INTERVIEW: GRETTA RAY ON HER DEBUT ALBUM, ‘BEGIN TO LOOK AROUND'

27 Aug

The darling that is Gretta Ray spoke to our writer Keely about her upcoming debut album ‘Begin To Look Around,’ reflects on the past five years since winning Triple J’s Unearthed High, and talks about some of her favourite moments that helped inspire the album.

Thanks so much for taking the time to chat! I just wanna ask, how are you doing right now?

What a nice question! Yeah I'm going okay, I mean it's a weird time. I'm in my 6th lockdown, but I’m going okay. It definitely feels like a strange time to be releasing an album but I'm keeping busy. There’s plenty that I can do from home which I'm really lucky that is the case. I think I'm just thinking a lot about the album all the time and I’m really excited to show people.

Your debut ep ‘Begin To Look Around’ is out August 27th, which is incredibly exciting. This has been in the works since 2019 right?

Yes indeed! We wrote the majority of the record in 2019 and then started work on finishing off the production at the end of that year. I think by the end of January 2020 we had nine of the songs done, production wise. I then went to London for a bit and was hoping to stay there for a while and come back mid-year to record the rest of the record, but obviously that didn't happen… I came home pretty fast. I then had to wait until the end of the year until I could get back to Sydney to finish it. I think we finished in maybe January this year? Or march, I don't know it was mad it just kind of kept going, we worked on it so much so I'm really excited that it’s done.

You’ve released a couple of Duologies ahead of the release, which is such an interesting way to release songs. I was reading about it and you were saying how you often write in pairs, and when you listen the songs, they’re from different perspectives. I was curious as to why you haven’t listed the duologies in those pairings on the album track listing?

I think I was always going to do that. I never thought that I would release the album in the order of the Duologies because, initially as I was writing the album I was already getting an idea for the track list in my head before we even made the decision about how we would release the songs. But also there’s songs on the record that people haven't heard yet.

I love to listen to records from track one right to finish. I mean it’s a weird time with music at the moment in terms of how it's digested because there's just so much music and there's so much content with every project. So I think the general consensus is like “just release single, single, single.” I was like ‘I have to tell a full-length album story.’

I love full length records and I feel like so many people do. I just feel like it's not spoken about enough when it should be, people still really appreciate listening to an album in that traditional, chronological way. I wanted the album to tell the story of why I wrote those songs when I did, and when it was kind of up and down, and when I kind of turned a corner. I wanted people to hear that in context of a storyline rather than just like these are the two songs that talk about this one specific feeling.

You can definitely get a sense of that when you listen to the album. You work with quite a few co-writers, don't you? How has that process been for you, especially with the current climate?

It’s been amazing, I mean it's been the biggest step in my career in terms of my artist project when writing this album. It’s the biggest shift that I had made by getting other people involved in writing the songs because it wasn't really something that I was doing much of at all when I was younger.

When you’re collaborating writing a song, you either get it finished or at least the bones of a body of work done by the end of the day. That was a completely foreign concept to me. I used to write songs in the sense that if I got an idea that I felt was worthy, I would then spend like months trying to tackle it and getting frustrated 'cause it wasn't doing what I wanted to do. I would then leave it be and I would come back to it and it was an agonising process. It may have resulted in songs that I still really, really love but it meant that I stopped practising song writing. Which was something that because I'm at the beginning of my song writing journey, even though it's something that I've done since I was much younger, I still consider myself to be in really early stages of.

There's so much that I can learn and the way that I could do that was by working with other collaborators and being open to changing my approach to writing songs. So it's been super rewarding 'cause I think that I shut off that idea, because I thought that if I were to work with other people on songs that were going to be so personal it wouldn't reflect that same personal thing that I had in songs that I just wrote alone.

It just isn't really true, the universal feelings that we all love to write and sing about are further amplified in the songs when you have other validating voices in the room. You just find a new way to look at it and you can dig deeper, so in that sense it's been really awesome. I've learned so much I can't wait to continue to learn it just gets me excited to write music. I think that creative collaboration has always been one of the great joys of my life and I'm really glad that we were able to do more of that when making this record.

It’s incredible to see that growth, especially since this year marks five years since you won Triple J’s Unearthed High. Do you have a particular ‘pinch me’ moment that’s happened in the past five years?

It’s a wild time that feels like ages ago, but then also not really 'cause there's been this lull of not being able to play shows for two years. Yeah, it's been very interesting to reflect on the fact that that was five years ago.

I've been very fortunate to have a few of those, but the one that comes to mind, that I still can't talk about without almost laughing just because I think it's so stupid. Was that I played this festival in the UK called All Points East, which on the Saturday of that weekend at the festival Mumford and Sons were headlining. I know them and I’ve played some shows with them before which was amazing, and then at the end of the night after wrapping up their set, (so for context there's thousands and thousands of people, crazy concept to think about now.) I got to sing a song of theirs with them in front of that crowd but THEN I got to sing with them, The Staves, Lianne La Havas, Dermot Kennedy, Jackal was playing guitar, JayBird. So many of those artists I grew up with, in high school I was a massive fan of the Staves, and I'd only briefly met some of them, and Leanne I love. I just remember we’re all singing this Beatles song in front of this sea of people, and Leanne and I just singing to each other. My little self was just like, sorry what is, what is going on? So if there's any footage from that night you'll notice I'm laughing the whole time on stage I just cannot get it together 'cause I thought it was so funny, I was like why am I included this line up? But it was really, really awesome so yeah that was probably one of the biggest pinch me moments.

If you could go back to five years ago, when you had just won Unearthed High and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?

I would just say listen to your parents, yeah… Listen to your parents. Listen to all of your mentors and lean on them, hang out with your friends. Which I do feel like were things that I did, I didn’t really stray too far because I had such a high priority to finish school. I was very studious, I loved all my subjects, and my teachers were really accepting of the fact that I went on tour in the middle of the 12, which is ridiculous. So because of their support and their belief in the fact that I could like do both I feel like I was able to honour that.

You'll notice that stepping into the industry, and especially with Unearthed High, that's pretty sudden exposure, and that is really weird when you're quite young. As much as I knew I loved music and I really wanted to have it as my job, you just can't anticipate how strange that is when a lot of people suddenly know who you are. I was on tour at the time with Japanese Wallpaper as a part of his band and suddenly it was like ‘oh everyone knows who the girl on the keyboard is.’ It was very strange, but I think that what kept me grounded in that period of time was the fact that I had a really wonderful group of people around me who told me the right things, no one was rushing me into anything. I had great mentors, I had great management, and I think that because they had that patience and the understanding I needed to honour that time in my life meant that I could make the record that I've made now.

I remember reading somewhere that you would you do your assignments in hotel rooms, play a show and then they fly back for school on Monday.

I remember this one particular morning after we played a show, and it might have even been the morning that the finalists were announced? But we flew in really early from Interstate, my dad picked me up from the airport and then I just went to class. I just remember strolling into class on cloud nine, it was a really sick period of time for sure.

How did you meet Gab aka Japanese Wallpaper?

That is one of my favourite stories 'cause Gab is such a dear friend and close collaborator now. I was just a massive Japanese Wallpaper fan his project totally opened my eyes to pop music again. I think I'd become a little bit narrow minded. I grew up with a lot of pop in my life for sure but when I was like 15/16 and I was like ‘it's strictly folk/singer songwriters, no pop music will come near me… Except Taylor Swift… But no one else.” Which was stupid because pop music is amazing and expansive and interesting and different, and it's really challenging to write.

So when I heard ‘Between Friends’ by Gab I was like ‘oh my gosh, I forgot pop music can be really emotional and vulnerable, it’s just with different sonic elements.” I messaged him on SoundCloud, it's so lame because it was the first interaction I ever had and it’s entirely not how we speak as people at all. It was something like “oh how did you do school and music at the same time? Ect...” Then I bumped into him at this show that I was playing as a support act at the workers club in Fitzroy, and we just kind of hit it off. We had a lot of friends in common and I realised that he just was such a nerd about music in the same way that I was. After a little while of being friends, he was like “I need a keyboard player and a backing vocalist, I know that you're studying for exams but do you want to come?” I said “I will absolutely 100% be there, goodbye “ and then yeah I was on tour. It was very, very cool and a good first experience touring as a part of his band because I hadn't done that myself yet as an artist.

You got to be apart of Gab’s Like a Version a few weeks back, and he collaborated on yours as well. Which was incredible by the way. How did you find that Like a Version experience?

He was very involved in getting that arrangement together, because after all this time of knowing each other and admiring each other’s projects, he has a really good grasp on what it is I want to achieve as an artist and what direction I'm headed in sonically.

It was pretty scary, but it's a really great opportunity. There were moments throughout the past five years where I thought maybe we're going to do it here or there, but I'm relieved I'm more of a seasoned artist now. When you get in that room it’s really daunting and you want to honour the song, and you know how many eyes are going to be on you as well which is quite full on. I’m really glad we had the chance to do it when we did. I love my band and I love that song so much. I think that I was unknowingly preparing for it years before hand just watching Gang of Youths sing it so much.

You’ve got quite a good relationship with the Gang of Youths members right?

I do! I'm very fortunate they’ve taken me on the road a couple of times as their opening act. Which was so surreal because the size of the shows and their audiences is so loyal and wonderful. To be exposed to that at the time was amazing. That was a time at the end of 2018/early 2019 when we were playing shows, that their record was having the most wonderful life in the world. It was my favourite record at the time. It was a beautiful thing to be a part of that journey with them for sure.

Dave features on one of the songs on your album, Worldly Wise. How did that collaboration come about?

I basically knew once I had the melody of the song, the melody of the chorus in particular. I wanted layered backing vocals and I wanted that base-y, male tone. There are just some songs that I feel really need it and I knew that his voice would be perfect for it.

In terms of what that song ended up meaning to me and where I've placed it on the track list, I think it is just so fitting that he's singing those lyrics, “lift your eyes… Are you ready to roll?” That I may have written, but when I was on tour with Gang of Youths I was in a place in my life where I was really trying to find my feet. I was going through a breakup and I was just trying to regain a sense of independence and sense of self. Often Dave was saying that kind of stuff to me in our private conversations, and being like “yeah but you know you're gonna go out there and sing. And you're going to do this record and it's going to be great.” He’s very much like big brother to me, all of those boys are. To have them involved on this record, considering the journey of it and when I was writing it, it just makes so much sense to me. I

On your track ‘It's almost Christmas in Philly’ you have an audio snippet in there at the end, what’s the story behind that to why you included it?

Well, that song is inspired by my friend and day-to-day manager Sam. The first time that we went on tour together, which was to open for Gang of Youths. We were in a hire car driving around North America, driving through the middle of nowhere. Staying as he says “middle of fucking nowheresville Kentucky” overnight to get back on the road and get in the car for another eight hours. When that becomes your lifestyle for three weeks you end up opening up to each other a lot or having conversations that just crash land into this really deep and meaningful conversation. I think that the space of a car is quite a confessional space as well. Someone who was interviewing me the other day was saying you feel like you can open up more because you don't have to look at the person because they're driving. That’s why you find yourself in that moment.

One of the days that we had on that tour that felt particularly magical because we were in Philadelphia for a day, and when you’re in America you always feel like things are really like the glory of America or something. It was the day that I was about to play my 4th or 5th show, and it was just a particularly picturesque moment. We were walking down this main road in Philly with all of these Christmas lights 'cause it was mid-December. And you know the idea of a wintery Christmas was just so foreign to me. There were carols coming out of speakers on the street, and all these decorations. We were just prancing through the street like idiots and so that's why I ended up calling this song ‘It's almost Christmas in Philly.’

The voice memo at the end just kind of captured a comedic element of what those three weeks on the road looked like. Which was just us getting stuck in stupid, car related scenarios. I took that audio from a video on my phone and we were driving through a snowstorm. Sam is from the UK so he was driving on a different side of the road, and I couldn't help with any of the driving that trip because was too young. He was just like “oh my god, why, it's so late, we're in the middle of nowhere!” And I captured his stress and put it at the end of the song so that's the story.

You’ve got the ‘Becoming’ tour coming up in October, and the Fingers Crossed Mini-Tour coming up in the next few weeks hopefully. How are you preparing for that?

I feel like I've forgotten what it’s like almost because it's been so long. I've played one show of my own during this time and have jumped up to sing with a few friends at their shows but that's kind of the extent of it since March 2020 when I played a show in London.

I just rehearse as much as I can, I think that especially now playing a new show which we've only gone to do once for Splendour XR. But I don't have an instrument, I am relying solely on my stagecraft to be captivating. Which means I can focus mainly on my vocals, but it also means that I have to make sure I really know what I'm doing performance wise.

I have one last question for you, who are your top three favourite Aussie artists right now?

Oh man there's so many. At the moment I'm listening to Sycco a lot, her ep is good. What in the actual fuck of talent, like it's so mad it's insanely good. My friend May-a, her ep just came out. It’s so good as well. And Mia Wray, she’s got a couple of songs out. She’s got this killer, boss like, Meg Mac-esque vocals and her songs are really upbeat and fun. She released a song called ‘Needs’ a little while ago and it’s awesome and I love the visual content she’s doing.

GRETTA RAY – DEBUT ALBUM ‘BEGIN TO LOOK AROUND’
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