Artist Of The Week #106 - Eliza Shaddad
This week’s Artist Of The Week is the wonderful Eliza Shaddad, who has just released her EP ‘Sept ~ Dec’. The release deals with different forms of isolation and withdrawal, Eliza took a moment to talk to us about this in more depth.
So, your EP is out now, how does it feel?
Yahooo it feels great!! It’s been a year of a lot of change and it feels so good to have music out at the end of everything, and to feel pretty proud of having gotten it here.
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories of the creative process?
It was recorded mostly in the front room of a bungalow in Cornwall haha though we recorded some drums in a studio in London. I was really keen after the last album to try something a bit different and to be able to work at leisure on the songs - rather than have a limited amount of time a studio to work on them - so with producer Mr BJ Jackson, we set up a lot of gear in the middle of nowhere, and just worked and worked on them, trying different things. The bungalow was right by the sea so we took a lot of surfing breaks and sometimes would pick our lunch of mussels from the rocks by the sea, which was a very inspiring landscape and way of working.
What would you say are the key influences behind the tracks on the EP?
I think on this EP there are my traditional influences - the kind of folk storytelling aspect which I love, and the grungy guitars, but I was keen to keep it a bit simpler here - so we built things up and then stripped them back a lot - which in the end makes the songs seem a bit barer and more direct I think. I’ve been listening to some more country and pop this year maybe and I think sometimes what you're listening to just finds it’s way in to the music.
There was quite a lot of seat-imposed isolation when creating this album, what made you decide to do that? Do you feel it increased certain parts of your usual creative processes?
I was pretty sick of London and had had an intense year with the last album so it was kind of in response to that feeling of needing to get away. I think for me isolation in writing, and increasingly recording makes it way easier to think, and to find the direct mainline to the emotion of a song. Having the time and space to experiment has helped open up the sound too I think, and it always feel good to keep changing.
‘Same As You’ was written in an abandoned flight simulation building, how did that come about?
I was actually back with my mum in Suffolk helping to look after my Grannie who was quite unwell last summer. I needed a place to work during the off hours and my mum told me about this place called Old Jet- like a creative community on an old airbase nearby. I got in touch with them about renting a space and ended up moving all my gear into an old flight simulation building for a week and writing ‘Same As You’!
Do you have a favorite lyric from the EP? And why is it your favorite?
'I think of green lane smokes and Bluenotes
And our crazy families,
And I’m back at school in your old room
Tracy Chapman on repeat’
It’s just exactly how it was and I’m right back there everytime I sing it.
Is there any meaning behind the EP title - ‘Sept ~ Dec’?
This EP felt like a roundup of the last year for me- all the changes in life/recording process/team - and Sept~Dec feels like bringing it all to a close.
Also the first EP I ever released was called January ~ March so I have always wanted to finish that cycle eventually.
Now the EP is out there, what are your plans for the next few months?
I’m on tour!!! Right now, with Keane playing lots of European dates, then I come back to the UK for some recording and then head to LA for the first time for some work, and then we’re touring the UK in March - leading up to a headline show on the 19th at the legendary Scala!
Catch Eliza Shaddad live next as she embarks on her latest UK tour in March 2020, culminating in a highly anticipated show at London's Scala on 19th March 2020.
9th March - Crofters Rights - Bristol
10th March - The Cuban Embassy - Birmingham
11th March - The Eagle Inn - Manchester
12th March - The Hug & Pint - Glasgow
17th March - The Hope and Ruin - Brighton
19th March - The Scala - London
Eliza Shaddad's upcoming EP Sept ~ Dec is due for release on 24th January 2020.