Music > Interviews

Mary Epworth

23/08/17

 

Mary Epworth is one of those artists that when you discover her, you want EVERYONE to know about her. Fierce, unashamed, emotional tunes alive with electronic beats, heartfelt lyrics and sounds that come from who knows where, her latest album Elytral is a collection of strength-giving tracks. Plus, as a bonus she's beautiful, clever, chatty and runs her own music label that signed Kiran Leonard amongst others. She's coming up to Norwich to not only play live in the evening, but also to join in with a special day of talks and workshops on how to help yourself become a musical artist, hosted by PRS Foundation’s Momentum Music Fund, a partnership with Arts Council England, PPL and Spotify, and PRS for Music. I spoke to her about Garage Band, playing a rainy festival and touring with the Welcome To Night Vale team.

 

Your new album Elytral is out on 1st September – the themes seem to be those of nature and emotion. How do you experience those things together in your everyday life?

I only perceived the bugs theme (as in the front cover) after the record was finished. Emotionally it’s specifically about emotional resilience and stamina, however the older I get and the more I think about the way in which experience the world I realise I do have a really strong connection to nature. I get an endorphin rush off the colour of the sky! That’s probably a bit weird! Both sides of my family are nature people, one side are sea junkies and the others are from the Peak District, so perhaps it’s in the blood. I wonder if it’s a brain-wiring thing because it’s so strong.

 

This is your second album. What was your starting point for these songs?

I put quite a lot of pressure on myself regarding the sort of songs I thought I should be making, and I got stuck, stymied by my own critic really. At some point I started mucking about on Garage Band on my iPad, with weird little snippets of songs and demos and then fleshing things out in a different way to how I had done it before. Previously I would have had a melody or a lyric come to me, and then I would have had to find an acoustic guitar and record it. With this new way of doing it I can go quite far down the path of a demo, and actually when I got to the studio in L.A with Tom to record the album we just loaded the demos in and built on them. It’s really essential for me now, the iPad, being able to capture that first impulse. With my previous album, Dreamlife, it took me a long time to work out what I was doing, what sort of mix of music I was going to make my own which meant that every single one of those songs probable went through two or three incarnations, and re-do’s. I didn’t want to do that again – on this album there are literally sounds like my cardigan rubbing against the microphone. So it feels good to have caught the thing much fresher and I didn’t want to overwork it.

 

 

How have you found transforming an album that was created pretty much electronically into a live show?

It’s been quite a lot of work because it was tricky to transfer the energy of these songs. These songs go between being sparse and atmospheric and then having quite a lot going on – I’m happy with where we’re at, but every gig I come offstage and think oh, we’ve got to tweak that. We should have it worked out by the start of the next record hopefully!

 

There are a couple of tracks on this album which are almost songs of two halves – what is about this that you find effective?

I do most of this stuff quite subconsciously. I’ve not been trained, like I sometimes get confused as to what a bar is in terms of music, and I’m terrible at maths. I do things instinctively, so I guess I have a mental picture of sparseness and then a massive mountain crashing through your skull, so I just wanted this huge volume of noise and fug to come through, like on Last Night.

 

There are a couple of really beautiful and delicate songs on the album, Towards The Dawn and Lost Everything. What did you draw on to create these songs?

Both of those were written out of feeling down, but they’re both also hopeful. This album is a kind of pep talk to myself – Towards The Dawn leads you to feeling that it will all be OK. Lost Everything could be taken in two ways, either that things are going to get worse, or.. I did some wacky esoteric singing workshops with my dad, and that involved a lot of breath work, like holding your breath for a really long time or hold an empty breath. It makes your body panic because you think you might die, but there’s actually always more breath than you think there. You can always breathe out a bit more, even when you think you’re at the bottom you’ve always got a little more strength to push through.

 

The album was supported by the Momentum Music Fund – what is that and how did it help you?

PRS Foundation (Performing Right Society) offer lots of grants to support artists, and the Momentum Fund takes artists from launching their careers to their second or third albums. It’s for picking you up when you’ve already started. I feel very privileged to have got funding from Momentum because it’s one of the top ones you can get as an artist – it’s a big compliment to my little team really. The money has been a great help, and also being a part of something bigger is wonderful – like me coming to play in Norwich. As an organisation PRS Foundation are fantastic, but what they’re doing with funding, and how they’re trying to help artists is very clever. They’re definitely listening and developing artists, not just judging on sales.

 

Your music is fierce, energetic and primal – you’re not afraid to make music that sounds just how you want it. How do summon up this feeling before you go onstage?

My goal when I’m onstage is to feel like the music is in my body. If I’m stressed about something I find it very hard to get into that state – if I feel something strongly enough emotionally I can click into it, and sometimes the energy of the gig will do that for me, depending on how loud it is onstage, and things like that. We did a gig recently where it took ages to set up and it was pouring with rain, and I was so not into it, but when we got onstage, and we were so annoyed I couldn’t stop laughing all the way through because it had gone beyond chaos. That was my favourite gig that we’ve done so far!

 

 

You’re a musician, you run your own label Hand Of Glory and your brother Paul is a well known and well respected producer. Did you grow up in a musical family?

Not really – my mum likes Otis Redding and whistles a lot and my dad was massive Prog-head, and he really loved harmonies and rhythms. We didn’t have a piano in the house or anything like that – Paul got into bands when he was a teenager and I followed him. I can’t read music although I’ve tried. I do think it’s in the blood a bit – my mum’s family are from a hamlet between Swaffham and King’s Lynn, and we recently found out that two generations ago her family were the village band. It’s all the way through the family really, I have cousins who play, and my great great grandfather was a cello maker.

 

With your label-running hat on, how do you tell if an act has a good future ahead of them when you hear their music and meet them?

I get a gut feeling – I hear a song and start to think there’s something here. I check out who else is talking about them, question why people aren’t talking about them, and that maybe it does need to be talked about, like with Kiran Leonard. I’m working with another artist at the moment, and I always choose people I think are really good and should be honoured. It took me a long time personally to work out how to sound myself, so I feel like I want to help other artists not to have to take so long to go through that process. When you work with other people you butt up against your own strengths and weaknesses as well as theirs so it’s good to work those things out. I feel like I’m just starting to dip my toe into the world of production – it’s daunting to be honest because my brother Paul is a mega producer, and I hate the idea of anyone thinking I’m trying to compete with him, but I’m actually just on my own weird path.

 

 

How did you get involved with the popular podcast Welcome To Night Vale?

Through Twitter! People really rag on social media but because I’m so chatty and sociable on there I’ve had a lot of opportunities come out of it. I got chatting to them after my friend Jo retweeted a link of theirs and they asked to use one of songs as the weather song. This was quite early days for them..about three months later I noticed all these people commenting on that song as the weather song and they’d just hit a million listeners within a month. We kept in touch, and they asked me to accompany them on the Night Vale European and American tours which was just bonkers and amazing. The people you worry about with Trump made up the audiences in America - it was a young crowd, mainly teenagers, gay, bi, trans, asexuals – rainbow kids. They’re really sweet and some of the places we played were not places you would like to grow up visibly different. Night Vale means a lot to people – we played Berlin and there were a gang of girls who’d travelled from Russia. It was a bit like being in the midst of Beatlemania – we couldn’t tweet where we were having lunch because everyone would turn up! It’s bonkers, and so cool to be a part of. Now I’m scoring the second series of their spin off podcast, Within The Wire. It’s very different to what I usually do, 10 or 12 minute instrumental pieces, and it’s really good to have that challenge – I don’t have weeks to produce something, the deadline is there and it has to be ready by then.

 

See Mary Epworth play live with support from Hannah Peel and Love Ssega at Norwich Arts Centre on Saturday 2nd September. Tickets available here.

 

Find out more about the Momentum Music Fund here.