Abagail Grey
Abagail Grey grabbed everyone’s attention earlier this summer with her EP Dark Wood and this December she is back with her new record Snowflake.
We caught up with her to chat about the new record, the difference in sound and what lies ahead for her.
- You are about to release your new EP Snowflake so what can we expect from the new collection of tracks this time around?
It is a varied mixture. The first track is called Beauty and I wrote it about getting older. It was more about looking at my parents and my grandparents and them getting older as they have experienced so many losses and how life can drag you down a bit.
But it is more about looking in the beauty in being older I suppose. It is a lovely song; it is an up-tempo song but it does have quite a melancholy subject attached to it.
The second track is called Bee and it is a metaphor for what the… bees collect a substance that they make into propolis which they then use to line the hive and it protects them and keeps the heat in during the winter.
The song is a metaphor for the human home and the family and how we can fight with each other and not be as nice to each other as we good be. It is really poetic and people can take from it what they want to.
- This EP is really inspired by winter - last year you released single Winter & Icicles - so what is it about this season that really seems to influence and inspire you?
Yes they are all to do with the winter. I love the way that the trees lose their leaves and everything is quite exposed and when it snows the acoustic changed. People become very reflective during the winter because people are forced to stay indoors.
Winter is just more of a struggle compared to the summer months that are light and fresh. I think it forces people in doors and many writers that I know tend to write in the winter, I think it is quite a natural time to put pen to paper.
Then there is the whole thing of Christmas which can be a difficult time for a lot of people. It is a celebration in the middle of all this coldness and bleakness and there is something warm and lovely about it. I suppose that is why I write songs about the winter and I have written quite a lot of songs about the winter months.
The songs are not necessarily always cheerful and winter is associated with maybe feeling a bit less happy and less light. Some of the tracks are quite up-tempo and I think that it is human nature to try and escape from what we are experiencing - it is actually quite a cheerful release and it is not depressing in any way.
There is a song called Starling and it is probably the most literally reflective song about the winter - as in it sounds life winter, feels like winter and it has a coldness about it and very very dark.
- The EP isn’t out until the beginning of the December but I was wondering how you have found any early feedback to the record?
You did a lovely little piece on it last week and that was lovely, thanks very much for that. It was wonderful and was greatly appreciated.
That is the only press that I have had on the release but I have played it to people and people are really enjoying it. It is the best thing that I have done so far and it is going down the best. I have already got it up on Soundcloud and lots of people seem to be listening to it.
- This is a completely different sound to Dark Wood EP that you released earlier this summer so how much was it a conscious choice to go in a completely different direction to Dark Woods as that was a very personal and haunting EP?
It was definitely a conscious choice. I wanted to move away from using purely acoustic instruments and I had been very stuck on that for quite a few years. So I have just changed direction, not a lot but just slightly, and I have gone down more an electronic route and so I have been using synths and things like that. I have been working with Chris Geddes and he is an expert at that sort of thing.
It is something that I don’t really know about as I play the piano, violin so I understand how to play acoustic instruments and I understand the voice but when it comes to producing sounds through a synthesiser I am out of my depth.
I sent Chris an eighties track, I can’t even remember what it is, and I said ‘maybe we could use these kinds of sounds’ and that is what opened up the different direction.
I suppose if you work with people for a while you find yourself going in this creative direction that just feels right and you have to go with it. I think that we are going to stick with the bigger production and go down that road more with the next bunch of songs that we are recording.
- You have mentioned Chris already and he has produced the EP along with Tony Doogan so what were you looking for in your producers this time around?
That is a difficult question to answer. It was their input I suppose and their own take on what they think the song should sound like. I have my own pre-conceived ideas but this time it was a little different because I went into the studio with the songs less finished.
I went down a week before we started doing the recording to see Chris and it was one of the first times that he asked me to and re-write some of the lyrics.
So I went away and re-write the entire song that is Starling, which my favourite song and the one that has turned out the best, a week before we were due to record.
This time we took a much more active role in the sound because when I turn up to the studio with a song that I have completely arranged and I have practised it to death and therefore it is much more difficult for them to say ‘well what about this?’ or ‘what about that?’
So I suppose that the songs were in a less of a finished state when I got there and that was just due to me being unwell over the summer and so I didn’t have as much time to sit and play and practice. But it turned out well. I think I am one of these over panicers and I want to get everything done and finished.
But I think it was a good thing that it was still going through that process of becoming established as a song when I went there.
Also I find that their expertise is really good when it comes to thinking up drum parts and forming the drum parts and tying the songs together so they sound very complete when they go out.
- There are also some great musicians on this EP such as Dave MacGowan, Stuart Kidd and Aly Brown so how did you find working with them?
Amazing. I have been working with Aly Brown for a very long time and we are both from the same place in Scotland and we have known each other for many years and we have been playing together for years. He just brilliant and a really good bass player.
The decision to bring Dave MacGowan to play bass on some different tracks was because Aly couldn’t make it along - but it turned out well because he brought something completely different.
He plays upright bass and he is so versatile that I will definitely be playing with him again in the future.
I feel really privileged to play with such talented people as they really make the songs what they are because they just add so much quality to the finished project. It was brilliant and I was very lucky to be working with them.
- So where did your interest in music start? And when did you make the decision that you wanted to pursue this as a career?
When I was a child there was always lot of music in the house as we had a piano - my auntie taught me a tune and I remember picking it up really quickly. I very quickly became obsessed with it and I begged my mum for lessons.
When I was about ten I found a fiddle and I started playing that, I taught myself for a long time. Then I got a music scholarship where I took it a bit further before going to study music at Strathclyde. Then I went travelling for a very long time just playing all the time.
I very much always wanted to play stuff - it was almost like a fundamental need - I don’t think I ever made a decision it is just always what I have always done.
I play something every day - I have been playing the piano already this morning with my son. So it is quite a natural thing for me. There was no clear moment of deciding that I would do it it just happened to me rather than anything else.
I wrote songs when I was a child but I didn’t really sing in public until I was twenty eight as I just felt really shy about it. So I suppose I did make a decision about wanting to write songs as I had to say myself ‘are you ready to do this or not do this?’
Before that I was really pursuing a career with a fiddle and I was playing in lots of different bands - that was where I met Chris as I was in a lot of different bands together.
- Finally what is next for you? Are there any live shows in the pipeline?
I don’t have any live shows coming up just now but I have done that intentionally. I have just engaged with a manger, won’t mention names yet as I haven’t signed a contract, and we are concentrating on building an audience before going ahead to do live shows.
I have got another EP coming out at the end of March/beginning of April and it is going to be a very happy EP. I am releasing a single and it is such a happy song of elation and that is going to be the single from it.
I don’t know what the EP is going to be called yet or whether it might actually be an album. I am deciding whether to record and EP first and then an album or an album then an EP. So we are still discussing that and what is best to do.
So at the moment I am planning a lot and I am talking to the manager and I am just trying to make everything work and get it off the ground. The music is good and I think it needs to be heard so we are just trying to suss out a strategy that is the best to do that.
Abagail Grey - Snowflake EP is released 1st December