STACK J#165 Jul 2018

MUSIC NEWS

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INTERVIEW AMY SHARK TOURING 24/8 - 8/9 We met up with singer-songwriter Amy Shark at a JB Hi-Fi store (see the clip online at stack.com.au), and talked vocal layering, collaborating with Blink-182's Mark Hoppus, and how the Queenslander came up with the title of her debut album – Love Monster . Words Alesha Kolbe & Zoë Radas

nowhere. He just wrote to me on Twitter and said, “I really like what you’re doing. Next time you’re in LA we should have a coffee.” I was actually heading to LA, so we had a coffee and he just asked me what I was doing, how far along the record was and how deep I was into it, and then the next second we were in the studio. I sent him the demo of Psycho . He really liked it. Then he was involved and now we have a song together. It’s great. It’s amazing. It kind of made sense: as soon as Mark came on the scene, I was like ‘This is where this song needs to go – it needs to end with that punk flavour.’ He loved it that much that he ended up writing his verse for the song. Considering the lyrics ofY ouThink IThink I Sound Like God : At what point in your songwriting career did you come to accept that your opinions and experiences deserved the microphone? Okay, wow! This is really deep and we’re doing it in a shop! So, You Think I Think I Sound Like God was one of the first songs I ever wrote, and I was also learning how to play guitar at the time. That was my first experience of writing music for therapy. I wasn’t looking at hooks, I wasn’t looking for a bridge, I don’t care about verses, don’t care about a chorus – I don’t think it has one!

Over what sort of timeline have you been writing this debut LP? I started writing Love Monster , like, the second I finished Night Thinker [EP, 2015]. It’s not like I finished Night Thinker and thought ‘I don’t have to write now for a while’ – I’m always writing. Especially in the first three tracks, there’s a definite recurring theme of love being just out of reach, but not in a pessimistic way – it’s in a super hopeful way, even if it’s hurting. Are you a person who rarely gives up (or conversely, doesn’t let go when she probably should!)? Good question. There’s been so many scenarios in my life where I feel like it could happen, but then I feel like, ‘I need to let this go.’ So I draw on both of those scenarios a lot through the record. It’s a nice balance, I think, because it’s not always going to end in your favour, and sometimes it does.

voice with a whole octave in between. It kind of gives the melody two meanings or approaches (high = very emotional, low = calm and considering).Why do you like the effect? Yeah, almost every song I do is triple tracked. It’s purely just to get that exact sort of layering effect. It’s pop, you know; I’m alternative pop, but I’m still pop, which means your vocals are very up front, right down the centre. But by doing the triple track, you can sort of pan

them and then … [it’s] almost like the most passionate take goes straight down the middle, and it [sounds] really full and really warm.

It was such as moment for me, that song. That’s why it needed to be on the album. The whole

Mark [Hoppus] came out of nowhere. He just

Psycho is, essentially, a love song. Did you write it specifically for [Blink-182's] Mark Hoppus? How did it happen? Mark came out of

microphone line… when I wrote that, I was kind of the

wrote to me on Twitter and said, 'I really like what you're doing'

only one really doing [music], at the time, in my little friend group, and

Across the album, you often layer your

it was really intimidating to be the person behind a microphone and doing these little demos. That was so personal.

And then letting people hear it. [The lyric] “I’ve got the microphone and you don’t” [is] like, '[When] you have a microphone you can do it, but right now this is how I feel, and I’ve got a microphone, and you don’t. So there!'

How did you choose the album’s title?

The main thing I knew was I wanted it to be big and bold, because that’s what I feel like Amy Shark is: big and bold. Also, this album is [...] a really safe, healthy balance of love and passion and lust and romance, and then there’s lies and jealousy and all this other stuff – no-one’s perfect. It just felt right.

Love Monster by Amy Shark is out July 13 via Sony.

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JULY 2018

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