 This article is kindly sponsored by Scarlet River Management David Dawson
Hi Charlotte! Thanks so much for doing this interview with us! You’ve recently released the EP Coffee and Conversations; is this a collection of songs you’ve written over some time or was it a case of having the idea for the EP then creating the music? They were written over a period of time. A couple of them were intended to be on the first EP; I know I had intentions for 'Remedy' to be on the first one but I wasn’t sure, same with 'Early Light'. The others came over time; I decided I wanted to release another record and thought why not have these songs that make a lot of sense to be together - and that’s how they ended up on the EP. In 'Remedy' you ask ‘Are we meant to be each other’s remedy?’ – whilst it is so important to be strong within ourselves, we often find ourselves relying on the strength of those around us, whether it’s friends, partners or family. How important do you think it is to have these people who can heal you and make you feel better when you need it, and was there a particular person or event that you are discussing in this song? Yes; certainly. I do think it’s important to have a support system. I think that’s the case for whoever you are - you could be the most successful and happiest person on the planet but you’re still going to need people; that’s a very human need and desire. The actual event that inspired this song was that one of my best friends in the whole world, who is actually a muse for a lot of the songs I’ve written, welcomed someone back into her life. Whilst I was friends with this person, I didn’t think it was a good idea because it seems like they can only exist when they’re both miserable. That was the idea behind it, I just remember being so angry with her that she was letting this person swan back in. I remember thinking ‘How would I write this song, what would my perspective be?’ That’s why it’s a little bit punchy and bitter at the beginning where it’s like ‘Are you doing ok? You left me a long time ago; how about we catch up’. So that was what caused me to write this song. 'On The Loose' is a feel good anthem! It tells the story of someone who has been on the end of some harsh criticisms from an ex, but instead of taking this negatively has decided to run with the names and turn it into more of a joke – as an artist, how important do you think it is to harness this ability to not take things too seriously and turn other people’s negativity into something positive? I think it’s essential. It would be an absolute lie to say that things don’t affect you, and that’s totally okay, they’re allowed to affect you. Sometimes though you have to have a thick skin and brush it off. Especially as an artist; unfortunately no matter what you do, you could be the most talented artist in the world, someone isn’t going to like it. That’s just the way it is unfortunately, but you’ve just got to go ‘You know what, it’s not for them and that’s fine’ and let it wash over you and be okay - but that doesn’t mean that it’s an easy thing to do! What was the inspiration behind this particular song? I remember driving down the road and I saw an ambulance and all that came into my head was ‘Blue lights chasing me all over town’. That sort of sat with me for a few days and I kept thinking ‘I kind of like that!’ The idea I then had was that it would be funny to write the song about a woman who has just had enough! She isn’t going to tell you how heartbroken she is, she’s just thinking that it is time for her to get her revenge! I just thought that kind of feel would be quite funny, and it is a made up story by the way, before anyone thinks I’m being chased by the police! 'Praying for Rain' takes a different approach in that using the pathetic fallacy of the rain underlines the heartbreak of someone leaving, but also the need to release those emotions. In a world where there can be a lot of pressure to bottle things up and move on, how important do you think it is that we allow ourselves time to handle what we are going through? I think it’s something that, whether you like it or not, we all have to learn to do. The idea for 'Praying for Rain' is saying the things that you’re too afraid to say, and not worrying about potentially regretting anything. I believe that the words that will hurt you more than words that you use to hurt someone, are the words that you don’t say because you’re scared of what might happen. You just need to say what you’re feeling and get it off your chest, but I think that’s a learning curve. When we have arguments in relationships we too often look back and think ‘I should’ve said this’; there’s no point, just get it off your chest! The reality is that if you’re going to say something that puts them completely off of you, then you weren’t right for each other in the first place! 'Early Light' again brings in that natural imagery of the weather, with the sunrise used both in the story of the song but also to represent the optimism and excitement of new romance – was this something that you planned to include in your songs or did the imagery come naturally to you? I love metaphors and imagery! I’m such a literature nerd so stuff like that is definitely my cup of tea! For those particularly attentive listeners, they will have noticed that in the first EP the fourth song is called 'Passenger Side' and says, ‘I’ve seen the sunrise from talking all night’. 'Early Light' is actually the same story but just a little bit later on! It comes from the same inspiration, that experience of being in a relationship where you’re treated really well, which is always really nice! The relationship is healthier and everything feels so much brighter! I deliberately structured the EP with putting a more melancholic song then a really positive song to lift people up; I did that in the first EP too and I think that’s fun for people when they’re listening! If you had to name one song from the EP that means the most to you, which would it be and why? Probably 'Early Light'; it’s one of those songs that comes from a personal experience. I love singing that song and I loved creating that song; I loved sitting in the studio and coming up with all the fun bits that were going into it. I just love that it feels like it should be in a cheesy rom-com! That’s the dream! Current climate permitting – what are your plans for the rest of 2021? It’s looking more and more likely that the world is going to open up, and hopefully it won’t be locked down again! If that is the case and I can go out and perform then that is the main goal. I want to go out and sing, go out and meet people and thank the people who have supported me face to face! I want to create more content and keep amping it up, because although I’ve had a great response there’s only so much I can do during the lockdown. You do need to tour ideally, and meet more artists and travel. Most of the people who are supporting me have never even seen me live or met me in person, so it would be really cool for me to see them, and hopefully that’s the case! Finally, one thing we ask all of our interviewees is to name their top three songs that relate to mental health. What would be your top three? My Girl - Temptations Stars - Grace Potter The Archer - Taylor Swift
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Maxim Mower
I’m sure most of you have heard the phrase ‘vision board’ being bandied around. You might have seen this being mentioned in a self-help article, for example, or perhaps in an interview with rapper-turned-spiritual-guru, Big Sean. Celebrities such as Oprah and Reese Witherspoon swear by them. Physicists probably swear about them. But what actually are they?
Vision boards are said to be visual representations of your goals. You cut out pictures from magazines and newspapers that inspire you, or that symbolise a particular change you want to bring about in your life, and collate them on a poster. Many people put their trust in vision boards, and there’s scientific evidence that visualisation is an effective way of achieving your goal. When preparing for a big race, for example, Olympic athletes are known to use visualisation to improve their performance. But even if you’re not Usain Bolt, visualisation is really powerful on a broader scale. Some people believe in the ‘law of attraction’, which states that your thoughts are hugely powerful in determining what happens in your life. On a less spiritual level, there’s a famous quote from Greek philosopher Epictetus that really rings true - “You become what you give your attention to”. I mean, it’s stating the obvious really - if you devote the majority of your energy and attention into your relationship, you’ll likely develop a really strong, long-lasting bond. Equally, if you put most of your attention into your career, then you’ll be more likely to succeed than if you hadn’t put that same energy into it. “You get what you give”, as Drake wisely said. So bottom line - vision boards and visualisation practices are great. However, have I ever made a vision board? No, I haven’t. But why not, given I’ve just spent the last four paragraphs harping on about how amazing they are? The trouble is, although making visions boards can be a therapeutic practice, it takes quite a lot of time. 
Photo by Sh1ra on Pixabay
Ah yes, time. That elusive commodity that none of us seem to have anymore. The irony is that technology was brought into society to supposedly give us more time for leisure, because we’d have machines doing most of our work for us. Yet the more we’ve digitalised, the busier we’ve become - how does that work, right?
But that’s a rant for another day. The point is, a lot of us don’t feel we have time to sit down and spend an afternoon making a vision board, regardless of how helpful it might be. My solution is, instead of making a visual board, what about making an audio board for all our dreams and aspirations. We draw just as much inspiration from music as we do from images, so in theory, if we listen to music that represents certain changes and lifestyles that we want to emulate in our lives, then it should have a similar effect. Vision boards are really just cues to remind us to keep visualising what we really want to happen, so I’m suggesting we curate playlists around the same principle. There are so many artists who’ve built their ‘brands’ around a lifestyle, with the music being almost secondary to this. Take Jimmy Buffet for example, whose sun-soaked, tropical Country brand has spawned an army of fans - called the Parrotheads - who are known for their Hawaiian shirts, parrot-hats and island-inspired living. Buffet’s music is good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s no better than any of the other artists that were around at the same time. What’s made him so popular is the way of life his music promotes. So instead of making a vision board, as an experiment, I’ve tried putting together a playlist of songs that represent the kind of mentality I want to have in life. It’s thought that the best vision boards don’t just represent material things that you want, they also include emotions you want to have. So you could put in songs that make you think ‘Wow, I want to feel like that’, as well as songs about living a particular lifestyle or having specific possessions. As a suggestion, I’ve found that Country music often has an overwhelming tone of gratitude, with these songs often championing the pleasures of a simple life, as opposed to one spent chasing lofty aspirations. So if this is what you’re after, you could include songs such as Devin Dawson’s ‘He Loved Her’, Florida Georgia Line’s ‘Simple’, or Zac Brown Band’s ‘Chicken Fried’, for example. Alternatively, if you’re after a more materially ambitious lifestyle, then Rap and Hip Hop are perhaps where you want to look. EDM is great for those whose vision boards would be more adventurous and travel-centred - the music videos for Avicii’s ‘The Nights’ and Jonas Blue & William Singe’s ‘Mama’ epitomise this. Similarly, Reggae is perfect for bringing some island-holiday vibes, while Contemporary R&B and Tropical House can bring a great sense of relaxation, for those who are striving to become more peaceful and less stressed out. These are generalisations, of course, and don’t hold true for every song in that genre. But they’re just to show how different musical palettes often do represent a certain goal or feeling that we’re aspiring towards. I’ve included my own audio-board below, containing a mix of simple moods and mindsets I want to emulate, along with some more concrete aims (my daily goal is obviously a little bit of ‘Chicken Fried’…). 
Photo by Muhammadh Saamy on Unsplash
Maxim's Audio-Board Playlist:
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Heartwarming and Honest
Haley & Michaels talk to Maxim about letting fans share their big moments
Hi Shannon and Ryan! Thank you so much for taking the time out today. You dropped your new single, ‘Born Yesterday’, the same month that you gave birth to your daughter, Keira. You recorded the song before Keira was born - how does it feel listening back to the song now?
Shannon: I love your question, it really does change the feeling about the song now that she’s here. It continues to take on new meaning. We were actually singing it to her just yesterday when we were trying to get her to go to sleep, and while that failed…it was still really wonderful to just be holding her and singing the song, and thinking about how she’s already about to be three months, which just blows my mind because it literally feels like she was born yesterday. It was really meaningful writing it and recording it while I was pregnant, with all the anticipation, but we just couldn’t know exactly what it was going to feel like. I think the song is going to continue to change meaning as she continues to grow.
This song is a really unique and special moment. What was it like getting to create and sing this song together at such a meaningful point in your lives?
Ryan: The thing about us as a duo, when we went from being individuals, to being married, to being in a group together, for us it was always about representing all sides of a situation and a relationship. That is what evolved into our sound and what is ‘Haley & Michaels’, rather than Shannon and Ryan individually. We had our wedding song, ‘Giving It All (To You)’, which has probably been our biggest song so far, and we wrote a song called ‘Hail Mary’, which is about overcoming adversity, where we both had things together and separately that we put into that song. So it made perfect sense to us that there would naturally be a song, ‘Born Yesterday’, representing a mom and a dad. It’s really special and hopefully moms and dads can see themselves in the song.
Keira’s heartbeat is included in ‘Born Yesterday’, which adds a whole other layer of meaning to it. What made you want to put this in the song?
S: When I first heard the recording, it really took me off guard and it made me cry, whereas usually you get so close to your music that you don’t expect to have that type of emotion hearing it back. I love the way it turned out. It was actually Ryan’s idea to use the heartbeat for percussion in the song. So the next time I saw my doctor I told her, ‘You’re gonna get an engineering credit on our next song!’
Shannon: I love your question, it really does change the feeling about the song now that she’s here. It continues to take on new meaning. We were actually singing it to her just yesterday when we were trying to get her to go to sleep, and while that failed…it was still really wonderful to just be holding her and singing the song, and thinking about how she’s already about to be three months, which just blows my mind because it literally feels like she was born yesterday. It was really meaningful writing it and recording it while I was pregnant, with all the anticipation, but we just couldn’t know exactly what it was going to feel like. I think the song is going to continue to change meaning as she continues to grow.
This song is a really unique and special moment. What was it like getting to create and sing this song together at such a meaningful point in your lives?
Ryan: The thing about us as a duo, when we went from being individuals, to being married, to being in a group together, for us it was always about representing all sides of a situation and a relationship. That is what evolved into our sound and what is ‘Haley & Michaels’, rather than Shannon and Ryan individually. We had our wedding song, ‘Giving It All (To You)’, which has probably been our biggest song so far, and we wrote a song called ‘Hail Mary’, which is about overcoming adversity, where we both had things together and separately that we put into that song. So it made perfect sense to us that there would naturally be a song, ‘Born Yesterday’, representing a mom and a dad. It’s really special and hopefully moms and dads can see themselves in the song.
Keira’s heartbeat is included in ‘Born Yesterday’, which adds a whole other layer of meaning to it. What made you want to put this in the song?
S: When I first heard the recording, it really took me off guard and it made me cry, whereas usually you get so close to your music that you don’t expect to have that type of emotion hearing it back. I love the way it turned out. It was actually Ryan’s idea to use the heartbeat for percussion in the song. So the next time I saw my doctor I told her, ‘You’re gonna get an engineering credit on our next song!’
You mentioned in another interview that you used meditation to help you during the pregnancy, is that right? If so, in what way do you find this helps?
S: We meditate quite often, and before pregnancy it was really helpful for both of us in different ways. For me, I discovered meditation and mindfulness in college when I was going through a hard time, and it really helped me mentally. It helps me get in touch with my thoughts, and recognise that your thoughts are not who you are, so if you’re having bad thoughts about yourself it doesn’t mean that they’re true, and you don’t have to believe your thoughts. All of that work was really important for me to help me grow. It’s still hard, and I have to remember that sometimes and I have to catch myself in the middle of a complete spiral, so meditation has been really helpful to slow things down. In pregnancy, it was helpful just to connect with my body and my child, and to really feel like I was taking the time and enjoying it, rather than just rushing through it. It made me aware that this was a time I wouldn’t get back, and it helped me overcome the different anxieties that can come up when pregnant.
What inspired you to form this duo together, and why country music?
R: One of the things we bonded over when we first met was our love of country music. Growing up in California, you can be made fun of pretty easily for liking country, and that’s not so much the case anymore obviously now it’s gotten so huge. But at the time it was definitely something to bond over. We grew up listening to 95.3 KRTY, which is a San Jose radio station, and we’ve been so excited to get to work with them since. I grew up in a family music store, and my dad was a pedal-steel player, so I grew up on weekends going to my Uncle’s place, where he would educate me on classic rock and roll, and then on the weekdays I’d write country songs with my dad.
S: For me it was that same radio station, I heard country music for the first time there and fell in love with it. My mom also played a lot of Randy Travis and Reba around the house, so from before I can even have memories I was listening to it and absolutely loving it. One of the things we love the most about it is how the songs talk about real life and what you actually go through - the lyrics tell a story. That ties into the whole theme of mental health and whether it’s a break-up, or heartache, or loss, country music to me is the format with the songs where you can really find people that have gone through what you’re going through.
Your songs are often very personal - this is epitomised in ‘Giving It All (To You)’, which was based off your wedding vows, and the music video features parts of your wedding ceremony. Is there a certain pressure that comes with having a spotlight not only on your music, but your relationship as well?
R: I think quite the opposite - for us, doing things like this interview, having real conversations, that is actually what drives us to keep going. If you get into the music industry because you want to be famous and make a lot of money, then you’re in the wrong business. But what drives us is the opportunity to have real conversations and hopefully uplift and connect with people. The more of that we’ve gotten to do, ironically the better our career has gone and the more people have resonated with the music. Occasionally there’s a selfie of myself that I probably wouldn’t sign off on, but I guess that’s when I’d have to go to my place of mindfulness…!
Do you write all your songs together?
S: It’s different for each song. We usually do, but with our most personal songs, like the two we’ve talked about - ‘Born Yesterday’ and ‘Giving It All (To You)’ - one of us will start it, like with ‘Born Yesterday’ I had this idea and part of the chorus just came to me. I always play my ideas for Ryan, and if it’s something that he really connects with then we’ll sit down and just write it. And vice versa, Ryan will bring songs to me and if it’s something I resonate with, we’ll write it. It’s almost like if the ‘creative spirit’ is with one of us, then the other one will just dive in and we’ll help each other finish it. I love how it’s different for each song. But I do think it’s interesting that for our two most personal songs, it was a similar process.
R: I would add to that, that obviously the lyrics and the melodies are what drive everything, but sometimes the production can end up being really important. In my case, where there’s a lot of influence from rock and roll as well as country, we spend just as much time working on the guitars as we do writing the melody. On the great records that I grew up listening to, it wasn’t necessarily just a word or melody or guitar part, it was the whole record.
The title track from your album, ‘Hail Mary’, was featured in the Netflix film Walk. Ride. Rodeo., which is based on the real story of Amberly Snyder, who became paralysed in a car accident, but managed to return to the sport she loves - rodeo barrel racing. What was that experience like, being part of telling such a powerful story?
S: It was so incredible. We wrote the song about our journey, but as you said, it takes on a totally different meaning as a part of her story. We could not have dreamt of a better way to release this song. To know that the song was part of the fabric of highlighting this moment in the movie and her life, when she drives again for the first time - we were just so honoured. She’s so inspiring and such a powerful woman, and the fact that it meant something to her is the whole point of music, that it can take on different meanings for each person’s story. It was incredible to see how much she overcame and to feel that sense of inspiration with our song behind it. It was one of the coolest things for sure that’s ever happened to us artistically.
S: We meditate quite often, and before pregnancy it was really helpful for both of us in different ways. For me, I discovered meditation and mindfulness in college when I was going through a hard time, and it really helped me mentally. It helps me get in touch with my thoughts, and recognise that your thoughts are not who you are, so if you’re having bad thoughts about yourself it doesn’t mean that they’re true, and you don’t have to believe your thoughts. All of that work was really important for me to help me grow. It’s still hard, and I have to remember that sometimes and I have to catch myself in the middle of a complete spiral, so meditation has been really helpful to slow things down. In pregnancy, it was helpful just to connect with my body and my child, and to really feel like I was taking the time and enjoying it, rather than just rushing through it. It made me aware that this was a time I wouldn’t get back, and it helped me overcome the different anxieties that can come up when pregnant.
What inspired you to form this duo together, and why country music?
R: One of the things we bonded over when we first met was our love of country music. Growing up in California, you can be made fun of pretty easily for liking country, and that’s not so much the case anymore obviously now it’s gotten so huge. But at the time it was definitely something to bond over. We grew up listening to 95.3 KRTY, which is a San Jose radio station, and we’ve been so excited to get to work with them since. I grew up in a family music store, and my dad was a pedal-steel player, so I grew up on weekends going to my Uncle’s place, where he would educate me on classic rock and roll, and then on the weekdays I’d write country songs with my dad.
S: For me it was that same radio station, I heard country music for the first time there and fell in love with it. My mom also played a lot of Randy Travis and Reba around the house, so from before I can even have memories I was listening to it and absolutely loving it. One of the things we love the most about it is how the songs talk about real life and what you actually go through - the lyrics tell a story. That ties into the whole theme of mental health and whether it’s a break-up, or heartache, or loss, country music to me is the format with the songs where you can really find people that have gone through what you’re going through.
Your songs are often very personal - this is epitomised in ‘Giving It All (To You)’, which was based off your wedding vows, and the music video features parts of your wedding ceremony. Is there a certain pressure that comes with having a spotlight not only on your music, but your relationship as well?
R: I think quite the opposite - for us, doing things like this interview, having real conversations, that is actually what drives us to keep going. If you get into the music industry because you want to be famous and make a lot of money, then you’re in the wrong business. But what drives us is the opportunity to have real conversations and hopefully uplift and connect with people. The more of that we’ve gotten to do, ironically the better our career has gone and the more people have resonated with the music. Occasionally there’s a selfie of myself that I probably wouldn’t sign off on, but I guess that’s when I’d have to go to my place of mindfulness…!
Do you write all your songs together?
S: It’s different for each song. We usually do, but with our most personal songs, like the two we’ve talked about - ‘Born Yesterday’ and ‘Giving It All (To You)’ - one of us will start it, like with ‘Born Yesterday’ I had this idea and part of the chorus just came to me. I always play my ideas for Ryan, and if it’s something that he really connects with then we’ll sit down and just write it. And vice versa, Ryan will bring songs to me and if it’s something I resonate with, we’ll write it. It’s almost like if the ‘creative spirit’ is with one of us, then the other one will just dive in and we’ll help each other finish it. I love how it’s different for each song. But I do think it’s interesting that for our two most personal songs, it was a similar process.
R: I would add to that, that obviously the lyrics and the melodies are what drive everything, but sometimes the production can end up being really important. In my case, where there’s a lot of influence from rock and roll as well as country, we spend just as much time working on the guitars as we do writing the melody. On the great records that I grew up listening to, it wasn’t necessarily just a word or melody or guitar part, it was the whole record.
The title track from your album, ‘Hail Mary’, was featured in the Netflix film Walk. Ride. Rodeo., which is based on the real story of Amberly Snyder, who became paralysed in a car accident, but managed to return to the sport she loves - rodeo barrel racing. What was that experience like, being part of telling such a powerful story?
S: It was so incredible. We wrote the song about our journey, but as you said, it takes on a totally different meaning as a part of her story. We could not have dreamt of a better way to release this song. To know that the song was part of the fabric of highlighting this moment in the movie and her life, when she drives again for the first time - we were just so honoured. She’s so inspiring and such a powerful woman, and the fact that it meant something to her is the whole point of music, that it can take on different meanings for each person’s story. It was incredible to see how much she overcame and to feel that sense of inspiration with our song behind it. It was one of the coolest things for sure that’s ever happened to us artistically.
You have a big UK fanbase, and you’ve said previously that even your daughter’s name is a nod to the UK because of its spelling. Do you have plans, COVID-permitting, to play in the UK in future?
R: Absolutely! We’re so passionate about the UK - the people, the passion for music, the rich history and tradition. My grandma is from Leeds, so we always wanted to go over there and for us, having our music played on UK radio has just been a dream come true. We’re excited to get back over there just as soon as the world allows, certainly with something like Country2Country, the Long Road Festival, Nashville Meets London, as well as some other tour dates we’ve talked about. So for us, we’re looking at a long-term commitment to continuing to go over there. We’ve been so humbled by the amount of support we’ve gotten from the UK.
R: Absolutely! We’re so passionate about the UK - the people, the passion for music, the rich history and tradition. My grandma is from Leeds, so we always wanted to go over there and for us, having our music played on UK radio has just been a dream come true. We’re excited to get back over there just as soon as the world allows, certainly with something like Country2Country, the Long Road Festival, Nashville Meets London, as well as some other tour dates we’ve talked about. So for us, we’re looking at a long-term commitment to continuing to go over there. We’ve been so humbled by the amount of support we’ve gotten from the UK.
"What drives us is the opportunity to have real conversations and hopefully uplift and connect with people"
Finally, the question we ask all our interviewees - what are your top 3 songs with a theme of mental health?
1. Shannon: 'How to Save a Life' - The Fray
This song strikes a very personal chord for me. One of my very best friends committed suicide when we were 23, and it just changed my life, and so many of our lives, forever. One of the hardest things was the people that loved her didn’t know the depth of her pain, we just didn’t know. That song is helpful for mental health for not only spreading the word about people that struggle, but for me, it’s for the people that have lost someone, and it’s about what would you would have done differently. For me, it was a moment in a song where it does what we were talking about, where it just shows that, ‘Okay, that person knows what I’m going through’, and that song is a theme for my life. It came out right around that time, and whenever I hear it, it takes me back. I think it’s such a brilliant song.
2. Ryan: 'I’m Here' - Kezia Gill
We’ve been spending a lot of time in the UK ‘virtually’ this year, and I had an opportunity to put a virtual concert together that was broadcast live on Chris Country and for Country Music Week on social media. We had some incredible artists featured, but for this particular one we had Kezia Gill, who’s a phenomenal UK artist. We met her when we performed live on BBC Radio 2 originally, and during her performance she played a song called ‘I’m Here’, and it was specifically about being there for people at a time when they need it. She has this incredible following - they call themselves ‘The Friday Night Crew’ - and she’s been doing live performances every Friday night during the pandemic. We were overwhelmed by this whole group of people that, throughout her live stream for our concert, were just thanking her for being there for them during this difficult year.
3. Both: James Taylor's version of 'You’ve Got A Friend' (originally by Carole King)
This year we have worked up a cover of 'You’ve Got A Friend’, and it’s just been healing. We’re not seeing each other as a community anymore, in person, and I know that I’ve really noticed the loss of that, and just how being together in person is so important. So ‘You’ve Got A Friend' is a really important song to help us remember that, even when we’re not with each other, we’re still there for each other.
1. Shannon: 'How to Save a Life' - The Fray
This song strikes a very personal chord for me. One of my very best friends committed suicide when we were 23, and it just changed my life, and so many of our lives, forever. One of the hardest things was the people that loved her didn’t know the depth of her pain, we just didn’t know. That song is helpful for mental health for not only spreading the word about people that struggle, but for me, it’s for the people that have lost someone, and it’s about what would you would have done differently. For me, it was a moment in a song where it does what we were talking about, where it just shows that, ‘Okay, that person knows what I’m going through’, and that song is a theme for my life. It came out right around that time, and whenever I hear it, it takes me back. I think it’s such a brilliant song.
2. Ryan: 'I’m Here' - Kezia Gill
We’ve been spending a lot of time in the UK ‘virtually’ this year, and I had an opportunity to put a virtual concert together that was broadcast live on Chris Country and for Country Music Week on social media. We had some incredible artists featured, but for this particular one we had Kezia Gill, who’s a phenomenal UK artist. We met her when we performed live on BBC Radio 2 originally, and during her performance she played a song called ‘I’m Here’, and it was specifically about being there for people at a time when they need it. She has this incredible following - they call themselves ‘The Friday Night Crew’ - and she’s been doing live performances every Friday night during the pandemic. We were overwhelmed by this whole group of people that, throughout her live stream for our concert, were just thanking her for being there for them during this difficult year.
3. Both: James Taylor's version of 'You’ve Got A Friend' (originally by Carole King)
This year we have worked up a cover of 'You’ve Got A Friend’, and it’s just been healing. We’re not seeing each other as a community anymore, in person, and I know that I’ve really noticed the loss of that, and just how being together in person is so important. So ‘You’ve Got A Friend' is a really important song to help us remember that, even when we’re not with each other, we’re still there for each other.
Haley & Michaels' new single, 'Born Yesterday', is out now on all platforms
David Dawson
Hi Jon! Thanks so much for doing this interview with us! You’ve recently released your EP Petrichor; the EP presents a great mix of styles with references to country, rock, pop and even some 80s sounding synth in there. Is this something that you feel is naturally part of your style as a songwriter or was it a conscious decision when writing this EP?
That’s a good question! A well timed one too because it’s something I’ve actually been thinking about a lot especially after I decided on the songs to put on this EP. I think I’ve discovered over the last few years that it is a part of my writing style to be diverse. I think despite some of my better efforts I’ve learned that I enjoy writing in a lot of different styles; some other bands recently like Kaleo, every song they put out that’s a hit is a different genre, same thing with Billie Eilish who is obviously more grounded in pop. There are more and more bands coming out with albums and EPs that are really not rooted in any style, they’re very diverse. Kaleo was the one for me that kind of clicked where I felt like I had permission to not have a monolithic sound and that people would still get it. I do think that it’s a part of my style but for a long time I just thought I didn’t have one! Through the process of this EP I finally came to terms with the reality that I write what I feel and I don’t really worry about whether it’s following a pattern of ‘genre’.
Heartbreak presents the themes of a tough time when love has been lost but notably does so in what sounds like quite an upbeat way. With lines such as ‘I don’t care who sees my heartbreak’ I interpreted the tone to present the freedom the protagonist feels in letting out those emotions and letting go of that initial sadness they have been holding on to – confirmed by the repetition of ‘I don’t care’ at the end. What was the reason behind making a song with such a sombre theme sound so positive and optimistic?
You’re not wrong, you’re spot on actually! That’s something that I’ve talked about for a long time; how I like to take topics that are generally not happy and repackage them into things that seem happy, I think that does a lot for the message. About five or six years ago I came out with my first song for a different EP when I first moved to Nashville and that was all on social justice but I did it in like a 1950s upbeat pop style but talking about racism and sexism and I just repackaged it because I knew people would just go ‘oh it’s happy’ you know? I followed that trend into this as well. I think that’s an interesting observation that you made there about the last chorus and the repetition of ‘I don’t care’; the idea is that it’s kind of a reconciliation, I think you hit that point at the end of a relationship where you go ‘I’m sad and there’s no reason to hide this anymore’ and I think that’s where healing really starts and you start moving forward maybe to the detriment of your friends that you’re just going to be kind of a miserable human being for a while. I definitely intentionally mix the more serious and sad topics with the more upbeat and enjoyable melodies because I think those emotions and those experiences aren’t monolithic necessarily there’s a lot going on and I like to play the music against the lyrics.
Leather Jacket is an absolute masterpiece! I love the retro 80s synth throwback and the funk feel that the bassline carries and you can’t help but tap your foot to it. The song describes such a specific moment in which we may realise something is happening but have no ability to change it – in this case the realisation that a relationship is ending. The song seems to me to carry in it that frustration at not being able to stop that inevitable reality – what was the sentiment behind this song when writing it?
Now it’s kind of a funny story, at the time it wasn’t! Thankfully it wasn’t happening to me although it happens to all of us at one point or another. So my buddy Ben Cramer (his band name is Old Sea Brigade he’s pretty big in the UK, he does folk indie stuff) had been with this girl for five years and they lived together and had a terrible dog. The relationship was coming to an end and it was just one of those break ups where it doesn’t have a clean end, they’d break up and get back together and they were just both miserable, there were time periods actually where he was living with me because he didn’t have a place to stay or he was sleeping on his couch in his studio; he was just a miserable human being, deeply unhappy. We sat down to write a song around that time and writing sessions are always so weird to start because it’s like ‘well what do you want to write?’ and he said ‘I have this idea’ and it was just that first melody [sings intro] and the only line he had was ‘I think about you baby’ and it was like, I get it! I knew exactly what he was talking about because we’ve all been there where you’re kind of speechless but it’s all you think about because five years is a long time and they thought this was the future and it’s all falling apart. I’ve been through that too where my whole world is falling apart and it was just like fuck. That was the story behind it, this nasty break up. The first time they broke up she got really drunk and told his friend who she just met ‘I’m going to break up with him and you should tell him that.’ It was a whole saga of bad events and when we first sat down to write all he had to say was ‘I think about you’ but that is all you’re thinking about, it’s all you’re feeling and experiencing and the song just fell out from there. It’s all those little tiny things that you notice where it’s something simple like ‘I’m going to go to the grocery store by myself’ and you have these tiny signals you look back on or in the moment you think that’s not right.
I also felt there was some anger in there such as in the line about how the partner is wearing glasses and it says ‘you don’t even need them’, underlining that frustration of being unable to change what you can see is happening
Yeah that one actually came from me, it came from my experience. It’s about when people try to change what they look like in order to accept the reality instead of just saying ‘I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore’, they’re trying to create this new person in order to not be the person in the relationship anymore, instead of just admitting that this is over you’re going to pretend to be someone else. That’s what happened with me and that’s just hurtful and makes me angry because they aren’t being themselves and they’re being a person that I can’t like basically, being a fraud in order to end it. There is a sense of anger because there’s a lot of anger tied up in those events because people try to hurt each other when they’re trying to break up because that's what they need sometimes. It sucks.
Whereas Leather Jacket takes a more outward look at heartbreak – Love Blind focuses more within and looks into the process of healing and learning from the process. How important do you think it is that in life’s toughest moments we try to learn and grow and turn them into positive situations for ourselves?
The natural response for me has always been there’s really no other choice, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think there is an alternative and it’s a very dark, depressive and stagnating alternative because accepting loss and heartbreak and learning from them in a positive way is not an easy thing to do. Even as I get older, and I’m married now, I still find stuff that I moved on from mentally but didn’t resolve and the anger will come back and the frustration and the hurt, so I think it’s especially in relationships because what we are talking about is inter personal relationships; it’s how we view other people and at our most vulnerable in those difficult times and those heartbreaks can create the deepest imprints on us and it will affect more than just our relationships romantically beyond that situation. I think it’s something that we probably don’t talk about enough in the right way, it’s something that we talk about a lot you know almost every song in the top 40 on the radio is a love song or break up song but not a whole lot of discussion or music is made around the details of how to navigate that in a way that’s healthy. I do think it’s really important to talk, that’s what I’ve done a lot in my life when stuff’s gone wrong; I talk a lot about it until I feel like I’ve worked through it and that’s what it comes down to. I think ignoring it or covering it up is what a lot of people do, you know the whole ‘hook up culture’ that’s developed, ‘oh you’re going through a break up let’s go on Tinder or Bumble and go fuck somebody and be done’, that’s not good for your mental health, that’s not a solution it’s a quick fix. I think it’s really important to address these things but how we address them is really important, I think that’s where the misguided nature of our reactions is, we need to have better discussions about how to handle personal, emotional difficulties and pain in healthy ways and not try to ’social media’ it or fix it in one second.
Come Now Spring follows on from this in that it conveys the protagonist being ready for new love and optimistic for the future now that they have had time and room to grow stronger – having covered a lot of difficult subjects throughout the EP was it important for you to end on a positive note or is that just how the natural ark of it went?
It was important. Come Now Spring was written four years ago right after Trump got elected so it was actually at the beginning. For me it was like a deep breath, it’s the first time I’ve counted down four years. I wouldn’t say that it was a singular thing like relationships and break ups obviously informed my lyrics, and depression and wanting to come out of it and seeing a path out; there are a lot of things that informed that song. It’s funny how it has been redefined for me too in the terms that you just expressed which is why I did put it at the end. It was intentional because I feel like the five songs tell a story in the order that they are in, you’ve got the beginning of the relationship and by the time we get to Come Now Spring it is looking forward where it is ‘I’m ready to not be a miserable human anymore, let’s have a rebirth and regrow’. To answer your question, it was really important that I put it there and it felt like the proper ending of the story ark that I told with the EP but it was something that I could have only learned three and half year or four years later when I had written all of the other songs to come to the conclusion that this song has a slightly different meaning in the context of my broader work on this EP.
The whole EP seems to follow an arching story of love – from the smitten sentiments in Imogene to the heartbreak then healing process. This makes the EP somewhat of a journey to listen to, despite the songs being written at different times was this a similar feeling when writing and recording it?
I think anybody who is working in art right now and who is creating art it’s really hard not to be going on a journey in the last four or five years, it’s been a really odd time. It’s a weird book end that’s happening right now so I’m jumping back four years constantly. After the 2016 election, I can’t remember who said it; a recording artist I think said ‘when bad things happen that’s when artists get to work’, so there was definitely a recognition that I’m going to have to get to work now; it’s time to do what artists do which is to create lenses and perspective and catalysts through which people consuming that art can have empathy or revitalisation or relaxation, all the different things that we derive from art. The last four years has been a crazy journey. Writing these songs and putting them together has been one of the most significant journeys of my entire life because when I started this shortly after that I got into a really unhealthy lifestyle where I worked too much. Part of that came from the need to feel like I was doing something and for three years I worked in addition to doing music, I teach a little but on the side and I also worked for an ethical fashion brand which I really believed in, but I got to the point where I was working 70 hours a week plus being a social musician. After three years of that I was barely a person, I was so compressed. A lot of this EP was written in my head while driving because that was the only time I had that was quiet, that I was still and that I could think. When you’re writing you’re aware of your audience so I worked to make it digestible but all of the things that happened over the last four years of me writing this stuff has really informed every single one of these songs and for me that really shows in the production and in the diversity of it; that’s where I feel like I got to express what was going on in my life the most. It wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for COVID because that’s what stopped me working 70 hours a week and that’s when I got away from the fashion brand and that’s when I wrote Love Blind; a month after I stopped working myself to death. It was the last song I wrote, I knew I needed one more and I knew what I wanted it to sound like I just hadn’t been able to do it and that’s also when I went in and recorded. It was a decompression, a decompression that’s still happening today a year later. Sorry that’s a long answer because it’s been a long journey! It’s informed it, it’s shaped it, it’s informed how I produced it because I decided to self-produce on these songs; I had a co producer/ a production assistant who engineered with me and then Dan Cramer who co-wrote Leather Jacket also helped produce that song but it’s the first time I’ve taken the lead on production on my own music in a decade and that was a big decision for me and I felt like I had to do it because of the experiences I’ve had over the last four years because they were so poignant and I felt them so deeply that I knew that I wouldn’t be satisfied if I didn’t get it just the way I wanted it.
One of the things I love about the EP is whilst it can be experienced as this kind of journey, it is also a really great collection of individual songs all with their own styles and sounds – which particular song would you say means the most to you on Petrichor?
What’s funny about that is I’ve tried to pinpoint my favourite but just like with all other music I go through phases of which ones I prefer to listen to. The one that I have a special place for is Heartbreak because that was one that I wrote that really defined the sound I was going to move forward with. When I got in there I did that chorus and the secondary melody that I added on top and as soon as I started doing the background vocals it just clicked with my engineer and he was like ‘ok let’s pan this and add this’ and we played it back and it was like ‘that’s it’. The genres are obviously mixed but the consistency I wanted was not in genre it was tonal and energetic. I wanted the sound to be very deep but also go very high, a really rich sound, that was the first time I felt like I got it. We had this cool slide guitar that’s got a very high sound but then we have this drive in the bottom of it with these huge drums. I’m a big fan of vocal arrangements on top of that too. That slide guitar for me was a stand out moment because I think the slide guitar is not utilised in an appropriate way. Something that’s happening more and more is people are taking these like stereotypical country or pop or even trap music themes then doing something else with it. It probably starts out of ignorance where you don’t know what it is you’re using, and that’s art, I really do believe originality comes from ignorance not creativity! I was aware that I was going to use the slide guitar in a way that was not normal to most people and my buddy Sam Barker played on it and slide guitar isn’t his main thing so he isn’t doing anything fancy but that’s the beauty of it; it’s simple and then we let the production do the real work. I’d say a defining moment of the EP is how we used slide guitar through the whole thing; it just adds a top end that gives it those heights that I wanted to get to.
So I recently found out that Petrichor refers to the smell given off by the first rainfall after a drought - what was the reason for calling you EP this?
A couple different reasons. The first is the order of the songs, the last thing I did was choose the title of the EP and with ending with Come Now Spring this idea of rebirth and revitalization it seemed like that’s the theme; that’s where we start and end; with new life. With Imogene being this anthemic build to this excitement and joy over this feeling and person that you have and then we end with the revitalization; it felt like that was the cycle. The personal part of it was that I named it right after I had got out of the fashion brand and I was starting to realise how much I had compressed myself just to complete every task throughout the day. It felt like I was becoming a person again, it felt like I had gone through this period of disconnect from myself, I had drifted further and further. COVID is awful but the silver lining is I’m grateful it put a stop to that and I was able to take a deep breath and take stock of how I was living my life and I released I hadn’t been doing it right and I’d been choking myself to death and this felt like the opportunity for a new beginning. So the name was because I felt like I’d just got my first drink of water in a while where I feel like myself a little bit again and can enjoy life a little bit again. It was the beginning of decompression after this long period of time where I just worked myself to death.
Finally, one thing we ask all of our interviewees is to name their top three songs that relate to mental health. What would be your top three?
1. Cherry Wine – Hozier (Live acoustic)
2. Come Now Spring – Jon Reynolds and The Aches
3. When The Party’s Over – Billie Eilish
That’s a good question! A well timed one too because it’s something I’ve actually been thinking about a lot especially after I decided on the songs to put on this EP. I think I’ve discovered over the last few years that it is a part of my writing style to be diverse. I think despite some of my better efforts I’ve learned that I enjoy writing in a lot of different styles; some other bands recently like Kaleo, every song they put out that’s a hit is a different genre, same thing with Billie Eilish who is obviously more grounded in pop. There are more and more bands coming out with albums and EPs that are really not rooted in any style, they’re very diverse. Kaleo was the one for me that kind of clicked where I felt like I had permission to not have a monolithic sound and that people would still get it. I do think that it’s a part of my style but for a long time I just thought I didn’t have one! Through the process of this EP I finally came to terms with the reality that I write what I feel and I don’t really worry about whether it’s following a pattern of ‘genre’.
Heartbreak presents the themes of a tough time when love has been lost but notably does so in what sounds like quite an upbeat way. With lines such as ‘I don’t care who sees my heartbreak’ I interpreted the tone to present the freedom the protagonist feels in letting out those emotions and letting go of that initial sadness they have been holding on to – confirmed by the repetition of ‘I don’t care’ at the end. What was the reason behind making a song with such a sombre theme sound so positive and optimistic?
You’re not wrong, you’re spot on actually! That’s something that I’ve talked about for a long time; how I like to take topics that are generally not happy and repackage them into things that seem happy, I think that does a lot for the message. About five or six years ago I came out with my first song for a different EP when I first moved to Nashville and that was all on social justice but I did it in like a 1950s upbeat pop style but talking about racism and sexism and I just repackaged it because I knew people would just go ‘oh it’s happy’ you know? I followed that trend into this as well. I think that’s an interesting observation that you made there about the last chorus and the repetition of ‘I don’t care’; the idea is that it’s kind of a reconciliation, I think you hit that point at the end of a relationship where you go ‘I’m sad and there’s no reason to hide this anymore’ and I think that’s where healing really starts and you start moving forward maybe to the detriment of your friends that you’re just going to be kind of a miserable human being for a while. I definitely intentionally mix the more serious and sad topics with the more upbeat and enjoyable melodies because I think those emotions and those experiences aren’t monolithic necessarily there’s a lot going on and I like to play the music against the lyrics.
Leather Jacket is an absolute masterpiece! I love the retro 80s synth throwback and the funk feel that the bassline carries and you can’t help but tap your foot to it. The song describes such a specific moment in which we may realise something is happening but have no ability to change it – in this case the realisation that a relationship is ending. The song seems to me to carry in it that frustration at not being able to stop that inevitable reality – what was the sentiment behind this song when writing it?
Now it’s kind of a funny story, at the time it wasn’t! Thankfully it wasn’t happening to me although it happens to all of us at one point or another. So my buddy Ben Cramer (his band name is Old Sea Brigade he’s pretty big in the UK, he does folk indie stuff) had been with this girl for five years and they lived together and had a terrible dog. The relationship was coming to an end and it was just one of those break ups where it doesn’t have a clean end, they’d break up and get back together and they were just both miserable, there were time periods actually where he was living with me because he didn’t have a place to stay or he was sleeping on his couch in his studio; he was just a miserable human being, deeply unhappy. We sat down to write a song around that time and writing sessions are always so weird to start because it’s like ‘well what do you want to write?’ and he said ‘I have this idea’ and it was just that first melody [sings intro] and the only line he had was ‘I think about you baby’ and it was like, I get it! I knew exactly what he was talking about because we’ve all been there where you’re kind of speechless but it’s all you think about because five years is a long time and they thought this was the future and it’s all falling apart. I’ve been through that too where my whole world is falling apart and it was just like fuck. That was the story behind it, this nasty break up. The first time they broke up she got really drunk and told his friend who she just met ‘I’m going to break up with him and you should tell him that.’ It was a whole saga of bad events and when we first sat down to write all he had to say was ‘I think about you’ but that is all you’re thinking about, it’s all you’re feeling and experiencing and the song just fell out from there. It’s all those little tiny things that you notice where it’s something simple like ‘I’m going to go to the grocery store by myself’ and you have these tiny signals you look back on or in the moment you think that’s not right.
I also felt there was some anger in there such as in the line about how the partner is wearing glasses and it says ‘you don’t even need them’, underlining that frustration of being unable to change what you can see is happening
Yeah that one actually came from me, it came from my experience. It’s about when people try to change what they look like in order to accept the reality instead of just saying ‘I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore’, they’re trying to create this new person in order to not be the person in the relationship anymore, instead of just admitting that this is over you’re going to pretend to be someone else. That’s what happened with me and that’s just hurtful and makes me angry because they aren’t being themselves and they’re being a person that I can’t like basically, being a fraud in order to end it. There is a sense of anger because there’s a lot of anger tied up in those events because people try to hurt each other when they’re trying to break up because that's what they need sometimes. It sucks.
Whereas Leather Jacket takes a more outward look at heartbreak – Love Blind focuses more within and looks into the process of healing and learning from the process. How important do you think it is that in life’s toughest moments we try to learn and grow and turn them into positive situations for ourselves?
The natural response for me has always been there’s really no other choice, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think there is an alternative and it’s a very dark, depressive and stagnating alternative because accepting loss and heartbreak and learning from them in a positive way is not an easy thing to do. Even as I get older, and I’m married now, I still find stuff that I moved on from mentally but didn’t resolve and the anger will come back and the frustration and the hurt, so I think it’s especially in relationships because what we are talking about is inter personal relationships; it’s how we view other people and at our most vulnerable in those difficult times and those heartbreaks can create the deepest imprints on us and it will affect more than just our relationships romantically beyond that situation. I think it’s something that we probably don’t talk about enough in the right way, it’s something that we talk about a lot you know almost every song in the top 40 on the radio is a love song or break up song but not a whole lot of discussion or music is made around the details of how to navigate that in a way that’s healthy. I do think it’s really important to talk, that’s what I’ve done a lot in my life when stuff’s gone wrong; I talk a lot about it until I feel like I’ve worked through it and that’s what it comes down to. I think ignoring it or covering it up is what a lot of people do, you know the whole ‘hook up culture’ that’s developed, ‘oh you’re going through a break up let’s go on Tinder or Bumble and go fuck somebody and be done’, that’s not good for your mental health, that’s not a solution it’s a quick fix. I think it’s really important to address these things but how we address them is really important, I think that’s where the misguided nature of our reactions is, we need to have better discussions about how to handle personal, emotional difficulties and pain in healthy ways and not try to ’social media’ it or fix it in one second.
Come Now Spring follows on from this in that it conveys the protagonist being ready for new love and optimistic for the future now that they have had time and room to grow stronger – having covered a lot of difficult subjects throughout the EP was it important for you to end on a positive note or is that just how the natural ark of it went?
It was important. Come Now Spring was written four years ago right after Trump got elected so it was actually at the beginning. For me it was like a deep breath, it’s the first time I’ve counted down four years. I wouldn’t say that it was a singular thing like relationships and break ups obviously informed my lyrics, and depression and wanting to come out of it and seeing a path out; there are a lot of things that informed that song. It’s funny how it has been redefined for me too in the terms that you just expressed which is why I did put it at the end. It was intentional because I feel like the five songs tell a story in the order that they are in, you’ve got the beginning of the relationship and by the time we get to Come Now Spring it is looking forward where it is ‘I’m ready to not be a miserable human anymore, let’s have a rebirth and regrow’. To answer your question, it was really important that I put it there and it felt like the proper ending of the story ark that I told with the EP but it was something that I could have only learned three and half year or four years later when I had written all of the other songs to come to the conclusion that this song has a slightly different meaning in the context of my broader work on this EP.
The whole EP seems to follow an arching story of love – from the smitten sentiments in Imogene to the heartbreak then healing process. This makes the EP somewhat of a journey to listen to, despite the songs being written at different times was this a similar feeling when writing and recording it?
I think anybody who is working in art right now and who is creating art it’s really hard not to be going on a journey in the last four or five years, it’s been a really odd time. It’s a weird book end that’s happening right now so I’m jumping back four years constantly. After the 2016 election, I can’t remember who said it; a recording artist I think said ‘when bad things happen that’s when artists get to work’, so there was definitely a recognition that I’m going to have to get to work now; it’s time to do what artists do which is to create lenses and perspective and catalysts through which people consuming that art can have empathy or revitalisation or relaxation, all the different things that we derive from art. The last four years has been a crazy journey. Writing these songs and putting them together has been one of the most significant journeys of my entire life because when I started this shortly after that I got into a really unhealthy lifestyle where I worked too much. Part of that came from the need to feel like I was doing something and for three years I worked in addition to doing music, I teach a little but on the side and I also worked for an ethical fashion brand which I really believed in, but I got to the point where I was working 70 hours a week plus being a social musician. After three years of that I was barely a person, I was so compressed. A lot of this EP was written in my head while driving because that was the only time I had that was quiet, that I was still and that I could think. When you’re writing you’re aware of your audience so I worked to make it digestible but all of the things that happened over the last four years of me writing this stuff has really informed every single one of these songs and for me that really shows in the production and in the diversity of it; that’s where I feel like I got to express what was going on in my life the most. It wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for COVID because that’s what stopped me working 70 hours a week and that’s when I got away from the fashion brand and that’s when I wrote Love Blind; a month after I stopped working myself to death. It was the last song I wrote, I knew I needed one more and I knew what I wanted it to sound like I just hadn’t been able to do it and that’s also when I went in and recorded. It was a decompression, a decompression that’s still happening today a year later. Sorry that’s a long answer because it’s been a long journey! It’s informed it, it’s shaped it, it’s informed how I produced it because I decided to self-produce on these songs; I had a co producer/ a production assistant who engineered with me and then Dan Cramer who co-wrote Leather Jacket also helped produce that song but it’s the first time I’ve taken the lead on production on my own music in a decade and that was a big decision for me and I felt like I had to do it because of the experiences I’ve had over the last four years because they were so poignant and I felt them so deeply that I knew that I wouldn’t be satisfied if I didn’t get it just the way I wanted it.
One of the things I love about the EP is whilst it can be experienced as this kind of journey, it is also a really great collection of individual songs all with their own styles and sounds – which particular song would you say means the most to you on Petrichor?
What’s funny about that is I’ve tried to pinpoint my favourite but just like with all other music I go through phases of which ones I prefer to listen to. The one that I have a special place for is Heartbreak because that was one that I wrote that really defined the sound I was going to move forward with. When I got in there I did that chorus and the secondary melody that I added on top and as soon as I started doing the background vocals it just clicked with my engineer and he was like ‘ok let’s pan this and add this’ and we played it back and it was like ‘that’s it’. The genres are obviously mixed but the consistency I wanted was not in genre it was tonal and energetic. I wanted the sound to be very deep but also go very high, a really rich sound, that was the first time I felt like I got it. We had this cool slide guitar that’s got a very high sound but then we have this drive in the bottom of it with these huge drums. I’m a big fan of vocal arrangements on top of that too. That slide guitar for me was a stand out moment because I think the slide guitar is not utilised in an appropriate way. Something that’s happening more and more is people are taking these like stereotypical country or pop or even trap music themes then doing something else with it. It probably starts out of ignorance where you don’t know what it is you’re using, and that’s art, I really do believe originality comes from ignorance not creativity! I was aware that I was going to use the slide guitar in a way that was not normal to most people and my buddy Sam Barker played on it and slide guitar isn’t his main thing so he isn’t doing anything fancy but that’s the beauty of it; it’s simple and then we let the production do the real work. I’d say a defining moment of the EP is how we used slide guitar through the whole thing; it just adds a top end that gives it those heights that I wanted to get to.
So I recently found out that Petrichor refers to the smell given off by the first rainfall after a drought - what was the reason for calling you EP this?
A couple different reasons. The first is the order of the songs, the last thing I did was choose the title of the EP and with ending with Come Now Spring this idea of rebirth and revitalization it seemed like that’s the theme; that’s where we start and end; with new life. With Imogene being this anthemic build to this excitement and joy over this feeling and person that you have and then we end with the revitalization; it felt like that was the cycle. The personal part of it was that I named it right after I had got out of the fashion brand and I was starting to realise how much I had compressed myself just to complete every task throughout the day. It felt like I was becoming a person again, it felt like I had gone through this period of disconnect from myself, I had drifted further and further. COVID is awful but the silver lining is I’m grateful it put a stop to that and I was able to take a deep breath and take stock of how I was living my life and I released I hadn’t been doing it right and I’d been choking myself to death and this felt like the opportunity for a new beginning. So the name was because I felt like I’d just got my first drink of water in a while where I feel like myself a little bit again and can enjoy life a little bit again. It was the beginning of decompression after this long period of time where I just worked myself to death.
Finally, one thing we ask all of our interviewees is to name their top three songs that relate to mental health. What would be your top three?
1. Cherry Wine – Hozier (Live acoustic)
2. Come Now Spring – Jon Reynolds and The Aches
3. When The Party’s Over – Billie Eilish