
34:37
I hadn't been able to get in a room with like one producer and just finish a whole record together.
34:42
And I and that actually was incredibly distressing on that record.
34:46
Like we were all separated.
34:48
We couldn't even get to each other.
34:50
like a lot of it had to be finished remotely.
34:51
I was like I am never doing that again >> cuz it left me with like >> like I can I I don't know if anyone else can but I can hear in that record where the where the pandemic starts.
35:02
>> I'm like oh my god that's when >> that's when the pandemic started.
35:05
I can like hear it and I was like oh my god that's where it starts.
35:09
And so with me, it was like that record was about trying to make a record out of this incredibly fractured period of time where you were really isolated from each other.
35:18
And I didn't get to finish it in a room with one producer.
35:22
It was kind of like pulled together in lots of different ways.
35:26
>> I can imagine sitting with Aaron or being with Aaron in the in the final stages with you and Bowen and Mitzky and you've all created this this kind of okay, it's all here.
35:32
We just have to we have to put it together. >> Yeah.
35:36
I was like, it's all here.
35:36
We got these incredible sounds, like these incredible people, but I just need like a focused month where we put it all together, which is now actually quite old school.
35:46
Like it's quite like it's like quite like old school like, you know, I think since almost since the pandemic, doing things remotely or finishing up is kind of like normal now.
35:56
No, no, it sends me crazy. I don't want to do that.
35:58
>> You could not a record like this.
35:58
I mean just the notes back and forth to get it to keep its personality but also get >> structure of like >> 6 months just to get one song into a place where it feels good.
36:08
>> I would have spent another month in upstate and Arrow was like it's done.
36:10
He like you're already the person who spent the longest amount of time here.
36:14
Like I was like I'm going to say he was like you can go home. It's done.
36:20
>> But it must have been really emotional at times hearing the songs come together because as you said at the very beginning of our conversation there was it was almost a fog a process. >> Yeah.
36:28
I think I was fairly like I think I was really angry when I recorded. I can't quite remember.
36:33
There's like six months where I just like it was quite a blurry year, but I think I just remember being like really pissed off.
36:44
>> I was like, "Oh, now you want me to sing after everything I've been through. Now I have to sing."
36:50
>> And who are you talking to? Yourself? >> Just myself? Yeah.
36:53
>> Or just like I think I was like >> it was weird.
36:56
I think I'm like moody about getting in the vocal booth or whatever. >> I'm not surprised.
37:01
I mean, this is this is the wrestling I feel that we've been hearing to some degree in your music, which is just this like I I want to honor this gift.
37:07
I want to honor this opportunity to reach people and these words and this and this voice, but at the same time, do >> you know it was interesting?
37:14
I was scared to it it was good. It was amazing.
37:19
I got a little scared to push myself vocally cuz I thought something would break.
37:25
because when something breaks on stage, you think everything's gonna break.
37:28
And actually, it was kind of like But I think I did actually end up doing that like almost like as a furious test of like um my abilities, you know, and and um but actually then being really annoyed with myself cuz like I have to perform this live.
37:48
when you hit a note like there's a note in sympathy magic like and but you're like belting full out and as I did it I was like this is going to me up.
38:00
>> Well, I mean you can have it all.
38:00
I mean >> and you can have it all as well.
38:02
But I do think when I was in there, I was doing it, but I was also like future me is going to be so annoyed with this, you know, cuz it's going to But do do you know what that I've actually been going back to opera training cuz what had started to happen was I'd started to tense up as I was hitting high notes out of fear of breaking something >> vocally. >> Yeah.
38:25
And actually that's the worst thing that you can do.
38:26
And I went back to opera and she was like everything is there.
38:32
there. you can hit all like just relax and that's been really amazing and so performing those songs after that like I I I felt like a part of me was coming back to me and I was starting to trust my body again >> that fear of breaking something do do you know what that's rooted in like
38:48
obviously the inability to sing would have been devastating but um the fear's got to come from somewhere right cuz it probably wasn't there when you were younger you wouldn't >> Oh no no no I didn't care like I just like >> few plants down the canon lock and you'd have snap the out of it I guess I was quite drunk. I was quite drunk. So, I was quite drunk.
39:03
So, I didn't like I was like totally like you know what did I There was this line from a song that I didn't end up using which is like whirling dervish with a death wish you know I just didn't like I didn't think about it like the situations I put myself in or whatever like but that was a song about my like young self which was like whirling dervish with a death wish.
39:23
Um, and yeah, I just didn't like there was a part of me that didn't really want to exist, so I I had like no care for myself or whatever.
39:33
But you do have this crazy like I think I just got to an age where I'm like, oh, like life is fragile and stuff stuff had started to happen to me.
39:43
I think it's also you if you've been sort of lucky enough um to have been uh cocooned in some way from the big tragedies of life if they if they have been lucky enough to like have not encroached upon you once you get over 35 like stuff's going to start happening
40:02
you know do you I mean we've just got to the age where stuff starts to happen like the big stuff the life and death stuff and I think in some ways it has sort of made my connection into work and performance like deeper and in other ways I'm like I need to start
40:18
actually training you know I'm just like oh I'm going I it's I think I have more respect for my body and what I put it through like I just used to not train for at all the shows will sort it out the first three shows will be tough but then I'll be fine I don't know I also I've got no
40:35
like I didn't get into this job to be like disciplined you know I've got no discipline really and it's having to learn discipline as you get older in order to just like keep performing at your highest level, you know, >> that's a real letting go process. The
40:49
The album finishes in a in a in a place uh to me at least which feels like a realization, a letting go of of a preconception of what love >> was going to be and that really it it can exist in in ways that one could never really truly have imagined when they were young and trying to sort of control the narrative, right? >> Yes.
41:10
>> Yes. I mean and love was like when I wrote that song I was like okay so if the songs have this like terrible precience you know if they have this power if they are spells or manifestations or you know prayers let this one be the one that comes true you know like let this let this one be the one that is realized in the world not just for myself but just for everyone
41:35
you know just for like so and after an album that is so full of like desire fire and fury and has this like um ache, you know, ache like I think the word scream is in every song in some capacity like it it's there like it's threaded through in so many ways that I wanted to end it on just this sense of like peace and resting and getting to breathe out. I think there's so much like primal sort
42:02
I think there's so much like primal sort of panting energy in some of the songs and I wanted this to just sound like a breath out at the end of it.
42:11
>> I love the I love the sense of possibility at the end of this album.
42:16
>> It's emotional to listen to because you know you there's so much life lived in so many ways through the making of it and listening to it.
42:24
But at the end it does just feel at least to me like there is a lot of sort of hope and a lot of opportunity to live the life you want to live.
42:36
How how does it feel to you?
42:38
>> I think that I think like the songs are always like three steps ahead of me.
42:43
It's been that my whole life.
42:45
It's sort of like going back to Delila like I'm going to be free and I'm going to be fine but maybe not tonight.
42:52
You know, I was like wrestling with addiction and and I but the song's kind of like like you're going to be okay. Not tonight. Tonight you're in Miami. >> Yeah.
43:03
>> But you're going to be okay.
43:03
And and it's also just like okay, maybe love is not about the chase.
43:08
Maybe contentment is not about the chase and achievement and you know the the feeling like it's never quite good enough. Try again.
43:16
And I was like maybe surrendering to something and more like resting than running.
43:22
Peace is coming, you know, like and I'm hoping that and again like it is like I have a a projection of a future, you know, that where I feel at peace. But I don't know. Oh, no. I'll say that.
43:40
I don't know that cuz I don't I'm just like I wonder if it's just like this constitution thing where I'll be like finally this I made it and like >> I have a family and I'm at peace.
43:48
I'm like I need to get back on stage.
43:53
I don't know if there's like a there's an Martha Graeme quote which I've been thinking about a lot on this record which is divine dissatisfaction and that's creativity and it's the thing that keeps us going.
44:03
It's this sense that like it just keeps propelling you forward to make more things, to make new discoveries, like constant curiosity, constant like want to evolve and change and but it does come from some restless spirit or something.
44:19
But I'm hoping, yeah, I'm I'm really hoping that and love is the one that comes true next.
44:26
Please, none of the scary ones now. Thank you.
44:31
Okay, just the nice ones.
44:31
Only the nice ones just for a bit. [Music]