During an intermittent spell of sun at Green Man festival, The Mic’s Ross Williams got the chance to sit down with eminent folk artist Clara Mann to discuss performing, the creative process behind her latest E.P ‘Stay Open’ and the state of the British folk scene.
How has Green Man been for you so far, when did you arrive and have you had the chance to see anything? C: I got to Green Man on Friday. If you can just capture the point at which the rain was heaviest, that's when I arrived and that's when I camped out. Both Lankum and Buckmeek were amazing and I'm looking forward to Young Fathers tonight.
Any favourite up-and-coming folk artists on the Green man line-up ?
C: I really, really love, someone who I missed this time, Juni Habel. She's a Scandinavian folk artist, she has a record out with a song that I really love called chicory, and it's a kind of mysterious, timeless music that I would really recommend. I'm also the world's biggest Buck Meek fan, but I don't think he counts as ‘up-and-coming'.
What does touring look like for you at the minute?
C: It really depends. Because it's just me and my car, I'm a very easy, low hassle support to have. So, I usually will pop in a tour van if that's cool with the main act, or if it's a shorter tour I'll go on trains. I really like going on trains. I have driven as well, but that can be quite tiring. I've done some really nice tours, I did a tour with Skullcrusher which was amazing, it was like a dream for me, and then Bill Rider Jones. I'm also doing a tour with Billy Martin and Memento, which will be really lovely.
Are you a nervous or natural performer, how do you combat your nerves being a solo musician?
C: I think somewhere in between. I honestly feel like I'm most myself when I'm on stage, I feel like that's the best version of Clara that I have, and I love that. I used to perform as a teenager playing classical piano and I hated it. I would crack up before the show, and that never happened to me since I started performing my own music. I don't get those kinds of nerves anymore. I guess you inhabit your own material more. The guitar is also more of a natural instrument to me. While the piano sits so far away, the guitar is close and it feels like you're in it together.
Do you have a favourite track of your own to perform ?
C: It really varies. For a long time, it was Confessions, I really loved that song. At the moment, it's Travelling Clothes from the Stay Open EP. It's really difficult to play, so I didn't play it for a while. Maybe because it's feeling newer; I'm loving playing the unreleased tracks too.
"Folk music is not something that's necessarily celebrated because it's really hard to perform in this kind of context. But I feel very lucky to be able to do this"
When writing on the guitar, do you have any favourite alternative tunings?
C: Yeah, I do. I play a lot in standard, but the bottom string and the top string are Ds. So that's my most common tuning and that's what most of the stay open record is written in. It's so lovely, I really love the clashes. There was a point where I was playing in open B and that just felt really impractical, having to tune down or carry two guitars around.
So, let's talk about your EP. I read somewhere that you use mixed mediums to start songs, like painting and drawing?
C: Yes, so I thought I wanted to do visual arts. I really didn't see the music thing coming; It just sort of came into my life when I was about 17 or 18 (in terms of being a songwriter). Before that, I wanted to be a visual artist and I do these sorts of sections of graphic novels, I guess, so it's illustrations and bits of poetry or prose. A lot of the lyrics that I am writing, especially for the EP, started off in that way. A lot of it was like stream of consciousness stuff (without being too pretentious). It was just things that I wasn't really thinking about, I was never looking at them being like, how do I get lyrics out of these? I just look back and go, oh, well, I want that line and it makes me feel something. So that's the way a lot of things start.
There's a lot of tasteful accompaniment in your newest EP. How did you go about writing those bits?
C: I think the standout instrument for a lot of people is the fiddle, which is also my favourite bit. That's with my friend Marika (who I'm here with actually). She's a long-term friend of mine and we've been playing together since we were about 16. So, what I would do is I'd play her the track, I'd ask her to improvise on the fiddle, then I would pick sections and direct the improvisation, and we would write the part together. Then maybe I would mix it or chop it and change it. But essentially it was a collaboration between us and because it's such a strong connection that we have, I think, musically that's reflected. In terms of the production, it's a mixture of me, friends and collaborators. Daniel Rossum produced Confessions and I toured with him. I think he just heard the song live a lot and loved it and we were very excited for it. So that came very naturally.
What would you say are the prevailing themes of your latest Ep ‘stay open’?
C: It's really growing for me. A lot of the first EP was very lonely. I think it was very much about vulnerability. I don't think the second EP was like that. Stay Open for me was much more optimistic and a push forward. I never know what I'm writing about when I'm writing a project. I look back at it and I do look at the lyrics and I'm like, OK, I can see where all that's coming from. There's a lot of feelings of guilt and putting things behind me, I would say. I'm not someone who writes to purge as a cathartic thing. I can't really write if I'm in a state. It comes from a state of reflection, so it's very much something I do retrospectively.
From album artwork to music videos/visualisers, how did you decide on which fellow creatives to collaborate with?
C: It's been such a journey, I think it's so important, especially because I really love visual art. When picking someone, I was really aware that it's easy to get pigeonholed as a woman with a guitar. I worked with a friend called Inigo Blake, who I found through an old manager. It's like the most poetic visuals I could imagine. There is so much poetry, imagination and life in his photos that I felt that he really understood my vision for it, which was that I don't want it to be all about my face. I don't want it to be cliché, in any way. What we came up with was artwork, like paintings, which is what I wanted, where I'm just part of the painting. And that's what I wanted to do. I also think that folk music, in its essence, should be fairly ego-less. Firstly, I'm not interpreting other people's songs, but that's what the folk tradition is. And it is about the music, it's not about me, it's about the songs, it's about the world that you're making with the songs, and Inigo really understood that. I feel so blessed to work with him. So, we just roam around Scottish countryside together and take photos.
Then for music videos, I've worked most recently with Klump, who are old friends from Bristol. They run an amazing production company; they do a lot of up-and-coming artists now.
Have you managed to get any physical releases for these EPs so far?
C: I have some cassettes for stay open, which are pink, they're gorgeous. Yeah, cassettes and CDs for both EPs. I had vinyl for the first EP as well.
I bet it's nice seeing your music pressed on physical media?
C: It's so nice, it makes it real. I also really believe that music should be accessible. I like the fact that I can send my grandad a CD, and it doesn't matter that he's 93, he's going to listen to it and be able to do it. It's not just a thing for hip young people in South London, I don't believe in that.
That's a really good point. I suppose people are almost cut off if they're from a certain age due to having less technological know-how.
C: Yeah, even just in terms of accessibility, like my grandad's not going to want to go to a gig. It's harder for older people to be at home in the music world, so I think physical media is one way of reaching out.
What is the folk scene like where you are based? Was it a welcoming environment starting out?
C: I don't think I can claim I came up through any kind of grassroots folk scene. I was around music a lot as a child. I came from a classical music background and then definitely renounced that. But I always sang folk music with my mum, so that's my connection to folk music. There definitely is an up-and-coming folk scene in England. There are collectives like Broadside Hacks in London who are doing great things for folk revival. I would say that it's not something that's happened as organically as, for instance, in Ireland where the folk tradition is just ancient and full of really strong, committed musicians. We've got a long, long way to go for that. I know we don't have a chance of that. But I think that with quieter music, people have more of a taste for it than they did maybe five years ago. And that's just to do with trends. But I think hopefully this kind of music is not a fashion. Folk music has been around for a long-long-long time and will continue to be. Even the fact that there is the Walled Garden stage at Greenman which is mostly quieter folk music, not quite exclusively, but there's a big portion of quiet music that's amazing. Folk music is not something that's necessarily celebrated because it's really hard to perform in this kind of context. But I feel very lucky to be able to do this, you know, and there's an audience for it. And I think behind folk music, like a lot of music here, it’s just songwriting driven, so that's what I'm interested in.
Ross Williams
Edited by Alice Beard
Featured Image courtesy of Clara Mann via Facebook, Video courtesy of Clara Mann on Youtube
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