Felicity Groom on 'Dance For None' & working with Kevin Parker
Felicity Groom’s new single ‘Dance For None’ is an empowering and righteous call to action for women everywhere (including her own two daughters) - inviting them to dance for nobody else. It’s a preview of upcoming album Magnetic Resonance Centre, an atmospheric masterpiece recorded at home in a little blue room, set for release in 2020. We talk about her creative process, audiovisual installation Galactagogue & advice for women in music.
Hey, Felicity. What have you been up to today?
Hey WARRANT Magazine. In between emails and cleaning up the house, I have actually been writing a new track. This won’t see the light of day for some time I’d imagine ... but it’s got a lot of light in it already to keep growing.
Can you tell us a little bit about what has inspired this latest release, ‘Dance For None’? It’s a real empowerment tune, and we are so down for it.
The inspiration for this track came from my two daughters. The song began because I was trying to find some way of entertaining my eldest, then the only child. I gave her my Ableton Push to play with. I loaded up a drum kit, whacked on the beat repeat and then shaped the craziness into an actual rhythm. I wrote the song around that rhythm.
Because it began with her, I thought it should be for her and my other daughter. They’re growing up in an exciting time of this new feminist movement. There’s always individuals advocating and pushing for inequalities to be balanced out ... still the wave got greater recently and it felt like a great party to celebrate it in song.
Your lyrics have such a rawness & authenticity to them. Are there any artists (musical or otherwise) who inspire you in this regard?
I am so pleased you like my lyrics. I spend an awful long time writing and re-writing. Funnily enough this song I had no time for re-writes. I was really pushing to finish these lyrics so that I could catch Kevin before he took off back to LA or around the world. His time is finite. I called upon the help of my partner and bandmate Andrew Ryan to help with a couple of lines. I am inspired by Andrews musicality. He’s inspirational in the way that he writes great new metaphors in his own lyric writing.
I think all the people that I work with are inspiring. My other bandmate Mike Jelinek - he ’s so technically capable. There’s no way that we could have realised the live set it if wasn’t for his hard work. He had to reverse engineer everything for the live format as I had just written most of it in Ableton and then we had a lot of decoding ahead of us to work out how it would perform. Kevin Parker is inspiring, watching what he has achieved with his total focus and determination ... and he’s created songs that my grandchildren will no doubt be singing.
We <3 that the one & only Kevin Parker came to the party on this track as well. What’s it like working with him, and how does his background influence your work?
I took him this song specifically as I knew he’d do the best by it. I’ve worked with him over many years doing many different things ... both released and not released. I love working with him because he is always, forever a kind, loyal and generous human and he’s also incredibly fast at working. He essentially mixes as he goes ... which is not how everyone works. I can’t work like that yet as I am still learning how to mix. So instead of worrying about picking the perfect sound, I’ll pick a sound or sounds near enough and then know that they can later be shaped. Because he’s such a gun, you can write the part with him and then get the sound straight away, which then influences all the other sounds so much and helps the creative process.
We did have a convo around this subject actually, cause he does get some pretty sweet sounds, but he said that sometimes he can spend so long flicking through the sound on his keyboards that it can impede the creative flow. So there’s an argument for both processes.
And the Galactagogue projections will be back next month at Royal Park Hall, WA! Run us through the conceptual design of this installation, and how it complements the music.
Galactagogue is about motherhood, mother boards and mother nature. It’s an incredible collaboration of artists who put together the visuals for it. It was produced by another inspiring friend Poppy Van Oorde-Grainger. She oversaw the whole project that had six main artistic contributors and a few minor contributors too. It is a huge and beautiful body of work that all supports the themes of my new songs off of the forthcoming record ‘Magnetic Resonance Centre’ that’ll be out next year. My music has always kind of had a cinematic feel so it’s cool to have the new songs played out in this other dimension. The show also has a pretty nifty high-tech trick in it too where some willing participants become part of the show.
What advice would you give to young women who are keen to get involved in the music industry?
I would say the music industry is lucky to have you and good luck to you! All you need to do is start. Don’t wait for anyone to ask you to do anything. The best way to start is by going to other people’s gigs and getting to know the different bands in different scenes. That’s where you’ll find gig opportunities ... or if you’re interested in management or PR or event co-ordinating ... all the resources you’ll need to start in that scene will be at those shows.
I think I also want to say that it’s not easy sometimes, but being a part of making good art is, as the hokey pokey says, what it’s all about.
And to women in general?
My advice is to never forget that you are an incredible individual capable of so many wonderful things.