YOUR SMITH image courtesy of Gold Atlas PR, image by Erica Hernandez.
Your Smith's debut headlining tour, 'In Between Plans,' takes title from a track on the 'Wild Wild Woman' EP, released September 13th, 2019. Wild Wild Woman is a journey to acceptance; Smith takes us all along for the ride.
I hopped on the phone with Your Smith a few hours before the sold-out show in Seattle to talk about tour, the Wild Wild Woman EP, and her music making process.
Royal Scales: How have the first couple of shows been?
Your Smith: They've been awesome. We've been ironing out all the last details and there weren't too many to iron out. I have such an awesome, professional-ass group.
RS: Listening to this EP it seems like anyone could take something away from it; do you want this album to fall into the hands of any audience in particular?
YS: Geez, I don't know. I kinda just write music for the person that needs to hear it. For me it's been a long, winding road to being comfortable in my skin and kind of feeling like I don't need to apologize for myself constantly. I guess maybe for the person who needs to hear that message as well.
RS: How did you order this track-list? Do you set out with a narrative arc in mind or do you play around with it after the recordings?
YS: I consider all things, definitely a narrative arc and it's like sonic-wise when you throw the EP on you maybe don't want something too moody or sad upfront with the messages. But I also try not to overthink it because you can stress about those tiny details forever. So I put an order together, maybe a few orders, and then I'm like 'Yeah, this one feels right. This one feels the best.'
RS: You listen back to the different versions and you're like 'Yeah, yeah this is the one.'
YS: Yeah, absolutely. Although mostly I have a team of people that I really trust. I think they made an edit, 'Why would you start with that song?' and I'm 'Oh, because... I don't know. I don't remember what that was. You're right, that was a good note.'
RS: In writing often times there are songs that you super love but just don't fit the project. Were there any 'darlings' you had to kill, so to speak, with this EP?
YS: That's the nice thing about EPs is that you're kind of selecting, cherry picking the songs that you feel like go best together and make make a strong enough statement to exist on such a small size project. But it's nice having a ton of songs to be like 'I think these five go together well' and 'I think these could be further developed in a different direction' or I have this one song that I'm like let's fix it down the road, I have to carve my task out for that song, I can't solve that one."
RS: When you return to a song like that, one that you need to spend more time on how does that usually work? Is it a time thing where you return to it and see if it works this time?
YS: I have a big folder of all the songs I've written and I'm always writing because I really firmly believe that creativity is a muscle that you need to keep toned and always working, always writing so that your connection with your subconscious is always strong and toned so I'll put my songs aside and not labor over them until I'm like 'That's the song I wanna release, I want that song on the track list,' and then I'll finish it. And it's usually— I work a lot with this producer named Tommy English who's one of my really good friends and so I'll just take my song to him and be like 'Umm do you wanna finish this song with me?' and he's like 'Umm, will you buy me a breakfast burrito?'
RS: Reciprocity!
YS: Right? If you work with me, you're getting paid well.
RS: Have you always relied on good writerly habits or did you have to learn that writing is a muscle that can atrophy?
YS: Oh my god, I absolutely had to learn that. I definitely went through writer’s block, that shit is definitely real. I mean, anything can start up writer’s block but for me it really was the feel of that muscle atrophy. I hadn't used it in a long time, a lot of outside stressors were weighing down and without that muscle toned I just couldn't handle it. And so building that muscle back up was a lot of work. You know, it's so linked to your existential being like 'Why am I here? Why can't I write?'
RS: You mentioned working with Tommy English; what do you enjoy in a collaborator?
YS: I don't like to over explain myself, you know when you meet somebody and you're like 'Oh my god I really get along with this person, we finish each other's sentences.' It's like that but musically. Like 'Ah, I was thinking of this thing-' 'How long do we need to make the second verse?' 'I literally was gonna speak longer for the second verse.' If I work with somebody and their ideas are unlike mine and I feel like 'Ah, I didn't think of that idea, I love that idea' and sometimes it can be the opposite where it's like 'You're not getting me. I don't want this, I want it like that,' Y'know?
RS: You've had a few different rebirths in your career and you seem to have a mentality that keeps driving you forward; do you feel a difference in the way you make music when you're prioritizing being present vs when you're prioritizing figuring out the next thing?
YS: Yeah, I think now I never wanna say things like 'I've got it figured out now.' I think that's the thing that I've figured out is that I never have it figured out. I've definitely learned not to be like 'This is the thing forever,' because people change, people grow and what I've learned is that it's okay to change your mind. And also, it's okay to burn everything to the ground and start over. And with that in mind, I'm able to stay more present while I'm creating and keep things a little more pertinent to what I'm going through at that time.
RS: Being in the industry as long as you have been, is there anything you have to do to stay playful or curious with your craft or rekindle that love of making music?
YS: No. Making music is just like... this burden that's been put on me that I can't seem to shed. It's like I can't help but do it. It's just why I was put here and sometimes that's awesome and sometimes that's a lot to deal with. So it's always there, I think what I just had to wrap my head around was who I'm making music for and why I'm making music because when I start making it for the wrong reasons, it just makes me so unhappy and I had to really redefine what success is to me and success is just making sure what I'm doing feels real and honest and genuine to me and that's ultimately what makes me happy.
RS: At this point, you've done pretty much every kind of show; festivals, hometown shows, bar shows, radio shows— do you have a favorite kind of venue to play or is there a specific kind of crowd that pumps you up a bunch?
YS: Yeah, I love doing the small clubs. It's so fun. Like, I love doing hometown shows and those are a little bit bigger but I love small clubs— it's musty and tight packed in and like your face is so close to mine kind of show. It's the energy, the energy is so palpable and real I feel like you'd be able to touch it, y'know?
RS: You said you were always writing but I wanted to ask if it's more different or different writing on tour?
YS: I don't really write on tour, there's just not time. The whole song and dance for me on tour is trying to balance sleep and exercise and I'm constantly having to choose between the two. And then outside of I that, I try to like— there's lots of things that go into writing, like reading is really important. To me it directly relates, it's one in the same muscle, consuming written word and then writing it. They go very hand in hand. So, I just try to do all my reading on the road and I write in my journal a lot. It's a different kind of writing, but I'm still doing it.
RS: Are there any other things you do to recharge on tour?
YS: I try to run, I really like to run but this tour has been hard because it's cold and we're going to colder places and our schedule is so packed.
RS: Yeah— super tightly packed and most of the shows are sold out.
YS: Yeah! No big deal.
RS: It's a really big deal! And I saw you say the cynical side of you is always like 'eh, nobody's gonna come.' Do you think you'll always carry that with you?
YS: Yeah, I think so because I think it can happen to anyone at any time. I used to be a server for a long time, like when I was in college, and I still get nightmares. Anybody that's been a server knows the server nightmare, they don't go away. There's like an emotional trauma from being a waitress. I think it's the same thing being a musician, once you experience the trauma of no one showing up to your show it's just always gonna be in the back of your mind, always gonna be a nightmare. But it's good! It's good to stay on your toes. You know, I just saw Sting play to a stadium that was like 10% full for a festival, it just didn't sell well. I was like 'See! It can happen to anyone, anytime. It can happen to one of my favorite artists. Like, what??' I was one of the people in the crowd and it felt like a very intimate Sting show and it sounded great.
RS: You write for yourself and others; how does that particular kind of collaboration go?
YS: When I write with other people, I let them take the steering wheel and I let them write what they wanna write and what they wanna to get out. I kind of like just like 'That's great, what if you said it like this?' I'm not doing a lot of the emotional heavy lifting, I let them get it out and I just tighten things up. Or maybe I'll do a second verse and be like 'Oh I see what you're on, what if we said this in the second verse or twisted it that way?'
YOUR SMITH image courtesy of Gold Atlas PR, image by Erica Hernandez.
