The Keel Her / Claire Cottrill split tape is eight short, sweet vignettes: four playful, bubbly, and subtly contemplative tunes from Keel Her, an insightful and imaginative 23 year old musician from London, and four darker, muddier, distorted songs from Claire Cottrill, a bright-eyed, 17 year old songwriter from Carlisle, Massachusetts. Check out this TALKS: KEEL HER & CLAIRE COTTRILL
KEEL HER
the tracks on your half of the split are super playful and also have this really cool alien-like quality to them. what were your influences and inspirations for the songs, both lyrically and musically?
For Brain Jus I'd been reading about deep brain stimulation and slightly wished i could try it out. The brain is just generally interesting, especially that you can think such destructive thoughts about yourself and it seems so normal to do that, and that you feel like you can't help it. So that's what the song is about. In terms of the music, I have no idea why I ended up making the chorus sound like the King of the Hill theme tune.
Settle Down is kind of hard to explain lyrically without exposing too much, but lets just say it's about letting someone walk all over you. Musically again, I'm not sure. I don't know what I take out of my influences. Currently on my way to work I have been enjoying Todd Rundgren, Molly Nilsson, Dick Diver, the list goes on..this song is a bit all over the place.
Complain Train is about how much I (and others) complain, pretty self explanatory. Also how I was too anxious to go to group therapy for anxiety.
how did you start making music? What challenges have you faced in trying to both find your voice and get yourself out there?
I started making music in my early teens and it was quite bad. I started teaching myself guitar and keyboards. I always liked music and went to lots of gigs, but I never thought I'd be able to play music. I used to make up melodies in my head from a young age and I played the violin. But when I started I was anxious and very self-conscious. Music was really the only thing that made me feel better, so I wrote songs daily for a few years. I had some obsession with making gif's so I had a lot of followers from Tumblr and that sort of transferred over to Soundcloud and Facebook. I made music all the time, and one day I got offered a developmental deal with Critical Heights, a 'sister label' of Fire Records. So after that, I started playing live, and put out a few singles, doing tapes with other labels too.
The hardest thing I have found is working and making music; it was fun for a while, but I got sick and lots of things let me down. I let people take over in the past, but I am glad it is back to normal. My music has changed a lot over the years and I am happy about the direction is is going because it is my choice. What is hard is to really transfer my music from recordings to a band. I do a lot of double tracked vocals and harmonies; I'd really like to get another woman to sing in the band with me.
To add onto that, what's it like being a female musician?
Being a female musician: it's really fun, but sometimes lonely. I'm an outsider, but I always have been, regardless.
also omg what kind of gifs?? is your tumblr still active??
well I deleted it late last year I think - it was called schleeef, i've still got some of the gifs I think, I used to go on this site http://dump.fm/ a lot !!
heres one i made of my dad i just found
http://dump.fm/images/20110918/1316344885152-dumpfm-schleef-ddodod.gif
how did you get over anxiety and self consciousness? because it feels like when you're putting out something you made you're putting a piece of yourself out there and being willingly vulnerable. how do you get over that self consciousness and self criticism?
I still get anxious and self conscious, and really sad a lot of the time so I haven't really gotten over it, I think the thing about Soundcloud is that it was never really, for me at least, a site where you were showing off your 'talent' - I met a lot of lovely people off it (not necessarily in real life) that were like me, creating and creating for long periods of time, with no essential goal or genre or anything, I guess the same applies to lots of different websites like blogspot or tumblr or vimeo. The internet is so gigantic that you can hide - there's so many songs i am self conscious about now but i feel like that is about development...especially if you made music in your teens! I usually just post stuff and then dont go online for a bit - sometimes i get really nice messages from people about my music and it can blow all the self deprecative thoughts away
that is so cool and i definitely agree that the internet has this crazy duality to it, like you can simultaneously hide and also put yourself out there.
i know it's strange! although i heard it [SoundCloud] was maybe shutting down which sucks :(
do you have any really memorable things someone has said to you through your music? or even in general?
hmmm not really off the top of my head, but i have had emails from people in loads of different places that blows my mind, even USA -- the power of the net i guess. R. Stevie Moore was really nice about my music too which was so nice to hear as i love his music a lot
i think the best thing is to hear when someone says that your music inspires them to make music
what that's crazy
man it always feels so nice when someone you admire is like i fuck with what you're doing
you make really interesting music and incorporate a lot of different elements and style, which is sonically really cool
thats so nice to hear, i always doubt myself and think its completely repetitive and not original at all!
because you can try and make music in a certain way or style, and then you can not even try at all but accidentally do it - now i do admit there are songs that sound exactly like other ones, but i did not do it on purpose lol
what's up next for you? do you have any plans yet after the split?
im trying to get a band together so we can play live, in the mean time i am going to do another tape for Gnar Tapes and also im playing violin/keys/vocals in this band
it would be great to also do another tour, maybe even play in america someday!
sweet! one of dante's primary inspirations for tft is gnar tapes
and please come!!!! it'll be so great
theyre great, and i love that other people are doing it!! well actually we are going to canada in august/september so gonna pop into NYC - we will say hello :)
CLAIRE
so for the songs on the split, they seem to be darker and rougher lyrically and musically than some of the stuff you've done like "Sweet 17". would you say that this is a new direction for you musically?
yes for sure! i have always felt like my songs up until now haven't been what i really want to get out. i think instead of making songs for myself at first i made them in a way that they were meant to be for other people..i def am trying to work more on the individual song and its meaning instead of how catchy it could be
do you feel like you're closer to finding your voice through your songs?
yeah definitely. its darker than my older stuff and it sorta throws people off but it's way more comfortable when i perform them
i remember in casual conversation a while ago you said something about being afraid you peaked musically already. do you still feel that way? what are you afraid of // what's scary about being a musician or for you in general?
no not really anymore.. i think i was still in the mindset that i had done all i could do and i had squeezed everything creative out of myself. now that i've changed directions i feel so liberated!
idk what i'm really scared of, probably just having music become something thats extrinsic. i dont want it to become something thats my job or what i depend on bc then i'll lose every bit of why i like music
what's your writing process like? are each individual songs more like diary entries or would you say they're more like time capsules/accumulations of feelings and experiences
i have tons of notes in my phone of just like sentences that sound good to me or small details i really like. i always start out with the instrumental first and go back to the notes to come up with the lyrics. most of the actual sentences never get put in the songs cus i get ideas from them n it goes on from there
that's so cool
its really a mess hahahahah
where are you in life right now? is that a weird question?
like musically? or what u mean
both musically and emotionally
my emotions kinda run side by side with music, n to be honest i'm sorta like an open book cus everything im feeling becomes lyrics. even tho they seem darker i've definitely found more of who i really am n have become sooooo comfortable with it. which is something i've been wanting to say forever. i guess i'm just really okay with the fact that my music may change really drastically again in the future and it doesn't bother me at all
what is important for other people to know about you as a musician or even a person since art and artist are really closely intertwined?
i was so worried about my "sound" and what i would be defined as that i completely missed the point of a growing artist
im really glad that isn't a thing anymore, it's scary af but important to be ok w change
yeah totally!!
hmhmh maybe like one or two more questions if that's ok??
sounds great hehe
who or what is the biggest or one of the biggest influences/inspirations for you and your music?
honestly the reason why i even wanted to make music was from al green, d'angelo and brenton wood... which is more than ironic because of what my music actually sounds like hahahah. they were all i knew growing up, n i always go back to them when i cant think of anything to write about!
also a lot of my friends bands are so incredible, it's so hard to not feed off their intense creativity
yeah dude i look around and everyone is fucking insanely talented and i always feel so lucky that im surrounded by really talented people
(that means u!!!)
yeah for real!! everyone i know in philly and boston has insanely good music
omg awie hehe
lastly, what is it like being a female musician? bc for me even though im not a musician ill look around and notice the room is mostly guys and also with other things i notice i get treated a lil differently
omg. it's so rough LOL... i've had a lot of guys be taken aback that i'm performing, or try to help me set up my equipment because they don't think i can do it on my own. it's so dumb. i think the worst part of it honestly is just how much doubt people have about me when they see me setting up at a show. it's as if bc im a girl i'm automatically not as good as the other bands. the silver lining i guess is that it ultimately doesn't stop me from making the music that i want to make : )
n now that i've become so much more confident in my actual music, it barely bothers me if men are "impressed" or not
its so stupid hahahahah
The Keel Her / Claire Cottrill split tape is out April 10th. You can listen to the first two singles here, on the TFT Soundcloud. :~)
-Emmy
