Interview: Gracie talks about her one month album and gender inequality in the music scene

A few days ago, myself and Kay got the chance to interview local musician Gracie about her recent completion of the 'album in a month' challenge and her opinions on why we see gender inequality in the local scene. Gracie's bright personality and unique music have led her to have a successful career in the local scene, last year performing at the first Wild Paths festival in Norwich. It was really lovely to learn more about Gracie as well as her music.

Gracie began to sing as a kid, but only really started taking it seriously four years ago. Before this, she'd been much more focused on playing instruments and never really thought about a music career or being a solo artist. Only recently did this become a possibility for Gracie. She joked with us that she loves any chance to be centre of attention and loves to be dramatic, so singing loudly on a stage appealed to her. One thing very unique about Gracie is her self written songs; they often contain little snippets of her personality and are most often like nothing you've ever heard before. Gracie revealed however that she's only been writing songs for four years. She's been writing instrumental music for a while, but never lyrics. She describes how "she's come a long way" and that looking back on her old songs, she can see plenty of improvement.

Recently, Gracie completed the album in a month challenge, where an artist must write, record, produce and release an album in only one month. We were really intrigued by this and wanted to ask her how she did it. Gracie told us she knows the person who runs the challenge and thought it looked really cool. He told her she should go for it and she realised she had no excuse not to, even though she'd never done anything like it before. She joked with us that because the album's release date was April 1st, she could always tell her listeners it was an April fools joke. Gracies favourite part of the challenge was getting to experiment with more genres and explore her unique sound. She explains how the album is a mismatch of genres, ranging from jazz to lo-fi, but says it was a good basis to find out what sounds she likes. Gracie said that another one of her favourite parts was figuring out how to record herself and produce too. She said that she "didn't realise how tough it is" and described the process as "so difficult", but is happy that she's learnt more about her sound as well as plenty of new techniques that she can apply to other projects. We also discussed her least favourite part of the challenge too. Gracie described how stressful it had been, explaining that she had to essentially write a song nearly every day and work on it for the week. She said that producing it was very difficult as she has little to no background in it at all, so she had to also figure out her bearings with that too. Gracie did explain though that with the negatives came positives, as the stress taught her to not be so critical of her work and to just let it be. We discussed her favourite song on the album which Gracie says is "Worms", a synthy, dream pop piece which has inspired her decision on her new sound. The album is really impressive and as always, you can find it linked below.

We went onto to discuss gender inequality that Gracie has faced in the local scene. Gracie explained how at 'showcase gigs' where the line-up usually consists of multiple artists, there's usually a lot more male musicians and groups. She describes this as really tough and discouraging to women, as without representation or role models women won't want to get involved in the industry. Gracie elaborated that if females aren't being booked, other women won't be encouraged to go out and look for gigs, as they'll wonder if there's even any chance of them getting booked. The three of us discussed why women are getting discouraged to get involved in the industry further. Gracie explained how there's a lot of sexualisation of women in the industry and that this often leads women to feel much more discouraged and less likely to be taken seriously. She expanded also that without positive, local, female role models gigging, women won't be able to picture themselves having a career. Gracie's advice to females feeling discouraged is to just go for it, manifesting for yourself that you are going to do what you set your mind to and not care what anyone else thinks. She expanded that you shouldn't hesitate and that you should just do what you need to do to kill the game! Myself and Kay love Gracie's optimism and agree that if you want to do something, you should throw yourself into it and give one hundred per cent.

Up next for Gracie is a second one-month album in August, as well as an EP. Gracie says that it's going to be a concept, dream-pop EP with lot's of queer and feminist themes, revolving around her experiences as women. We are so excited to hear all of the things that Gracie has got coming up so that we can promote and review them here! Gracie's music is absolutely stunning and I really do recommend you have a listen.

Ruby x

Where to listen to Gracie!: https://graciee.bandcamp.com/