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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Hazel Mills
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 25 August 2010
Former student of the classical avant-garde and member of Andy Mackay of Roxy Music’s side project, Andy Mackay & The Metaphors, Hazel Mills is a Bristol-based musician. Taking inspiration from 60s psychedelia and 70s progressive rock, along with artists such as The Velvet Underground, Nick Cave and Grizzly Bear, Mills creates music with layers of vintage organ tones, wonky pianos, junk shop percussion and haunting vocal loops. Following up from her 2007 debut ‘Butterfly’, Hazel is set to release her mini-album ‘White Rabbit’ on Xpress Records on 6 Sep. We caught up with Hazel to find out more.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I started playing the piano at the age of six and not long after that I started singing. I remember I used to sit at the piano with my uncle when I was about eight and we’d improvise atonal pieces from scratch. The older I got, the more I played around with my own ideas, composing became such a natural thing for me. I’d always loved the idea of creating my own thing (when I wasn’t writing music, I was building odd-shaped buildings from Lego). Although I had a classical background, I was listening to a lot of grunge bands from my early teens, so I was writing both classically structured pieces, and pop songs. I think I was about ten when I wrote my first song. I’d recorded it a capella onto my little portable tape player (fortunately I don’t have it any more!).
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
A lot of visual things. I’d been watching quite a few German expressionist films at the time, like ‘Metropolis’ and ‘The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari’. I loved the surreal combination of sinister and a subtle black comedy. I wanted to make music that would make people feel the way they would when watching these kinds of films. This was also something I got from the expressionist choreography of Mary Wigman – there’s something very unsettling but intriguing about watching her works. I like the idea of music depicting something, whether it’s from lyrics or the music, and I always seem to have images or scenarios in my head when I write or when I play them.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
For, me, there’s no one way of approaching a song. In fact, the longer I’ve been a songwriter, the more approaches I’ve experimented with. Though my comfort zone, as with many writers, seems to be to start with a chord progressions and build from that. Lately, I’ve been forcing myself to start with a melody first, and developing a strong hook before looking at chords. There’s a method called the ’20 Song Game’, which was created by an American-founded group, the Immersion Composition Society. The basic idea is that you set aside twelve hours, completely immerse yourself in songwriting, with no distractions, and aim to write 20 songs in one day. You have to keep writing no matter what, and you never stop and think about whether it’s “good” or not, or go back and change bits. You have to be quite disciplined about it, but you end up with more strong songs than you do if you just work on one or two songs a day. ‘Eyelashes’ (track six on the album) came from my first ever 20 Song Game. I also get a lot out of writing with other people. In fact, I think some of the strongest songs are collaborations. I write a lot with my producer, TJ Allen. Quite often I’ll have some unfinished song ideas, and he’ll help me shape and develop them.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Jefferson Airplane, The Velvet Underground, The United States Of America and other 60s psychedelic bands have had quite large influence on the new record. I’m also very into The Birthday Party, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and Tom Waits – what I like about them is the very distinct characters that come across when they perform. I have a background in theatre and I love to see the visual or narrative side to a performance. More recent bands I particularly love are Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective. I find the vocal styles of Siouxsie And The Banshees, and The Cocteau Twins very inspiring, and I’m very influenced by 60s (a great decade for music!) experimentalists like Morton Feldman, Steve Reich and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Interpret it in your own way, and listen to it on headphones if you can – especially if you’re on a train.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
Obviously I’d love the album to gain some interest and increase my fanbase – the more people that hear it, the better. In terms of the future, I plan to continue writing and recording. Ideally I’d like to sign another deal so I can record another record and tour as much as possible. I’m doing a few exciting collaborations at the moment (wait and see!) so to continue that would be great. It’s always great seeing how other musicians work, and learning from them.
MORE>> www.hazelmills.com
