We interview Cam about her sophomore record – The Otherside – how motherhood has changed her songwriting, recording external cuts for the first time and more.
Hello! How are you doing?
Good!
Album release day is finally here, how excited are you?
I’m so excited, people are like ‘did you question whether or not to put it out in the pandemic?’ and I’m like ‘no way!’ I don’t care what’s going on, it’s happening and it’s going out.
So much has changed for you since the last album, even despite the pandemic – motherhood, touring… – so do you think it would feel completely different anyway?
100%. I feel like I’m in a space in my thirties and being a mom where I just don’t have the ‘anxious give a f**ks’ that I had early on in my twenties. This is exactly what it’s supposed to be and this is what I want to say, it’s got something for everybody at different times.
You’ve talked about it being the best music that you’ve ever put out and your favourite. Do you feel that this project is totally who you are?
Oh yeah, it’s definitely more about what I needed to say than it is guessing what I thought people wanted to hear, which I think is the only way I could do it. The thing that makes something meaningful for me in work is that it’s purposeful and healing for me, and hopefully then it’s purposeful and meaningful for everybody else too.
I feel like it’s healing for you that usually translates at the end of the day…
I’m not as excited about the reverse engineering at the end of the day. I don’t want to make the exact same record…
I don’t think people relate to it as much if you do do that. The more you overthink it the more that comes across.
Yeah and also you only have so much time here, so what are you doing?
You partnered with Jack Antonoff for ‘Classic.’ How did that come about and what did he bring to the project?
I was really happy because he has made records with a lot of people that I admire, like St Vincent, The Chicks and Taylor, so going up there to New York. We were at Electric Ladyland Studios – the Jimi Hendrix spot – and with someone new you’re nervous, wondering how it’s going to go and he was just so comfortable to be around that he can pull out anything, you’re not afraid to say the things that you throw out to make a song. He just sat there and just went all Simon and Garfunkel – Cecilia, that jangly-ness. It was so fun to throw out all these nostalgic lines, but deep down it’s really about those people, the classic people in your life, who are there despite the trends and the changes in the world. It was so fun to do and honestly I’m so happy – I’m definitely known for writing some more intense songs – and so grateful that I had this happy song. I was not about to put out a ‘Burning House’ right now, we’ve got enough heaviness right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4J9QMr97o8
Well you’ve got some heaviness in the record, ‘Forgetting You When I’m Alone’ is a weightier song. We’ve heard that song live a few times, but it’s changed up with the production, how did you arrive at that sound?
You know actually I think that song was the fastest to become something, it was probably similar times that it lived live and had the record pretty much done. I think there’s only a small difference at the end of the bridge to what we do live. Besides that, that song lives in a very specific way. I love it. Anything that’s regret and longing, everybody compares your current relationship, or your current job or whatever to your past lover or whatever it is, it’s so funny because the longer you hold on to this idea of someone… you get older but they never change because they’re just an idea, you’re not that person anymore, I just use you as a measurement. It’s really just me figuring out if I’m where I’m supposed to be with you, but it’s not helpful in the end you have to drop it and let go of this.
I remember at one point I ran into an ex’s sister, she was at a school that I was working at. I thought ‘oh my god, that guy, we broke up because of long distance but that was perfect, wasn’t that perfect,’ I created this whole idea. I reached out to him and he went ‘yeah, I’m engaged.’ I thought ‘oh you know what I was writing for the old you.’ I actually wasn’t really writing for you now.
Another song I loved from the record was ‘Changes.’ How did that song come to you?
There’s two songs on the album that I didn’t write, which is new for me. I heard the demo, it was Harry Styles, Lori McKenna, Tyler Johnson. Harry’s a good egg, small-town kid to me, not that I’m claiming to know everything about him, and Lori has this way of writing about hometowns and your relationship to them. It just struck a chord to me when I heard it, you’re just a little bit too big for your clothes, it doesn’t fit – that feeling – that’s what it meant to me when I heard it. I loved that and I was so tickled that I got to sing it – I don’t think he does that normally, let other artists sing his songs – and that’s his whistle still on it.
Was that a very different experience then, opening yourself up to outside cuts?
It feels like a lot of pressure to sound like me, but I want them to be proud of it. It’s kind of heavy, I think I had to be really sure that I loved the songs, so I could take on that balancing act. The same thing with ‘The Otherside’ even though I wrote that with Tim, the fact that he was gone at the time, it was the final version – the same thing, I had to make it right for me but also for him and his family. I’ve been using the term ‘musical neighbours’ because I think that genres split people up, but the truth is that there’s something else that is the through-line and I think that Sam and Harry and Tim have these truths that they’re trying to say. They’re trying to say them in the most real way, they’re saying them how they’re supposed to say them. I feel like they are all my musical neighbours, so that made it a little easier, this is my story too.
Listening through to the record, there are so many stories for girls out there and it feels like a letter to your daughter of the things that you want to say to her. Was that a conscious thing when you were creating it?
I think even before I had a daughter, I always thought about ‘am I doing something that I would tell my daughter about?’ or have her be proud of or whatever, just for perspective. I think about her with ‘Girl Like Me’ – that song, I sat down with Natalie before I was pregnant, she came in and she had this idea and I thought what a great story. She said ‘it’s your song, it’s you, it’s your comeback song.’ It sunk in and we got to the chorus and she asked what the lyrics should be and I sang ‘They’re going to give up on you / You’re going to give up on them.’ I hadn’t heard someone say that life isn’t going to work out how Disney told you or even how your parents told you. Then when it sort of shatters for you for whatever reason, what are you going to do? Keep on living broken-hearted and disappointed and jaded, or are you going to find a way to not take it personally and fall back in love – for me with the music business? I had to fall back in love with doing this and acknowledge that it’s not going to be perfect, there are going to be messy bits, there’s going to be good people that do bad things, and good people that you trusted – all that kind of stuff, and it’s still going to be there, always. So am I going to not sail on my little boat? Nope. Onwards we go.
We can’t wait for this record to be out – thanks Cam!
