We interview Rumer about her new album ‘Nashville Tears,’ embarking on a quiet Southern lifestyle and picking the songs for the record.
How’s your memorial weekend been and quarantine- have you managed to find inspiration at all?
It’s been pretty hot here in Georgia, people have been out on the river. It’s been ok, I’ve got a three year old, so it’s a different thing when you’ve got little kids I think. If I didn’t, I’d be doing so many things but you can’t really do that much when you’ve got kids, you just try to keep the mess contained.
I guess you’re now beginning to gear up for the new record in two months time.
Yeah! It’s getting closer.
Can you talk a bit about the inspiration behind Nashville Tears and how much Hugh Prestwood has meant to you and your music?
Well the whole idea came from the title ‘Nashville Tears’ and the idea I brought to my producer was having the songs from Nashville songwriters that didn’t get the credit that they deserved. He loved the idea and we started looking into these different songs and songwriters and listening to hundreds of songs. Then he sent me over ‘Oklahoma Stray’ by Hugh Prestwood and I was so blown away by it. I started listening to Hugh Prestwood and realised ‘oh my god, I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this guy.’ Then we called the publisher and we asked for the whole catalogue and I started to deep-dive and we were just so excited and so into it.
There must have been so many songs to go through, how do you even begin to pick out ones to put on this record.
Well first I would just go through in alphabetical order and I’d go through and find a title that sounded intriguing and then I’d listen to the ones that I was curious about and then I’d go through it chronologically. Yeah, it was just a really wonderful experience, it was beautiful to hear such great songwriting and it was very inspiring to me. At that time in my life, I don’t know how I’m going to write a song or a collection of songs right now. I’m in rural Arkansas, I felt like I’d snookered myself in terms of being in the middle of nowhere, I’d just had a baby and I thought ‘well how am I even going to do this?’ I don’t know how I’m going to find that creativity or just that time from the domestic chores.
It doesn’t really help to have to shift into a completely different mindset.
It’s a different mindset, you’re totally grounded. You’re in the real world, in the physical world and when I’m writing – to be honest – I go in between worlds in my imagination. I follow ideas and I look out of the window and I daydream and I write in my book. But with a baby – forget it – you’re lucky if you can get a hot cup of tea!
It’s a different kind of creativity I guess when you’re re-inventing songs.
Yeah and also you have to be a songwriter to an extent, you have to use your songwriting sensibilities, as well as my A&R sensibilities to put together a collection like that. For example, ‘Deep Summer’ – there’s a few different versions of that and I asked if I could put the lyrics of this version and patch it up like this, because there were two different versions that weren’t quite complete. They were still his lyrics, I was just swapping them out, so I used my songwriting there and being a songwriter helps to know what a good song is and what a great song is.
Almost you couldn’t have done this kind of record till further down the line, when you had discovered your sonic sensibilities.
Exactly! Also, having had the experience I’ve had in the studio. I would have been so intimidated with all those Nashville musicians, they are very very good and they’re very very fast. They’re brilliant but if you’re not as brilliant as well, you’re going to be intimidated and you’re going to really struggle. I was thrilled to be in that situation, I felt like I’d been learning to ride a horse for years and finally I got to take the horse out of the gate.
Talking about Nashville, magazines like MOJO have talked about your country conversion, so when did that come about and how?
I think my musical journey kind of reflects where I am, it just so happened that I married a man from Arkansas and then ended up in Georgia. It just so happened that my life went that way . My music is reflecting my environment and it always has, so my environment has been very ordinary. I’ve basically been a housewife in the South. I’ve had a very humdrum Southern housewife experience here, I’m basically just another one of the population here. I think it was very important to immerse myself in the culture and be a part of the community so that could be reflected in the material that I was picking out for this record, creating this tapestry of different stories and moods.
It must have been a nice retreat from the music industry as well, the music industry not being the most relaxing environment in the world.
I wish I could say everything I want to say about it, I would love for just once to say everything I want to about it, but I couldn’t because I would turn the air blue. It is really not my thing and I’m not afraid of it. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results – that’s kind of what it’s like. At the time, around about 2012, I’d just been so burned out about the whole thing, I got myself in a state where I was just so lonely because touring is lonely and promotion is lonely. You’re just on a treadmill every day, I can’t explain it. For example, say I had a television thing, I’d wake up at 6 o’clock in the morning and go go go, get makeup hair, lights, camera, action and half an hour later, they’d bundle you in a taxi and you’re basically back in your flat at 9 o’clock in the morning in full hair and makeup, sitting there thinking ‘well now what do I do for the rest of my day?’ I felt so disconnected from my community. You end up taking all this makeup off and just crying, it’s really horrible. Once you’re a cog in that machine, it’s like you’re inanimate, being thrown around like a rag doll.
This must have been a completely different experience then…
Yeah, it was exactly what I needed because what I needed was to go back to earth and I needed to be somewhere different and I needed to be away from all that. I wanted to stay connected to my fans, because I appreciate them so much and I didn’t want to quit, I just needed to live an ordinary life. I just like normal, everyday, humdrum things. You’ve just got to leave the field sometimes and not grow anything and let the land recover. It’s just like having a fallow year, let the fields sit and grow weeds for a bit. My process has always been organic, if I was going to have anything to say again, it was going to come up naturally. I think every musician and songwriter has the same story about needing to retreat and just gather and find yourself again. Otherwise, you’ve got nothing to say and nothing to offer. So the South is really interesting, it’s interesting as an observer and as a European, part of the culture I’m observing. This album was really about sharing a little bit of my experience through Hugh Prestwood’s work and my Southern experience – which is now coming to an end, I’m coming back to London on the 1st of July and that will be the end of this experience, I feel like that’s the natural thing with this album. I might come back but for now I want to go back to England.
Well I’m excited for this record to be out in the world!
Yeah, me too, we had so much fun creating it.
Complete the sentence…
Music is… communication.
Country music is… stories from the land.
Rumer is… a gypsy.
