INTERVIEW: Alice Merton on Vertigo

Alice Merton is a singer-songwriter, born in Germany and raised between the USA, England and Canada. After the mammoth success of her breakout track ‘No Roots,’ and the release of her debut album, Merton has recently released her new track ‘Vertigo’ that beckons in a new era of her music. Here, we interview Alice Merton about the track and her recent success.

 

Hello, how are you doing today? How have you found the last year and how’s it all been shaping up? It must be nice to finally be releasing music again.

Oh, it’s lovely. I mean it definitely felt like a really long time. It was only like one, one and a half years, but I guess nowadays, if you’re not constantly putting out stuff, everyone’s wanting more.

We’re all so greedy nowadays, now everyone wants music to come out once a month, then we’re on to the next thing, but as an artist, you know that so much work goes into one song.

Exactly! Thank you, a lot of people don’t really understand or they’ll be like ‘you need to put out the next song in two months.’ You’ll think, I just put out an album! I need the time and I need to figure out what the production is gonna sound like for the new stuff. I always work one on one with producers, so I don’t have like five writers in my room who are writing the song – it’s just me and the producer. So, it’s time.

‘Vertigo’ is an epic track – why did you decide to lead out with that one first and how did the song come about in itself?

Thank you, I’m really glad you like it. I wrote ‘Vertigo’ just before COVID happened, I was lucky enough to go to Canada and work with a producer there. We talked about this experience I had where we were lining up for a club – it was my friend’s birthday – I’m not really a club-goer as I don’t like being in big crowds, I don’t like lots of people around me.

So the past year has been good for you!

I honestly can’t complain when it comes to not going out to clubs, I mean I miss bars, I miss clubs. So I was standing in line and I started feeling very nauseous, imagining going inside there and being with lots of people, I started feeling very, very dizzy. Basically, in the song I was describing what I was feeling. I tell my friend, I’m so sorry, I got to go home, I feel horrible. I’m lying in bed and was just disappointed with myself again, for missing out on something that I wish I could have kind of overcome. That happens to me so many times, there’s so many times where I’ve been very, very scared of actually going on the stage, where I’ve been close to canceling something. I mean, I never do, because I hate disappointing people, but it’s so strenuous constantly battling that initial fear, trying to get over it and just do it. It’s very tiring for your body to always have to overcome it again. So that idea is what inspired the track.

It’s an interesting idea because it’s so applicable to so many things. Obviously, it’s very specific experience in your life, but it just can be universally applied.

True, very true. A lot of people have that issue as well, where they can’t overcome a certain fear or whatever. It’s definitely been a big part of my life for a long time.

The music video is also pretty epic. It must have just been amazing to get out again, and start recording these things, but where did you draw this idea from? It’s just incredible.

So, I’m a big fan of movies like Snowpiercer – the original, I haven’t seen the new series, but the original film. I love really dark movies, kind of like Mad Max and Blade Runner. I don’t know, I just get inspired by that a lot. I kind of wanted to just create that character and have the club scene. For me, under all that, it’s kind of like an underground world, we’re basically imagining it’s a dystopian world. The world is kind of like our real world that we live in, but it’s kind of come to an end and I discovered these people living underground. I’m like, ‘What the fuck is going on? Is this a dream? Or is this reality?‘ It’s almost as if it was an Alice in Wonderland thing, but a dystopian version of it, where you’re meeting these really crazy characters – that’s my mind. All these characters are kind of different parts of my brain, different parts of my imagination. I love creating stuff that’s dark. 

It must also be really fun creating something which takes people off guard, because I can imagine a lot of people wouldn’t have seen that coming and how that’s going to be visually represented. Obviously it fits, it’s something completely memorable and different.

I mean, I was very lucky to meet someone who also had a similar vision. I worked with a female director, her name’s Anouk and she’s the same age I am, which I think is so cool, because we’re both fighting our way through the industry at the same time. I loved working with her. Originally, she had an idea where she said, how do you feel about starting the video with you licking a scorpion? I thought ‘is that even possible?’ Am I going to die? Two days later, she calls me up and says, ‘I found a place where we can get a scorpion.’ I love working with people who just kick me in my butt and have new ideas, but we decided to put the scorpion idea to the side for a rainy day.

You worked with Koz on the sound of the track – how did that come about, he’s got such a huge catalogue of stuff?

He has an incredible catalogue. I felt so lucky to work with him. I met him through a colleague of mine who’s like, ‘hey, do you want to work with this guy?’ I thought, yeah. He’s an awesome producer, I would work with him every day if I could. It was so cool because he lives in Canada and he lives 20 minutes from where I grew up. I got to go back to Canada to write a song, and then afterwards, I would just drive to my best friend’s house. It was amazing, we had tortilla chips and guacamole and just sat on the balcony. It was such a dream come true. I was hoping to work with him this year some more, but it just didn’t work out because of COVID.

Yeah, it was so much fun. I can imagine, obviously, you’ve had so much success over the past few years, did you feel kind of anxious to release a new track after how well the album and everything did? With the pandemic, it must have been really frustrating having had so much momentum and success and then having to take a pause from touring.

I mean, I was told by lots of people that I can’t take a break, and that I need to use the momentum to put up the next thing, because you’re going to be forgotten. I made that conscious decision to be like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna take that risk, because I need this time to focus on what I want to put out and what music inspires me.’ I’m not looking to just put out songs that mean nothing to me. I can write 10 songs in a week, but would I be happy with all of them, are they actually songs that I want the world to hear? No. So, for me, it was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to take the time that I need to work on things that have been kind of piling up with touring and with myself – my whole well being.’ I did feel very anxious to finally put out some music and I was very nervous. I was also thinking, what if I’m just forgotten? There’s so many new artists out nowadays – every day, you’re hearing new music – it’s becoming so easy to just do bedroom producing, putting out music and it’s really hard to stick out nowadays. If I don’t repeat the success that I’ve had, that for me is okay, I really love to just focus on putting out music that I am excited to perform and I am excited to be performing it live every night.

At the end of the day, why would you want to sing songs every night that you don’t believe in?

Exactly, I keep saying the exact thing I say to myself – would I be happy if I put out a song that maybe is super successful, but I just don’t like, and I’m forced to play it every single day?  I listen to different kinds of stuff, I don’t listen to that much mainstream stuff – there’s some things that I love. There’s some things that I just wouldn’t really listen to in my spare time. I’m just happy that I finally come to a point where I’m happy to release stuff. I’m just like ‘Okay, if it’s successful, great, if not, I’m still happy to perform it.’

It’s important! Do you know what the next thing will be? Do you think ‘Vertigo’ will be part of a longer project, or do you know how the next year is going to shape up?

I mean, I think we all have to be a little bit spontaneous just because you don’t know what’s going to happen.

Oh completely! Well, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me today and just congratulations on the new track.