Interview: Emily Breeze

We all know that Bristol has a lush and fecund music scene, all manner of artists creating music covering all the genres – and mashing them up too. Emily Breeze has blazed a path through the city (and beyond), producing what is, even by Bristol standards, challenging yet accessibly & entertaining material. She has a new single out, and an album on the way and the former is being launched at The Cube on Friday 26th October. If you don’t have a ticket you’ll have to resort to begging, bribery or naked threats to get hold of one as it sold out sharpish. Emily tells Bristol 247 all about her latest work, and how it will fund her diamante encrusted neon pink private jet.

So, for the uninitiated, how did you get from Candy Darling to Rituals?
I’ve been writing songs since about 2004 and have undergone many stylistic changes. People often comment on this as if it is strange that I have altered my sound. I think it would be much stranger to carry on playing the same old shit for 14 years. Over the years I have played gothic grunge, country, blues, punk, torch songs, rock n roll, electro post punk and I don’t even really know how to describe the current sound, Something like a posh Jarvis Cocker fronting a David Lynch house band or “Nancy Sinatra on ketamine” as I was recently described in Louder Than War. Although the outer shell has been in a state of constant flux the themes which underpin the song writing have stayed fairly consistent. Sex and death.

Where did it all come together and who’s producing?
The album was recorded at Rockfield in Wales which was a luxurious upgrade from my usual haunts (we even used the Bosendorfer piano Freddie Mercury played on Bohemian Rhapsody). It is a legendary studio on a working farm with the finest vintage and contemporary equipment you could wish for and a fantastic engineer (Joe Jones).
Stew Jackson produced the record and his approach and ideas are a woven into the songs and sound to the point that people who didn’t know that he had worked on it could detect his influence. I can’t speak highly enough of Stew as a producer. Alongside outstanding technical ability, he is extremely creative and imaginative as well as knowing exactly how to get the best out of a song or band. His commitment to, and belief in the record has been very encouraging to me. We have worked together a few times over the last decade and this was our most creatively successful collaboration to date as we are both on top of our game, and our influences are highly compatible at this point. Drawing from vintage Exotica, fucked up Lounge music and unacceptable L.A sleaze.

Did you go in to the studio with everything ready to go or did the bare bones of the songs get fleshed out during the recording process?
We only had three days to track all of the songs including set up and pack down so there was not time for experimenting. I would love to have the budget to stretch out in a studio and fuck around with ridiculous ideas but in this case we needed to have everything ready to go which was challenging in itself as I set a recording deadline before all of the songs were finished and we spent the last few rehearsals furiously writing parts and rehearsing. In this sense it was the band and a couple of pre-production session with Stew who are to thank for fleshing out the bones of the songs.

Who have you got playing on the record (and who will be joining you for the launch)?
This is such a nice opportunity to talk about the band. We go under my name so people may not be aware of the level to which they inject the songs with structural changes, textures and ideas which are outside of my remit. The band consists of lead guitar player and long-time collaborator Rob Norbury. Bristol’s finest drummer Andy Sutor (Who was also in Candy Darling), Killer bass player Graham Dalziel and on organ, synths; white noise magic and chaos we have Duncan Fleming who also happens to be one of my favourite songwriters. (Check out War Against Sleep if you are curious). They are all highly skilled, write parts for the sake of the song not for their own musical masturbation and are each full of distinctive creative ideas and influences which to me is where the songs start to get really interesting. They are also a really good laugh and great company.  I love them all very much and am extremely grateful for their input and expertise.
Also joining us at the launch we also have our friends Oh The Guilt who play beautiful post punk, shoegaze horror and a solo set from the aforementioned War Against Sleep. I have had a sneak preview his new songs and they are poignant and pervy in equal measure.

“A Lou Reed, Trent Reznor Hybrid” (The NME); “Rebel music, the lovechild of P.J Harvey and Johnny Cash” (The Sunday Times), but how about other influences, are there any artists that inspired you that would surprise your fans and shock the fashion police?
I used to really enjoy putting on 10cc, Prefab Sprout or late era Roxy Music and watching all my strict muso friends  recoil in horror at the synths and snares but now Yacht Rock and processed 80s nightmares have all swung into fashion so there is not much left to shock anyone with. Maybe I will try putting on the Big Brother Theme tune next time we have a party and see how that goes down.
This record (outside of my long term influences (Iggy Pop, Nick cave, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen) was inspired by specific songs more than any artists whole output. The tropical sleaze of Hot Dreams by Timber Timbre; The arctic longing of That Old Feeling; Les Paul and Mary Ford; sensual sadness by way of Chet Baker’s Almost Blue; the Surreal cynicism of Miami by Baxter Dury and modern confessionals by way of Father John Misty. There is also lot of pathetic grandiosity going on which I have lifted from Jarvis Cocker and Scott Walker.
Something else that came into my mind a lot when writing and recording this record was also the languid resignation of the theme tune to the Hamlet Cigar adverts from the 80s. I am a unrepentant music nerd and could wax lyrical for decades about the artists who inspire me but overall the holy trinity of songwriting must contain at least two but preferably three of these elements, sad, sexy and funny.

The lyrics are clearly invested with a lot of though and care, what comes first – lyrics & themes or does a melody or tune suggest subject matter?
I tend to have a few chord structures rolling around but I cannot get attached to them or start structuring a song until I have a clear idea of what the lyrical theme is. I am not an abundant lyricist so I try to strip mine everything for ideas. I scour poetry and literature and even advertising slogans, films and T.V shows as well as trying to get inside the head of characters such as serial killer Aileen Wuornos or Marshall Applewhite the leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult who both make an appearance on the record. My most recent unrecorded song is about playboy centrefold and reality T.V star Anna Nicole Smith. I have also trained my ear to pick up conversational hooks which would sound good in a song. Someone told me last night that their tinder profile used to be “Looking for casual sex with strangers” and that struck me as an excellent song title. Overall though, most of the songs are melodramatic meditations on my personal life.

What are you hoping for in terms of commercial success with the single and LP, in fact is there such a thing as “commercial success” for working musicians apart from the bands selling out stadiums?
Well of course I would like to quit my day job, fly the band all over the world in a diamante encrusted neon pink private jet and play to an army of slavering fans in every continent but I do not feel entitled to it. I am aware of my limitations and the limitations of the industry.  I wrote the songs to the template of what I find beautiful and interesting as opposed to conducting extensive market research around what is selling this season. There is no such things deserving it, and it is not a meritocracy. The people who hold the purse strings either feel that they can monetise what you do or they do not. These decisions are out of my hands.

How about critical “success”, does it matter what the press think of your work (and given the world’s obsession with social media, how about the thoughts of the bloggers and sundry keyboard experts cluttering up the interweb)?
I would love to give the impression that I am an aloof lone wolf who creates purely for the sake of art in a darkened tower but I am not. I want all the love. From the press to the passing pedestrian, it means the world to me, Pay me a compliment and I will purr around your ankles.

What are the plans for releases – CDs, vinyl, cassettes (no, I never thought they’d make a comeback either, but the beardy hipsters love ‘em eh)?
The single is available to stream on all the usual sites, digitally and on CD from Bandcamp. The album, which will be released in spring 2019, will be on vinyl, CD and digital and streaming sites.

The show is sold out, not tempted to move up to a bigger room?
Yes, next time.

Finally any plans to go national and work the new material for the rest of the country?
Yes, fuck the day job. I’m coming.

Emily Breeze plays The Cube on Friday, 26th October 2018