Helene Greenwood
Helene Greenwood is back with her new single In The Sunshine, which is lifted off her forthcoming debut album Collectable You.
We caught up with the singer/songwriter to chat about the up-coming record as well as what lies ahead.
- You are about to release your new single In The Sunshine so what can we expect from this brand-new track?
I had to compose In The Sunshine quite quickly; I had a deadline, so that I could get it ready in time to release. I knew I needed a song for this EP, and I just had to give myself a day.
It was at the end of spring when we hardly had any sun (laughs) so I was just thinking about the sun, and all these sweltering days where everything is so slow.
So I allowed myself to be very lazy and very spacious in it. It was also to do with families and children, and just thinking about generations. So I had all of these ideas of living in houses and people’s lives and following through.
- How have you found the response to the new single so far?
I have had a really lovely positive response. I have also created the video with an artist called Rebecca Lennon; she knows me quite closely. I think that has given people another aspect into the song as well.
We discussed the idea of the nature of families and lives and family lives. I think it was her idea to think about Polaroid’s; she uses those in her own artwork. I managed to get in touch with this person who collects Polaroid’s from the forties through to the seventies, and he sent me this big parcel of Polaroid’s.
I also used a photograph of my mother - she has actually passed away - and Rebecca thought that it would be a good idea to make is personal.
Some of my song writing has stemmed from trying to think about... It is trying to think about the female as she was a very feminine person. I think of her through my voice.
Personalising something is such a difficult thing to do, but Rebecca is such an amazing artist that she could do it in an abstract way; which I thinks worked really well.
- This single comes ahead of the release of your debut album Collectable You so what can we expect from this record in terms of its sound - it is quite eclectic and unlike anything else around at the moment?
There is an EP The Break coming first, and I tried to choose songs that I felt could communicate in an easier way. So I tried to choose songs for the EP that people would be able to communicate with more immediately.
The more I think about Collectable You I think that it does have stranger sounds on there, maybe a slightly complex song structures such as Great Fountain; that is the song that I called my ‘Asian influence song’ (laughs). It is very still and it has quite a hypnotic beginning and ending. Then in the middle it is rocky (laughs); that is the rockiest that I get.
I do love creating sounds and putting interesting sounds together. Producer Calum MacColl has little harps and mandolins that he uses, but they create this very weird twangy sound that he layers over some of the songs; Focused is the track where that is used really well. And James Hallawell plays slightly discordant, weird, broken chords.
Focused is a track that represents when you are feeling like things are claustrophobic; I think that it has come from my motherhood and being in a long-term relationship (laughs).
Especially in London everyone’s lives are so intense and everyone is so busy, and suddenly you just realise - it is one of those moments.
- You have mentioned Calum MacColl, and he has served as producer on the record so how did you end up working with him?
I was doing a bit of recording in a studio in Berwick Street, and my drummer know Calum’s agent. I knew that I wanted to produce this album, and he was like ‘well why don’t you speak to this lady, Jess Brian?’
I just sent my tracks to her, and she gave me a couple of producers who were really interested in working with me.
I chose Calum because all of his folk heritage; when you listen to his stuff, it is not obviously folk, but he has got such an amazing knowledge of music. He is a really musofolk style musician (laughs). He is very creative, but he is also very skilled as well.
- How did you find working with him - as you say he is quite an acclaimed folk producer? How collaborative a producer is he?
(Laughs) He is a very big personality. His ideas for actually recording the songs were a bit like at Christmas time when you have got to open the presents and allow them to open in time.
Rather than saying ‘I am going to open this one, and I want it to be this’ he wanted it to be... In a way, it was like a jazz performance; he got all the players together, they thought about the music themselves, and then it was to do with how the live musicians responded to one another.
In a way, I felt that the sound came from each musician, as that is what they wanted to put into the music; I was really pleased because they were beautiful musicians.
He mixed it together and then I had the responsibility of mixing it again and bringing out different textures and sounds. I feel that the philosophy was a good one because we had such lovely musicians to work with.
He is a strong personality, and I had to stand my ground at one of two points (laughs). There was one of two ideas that I had, and I think I managed to communicate that to the musicians.
- You have talked about your song-writing already but what inspires you to put pen to paper? And are you a writer who likes working alone or do you prefer a co-write situation?
I started singing when my daughter was born; it coincided with my mother’s death actually. My daughter was born in March, and my mother died two months later. It was such a tiring time looking after her and my mother leading up the end of her cancer, and dying that I just felt exhausted.
It was a very strange time that one had died and one had been born. I just felt that I really wanted to express something. I started off as a contemporary composer, and I just felt that I really needed to sing; so I started having singing lessons when my daughter was small.
When she started going to nursery the more time I had, and so I tried to compose a song; I have never been able to compose songs before, but I have always wanted to. I have always been able to compose contemporary music but not songs.
The first song that I composed was Utopia. I have always loved words; my mother loved words; my grandfather was a poet, and we have always discussed books. I have always written on my own, and I have loved that ability to have my own mental space.
You only have little snippets of mental space, and through songs, it is just a way of celebrating having that time to yourself and creating something.
- You also cover Fools Rush In on the album so how did that come about?
When I was growing up, in must have been in the eighties, whenever Bow Wow Wow covered Fools Rush In, and it was the first jazz tune that I heard when I was growing up.
When I was learning jazz standards I just thought ‘this is something that I know and really love’; as a jazz standard, it was really sultry and beautiful.
I have always known it as an energetic song and I just wanted to make it more hypnotic. I had some ideas for harmonies from a course I had done at Stanford in L.A. I had this amazing teacher, and he taught me about harmony and how to strip song of harmony. So I just sat down and experimented.
- This was recorded originally by Frank Sinatra so how have you put your stamp on the song?
Having experienced a lot of time with jazz musicians - I started gigging with a jazz pianist - I learnt that the philosophy of jazz was just playing; playing with sounds and tunes that have been written down.
We have the most beautiful tunes written down in the American Songbook, and you can just take them, and you can do what you want with them. I love doing covers; it is the way of transforming something into something else.
- Finally what is next for you? Are we going to be seeing you out on the road?
Definitely. I am just in the process of booking up some gigs for the autumn. I have an album launch - it is more like a press album launch - in Soho.
I am hoping to perform at The Vortex as well as a few other London gigs. I am hoping to get out of London; I have got a gig in Bristol, at Rise Records in October. So I am just panning all of this at the moment.
Helene Greenwood - Collectable You is released 7th October.