![]() ![]() It was so beautiful that I had to run out of the tub to grab my phone and record it. So I was sitting in the tub not even really thinking about it and just started singing this beautiful melody. I love to smoke a joint in a hot bubble bath after a long day. I actually wrote this in a hot bubble bath the night before a studio session. We cut the vocals that day and the song was done quickly. When we started the verse, it just flowed from there. The truth is that she’s soooo powerful, she just doesn’t know it yet. I knew I wanted to paint a picture of an outcast coming into her own, chipped black nail polish in the corner of the room, invisible and alone. But my favorite bands made me feel like I had a home.Īnd so I told Troi I was thinking about the word Elephant and being a misfit - and the two sort of combined in my mind - the elephant in the room. ![]() I went to a private school and was bullied by the popular rich kids and was such an outcast. I would listen to it over and over when I came home from school feeling like a loser and a misfit. When I first found The White Stripes I was in the fourth grade, and that album really shaped me. And I was thinking about The White Stripes’ album Elephant, and how much it influenced me and how iconic it is and how I wanted to make something big and iconic. I was hunched over my notebook on the floor and they were playing that soft guitar riff at the beginning on a loop, and I remember Troi asked me what I was thinking. ![]() We just connect on a deep level and I feel like our music individually is deep, so being vulnerable in the studio with them is effortless. I wrote this song with Troi Irons, who is one of my favorite artists ever. But luckily I woke up one day and heard how the imperfection of “Wild Woman” is what makes it beautiful. Towards the end of the album-making process I was really struggling with my perfectionism and it was getting hard for me to make creative decisions without fear of destroying the project entirely. The beauty of the raw vocal didn’t hit me until later, when I was choosing songs for the track list. I thought it was ugly-sounding for a long time. So even though I was super sick, I called my producer and told him I needed to get the vocals down. Sometimes that’s the way it is - that’s why it’s important to be able to record your vocals the day you write a song while it’s still fresh. I knew I had to capture the vocals right in that moment or else risk losing that feeling forever. The lyrics and the melody have such a power behind them. So I sat down at my desk and started writing on my piano and this song just came out. But I absolutely hate laying around when I’m ill. The song was recorded on a day where I wasn’t even supposed to go to the studio because I was ill. I remember feeling like the vocals were too harsh to listen to, imperfect and gritty. “Wild Woman” almost didn’t make it on the album. “You’re not even trying, I’m still riding and dying/ I’m still bending over backwards, falling for the asshole, looking like a fool for you/ Don’t let me go just yet, I still got love left baby/ Where is it supposed to go? I sound crazy/ Like a broken record wishing you’d still play me.” I love how angry and defiant it is, yet still so soft and delicate. I felt so foolish for sincerely falling in love with this boy who was clearly a player. Heartbreak is easy to indulge in, like emotional porn. I guess it’s easy to express myself when I’m hurt because that place is so specific and familiar. The lyrics kinda just happened in one of those rare moments where it all seems to fall into place without even touching it. The sun was going down and my producer just started with those two mellotron chords and it flowed from there - like an open wound. Writing was really the only thing that helped. I was in the middle of a breakup and just in so much pain, working a lot, trying to stay busy. Only then would the song let me finish her. To finish the Rebel lyrics, I had to go all the way: safety-pinning my underwear, smearing red lipstick all over myself, and doing full out diva choreography. Sometimes I have to close my eyes and pretend like I’m on stage. Sometimes I have to dress up to get the lyrics out. How could it not be when music is what literally moves us? We left the second verse blank, and I ran home to finish the song in full glam. I like to think of my songwriting process as physical. The first verse was freestyled in one take. The session began and within minutes the first draft of what would become “Rebel Revolution” was up and running. When I got to the studio, I started blasting my favorite anthems: Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl,” David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” I was determined to capture a similar energy and tap into my own fearlessness. I had been working with Fernando Garibay that day and was riding a high of inspiration.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |