With the release of her as-yet untilted EP only months away, Georgia Potter met up with Larry Heath at BIGSOUND to discuss the meaning behind her new single “XO” and the influence that travelling has had on her musical development.
When we last spoke, it was nothing to do with your music, so… It must be nice to be talking about yourself again!
Oh, god, it’s nice to be back doing what I love, which is performing and recording. And it’s certainly nice to be back as a part of the Australian music community, in which I have so many talented comrades and lovely people to mix with. So, it’s not exactly a shitty profession, that’s for sure.
Especially not a couple of days like this. How have you enjoyed Bigsound?
I’ve loved it. It was a good way to see everyone I wanted to catch up with, and let know them that I was back to seem them all in one convenient 5km radius.
So, we were talking about your traveling earlier, and how it was inspiring you, and now you’ve returned with a new single, and with an EP soon to be released. How does a trip around the world translate into music? How do you take all those influences from those experiences you’re having – and also the music you’re hearing along the way?
Totally. Well, without wanting to talk about the fact that we all grow and fast track so much when we travel – everyone knows that, it’s not like, because I’m a musician, I had that experience.
We go on journeys internal and external.
External spiritual journeys! (Laughs) You just challenge yourself, especially if you travel alone, which is always how I’ve travelled. How it translates to music is… It’s sort of funny. It makes no logical sense, but it feels like there’s a real magic to it. I find no patterns in the way that I write, sometimes I wake up with a bassline in my head. Other times, I’m influenced by lyrics, or something I read, or an emotion that I’m feeling, or an experience that I’ve had, and it never happens the same way twice. Obviously when you’re moving around so much, there’s so many different places, there’s not always time to sit and take hours to write and record. But every couple of weeks, I reached a tipping point, where I felt so much inspiration had accumulated internally, that I just had to spurt out a song. And that would be how it happened. I would not eat for the whole day, I’d not go out, I’d just set up my studio, and beg, borrow and steal whatever I could to get what I had going on… out. So it’s been a lot of “input phases” and “output phases”.
When you say set up your own studio, when you’re mobile, how does that work? It’s amazing that you can do that.
I know, isn’t it? Technology’s incredible for that. It’s in always my carry-on bag, cause it’s obviously fragile, and it’s just got a Macbook, a beautiful condenser microphone, and a duet, and an audio interface, and things like that. And a whole bunch of leads. It normally gets me some attention at security check.
That was going to be my next question!
I always have to pull out the microphone at the security check.
I mean, this thing looks like a taser.
Totally. And then, not only do you have the ring-roll of ‘Oh, it’s a microphone, here’s what it looks like, oh please be careful with it’, but you have to then deal with the (affecting an accent) ‘Oh, so you’re a singer? Eh? Well, why don’t you give us a tune? Eh-heh-heh…’ from all the security guards.
Specifically in Spain, from the sounds of it.
A little bit more in some countries than others.
So we just watched the music video. Who directed that?
That was directed by Bryn Chainey. Bryn Chainey is a half-Australian, half-British film maker, who I knew in Australia when we were young. When we were teenagers, we studied acting together. And he’s now lived in Berlin for quite a number of years. So we shot the clip together in Berlin, in the gallery.
I call it the Chainey genius ‘cause he just… always seems to think of something that’s wonderful. I had said to him, ‘kaleidoscoping spiders and kaleidoscoping performance’, and he immediately said, ‘kaleidoscopes are cool, but what about shooting you through a crystal?’ So in fact, all the kaleidoscoping effects that you see are shot through a crystal that he was manipulating in front of a lens. They used to do it in the 70s, and that’s why all that stuff looks so cool, because it’s optical animation, rather than digital.
Yeah, I mean you look at someone like Christopher Nolan. He’s made his Batman movies, and he tries to do everything real.
I reckon it’s worth making the effort! I’ve learnt that about recording as well. When I first started recording, when I studied production, when you realise that you can record 50 takes and edit them all together to make your ultimate take, that’s really appealing. But really quickly, you realise, that that’s not musical. What’s musical, is just tracking something, and leaving it alone, and not messing with it. It’s the same kind of thing for film, I guess.
So, from what I’ve heard, “XO” – is that how you pronounce it? Ex-oh? It’s not Shu or Kiss-Hug?
No, no! It’s sort of a double entendre, about the kiss-hug thing that some people write, and then it’s also, if you hear the song, a play on the word ‘exoskeleton’, which is of course the porous skeleton surrounding a spider, and how they breathe. So that’s where the title comes from, it’s an analogy, ‘cause an exoskeleton is full of holes, and I’m talking about one woman’s love, that is also, essentially, full of holes. It’s empty. It’s shallow. As flimsy as an exoskeleton is, and as a bit of a joke, I titled it, “XO”, meaning Kiss-Hug, which is something that that kind of character of woman might say.
Lovely!
I’d like to note that I’m not writing about myself in that song. I’m not the spider in the song, just a mere observer.
Fair enough. So you’re more a voyeur of the spider. How does that translate into the full EP, in terms of the sound?
The EP is going to be slightly varied.
I get that kind of vibe.
Yeah, ‘cause that’s what I do, and that’s who I am, and that’s who I am as a singer as well, and obviously the vocal is at the forefront of what I do.
You couldn’t travel as much as you’ve done and pull out six songs that sound the same.
Exactly. That too. And I think I’ve almost shied away from how varied I am as a musician, ‘cause I’ve seen it as a weakness in the past, that maybe it means that I’m not as clear on my style or something. But I’ve actually come to think that that’s not how it is at all. This is just true to who I am, and true to the artists that I listen to, and admire, and they’re all really varied and different and have “eras”, so. But what you can be sure of is that the EP will have a lot more beats on it, because I love beat driven music. I’ve always wanted to put out a bunch of stuff that has beats.
It’s not all finished yet, and I’ll be tracking with my old drummer, and she’s kind of a beat machine in a human, ‘cause she’s so incredible in that way. So there will be live drums on it, but it will still be pushing that backbeat driven stuff, more than ever.
Fair enough. Well, looking forward to hearing it. When do you think you’ll get it out?
Early next year, is the plan. I’ll be hanging around for a while, but I’d like to go back overseas and record more stuff in the European summer. I’m just going to chase the summers, between the hemispheres.
And you also did some stuff with Tin Can Radio recently?
Yep, always. I think I’ve been on every Tin Can Radio record, and I plan to be on all of them! But that’s what you can do when your brother’s the bass player.
Well, again, congratulations, welcome back, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more from you soon!
Thanks, Larry!
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The music video for “XO” can be watched here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1LNPW5HXUU
And the song, plus two others, can be downloaded for free here: http://triplejunearthed.com/georgiapotter
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