Indigo De Souza and Any Shape You Take: Interview

Indigo De Souza talks to us from North Carolina about her new album, Any Shape You Take.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to the 24 year old artist about making her second album, Any Shape You Take…a record she says, is all about “celebrating joy”.

M: How’s the Asheville music scene these days? Is there a lot of stuff happening besides what you’re doing?

I: Ah, yeah, I think so. Um, Asheville is kind of a small city so it feels like the music scene itself is pretty small. But yeah, I think there’s a lot of cool things coming out of here.

M: And one of them is you and your next album, Any Shape You Take. So what did you do on the day when it came out?

I: Well, on the day it came out, we were supposed to play an album release show, and we ended up having to postpone it because someone in my touring party tested positive for COVID. So I actually had to cancel all of my album release shows. And so I kind of just watched everything unfold on the internet and got to be involved in that way. But otherwise, I was kind of devastated.

M: That’s a bummer, man. And is your bandmate ok?

I: Yeah.

M: And nobody else got it? So that’s good.

I: Yeah, nobody except for one.

M: Right. Right. Well, that’s alright. And so are there plans taking shape to do some live gigs? Eventually?

I: Yeah, we have a tour coming up this month.

M: Oh, good. Okay, so this is your second album.  Whereabouts and when did you record it?

I: I recorded it in this studio called Betty’s in Raleigh, North Carolina. And then also, I recorded some of it at Brad Cook’s personal home studio, who is one of the producers on the album. And then also some in Asheville, at Drop Of Sutton studios.

M: And what were the sessions like? I mean, were there a lot of people around or was it kind of isolated?

I: Yeah, it was…the first sessions were two engineers, a producer and myself and then my two, then bandmates. And we kind of got everything layered out to begin with. And then the next sessions were kind of like some overdubs and vocals. And then we did like another layer of sessions where I was just doing more vocals and more overdubs. But I was just alone with one engineer.

M: Do you like working like that? Just kind of one to one with an engineer?

I: Yeah, I think especially for vocals, I’d rather that is what I’ve realized about myself because I can zone out. And just, I’d like the lights to be low, and I can just kind of close my eyes and nobody’s looking at me.

M: I’m guessing just from having listened to the album, there’s quite a bit of zoning out that you did when you were doing your vocals because you seem to be kind of transported from time to time. But what happened? Give me an example of possibly what was going on…

I: Oh, I don’t think there’s anything special. I think I’m just singing the words and feeling the words. I’m just kind of trying to put all of the feelings that I can behind the words. It’s not really like my mind is wandering anywhere else.

M:I read somewhere where the album was supposedly ‘celebrating joy’. But there is I, mean, the second track is called Darker Than Death and there’s a song called Kill Me at the end, and Bad Dream in the middle. So is there an overarching theme to the album or take each song individually as it comes along?

I: I think I didn’t intend for anything to fall into place the way it did. The meaning for these things kind of comes afterwards and very naturally, because I’m just writing songs from my heart and about my life and then putting them together. But once I did put them all together, it kind of felt like the album was sending messages about change and about growth, and just about love and different forms of love, whether it’s platonic or romantic and just the fluid nature of emotions, and trying to give people a safe space to fully feel everything, the full spectrum of emotion and to feel safe to do that and to feel like it’s okay to express oneself fully. Mainly because I believe that we live in a society that kind of moves so quickly that there isn’t really a lot of time to process. So I think that’s mainly what I was hoping the album would do is just give people space to process.

M: And have you been talking with people? Have they been processing in the way that you hope they would?

I: Yeah, exactly.

M: What kind of conversations do you have with folks?

I: Oh, it’s only been a couple of weeks, but I get a lot of messages, like hundreds of messages. I don’t get through all of them. But  so far, it seems like people are connecting to the energies and the emotions in the album.

M: So when you were writing these songs, say, pick a song at random, Pretty Pictures, are you kind of alone in your thoughts and in the way you are in concentrating fully on the writing? Or is it kind of a more haphazard process?

I: It’s different for every song. But with Pretty Pictures and with probably with a lot of the songs I am usually well, I’m pretty much always completely by myself, just in a room with usually my computer with a microphone and my headphones on and my electric guitar plugged in so that I can hear everything, like really close to my ears. And that’s probably like, my favorite space to write songs from is just singing into a microphone.

M: So when you want to write a song, do you already have something in mind that you’re going to? Have you been thinking about it in the back of your head for a couple of days? Or do you kind of sit down and go, ‘okay, inspiration hit me’.

I: It just depends. I can sometimes, like, know that I will be successful if I go play music, but, most of the time, it’s something that’s been rattling around for a little while. But I also try to practice just coming into my studio space and just playing music and writing music every day. To try even if it’s something that I don’t use, or don’t like, it still is just the practice of doing it that helps to alleviate emotional stress.

M: You mentioned guitar playing, is that you playing most of the guitar on the record, or are there other folks?

I: It’s me playing the rhythm guitar and then the lead guitar is mostly Dexter Webb. And then also Jake Lenderman and Owen Stone, who are my original bandmates.

M: There’s quite a bit of guitar blasting away on a couple of these tracks. Are you there with them discussing how they’re gonna perform and present your song or do you give them a free reign?

I: Well, the songs are based on how we played them live. So we’ve kind of already workshopped a lot of those parts going into the process. But yeah, mostly Jake and Owen and Dexter wrote those parts just for our live performances and then we just recreated them in the studio.

M: There’s a couple of songs right in the middle of the record Real Pain and Bad Dream that almost, they feel like they’re the center for a reason. They’re kind of anchoring the album. When you’re putting the 10 tracks together, are you thinking in those terms of how one is going to relate to the other?

I: When I’m recording the songs you mean?

M: When you’re kind of organizing the album.

I: Oh, well, yeah, it took us a while to choose the order. Like me and the team at Saddle Creek, and also my management team went back and forth together for a while to figure out the order. It was definitely hard to figure out.

M:  And there’s a couple videos, there’s one for Hold U and one for Kill Me. So how involved do you get in the video processing your presentation as far as that goes?

I:  I’m super involved. Yeah, I love visual aspects and I always have. And I’ve never had the resources that I have now to actually fulfill visions. So I have been having a lot of fun with that freedom. And it’s been super inspiring to work with people on visual stuff. It’s like one of my favorite parts.

M: I was almost expecting you to be still covered in blue cake.

I:  Yeah.

M: Was that a fun shoot?

I:  Yeah, it was very fun. That was probably one of the best times of my life. Yeah, both of those videos were just so fulfilling and awesome to make.

M: So what are you up to next? Are you thinking about your next record, your next shows, your next musical step? What’s on your mind?

I: Yeah, we have touring coming up this month, starting on September 20th, or September 19th and going into almost the end of October so a very long tour. And I’m excited and nervous for that, because of the strange climate that is the world now.

M: That’s true.

I: But I’m ready for whatever comes at me and I’m excited and hopeful for the team that I have now is just so great. And I feel like anything is possible with them, or like I can face challenges with them, and I’ll be okay. And yeah, I’m just excited to record more music too, because I think we’re getting close to starting to record the next album.

M: Fantastic. Thank you for taking time to tell me about this one. All right. Well, great. Thank you very much. Have yourself have a good rest of the day. Whatever is left of it over there.

I: Okay, thank you so much, you too.

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