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Jeremy Williams-Chalmers
Arts Correspondent
@jeremydwilliams
1:37 PM 26th November 2015
arts

Interview: Washington

 
Megan Washington
Megan Washington
Hi Megan, are you well?

I am. I'm at the Boticelli exhibition at the Berlin Museum. I am currently standing on the Venus de Milo exhibit, she's that chick who is rising naked out of the water.

Berlin - work or pleasure?

I'm sort of living here. On and off between here and Sydney. This time I've been here about three weeks. I'll be heading back to Australia in December.

Amazing. I love Berlin! It is a gorgeous city. How do you feel about There, There finally getting a UK release?

I know! It's great. It's taken a while but I'm really excited. A lot of UK fans have been asking when it is coming out and I haven't really had an answer for them. I'm glad that I can tell them now.

Do you feel different releasing There, There in the UK to how you felt when you released it in Australia last year?

I think releasing anything is always retrospective. Even when I released it at home it had been finished for almost a year. Releases are always retrospective so I am in the same headspace as I was a year ago. It feels a bit surreal as I am well on the way to having finished writing the next thing. It feels a bit strange, but I feel the same way any time I release anything. I've never released anything a month after it was done as there is things that have to happen first when you are signed to a label. Releasing it in the UK was always a goal for me as I made it and wrote it in London. It feels like geographically the records home is the UK. It feels good to have it released there now.

Was it just a case of waiting till the time was right for each region?

No, in terms of the world, I feel like my music has the most audience in Australia. That is wonderful, but no artist makes a record with one territory in mind. It seems weird to think like that. I have a show in December at the Lexington in London and it is important to keep looking forward and to keep expanding my fanbase. I hope that some people who have never heard of me like it. I would like to play more shows in the UK and have more presence there, so any step towards that is a good step.

We are excited about the London show. Do you think you will head out on a regional tour of the UK any time soon?

I would love that but it depends on whether or not people play it on the radio and if people in those regional areas have a reason to come. Ideally that is what would happen. I would love to our more in the UK as I love it, but it is a bit of a suck it and see situation.

Is there a song on There, There that you most excited for people to hear for the first time?

This record is interesting for me. It is a record in the truest sense of the word. I wrote it in a two month period and recorded it in the next two month record. It is a polaroid capturing a time. All of the songs on the record really talk to each other as thematically they all have a similar intention. I wanted to write about things I had never had to gits to write about before. The song that started that process was a song called Marry Me, which was quite difficult to write as it was about a broken engagement. I had never really touched on that before as it was too real and raw. I find writing songs easy and I found one really difficult. It took about two weeks, which is about thirteen days longer than it takes me to write a normal song. After I had done that though, I got really hooked on the idea of going there, with a capital G and a capital T. For me, that song is really the emotional template that I tried to stick to when it came to writing everything else. If there is one that is most important to me, it is that one.

Writing such an honest record, were you ever daunted by being so open with your listener?

The thing about songwriting for me is that in the time it is being written, that is when the vulnerability is most active and most potent. After the song is finished, it just becomes a piece of repertoire. I did, in live performance, embody the sentiment and emotion inherent in the song. But in terms of other people hearing it on the record, I am not bothered by that as that is the function of songwriting. It is a chance to tell your story to make the personal universal. It allows people to hear the song and hear themselves inside it. I think that is what I have done. I hope that is what I have done.

You mentioned that you have started your next record, can we expect a similar vibe to There, There?

No! Not at all! Since writing There, There and now, I have learnt how to use Logik. It is really liberating as stylistically it allows me to explore sounds I haven't before. What I am writing now is a lot more group based. It is a lot lighter in theme. You never want to do the same thing again. No one wants to do that. I finished this massive tour in Australia, it was a solo tour and it was two months long with 38 dates. I sang the music from There, There every night for two months. It is like eating a chicken sandwich every day for two months, where the last thing you want is a chicken sandwich. I mean, it still sounds like me as how can I help that? But I think it is a lot funner, thank God!

We are excited to see you are working again with Lanu. Tell us more...

Lanu is someone who I have been working with since 2007, when I did a track with The Bamboos. We have such a great working relationship that it is very easy for me to slip into that space. We wrote all the songs for Double Sunrise at the beginning of 2014 and I didn't hear any of the production or mixes till now. I don't know what the analogy is, but if you do something on a day and put it in a cupboard and don't look at it for 18 months, you change and your perspective changes as you move on through your life, then you open it like a time capsule. It's really lovely. He has such a beautiful sensibility that he is able to bring something very unique out of me. I am very proud to be involved in that record. He has done some really beautiful work.

Lastly, if you have one ambition that you'd like to achieve internationally, what would it be?

I would like to get into a position where things aren't being released a year apart. In terms of my artistic metabolism, it would be really fantastic for me if I could make a record and have it come out at the same time around the world. I don't think that's a lot to ask for. I think I am working towards that and I have hope that that will happen with the next record.