Emmy The Great - Interview - February 2009
By: Thomas Hannan
Rockfeedback: Hello Emmy. How are you today? Fed up with interviews yet?
Emmy The Great: "No, I love to talk about myself (laughs)"
RFB: The record seems to have been coming for an age. What took so long?
ETG: "Well, it should have come out last summer in which case I don't think anyone would have felt like it took too long. It felt like the natural time to come out, but unfortunately we hit a snag, and we had to wait until after Christmas because over Christmas, anyone who knows anything about releasing knows you can't put a new album out unless you want to be eaten by Guns 'N' Roses."
RFB: You seem to have had a lot of people keeping an eye on you for quite a while now. Are there any surprises on the record that long term admirers might not see coming?
ETG: "I don't know how to answer that."
RFB: Any changes in direction?
ETG: "No, everything is natural. It's really hard to know because it depends on what people are watching us out for. The songs are still exactly how they were written in the same way they used to be, but we were actively trying to get rid of this anti-folk thing. You know, those influences, people were like 'Kimya Dawson and Adam Green', they just don't apply to me anymore, so we were trying to separate ourselves from those and we were trying to separate ourselves from the other folk acts in London because we just don't feel a part of it."
RFB: How do you think your existing fans will respond to that?
ETG: "I really don't know. Do you mean my family? (laughs) They're cool with it. They don't care. They just really like the BPA."
RFB: Yeah, the BPA thing was quite a surprise.
ETG: "Oh, that was just for fun."
RFB: You got The Earlies to be the production team for your record—nice work. What was it about them that made them the right choice?
ETG: "Well, they were more like the supervisors. And me, Tom, and Euan were the production team, but it was just when we met them. They were so not industry. I walked in and talked to Nikki for a bit, and he was like 'Oh yeah, we lost our record deal because we forgot to make a record, but it's fine, we don't care.' They were just so non-careerist, and they were never ever going to tell us to put a chorus in. They were never going to try to get the arrangement to sound more dynamic for a bigger audience or whatever. They just had the same ideas about what music was for.
RFB: I've read things about you that have compared you to everyone from Laura Marling to Michael Nyman. Are there any comparisons to other artists that you get that you think are completely off-mark? Who would you feel comfortable being compared to?
ETG: "I don't know who Michael Nyman is. Who would I feel comfortable being compared to? If someone wants to call me the Richard Dawkins of Indie folk because of those two songs I had that referenced not believing in God, then that's, cool... I'd like to be the Philip Portman of Indie. That would be really awesome."
RFB: So are there any other artists that you think, why am I being compared to you?
ETG: The Laura Marling thing stings a bit because, like I said, we actively were trying to separate ourselves, and sometimes I think it's just because people are being a bit lazy. When people compare me to her, I feel like they didn't 'get' the album, and that upsets me because I just assumed that everyone would get it instantly, understand where we were coming from.
RFB: What is there a singer-songwriter can do that hasn't been done already?
ETG: "I don't know. What is there a band can do? It's so hard, isn't it? Unless you're Richard D. James and you invent three new instruments, then you're just doing everything the same. That's why I said the only way to get past the fact that you can't be unique is just to write exactly about yourself because you are the only person that is you. That sounds a little like The Care Bears."
RFB: It does. Your lyrics are certainly a focal point—what is it about song writing specifically that allows you express those ideas and tell those tales in a way that a non-musical medium such as poetry or a story might?
ETG: "The only reason I write songs and not stories or poetry is because with the verse and the end of the verse and the beginning of the chorus, it means that you have to cut yourself short. It's like being in the confines of a crossword, you have to make what you're saying fit into four lines and that's why it appeals to me. If I was a poet, I would only write sonnets or haikus, because I need the structure. Otherwise I'd just write nothing. Also the melody can help you think what the word is - sometimes the melody can inform the line. And it's fun! It's really exciting because sometimes you don't know what the next line is going to be, from the melody and you have to try and make the story still work out."
RFB: Do you think it makes your writing more accessible?
ETG: "I don't know. I don't think so. I think people are a lot more caustic about songwriters than they are about normal writers. I think that if I could do it, I'd rather write prose, because people just aren't as venomous about writers.
RFB: So you've collaborated with an impressive list of other artists, what is it about this way of making music that excites you or has in the past?
ETG: "It's not so much exciting. It's just like an education because I've never been able to learn something by being taught it, but when you're in the situation where someone tells you to sing a harmony because it goes better than the other harmony you were singing, you retain that information. Or, for example, doing the BPA thing. The experience of doing something completely different is what I like to do, and it opens up your song writing."
RFB: Can you give us any dirt on Jeremy Warmsley? We'll swap you a Tom Rogerson Anecdote
ETG: "I think I actually know Tom Rogerson better than I do Jeremy, so I don't have any."
RFB: You're lying.
ETG: "Ok, but can I just tell you? Turn that thing off..."
Artists in this article: Emmy The Great