Kyla La Grange
There’s no question that UK singer songwriter Kyla La Grange is a superstar and set for big things with her second album Cut Your Teeth available now. Kyla talks to Across The Ocean about the process of writing and recording for this album suggesting that she is in a far happier place than ever before.
Is it a huge relief that your new album Cut Your Teeth is finally done, dusted and out there for music lovers to enjoy?
Yeah I guess so, I mean I feel the same because I have been listening to it for the last year so it is nice for everyone else to be able to hear it now.
Did you feel that this was a challenging album to make?
No not all. It was such an easy album to make. It was way, way, way easier than my first album. To be honest the gap between the two albums was only two years and one year of that was getting everything ready to be released. The actual album itself only took three or four months to write and similar to record but I found it really fun and easy to write.
Was the second album blues ever something that crossed your mind?
No, I had it the other way around as I had the first album blues. When I wrote my first album I was really depressed and unhappy as well as a bad break up on top of that. I was not really enjoying my life so I wrote an album that was very heartfelt and I felt that I was always very angry and sad when I was writing. I thought that was going to be the only way I could write songs. When I came to write this album my whole outlook on life had changed and I felt really happy and free so I started writing in a much more creative way, which was really enjoyable for me.
Could you put your change in outlook down to anything particular?
I don’t really know! I guess it helps that I haven’t had a terrible break up and I feel as I’m getting older I feel happier and more Zen about the world. Maybe I just grew up a little bit and I definitely feel a lot different but I’m not sure why I got happier, I just did. I’m very glad!
Do you think your music has been much between your albums Ashes and Cut Your Teeth?
It’s totally different and not really a subtle change, the music on the second album is totally different than the music on the first album. The first album was all written on an acoustic guitar building it up with the band, a very traditional band being a five piece set up. When this came around I started writing by making beats using this really old keyboard that I had when I was a kid. It was electronic and completely different atmosphere and subject matter.
The deluxe edition has some really good bonus tracks, did you find that you had a real treasure trove of riches with the number of tracks leftover?
I only recorded the songs that I thought were good and probably have a whole bunch of demos on my computer that I just dismissed or thought weren’t good enough to record. Of the ones I did record all made it on the deluxe album. These days you have to record with a view of having a deluxe version with extra tracks which is nice because you can put tracks on it that don’t necessarily fit in to the narrative or body of work of the main album. In terms of genre and sound it doesn’t fit at all with the main album so it was great to be able to put them on the deluxe.
I know all the songs are like your children and you can’t love one more than the other but do you have a favourite track?
Definitely and I can love some more than others! My favourite off the album is Cannibals because it was the first that I wrote and record for this one. It helped me work out what I wanted to be doing with this album.
Do you think it is still really hard for artists that don’t have a big profile to be able to promote their music and be heard?
I never think about the album as a commercial entity while writing the album because I think that would be awful. I couldn’t write words thinking about how it would be marketed, sold or consumed. I just write how I feel and when I want to write or whatever is going on in my head comes out. It would be hard for me to think about how a certain song would be put out there and would destroy the creative process for me.
How has the tour to support the album gone so far?
Really well, I was worried about how we would merge the first album together with the second album because fans coming to the shows would be fans of the first album but the sound being so different my band has to get used to playing different instruments and using different drum triggers, electronic sound and we’ve had to rework a couple of songs so they fit in better with the first album.
Any plans to tour Australia?
I would absolutely love to but we’ll have to see how things go.
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
