What was the experience of recording this EP? Were there any challenges you faced during the process?
Recording this EP was truly one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences. My producer, Scott Jacoby, and I decided that for the record, we really wanted to record all of the instrumentation live, which was the same way we had recorded my first few singles. Scott and I have a tradition every summer where we sit down in his living room and I play through basically all of the songs that I had written during the year. After I play through all of the tunes we will make lists of our favorites and slowly narrow it down until we decide on the tracks we want to record. This summer, after deciding that I was ready to record my first project, we did this same tradition but it definitely took us way longer than usual! I had a list of about 25 songs that I loved enough to record and after about two weeks we finally narrowed it down to 5! After deciding on the tracks we immediately set a time frame for how we were going to create this EP in just two months. I have lived in Scotland for the past three years but spend every summer back home in New York, where Scott is based, so knowing we only had a certain amount of time together to create the project was definitely a little stressful at moments. We recorded all of the instrumentation for this record in only one day in late July! We worked for about 12 hours straight just playing through the tracks over and over until we found our flow. It was genuinely one of the best days of my life. The band consisted of myself, Doug Yowell, Pete Donnelly, Matt Beck and Justin Goldner. We wouldn’t have been able to record so efficiently if it weren’t for their insane talent and musicality. The entire day I was trying to keep my cool because I felt so lucky to be playing with such incredible musicians. This was my fourth time recording at Power Station NE and their amazing team, who engineered the record, couldn’t have been more attentive and awesome. After we had all of the instrumentation from recording at Power Station, Scott and I spent the next month in his studio working away at vocals, overdubs and mixing. Scott has always been so thoughtful when it comes to the creation of any of my music, so the time we spent working away at this project didn’t feel demanding, just exciting.
Track #1 – Breathing: What was your favorite part of crafting this song? Did you enjoy the songwriting process, or was there a specific moment that stood out to you?
I wrote the first verse of “Breathing” on my 21st birthday which I think has always stood out to me the most about the songwriting process of this tune. I was reflecting on how much had changed for me in the past few years of my life, and I thought of the line “I barely stuck around, to see that things work out.” I wrote the song only a week or two before deciding on the tracks for the EP, but never imagined the EP without this track on it. Scott and I agreed almost immediately after I played it to him that it needed to be on the record. It was the first track that we recorded at Power Station and after recording the instrumentation I knew I wanted it to be the first track of the EP. Matt Beck’s pedal steel at the start of this track moves me everytime. Hearing him play through that line for the first time was definitely a stand out moment for me when we were crafting the recording.
Track #2 – Tomorrow Follows Today: How does Tomorrow Follows Today explore the connection between the past decisions and the future they shape?
I wrote “Tomorrow Follows Today” while reflecting on a super formative relationship I had a few years prior. The track follows the storyline of this super long car ride and I always thought of the memory of me and this other person switching off driving as such a metaphor to how it felt being in the relationship. The song explores how the passing of time is inevitable and uncontrollable, and how once you accept that rather than resent it, you can learn to be grateful for the things that come and go.
What were your main inspirations while creating this EP? Did any songs, albums, artists, or concepts particularly influence you, and if so, in what ways?
Gregory Alan Isakov has always been my biggest musical inspiration. His song “Honey It’s Alright” was the first song I had learned on the guitar at 13, and after seeing his show when I was 16, I knew that I wanted to be a folk musician. His record “Appaloosa Bones” came out a few months before I started writing some of the tracks on “Touch The Ground” and the imagery in his writing was super inspiring to me. Adrianne Lenker’s album, “Bright Future” was also massively inspiring to me while creating this EP. I think “Sadness As A Gift” is one of the most perfectly crafted songs to exist and the violin on that track inspired me to have the incredible Anna Parks play violin on four of the five tracks of the record.
Track #3 – Look For The Rain: If Look for the Rain were to be featured in a movie soundtrack, which film would you choose, and why?
If “Look For The Rain” were to be featured in a movie soundtrack, I would choose “Beautiful Boy”. In the movie, Timothée Chalamet’s character grapples with addiction and the film is about his relationship with his father who is attempting to pull him out of it. I think the line in the chorus “do I look for disaster, say I’m doing better” would fit in well with the storyline of the film, and the film also relates to the main theme of the song which is the helplessness of putting yourself back in a bad situation.
How do you want listeners to feel when they listen to this project?
I want listeners to feel comforted while listening to the record. The writing in this EP is easily the most honest writing I have shared so far, and I hope that comes across when people listen. I think it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact mood or emotion of this record, so I really just hope listeners feel connected to the music in whatever way they need at the moment they are listening.
Track #4 – Southeast Dixie Highway: If you could ‘take your hands off the wheel’ and completely let go of one memory, which one would it be and why?
I always say that I don’t have any regrets because bad situations still lead to good music, but if I had to think of something I would probably say the experience of losing half my thumb when I was five. Hard to get a good song out of that for sure hahaha.
Track #5 – Touch The Ground: How does this track encapsulate the EP as a whole?
This track is the happiest song I have ever recorded, and perfectly describes how I felt while recording this project. It was the final song we recorded at Power Station NE and it really brought all of our energy back at the end of the session. I think this track is the perfect bookend to the project and encapsulates the EP as a whole because it’s written about finding myself again after a difficult period of time with the hook of the chorus being “Now, my feet they touch the ground”. I decided that I wanted to call the EP “Touch The Ground” while hanging out with my Dad on the way to a gig. He was the one who suggested it and it seemed funny to the both of us that I hadn’t thought of it earlier.
How does Touch The Ground reflect where you are in life right now?
I love this question so much because I have sat with the tracks for so long that they have sort of become the soundtrack to the last year of my life. There have been moments where some tracks have felt more relatable than others but right now the title track “Touch The Ground” totally encapsulates how I am feeling. I am so grateful to have been able to create this project and to have surrounded myself with such awesome people in the process. Writing some of these tracks was super difficult, but turning these difficult moments into something rewarding was really all I could ever ask for. I love songwriting and making music so much and I feel like this record is 100% myself, so I really can’t wait to see what people think of it.