What is your writing process currently?
Currently I start with lyrics and/or a melody, and the inspiration always strikes at the worst time. I’m always out in the world or hanging out with someone where writing would be really annoying or just impossible or inappropriate. So I have a lot of voice memos on my phone—little ideas—or I’ll write something down in my notes app and when I have time to expand on something and sort of sit down with an instrument, then I’ll try to expand on it and turn it into a song. But it is not a perfect process. I’ve been trying to figure it out because, as you probably know, the best songs are where you have that inspiration and you have access to an instrument, and you can sit and just figure it out.
It’s hard if you have a little idea for a line or a vibe for a song and you’re like, “Ooh, that’s so good,” and you say something into a voice memo or write something in your notes app that’s a few words and an adjective, and then a few days later you’re like “Oh my god, this idea” [negative connotation]. Like, what is this even? A lot of times songwriting is also emotive and it’s coming from a place of wanting to expel something. So it’s hard to capture that in a few words, outside of the moment.
Does the music come first or the words?
I have a couple songs where I’ve started with progressions or started with the melody and the words come after, and in a way, those are my favorite. But for the most part, I’m starting with just words and then fitting them to music. I have a fear sometimes that I’m sort of just jamming words onto music and it could be more thoughtful, but also sometimes that is its own specific flavor. These wordy songs just quite obviously jammed onto these melodies that don’t quite fit. There’s something expressive about that in itself.
Yeah, I love a wordy song. It just means the artist has a lot to say.
Wow, that’s a beautiful take. I just have a lot to say.
How has the writing process differed from your first two EPs into the first record, Staying Mellow Blows?
I think in a way, the first two EPs have this intimacy to them because I felt like I was making them in a more solitary way, which is funny because the LP is a pandemic record. But I think the way that it’s a pandemic record is that I brought all my friends in to sort of collaborate via the internet from afar. The first two EPs were these solitary meditations on life and love and myself, and they were also sort of reacting to my old band, Mauno, which was very collaborative and beautiful in its own way. But then I was like, “Okay, I’m going to make music totally on my own.”
And then with Staying Mellow Blows, it was sort of like, “Oh, what would it look like to let people in on the arranging process, or to just choose players that I really like and singers that I like and be like… kind of just do whatever you want?” Sort of hang out with people in that way creatively. With the writing of the songs themselves, you can kind of hear that — just with some of the themes. Then I feel like the LP sort of opens up. The EPs are love songs—no regrets, and I still connect to them—but then maybe Staying Mellow Blows was more…I was exploring some other themes which felt like an expansion. I’m not in any of those places in my life anymore, but I do connect to them emotionally in this sort of distanced way. It was interesting which ones held up for me personally and which ones didn’t, and I feel like the ones that held up were ones that sort of had this timeless emotional honesty to them, because even though I wasn’t going through that specific situation again, it was like, “Oh, yeah, this is honest enough that I can connect to it in a way that feels real and relay it to an audience.”
It’s so interesting when your songs become a cover…
It’s true. I had a really nice conversation with my friend yesterday about how…Well, you and I have talked about grief, how it doesn’t go away and you sort of just get bigger around it, but we were talking about how everything in life is like that. All kinds of love—like having exes that you still love and are friends with—it never goes away. I feel like old songs are still… they’re still in there. You’ve just sort of accumulated a lot more life around them.
Yeah, big time. It’s like energy, it just never can be destroyed. It’s out there.
It’s so true. I wish some of those songs could be destroyed. I’ll say it.
You have to be real.
To quote Little Kid, sometimes it’s bad energy.
When do you know a song is beginning to feel like something?
There’s sort of a feeling that is hard to put into words where I’m like, “Oh, yeah, this is good,” or “This is something.” Or if I make myself… Sometimes if I’m writing a sad song, I’ll cry while I’m writing it and then I know that it’s real.
Maybe this is obvious and everyone feels it, but I’m most connected to what I’m making when I’m actually making it. I’ve been struggling with trying to get to as intense of an emotional place while I’m performing songs that I’ve already written, but I definitely feel most present and connected to something when I’m writing it down for the first time or playing it for the first time. Often if it’s sad or heavy, I’ll feel that as I’m writing it and be like, “Yeah, this is a good one.”
Is there a difference when you’re starting a song on cello rather than bass or guitar? Do they take different forms or do you use a different muscle?
Definitely, yeah. I think especially on guitar, because I’m such a cowboy chord guitar player. I never really learned how to play guitar, so I rely a lot on hand shapes and sort of simple chords and moving them around and being like, “What if I put my pinky here instead?” So that really dictates progression and melody and feeling. And writing on the cello is interesting because it can be sort of this monophonic counter-melody to what I’m singing, or it can be chordal. Some of the songs I’m most proud of, I’ll write them on the piano or the guitar and put them on the cello, and then the result is sort of counterintuitive in a way that I like. The limitations of being able to play it on the cello and the changes that happen are outside the box in a way that I appreciate. I think I’ve gone the other way sometimes too, writing on the cello and then putting it on the piano or the guitar. That can be cool.
I know last year, you went all the way down south to write. Did being in a different space reshape the way you think about music?
Yeah, I think when I’m outside of my comfort zone and things are shaken up, like when I’m on tour, I find that to be really inspiring. I write a lot on the road or as soon as I’m home. But I think I wanted that to translate perfectly to doing that residency in New Mexico, and I was like, “It’ll be like a tour but elongated and I’ll write my opus.” It didn’t really go that way. But it was also a really amazing thing to do, and it was a big learning opportunity.
I haven’t really fully sifted through that experience yet. I was in this adobe casita in the middle of nowhere with no access to the internet, next to a mountain, and was just spat out into that. I was like, “Okay, now I’m going to write my album.” There was a lot of decompression that needed to take place and a lot of sifting through loneliness and isolation. So all of that was amazing, and I feel like that took weeks, and then only in the last little bit that I was there did I start to really write in a way that I wanted to. But I think that’s always how it goes. I wrote a ton when I got home, and that is no coincidence. I think I needed to go through that to come home and finally be inspired.
Like you said, the first couple of weeks is just like trying to land on your feet and sort of figure out things before you could even have anything to say, because you’re like, “What is everything around me? How do I get to feel safe here and safe enough to even start writing music?”
Safe is a really good word. I think I feel the most comfortable and the most creative when I’m sort of living my everyday life, which makes sense because one time my friend called my music “Slice of Life”, and now that’s one of my only Bandcamp tags on my page because it feels so true to what I do. I’m writing about these tiny moments in my everyday life, and it’s sort of like I need to be comfortable in my life to be able to do that. I cyclically forget that, and I’m like, “I’m going away now to write this thing,” and then I’m removed from everything that inspires me. And it’s kind of like, “Well…” Yeah.
Your song, “Walking Feels Slow” is incredibly “slice of life.” I think about how fun and relatable it is and how, to me, it’s about being present and taking a moment to appreciate being able to ride your bike somewhere and feel connected. It is very beautiful.
Yeah. And I feel so lucky to be able to experience the beauty in these moments.
Is there a difference when you’re writing your own stuff as opposed to when you’re playing on your friend’s records or scoring films?
I think it is different, for sure. I think that when people are making music that I relate to or that I see as parallel to mine, then I think about it and relate to it in a similar way. Sometimes people send me a song to record on remotely and they’re like, “Do whatever you want. I love your music.” And I’m like, “Okay.” And it’s fun, but it’s also a little bit daunting. With that stuff, I do what I would do on my own record, and they seem to like what I do. It usually works out and it’s great. Sometimes people have more specific instructions, which is cool, too. The film scoring is really interesting because I’ve never done it where it can have lyrics or vocals even, which has been surprisingly hard for me. But that makes sense. I just spent half an hour being like, “I am a words person. I start with lyrics.” It’s a whole other beast to convey something just with music or just in harmony. It’s been a cool exercise that I’ve learned a lot from.
It brings out a more ambient side of you, if you will.
Definitely. It feels like it slows things down. Which is funny because I like to think of my lyrics as zooming in on these little moments and slowing down time. When you take away words altogether, it really can magnify things or warp time in this way that words can’t.
Do you think, in the future, we’ll see you writing novels because you’re like, “These words can’t fit into a song, I need to write a novel now?”
I’ve never thought of that, but I do. As soon as you said “novel”, I was like, “Yes.” I will be writing novels. I’m not saying [laughs] I’m going to put them out or they’re going to see the light of day, but…
I could totally see you as a novelist. What is the greatest thing you’ve learned from songwriting?
That’s a great question. I think I’ve learned a lot from the reality of it being really hard, you know? Because it’s like, when you have this drive to do something specific and creative, it’s like your passion, it’s what you do. I think I have this sort of naive idea that because it’s my passion, it should be easy, or it should be the easiest thing in my life and should come naturally. But I’ve learned that it’s sort of the opposite. Sometimes it’s the hardest thing and that’s what makes it worth doing. Or you’re so close to something in your core or some truth that it’s a real struggle to actually get to. Yeah, so I think that has been the hardest thing. Or also, it’s like anything in life, nothing is going to magically make life easier or better. It’s part of who you are. It’s another lens through which to look at life or live life.
It’s so beautiful when you’re able to put out a vulnerable piece of work and someone else finds it and connects to it. Artists like yourself put it all together so eloquently, and that’s just rewarding in itself.
That’s a big reason why I play music, for that connection. It is such a beautiful thing to put yourself out into the world in this very vulnerable way, and then have someone receive it in an honest way, and it’s this exchange that… It’s just beautiful. I love it. I know why I do it.
Into the ether. I’m saying it on record, for me, it was with your song “Glass.”
Wow.
It’s wonderful when you can go back to a song and you’re like, “Whoa, this is not only saying how I feel, but also just affirming my feelings.” Ultimately, you just want to feel less alone essentially. I think that’s what music does, it just helps you kind of make sense of the world.
Yeah. That’s such a nice feeling. I like wording it that way. There are certain records or artists who, when I feel alone in the world, I’ll just listen to them and I’m like, “Okay, I’m not totally alone.”
It’s beautiful. That’s what it’s all about. We’re all about making the world go around one chord at a time.
Yes. Yes. Okay, another fire album title.
Eliza Niemi recommends:
Tropical Malady (2004) dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
“Chip Salad” (Lays salt and vinegar with smart food white cheddar popcorn tossed together in a bowl)
Toronto painter Margaux Smith
Toronto musician Dorothea Paas
Answering the phone like you don’t know who it is even though you have caller ID
This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Maryam Said.
Maryam Said | Radio Free (2024-10-22T07:00:00+00:00) Musician Eliza Niemi on knowing when and where inspiration strikes best. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/22/musician-eliza-niemi-on-knowing-when-and-where-inspiration-strikes-best/
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