Page 23 - Black Velvet Rock Magazine Issue 110

BV110 pg 20-24 All Ears Avow Interview.qxp_BV110 pg 23 13/06/2024 21:57 Page 4

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f you’re a musician, owning a record- he band released the 9-track album, path is just so important.”
Iing studio definitely sounds like a T‘Feel The Push’, in 2022. The title Another song on ‘Feel The Push’ is
dream career. Even when you’re not tour- track is about depression, although offers ‘Hero’, a song about envy, jealousy and re-
ing, you’re still working on your passion, a message of hope to anyone suffering, sentment. Claire says that the song was in-
and making money from it. Claire explains from the perspective of someone having spired by a few people, not naming any
how she came to own a recording studio. come through it. Claire says the most im- names. “Just sometimes, if I’m thinking
“I’ve been working as a producer for maybe portant thing to do when going through about bands that had inspired it, there can
five years or so now. I was working out of something depressing is to talk about it. be this notion sometimes, in some scenes,
this studio and the owners, during the pan- “I know it’s easier said than done, but in some towns, where you’re enemies or
demic, decided to call it quits. I sort of just talking to somebody, whether it’s a something, as opposed to being friends
thought I was possibly having to give up on friend or a family member, or some sort of and holding each other up, and promoting
music and go and get a desk job some- a helpline, sometimes, just voicing a prob- each other. They see it as some kind of a
where or something. And Sean, my drum- lem and saying it out loud, can make a battle; if your band is doing well, then how
mer, he appeared and went, ‘How about we weight come off of you. And, if it’s far more can our band do well? Something like that,
take over it together?’ and so we did that. chemical than that, then, hopefully, they’re as if there’s not enough music to go
And that was two years ago now. And yeah, a person that can put you on the path to around. I don’t know, it’s an odd concept re-
it’s been absolutely thriving. We’re a re- seeking the right help. It’s a tough one, my ally, but yeah, I could probably take it in
hearsal studio as well as a recording stu- bandmates have all sort of suffered with de- many different angles.”
dio, and recording bands all the time, so it’s pression. I think things that I personally Does she think that social media makes
great fun.” have been through have been more situa- people more jealous because everyone is
Aside from working with Millie, Claire tional. I lost my mum when I was 20 years showing their best lives?
has been inspired while working with other old. We’ve all been through really tough “Yeah, 100%,” replies Claire. “The likes
musicians. times, but depression, on a very chemical count. If you put up a social media post and
“As I said before, after I worked with level, is not as understood as it should be. it doesn’t get as many likes as this other
Millie, I think I was very in a political mind- Sometimes, just speaking through prob- band or this other brand or this other influ-
set and that’s what ended up with ‘Bird On lems and stuff like that doesn’t always help encer, I guess, or something like that, that
A Wire’, for sure,” she says. “I like to think if it’s a deeper issue than that, and, I think suddenly means something about you and
that we straddle genres a little bit in All Ears people are getting better at seeing it as your content, and it doesn’t, really. I don’t
Avow, and every time I have a band come more of a physical problem as opposed to know… Algorythms, I suppose. But I think
in that is maybe on the heavier side or something that can just be solved with a people look at that stuff the wrong way
something, I’ll, all of a sudden, be writing conversation. Do you know what I mean? completely.”
heavier riffs and heavier songs. And then, Like the comparison with a broken arm or
I’ll have a band come in who are really something like that – if you’ve got a broken hen we ask who Claire finds in-
poppy, and, all of a sudden, I’m writing arm, you wouldn’t hesitate to go to the doc- Wspiring at the moment, she replies
things like that. So, I think, even if it’s unin- tors and get it fixed, but, because it’s some- that she thinks Hayley Williams is amazing.
tentional, everybody that I’m working with thing in your head and you can’t see that “I feel like that’s an obvious choice, but
is having an impact on my creative brain – it’s something that is, kind of, more physi- what Paramore are doing, in that they’ve
which is fantastic; I love it.” cally broken, people don’t look at it in the just got to the end of their record label and
same way. And, I think, having that under- now they seem to be doing whatever the
standing, to then be able to get on the right hell they want, I think that’s amazing. And that’s

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