Interview: Wallis Bird And Her New Album, Woman “We “F’kin Made History!”

Irish singer songwriter Wallis Bird releases her 6th album today, titled Woman.

Bird made her debut NZ performance last March just days after the Christchurch shootings and that experience has remained with the Berlin-based artist.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Wallis Bird recently to gain some insights into the new album.

Click here to listen to the interview:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: So you were in – you were here in Auckland for the first time, what was it, like last March, right?

WB: Um – I thought it was so good – it was only last March! Mental. Yeah… yeah, absolutely crazy.

MD: You had a good time, though?

WB: Oh, no, it was really – it was very special. It was my first time ever being on that side of the world.  And,  I, it was my first time meeting all the people I had heard so much about, and it was a tough time – an exceptional time, to be there as well, because of the shooting that had happened six days previous. It was very, very highly emotional. Yeah. And the landscape… I’ll never forget it. Never in my whole life will I forget my first experience in New Zealand, yeah.

MD: I can imagine. It must have been a weird vibe, coming in the middle of all that. I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like.

WB: It was beautiful – it was receiving everything that the human spirit can receive. Like, I was at the right time. Yeah. It was… again, like I said, highly emotional. It was a large giving and receiving time to be there, yeah.

MD: Yes. Alright, so the album is called Woman. And it’s out on the 27^th. So I was hoping you could give me a little background information on how it came together, where you recorded it, that kind of thing?

WB: Yeah. So nowadays – since the last four years, since I moved into my apartment, that I live in now, in Berlin, I’ve kind of gone about renting apartments which was large enough, had a good space that I can have my home studio. Now, I can record freely and I’m not disturbing anybody. So, 70% of the record is done at home actually. You can call it a “fall out of bed” – I fall out of bed in my underwear or no underwear, or whatever.  Um, yes, so I just sort of fall out of my bed and go straight into an idea. And quite a lot of my stuff is done – quite a lot of my music is written – in a dream world. You know that moment when you’re lying in bed – if you’re afforded those ten minutes just before you’re supposed to be eyes-open and aware, there’s this lovely kind of nocturnal morning lazy bedhead feeling? And that affords you really interesting imagery, imagination. And quite a lot of the record, the sentiments, ideas for artwork, the name of the record, was presented itself from home – a lot of it was done from home. Yeah.

MD: And you prefer to work that way? At home? Is it more of an isolated thing? Is that a good thing or a bad thing, or just a thing.

WB: It’s both. Yes, there’s a lovely thing in what I say – jumping out of the bed, if you have an idea – just be like, “Okay!” Straight in. And you don’t have to wait a single moment, and I think that’s where creativity can thrive.

MD: Yep.

WB: And the other thing is – it’s a wonderful thing… but, because I live with my partner, and if I have something that I’d rather not have somebody hear me say. There’s this embarrassment of, perhaps, getting thoughts out of your head that you simply need to get out loud into the world before you listen to them heard out loud and say it – no, I’m reckoning, my opinion on that. Thankfully, I had built up a situation in my home studio recording that if I’m screaming some sentiment out loud into the ether, that I’m allowed a kind of a grace period before I’m asked something about it. It’s a term of being gentle with my surroundings. And I think that’s also good, in general, in life. Being in a studio affords you a place to be soundproof and private and wild. Which is really necessary. That’s why I would never record everything just at home, yeah. Just at home is a bit too one-sided for me.

MD: Gotcha. So, and there seems to be a lot of different musical styles woven into the various songs. Maybe you can talk to me, like – Woman, O Woman, almost has like a 50’s doo-wop thing going on at the end, where you sing “shoo-bi-doo” and all that. Is that something you listen to? That kind of…

WB: Oh God, yeah. I mean, I grew up with – I grew up when all of… I grew up with pop music in all of its formats. Like, 50s pop, was doo-wop… whathisname… so there’s Elvis Costello who came later, who was a later culmination of old doo-wop and a lot of that, but Buddy Holly, for example, was ultimate doo-wop, and then Elvis himself mixed folk with that and made it fancy. Yeah, I grew up with all the different decades of – and in between the decades of – how the pop music has changed. And I guess pop music and folk music would be my anchor in where I begin writing and how I write. So yeah, Woman Oh Woman!, that’s most of the reasons why I used doo-wop, where I would say, I used most of the oldest styles of pop, one of the oldest styles of mainstream pop, to normalize my love into a new modern contemporary pop style, yeah. So I wanted to use that idea of a woman loving a woman, as an homage to Elvis Costello, to Buddy Holly, to Elvis himself. To all of those people who spoke about their women that they loved. I just really wanted to do that.

MD: And that’s followed by a song called Salve!, which to me, sounded very funky, almost like a Prince tribute of some sort.

WB: Yeah. I can’t help it.

MD: I can’t help it.

WB: Yeah. I can’t help it. I’m a guitar player, and that man is an unbelievable guitar player. As much as it is, very Prince-infused, for sure, and I was highly influenced by that man, um… the rhythms of it are extremely Irish traditional, funnily enough. In history, and the history of collaboration in music and how it has melded in the culture, Irish music… I mean we celebrate Paddy’s Day, for example, all across the world, and there’s a reason why traditional Irish music and fado music in Portugal – there’s a triplet feel to pop music, which is highly influenced in Prince’s music. So Prince didn’t just come from American music. He came from the influences of his country that he was in. Such as – like, my country, where I’m from, influenced American music, extremely. It influenced pop music and bluegrass. And then, you know, so American music stems from that. So, it’s for me – it’s kind of a… what would you call it? It’s an exchange of culture. Yes. But, in saying that, an incredible man. Prolific. You gotta bow your head. I won’t say I wasn’t not influenced by him.

MD: You definitely have to bow your head. And that’s followed by a track called Brutal Honesty, which I couldn’t tell  – is there like a banjo or a mandolin in there, or something? Something folky.

WB: It’s a ukulele, what the fuck man, I never ever thought I would play a ukulele in my life. Really. I never ever thought that, like, I would hold this instrument, and be like, “Yes, I’m going to record this.”  The history of us, apart from that beautiful tune that the Hawaiian musician [Israel Kamakawiwo’ole] did of  Judy Garland’s “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”… that was the first time I listened to the ukulele and I went, “Oh, it can be extremely beautiful.” But the first time I held a fucking ukulele in my hand, I went, “Ahh… okay, I get it.” I understand. Have you ever held a ukulele in your hands?

MD: I can’t remember. I don’t know if I have. I must have! But…

WB: Well, I suggest trying it.  You’re … most, I speak for myself, but you become really enamored! It’s such a powerful – such a tiny, and extremely, overwhelmingly, powerful little instrument! It takes a lot of beating, like a violin. Like a violin can really tell a story, and for something that you consider as such as a gentle instrument, it really takes so much pressure, and so much emotion within it. Physically. Like, and when you hold a ukulele you’re like, “Aha, Ok, I get it.” So there’s something very interesting that like, Brutal Honesty is played on a tiny miniscule instrument, and finding sheer width and breadth of timbre and interesting – something that I’d never held before. Like holding a baby

MD: Yeah. I think they hand out, here in New Zealand – I didn’t go to school here, I’m American, actually – I think they hand out ukuleles to kids here to learn music in school here. So, there’s quite a tradition of ukulele playing.

WB: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, having said that. Amanda Palmer is a ukulele player. She plays it like a badass. That is not a ukulele. That is a fucking weapon.   And Tune-Yards – the two of them, they play it like a weapon. It’s something different than what you think it is, and I love that about the instrument, yeah.

MD: Yeah. Yeah.

WB: Oh, I went a bit long on there…

MD: That’s alright!  Do we need to wrap up? Do you have another one afterwards, or…?

WB: No! Let’s go!

MD: Cause I was gonna say, the tune that follows is more kind of a traditional piano-based ballad, it’s called Time It Is Not Waiting. So…

WB: Yeah, that’s, um… well, I mean, I’m getting older. And there’s nothing in this world that is not getting older.

MD: Yeah, that’s a fact.

WB: I really enjoy getting older, I’m very thankful. I enjoy the shape that my body takes… the lines that my body takes, and I enjoy watching my peer musicians – I grow with them. I think it’s – well, I’d go so far to say that it’s idiotic to think that everything stays the same. I mean, that’s what As The River Flows is about. Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. So, to find beauty in the growth and the changing and the…how time manipulates. That’s what that song is about. To say that everything could be wonderful right now, but you’d be a fool to think that everything couldn’t change within a second,  within the turn of a corner. So, Time It Is Not Waiting, is to say, I took it extremely slow, and I practiced…in this song itself I practiced taking it slow. I practiced what it… okay, sorry, Marty…

MD: That’s quite alright.

WB: I think… time is of your own making. If you live slower, if you think slower, if you work slower, you find more time, and you find more time gels. If you constantly think about working, I need to get this done, I have to nuke a bunch of emails, I have to do this now, do this song now, then you exactly put that intent within your work. And you exactly put that intent into everything you do, from that thought. And Time It Is Not Waiting is about… I don’t know if you noticed listening to it, gosh, you’re found daydreaming – and that was the intention that I put into it. I want somebody listening to that song to daydream. To find themselves with a lot of space. Because I think we’re not afforded enough space.

MD: I would agree with you.

WB: We don’t want to bombard people. Yeah! Yeah! In a 36-minute record, I don’t want to just fuckin’ bombard people with ideas. What I did in 36 minutes, now, Time It Is Not Waiting is kind of a special tune in that record. As in, all of everything that I needed to say, was kind of so much, but there was that one moment in the middle of the record where I was like, “Shut the fuck up… and stop,” and that’s the respite. That’s the real respite in the record.

MD: Right.

WB: So that was what – that’s what I was trying to afford in that time. Time, it is not waiting – it runs, but you can gain your time.

MD: And that’s followed by the tune that probably has the most intense vocal delivery on the record, I Know What I’m Offering.

WB: Cool! Cool. Yeah.

MD: And some very funky bass popping on it as well.

WB: Ah! Nice, yeah. I mean, that slap bass that comes at the end of the lines is to – is like, you move into a line and you say your piece, but the slap comes, and it’s like, “Shut up and listen to what you said.” But most importantly, listen to what’s happening outside of what you said. It’s not just what you said that’s important. And so that’s a painful song. It’s a song that was hard enough to allow into the record, because that song, I’m talking about a relationship that I’m in right now, as if to say like, “I’m working really fuckin’ hard, you need to meet me halfway.” You really need to meet me halfway, because I’m working so hard. You want it so much as me, but I really need you to meet me halfway. So there’s a lot of slapping moments in that. Like, it’s fluid, we’re in this together, this is a two-way conversation. This is not just me.

MD: Yeah, yeah. And then after that, That’s What Life Is For, it feels like a statement of purpose, almost like a mission statement.  Very optimistic, but still, you’re claiming to be the angry pacifist.

WB: Yes. I like to wrap up statements in a ball, to be honest with ya. I think it’s important if you’ve got something to say, to say it in a gentler way. Be very firm, but be gentle about how firm you are. I think that’s how I’d like to put it. Um… like that song is saying, “look, you do you, I’ll do me, go fuck yourself if you’re an asshole.” Like, I won’t listen to… there’s many, many lines in that song, which is degrading but wrapped in a nice bow, to say, “Come on, we’re in this together, this is the conversation between us.” Similar to I Know What I’m Offering, – the whole record is a conversation. But there’s strong things that you could say, but it’s about how you say it. I think that’s politics for you, really, isn’t it. It’s always like… politics – politicians – it’s all about how they say it. Really.

MD: It’s diplomacy, I guess.

WB: To take something so… Sorry?

MD: Diplomacy!

WB: Diplomacy! Yes. Yeah… oh fuck, man, yeah, true. I didn’t think about it like that. Yup. That’s right!

MD: And that takes us to the last track. I’m totally blown away. I’m still not sure what was going on there. With Repeal? It’s twice as long as everything else, there’s all these layers going on, it’s like, whoa.

WB: That song took about three years to write.

MD: I believe it.

WB: Yeah! It needed the time that it needed, and again, like Time It Is Not Waiting, with that song, the subject matter was entirely huge, because I was speaking to my country. Where I’m born, I was speaking to a time in life that I also wasn’t born in. Basically I’m speaking to the State of Irish politics, and how it was intrinsically linked to the Catholic Church. And how, both of them were kind of a – I’m going to use that fashionable word – toxic. Beautiful word, it’s a fucking great word to describe how it was between the Irish state of affairs and the Irish state of consciousness. So Ireland didn’t allow… Ireland vilified and criminalized abortion, for… it started from nuns. It’s a song about repealing the Eighth Amendment, to allow women to have safe, reproductive rights, reproductive information, and to be able to receive terminations in safe environments, with all the information that they need. And we didn’t have that. We – all we had, was fuckin’ backdoor abortions and shame, women travelling across the world and almost getting arrested for having an abortion for a rape, d’y’know, or having an abortion because they might die if they carry to full term. So I’m really paraphrasing what this song’s about, that’s why this song takes the time it takes. Ireland had to come to an awful lot of pain, shame, guilt to overcome one of the greatest staples of social consciousness which was the Church. To overcome and to fight it and say “You’re not right all the time.” And to win that into, say, culture. And to say into legality. And so the song sings about – the start of the song sings about the personal relationship to the situation that was happening. We need to bring the referendum forward. And then it moves into the first chorus to say, “Let’s speak to others about this,” which is what the Irish women did. They took their stories and they shared them. Regardless if they were going to be criminalized or vilified in their social settings. And then it takes it to the moment where there’s a long break, the moments when, finally, the repealed amendments was bringing up – was brought up to referendum. That took fucking thirty years.

And there’s that moment, and then it stops. [Singing] “And I ask it, to be kind, to be true,” and that’s representing all the people that went fucking door-to-door to ask people, to share with people their stories, and to share with people reasons why they would hope that they would change their views – based on their Catholic belief. Can you imagine these conversations that people would’ve had?

MD: I can imagine. Yeah.

WB: Like, it’s walking up to a door and saying… yeah, it’s walking up to the door and saying, “this is who I am, this is what I’ve done, you think it’s the worst sin ever, please can you…” Oh, my God, man… And then finally, there’s a long pause in between, which lasts… I think nearly two minutes, in the whole song! And that’s… the period of between the vote, and the final…

MD: Oop, you’re breaking up on me there.

WB: Oh, can you hear me?

MD: I can now, yeah.

WB: Ah, okay, sorry. I can… it’s there in the song, where it’s there between getting the referendum made, done, and people supporting…. And the time when the vote finally came true. It needed the time that it needed. People in Ireland had to reconcile themselves with each other. It was fucking crazy, man! We’re a small country, and we’re so – we want to know everything concerning our neighbours. We’re such a nosy little country, we know everything that’s happened with our neighbours.

MD: Right.

WB: So it was like, your neighbour coming next door to you and being like, “Listen, I’m… I’ve had an abortion, and I need you to know that I really needed that, because I might’ve died.” Like, can you imagine somebody coming up to your door and saying that?

MD: Oh, man.

WB: Yeah. No, and that happened! So, that song is a celebration for all of the women and all of the men, and all of the people that made a huge change in Ireland, separated church from state, and changed the whole idea of humans, and the worth of humans, in that country. And now… well, whatever about now, but at the time, we fuckin’ made history. Yeah.