Just in time for April Fool’s Day, Talulah Paisley has announced her debut LP, called Fool, that will be released everywhere music is sold on June 11th. On top of that, I’m excited to share with everyone her debut single and video for “What’s It Like?” Talulah Paisley shared:
I wrote this song when I was about to graduate from college. I had my entire life ahead of me and I feared I wouldn’t live up to its promise…what if: I did nothing with my life? What if I am a waste? I make no impact, no connection? I played and sung all the instruments on the track except that whistle- that was my bandmate, sweet Athena from the band Awksymoron. This song marks the first time I’ve ever recorded drums! The idea for the music video came from how I always notice little things on the street in NYC, and I pick them up and keep them- playing cards, dice, those plastic neon barrettes you wore when you were a little girl. I feel these objects are magical, and a reminder to play. I hand-painted the bike, helmet and spray painted the roses. I also handmade the costume. It was inspired by the incredibly brave and graceful lady lion tamers of circus’ past, who risked their lives in the name of spectacle.
If you’re enjoying the new video/single, please consider supporting this artist here. I was also able to catch up with Talulah Paisley for a brief interview below.
Fool marks a significant step in your journey as an artist, transitioning from bedroom recordings to a full studio album. How did the process of recording in a professional setting at Chicken Shack differ from your earlier DIY projects, and what did you learn from it?
It was intimidating at first, like being around all this fancy gear. I’d recorded professionally before but in other more collaborative projects – so this was my first time where I set out to write all the songs on my own, have total creative control, and go to the studio and not just record at home by myself. Communication is a skill I’ll always be working on. It’s much easier to talk to myself in my head! But…it can also get lonely in there- it’s really helpful to have an outside perspective. It was also an interesting challenge to have regular work hours, and it was expensive, so I didn’t have all the time in the world. At home I could work on something at 3am and re-record it 600 times and no one would have to know!
Something that I talked a lot about with Nick (the co-producer and primary engineer) is that in a modern studio setting, and with him who has all these sweet studio magic skills, is that it is pretty possible to fix every single mistake. But there is this threshold you can pass where you can take out too many mistakes to where it starts to lose its heart. I have this Kim Deal quote on my wall: “Too many people let technology override the communication of a personal experience…To my mind, there is a reason that music is there and it’s about being human.”
How did you choose Gowanus as the setting for the ‘What’s It Like?’ music video, and how does the neighborhood’s changing landscape tie into the themes of the song?
I love Gowanus and its community a lot. I love that it’s both ugly and beautiful. Like there’s this big scrapyard and the highway and the power plant but then because lots of the buildings tend to be pretty low to the ground, you can see the most gorgeous, widescreen sunsets. The canal has been extremely polluted for hundreds of years. People have found whole cars dumped into the canal! At the same time, it’s peaceful walking by a body of water right in the neighborhood, even if it’s stinky on hot days. I’m always interested in ambivalence, in dissonance, in tension, as an artist…light along with dark. In terms of the lyrics, I like to think there is this unspoken happy ending, a prologue. That even in moments of great fear, risk, and darkness, positive outcomes can spring up. Like the roses you can see in the video growing out of the toxic Gowanus wasteland- against all odds.
I don’t feel strongly like the neighborhood’s changing landscape ties into the themes of the song. It actually makes me so sad that all these old buildings I loved are getting knocked down for these white-box high rises. I wanted to capture forever on film the places I love as I’m not sure they will be here in a year or a few. The neighborhood even changed so much in the time since I had the idea to film to when we actually got to do it.
Your music often explores themes like relationships, self-reflection, and nostalgia. How do these personal themes shape the overall feel of Fool, and do you think your approach to these topics has evolved over the years?
Well, goodness, I’ll always be nostalgic. Always. Even for a time I was never in. What I would give to be a little hippie kid at Woodstock, rocking out to Jimi Hendrix shredding up and tearing down “The Star-Spangled Banner.” You can definitely hear the 60’s admiration on the record!
I miss the world before there were smartphones. I feel like it made people more open and present. I watch old movies, and it seems like strangers talked to strangers and people connected more often than today. In bars, at the bus stop…I also miss the world before Spotify. When I was growing up, there was still a scarcity to the music discovery process. So I had to wait to hear a band until my mom finally took me to the Virgin Megastore on 14th street. And after what felt like an eternity, I got to hold the Ramones CD in my own two hands. It meant the world to finally find it.
My thoughts on all the above have been constant…although I do feel my approach to relationships has changed (or I’d like to hope so.) I am less interested in the chase, in whirlwind, up and down romance that you can see pop up in Fool. Now what I think is attractive is someone who is consistent with me. Bummer – this made for such dramatic songwriting!