Woman’s Hour released Conversations earlier this month, an 11-track debut that showcases the London four piece’s thoughtful brand of delicate pop. Frontwoman of Woman’s Hour Fiona Burgess took time out of last week’s busy album release schedule to chat with me about the steady mellow wave of pop she and three other band mates have created. We discussed the band’s driving artistic curiosity and her personal interest in dance among other things, always returning to Woman’s Hour’s defining quality -- the thought and deliberation behind the music.
Stagebuddy: Nice to meet you Fiona, what’s up? How are you doing?
Fiona Burgess: I’m in Camden at the moment which is where my parents live and where I grew up. I’m having a very nice time and we’re actually shooting our next music video here.
SB: Which one is that for?
FB: It’s going to be for “In Stillness We Remain.”
SB: Okay great, I love that one!
FB: Yeah, it should be really great, we’re shooting that one tomorrow so I’ve been back at home for a couple of days just hanging out and it’s been really nice.
SB: I know that Woman’s Hour prides itself on putting a lot of thought into music videos. You know, you said you like for them to be challenging and artistic and there’s a lot of artistic inspiration for each one. So what was the inspiration for this latest one, “In Stillness We Remain”?
FB: I guess for me personally this track is one of the most uplifting songs on the record. In some ways actually it's a very honest conversation -- excuse the pun, couldn’t think of another word -- about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and actually realizing that life is short and you might as well enjoy it while it lasts. I suppose that's really the core of the song for me, and it’s about being able to sometimes through different creative acts, escaping to a non-reality. Because when you’re faced with reality there’s two ways you can deal with it -- you can feel sorry for yourself or you can admit when it’s happening and you want to not dwell on that too much and enjoy life. With that in mind, we wanted to create a video with dance. For some reason I just remember being a kid and what I would do to escape -- and actually it was often connected to music -- but I would make dance routines and I would love the process of devising a dance and you know it was a way to be sociable but also a way of getting across something about your personality.
SB: I mean, dance is another one of those mediums that people express a lot of their deep feelings through, so it makes sense that you would pair them together.
FB: But it wasn’t like when I was growing up, we weren't doing anything elaborate. We were just imitating the Spice Girls and all of these dance groups, and it was fun and it was a way of pretending we were the Spice Girls, and that sounds like a strange thing but actually it was integral to growing up because that’s what you do -- you fantasize, you live out these different parts of your character that enable you to develop your character. I had this thought one day when we were rehearsing about devising these dance routines, and so I contacted an old teacher at a secondary school that me, Will, and Nick all went to and she loved the idea. She said she would help us organize these dance routines with all these kids in them.
SB: So I know that you said, for example, dancing is another way to discover emotions and delve into how you feel, and I know that also your new album is very deep and emotional. It can be sad at times, so I was thinking that the songwriting process for a band like yours must be very therapeutic and cathartic. You know it's not just about entertaining your audience but you’re actually benefiting emotionally too. So would you say recording the album was a helpful experience, emotionally?
FB: It’s interesting you talk about this idea of writing for an audience because somehing that we never did was think about who our audience was. When we were writing we weren’t writing for an audience, you know, we were just writing for ourselves. We never even in rehearsal imagined that we were playing to an audience, it was always that we were playing for ourselves, which really gave us a lot of enjoyment. Eventually we thought, well if we like this, there have got to be other people who like it too. That was the way we would get through, but we would never try and make something that would suit a particular audience, so it was like you’re saying quite a cathartic experience, quite a revelatory experience. It revealed a lot about ourselves that we had never taken into consideration. As much as it was cathartic, it was also difficult, we got to a point where all of us had to make big sacrifices in our lives to make this possible, and so I’m sure that there were times where we felt resentment and bitterness. And as well as this incredible luxury and pleasurable thing, it was a thing that we really had to make sacrifices for and people often don’t think about that, but for us it wasn’t all such an easy ride and we did it because we believed in something and because we all felt that if we didn’t do it, we would miss out on this experience that we all wanted to have. It was and still has been a constant battle, a bittersweet experience, where the positive outweighs the negative definitely. Did I answer your question?
SB: Of course! Any answer is a right answer for me. So even though you weren’t writing for a specific audience, which is admirable to just follow an instinct, were there any artists or albums you were listening to at the time who may have influenced what you were making.
FB: At the time of writing an album, we weren’t listening to any music actually. It was strange because when you focus on something like an album, you remove yourself from the world a little bit. We were just in this bubble, as far as I’m aware none of us were listening to much current music, but to be honest there wasn’t that much time to listen to other music. We were really just very involved in what we were doing, we really weren’t aware of what was going on, but now we’re much more aware because we’re constantly being compared to other people and you get shoved along into these certain genres. It’s interesting that we’ve emerged and people are saying we’re in a dream pop hurricane or something because when were were making the music, we weren’t aware that we were part of this wave because we’ve never been part of a scene. They seemed to think it was a very conscious thing but it wasn’t at all, we just tried to make music that was personal to us. So much has to do with the products of a generation -- it’s interesting to observe reactions to our music because we weren’t aware of what we were making when we were making it, you know?
SB: How did you come in contact with the artists who have been helping you with the visuals like Oliver [Chanarin] and Adam [Broomberg]?
FB: We were introduced to them through friends and it was just quite an amazing kind of meeting. As soon as we got to understand each other, we developed a mutual respect and we wanted to be working in a visual medium, so we were just interested and started a conversation with them during a year off and it was during that time that we became friends and began to explore the idea of being involved in the visual side. It happened very naturally. We didn’t sit down and say we are going to start working together, it just happened. They showed us all these manuals for self defense, first aid, and policing manuals you know all these different how-to manuals that are designed as pedagogic instructional stuff. The artists were talking about these images that accompanied these practical texts; so we flipped through them and the one thing we realized was that it made us feel a certain way. And when we started to write “Our Love Has No Rhythm,” we all said oh my god this is how we all want to feel when we play our music. And we realized this was an ambiguous song that could have two different meanings and we liked this ambiguity and we liked the groove of the song and ironically the rhythm, we liked that juxtaposition.
SB: That’s exactly what I noticed when I listened to that song! How ironically that was the one song that I could not get out of my head after I listened to the album.
FB: Exactly! And we love that! It's just beautiful and ironic and kind of complicated in terms of it doesn’t quite fit, but we liked the awkwardness. And so it was with that song that we found this image from a self defense manual, a woman’s self defense manual, an image of how women can protect themselves from sexual assault. So there’s this image of these two clasped hands in a unified way and it looks like an image of strength of unity and power and love when actually you zoom out of the image and you see this man attacking this woman and it has an entirely different connotation. The fact that it's a simulation was interesting as well. The fact that images can have different meanings when put in different contexts which we felt really related to a certain aspect of our music.
SB: Have you always been into visual arts?
FB: I definitely have, yes. And we all in the band care passionately about it. We all have different tastes, but it’s nice because we can eventually find something that feels good for all of us. And I was saying we were lucky in a way that we are all able to connect to visuals in a similar way but in terms of my personal background, I’ve never trained in visual art, and I’ve never trained as a musician either. You know you can train, but--
SB: You need inspiration, huh? You can be trained, but nothing can happen without inspiration.
FB: Yeah! I think we can educate ourselves. I’m a self-educated musician and artist. You can do stuff without a degree, you can do it in a way that you’re curious. And I think the one word I would use to describe all of us is “curious” because curiosity is like...being. You can’t be without being curious. That’s what being an artist is for me -- being curious. The minute I stop being curious, I stop being an artist. As soon as you have the idea that you have nothing more to learn, then it’s over.
SB: So when are you guys going on tour?
FB: We’re doing festivals this summer, but our real tour starts in the fall. I thought I would say fall because you’re American but I would never use that word.
SB: What would you say?
FB: I would say autumn.
SB: Both work here.
FB: Okay, so we’re going to do a UK tour then an American tour and European tour.
SB: In your press release, in reference to all the care and thought behind your music, the author calls you “meticulous perfectionists.” Do you agree with that description?
FB: It’s quite interesting. I want to see this press release, we’ve never had much involvement with that. People always say, “Well in your press release…” and I’m always like “What? I’ve never even read this thing.” But that’s probably one thing I would not disagree with. We may be guilty of being perfectionists. It’s like you know we’re humans so we have many sides to ourselves. I think we have the tendency to be meticulous, but we also have this feeling that everything is a work in progress. This album we just released is not finished. Nothing is ever finished. You put something out in the world, people judge it and critique it which is fine, and then you start working on something else and then you get to a point with that and then maybe you start with something else. Of course to a certain extent it feels finished, but every time we play it changes and takes on a new life of its own. We all look back and we’re able to let go while someone who is really a perfectionist to the extreme wouldn’t be able to let go. It can’t be disabling. People can be too protective.
SB: So while other people are intimidated by that sense of never being finished, it comforts you, you would say?
FB: Yeah, because it goes back to this idea of being curious. The minute I look back and say that's done is the minute it’ll stop because you’re never done. An album is not like our career. We finished an album, and now we’re going to do something else. It’s definitely a moment and signals a big stepping stone, but it’s not the end of anything. It’s the beginning of another curiosity. I know when we go back to record, we’re going to be reflecting on this album and using what we have done as a starting point for something else.
SB: It’s always helpful to get space from your work, I agree.
FB: You’ll never be 100% content but that feeling is quite nice in a way because it changes over time because your relationship with things changes with things as well.
SB: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me during what I know is a really busy week for you.
FB: It is very busy but thank you for showing an interest in us. It feels like the early stages and it’s so nice to actually have people who are willing to engage in what we’re doing.
SB: Good luck on your tour, and see you at the show in New York!
Fiona: We can’t wait to be back in New York.
Woman's Hour will play in New York at Mercury Lounge on October 2 and at Rough Trade on October 3. Their debut album, Conversations, is out now on Secretly Canadian.
