CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 148: MEADOWHIP ON CREATING WHILE MANAGING CHRONIC ILLNESS
Interview by Jamie Shepherd.
Futuremag Music sat down with Wollongong’s Meadowhip to talk about her new EP, Inside Out.
FMM: Congratulations on the release of your Inside Out EP! It’s fantastic. I’m absolutely loving it.
Meadowhip I definitely bit off more than I could chew with this one – but it’s out!
FMM: That’s it! And you’ve done so well with it. I wanted to ask a bit about the themes of the EP, and what they mean to you.
Meadowhip I think the overall theme is kind of like letting the inside, guarded stuff out. So, you know, when I'm doing the acoustic versions of songs that I've already released, I've picked the ones where once you strip away the cool beeps and boops of the more electronic production, it's like the lyrics end up having a different meaning - a more vulnerable and raw meaning - and not all of my songs do that. So I thought I’d pick up the ones that are a little bit tender and take away the hotter exterior. The the title track isn’t a song that I'd ever think that I'd release, since it’s a bit too soft for me. I've played it live a lot of times, and people have always come up to me afterwards to say “I really liked that one.” I'm like, “Oh, really? “I thought, “That's nice. I'm never gonna release it.” And then I decided, you know what? If I'm gonna do this thing where I'm gonna make myself vulnerable, maybe this is the space for it. I’m a big soft blob on the inside really, so that part of me is just coming out now.
FMM: Is that why you chose to make the EP all acoustic, or was that just more of an experimental choice?
Meadowhip: I actually came up with the idea of doing an acoustic EP when I was touring last year. We were playing these really stripped back sets, and I heard my songs in that more stripped back context, and they sort of came across as a bit more emotional than I had ever intended them to be. I was like, ohh wow. Is there something else here? So I started to dissect my lyrics a little bit more, and I realised it would sound softer in a different context. It was all very self-indulgent. I mean, I feel like anyone who does an acoustic version of a song that's already released is just very self-indulgent – like, let me do it again. And now I am! I did one, we did On Repeat, the track that I released with Benjamin last year. I was like, let's do an acoustic version of this because we've played it so many times, and I want to see what it actually sounds like once it's recorded. So we did that. I didn't want anything electronic. Everything has to be acoustic. And I just really like the way it turned out! So I decided, oh, we’ve gotta keep going. There were other songs that we played on the tour of mine that I thought would really work like this. I have no impulse control, apparently.
FMM: So you’ve done this acoustic EP and experimented with it, having done your first flute recording on the EP. How was this recording process for you as someone living with a chronic illness?
Meadowhip: Oh, man. It took such a long time. Like, we started it in October last year. I had Benjamin, the artist that I toured with last year who’s a producer as well, create a mock up production schedule for me, and I was like oh my god, this is going to be out in April. You know, I thought it was going to be done and dusted, right? But when I actually got into it, you know, dealing with a completely new process of recording music - I'm accustomed to doing almost everything on the computer, being able to work remotely and not having to be in the studio all the time. So, adding all of the in-studio stuff to the process while dealing with flare ups, I was just like oh ****, this is taking forever. It just kept going and going. It just made it such a really long process, and I realised I had been taking for granted how much working with purely electronic music actually allows you to do.
As someone with an illness that sort of prevents them from being out and about in the world a lot, I can make so much progress when everything's electronic, but committing to things like recording drums… I've never recorded live drums before. I had to come into the studio and tell this drummer what I wanted. I was like, what? OK, hold on now. I’ve got to like, figure out how I'm going to work this into my day. It's just a lot of new experiences and a lot of learning, and that takes a lot of energy. It was a lot to manage, but thankfully Ben is extraordinarily patient and just the nicest person, and all of the studios and stuff that I work with were also super flexible, so It's nice to have a community of people who get it so they could work with me and my ridiculous schedules and energy levels, which was a godsend.
FMM: You’re based in Wollongong, and as someone who frequents the Melbourne city music scene, I was curious if you’ve experienced any other music scenes, and what the Wollongong scene is like.
Meadowhip I feel like the Wollongong music scene punches above its weight. If you think about how big the city is and what music comes out of the city, and the music venues, and how much support there is behind music in the city, it’s pretty extraordinary. There is a lot of music down here in Wollongong too, and there's always something to see live. If you want to go out, there's always going to be a cool band, and you can always discover new artists. It's fantastic. Last year, we went down the East Coast of Australia, and the crowds are just so different in each place. Like obviously, when you go to another city, you don't know the crowds. You're selling the tickets and you're just hoping that people are going to go, and that they're going to be interested in finding out about you because it'd probably be their first time seeing you.
I think the first place that we went was Brisbane and I was so blown away by how quickly the tickets sold and how interested people were in being there. I’ve played shows before where you put on a support act, and in a new place and the people come to see the support act, and then they just filter out before the main act starts. I kind of thought that it might be like that, but it wasn't. They're just so committed to being at the venue and staying there and just being like, “I want to hear what this new artist is about.”
What I liked about the Melbourne scene is that a lot of the places that we contemplated playing weren't necessarily ticketed. So the place that we played, people would just walk down the street and be like, oh, what's going on in there, and wander in. That doesn't happen in Wollongong. There's no venues like that, everything's ticketed or it's at an event, whereas Melbourne feels very free flowing. There's lots of differences between scenes and they're all just super cool. I think that they're all incredible. I mean, I was really surprised by the differences, but they're all great in their own way.
FMM: It must be such an insane experience, having so many people listening to and enjoying your music, and interacting with it.
Meadowhip: Ohh, it's bizarre. I'm like, are you were you watching me? And you have people you don't know come up to you after a show and they comment on something about the performance, because they're actually paying attention. They’ll say “I liked the song that you did about the…” whatever. And I'm like, wow, you're listening to me. That's so wild, like, thanks! I've spent a lot of my life playing in cover bands and stuff like that where you’re just background music, so people don't necessarily come up to you unless they’re saying, “you've got a nice voice.” Now it's like because you're already on a high, it's such a weird thing. To perform on stage to people that you don't know, your brain kind of goes into a different zone, and so you feel like you’re somewhere else and then someone comes up and says something nice to you. And it's just - oh my god. Like, it's just dopamine explosions. It's weird to consider that you could be singing a song with words that you've wrote, and someone actually listened to those words. And I'm still a bit like, what do you mean? It’s so cool, it’s a type of connection that you don't anticipate. You write songs for yourself, and you do that because you like to do it, but being able to connect with people… that's extraordinary.
FMM: I do have one more question for you. Now that you've released this acoustic EP, would you ever consider doing a full acoustic set, or is that something you might leave for a little while?
Meadowhip: I think I would like to! I've done like a mixture of acoustic songs in my sets, but I would definitely look at doing a full acoustic set. It's one of those things where I'm like, OK, where do you draw the line? Because I could get a stack of backup singers for example, and I could get people playing horns - there's so many different ways you could break it down. That’s the beauty of playing songs acoustically. It could just be you and a guitar, or you could build it up and make it huge. That's definitely something that's on my list of things that I would love to achieve. It’s like I said, I have no impulse control, so I wouldn't know where to stop, and I'd probably end up putting on a show that would cost me thousands of dollars… but I mean, how much fun would that be?
And playing the tracks, I feel it's kind of unpredictable at times. There have been a few times where I've played the tracks and something weird has happened with the track, and then the whole band just like implodes because no one knows how to do it. Whereas when you're playing with just a band without any tracks or anything, everyone finds a groove and it doesn't matter. Everyone just grooves with it. And I love that, as a vocalist, just watching everyone on stage, doing their thing. I’ve definitely been looking at who I can hire to play the trumpet for me, so now I’m like ok, I’ve got my lists, let’s do this.