Finding Those Moments: Clash Meets Eliza Shaddad
The artist on her new album, and why if a song makes her cry then it's a keeper...
Self-admitted ‘ethereal grunger’* Eliza Shaddad* spoke to us from her home in Cornwall, via Zoom; the same home from which she has been filming her weekly Instagram IGTV videos from her home studio (on Friday evenings from 7pm) for over a year now.
The confessional Sudanese-Scottish artist releases her sophomore album ‘The Woman You Want’ next month and spoke about how the pandemic and subsequent cancellation of live shows, as well as events in her personal life (such as getting married) left her examining how she could be a better artist.
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“As I was writing most of the songs, I very much felt like I was in that part of lockdown where you are faced with yourself,” Eliza tells us. “There wasn't really anything to do and there weren't that many distractions. You are just waking up in the same bed every day. And I think, for me, at least, and I imagine for a lot of people, that was a self-confrontational moment.
“And it really had me questioning things. ‘Okay, well, ‘Who am I? If I'm not performing? Who am I if I'm not going to go into the studio and make a record?’ And I just got married as well. So I was thinking, ‘Who am I now? Like? Does it change anything? Should it? Does it need to? Do I want to? Do I want to be better?’”
Eliza decided to become a better artist by giving more time to practicing, writing and creating music. She also focused on becoming a better person, in general. She says: “I want to show up for things that I care about whether they are political or in relationships close to me.”
‘Future,’ Eliza’s 2018 debut album, introduced us to her folk and grunge influences. Perhaps an unusual combination, some might say, but Eliza’s talent is such that she mells them together with ease. If ‘Future’ was introspective, ‘The Woman You Admire’ is Eliza looking outwards and trying to find her place in the world and allowing herself to include more “artistically vulnerable moments”. It is still self-reflective, but also darker thematically.
Eliza agrees. “‘Now You’re Alone’ is one of those songs that you get more perspective on the further away from it you get. I had a specific situation in mind, which is about (weirdly not pandemic-related) feeling isolated, and like you've closed the door on things, and an internal rage and guilt and worry, and feeling like you can't connect and you don't want to. I think when I was writing it in April last year and it just kind of chimed with everything.
“I wrote it about something I was feeling quite specifically. When I look at it now, there was a lot going on. I felt quite separate from protests and things that were happening at the time. There was all this worry and isolation everywhere. I feel like it's kind of a song to get the rage out and trying to figure out how to deal with isolation.”
The lead single from Eliza’s new album is ‘Heaven’. In the grungy yet delicately uplifting track, she sings: “Have you ever felt like you’ve lost someone? / Even while they’re by your side” before she implores the listener to “keep holding on”.
Current affairs, including the one year anniversary of the Sudanese revolution last year and the Black Lives Matter movement, also influenced the way Eliza made ‘The Woman You Want’ and inspired her to be more direct in some of her lyrics. “There's a lot of the spirit of that which made me want to change lyrics here and there and bring in something more current to a lot of the things that I was writing, and more universal.”
As with the other tracks on the forthcoming record, current single, such as ‘Blossom’, ‘The Man I Admire’ was produced by Eliza’s husband BJ Jackson. She says,”I think the fact that I made it at home with my husband, who I obviously have a very close relationship with... I felt free to experiment and I felt less protective of the way I envisaged it. There was less pressure, in a sense....I was more open, because there's a different level of trust between us as people working together.”
Some of the tracks on the album are very direct in their meaning and this must have been emotionally taxing. At times, Eliza admits she found herself in tears while penning lyrics. She says, “I would say that if I cry while I'm writing a song, then I kind of get a hint that it's gonna be a special one.”
The theme of the soon-to-be-released ‘The Woman You Want’ is Eliza’s journey as a person in terms of who she is and also in terms of her relationships with those around her. “When I looked at all the songs kind of grouped together, I realised that they're all just very much striving for the kind of woman and human that I want to be.”
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'The Woman You Want' will be released on July 16th.
Catch Eliza Shaddad at the following shows:
*November*
8 *Brighton* Green Door Store
9 *Bristol* Crofters Rights
10 *Cambridge* The Blue Moon
11 *London* The Dome
13 *Norwich* Voodoo Daddy’s
18 *Cardiff* Clwb Ifor Bach
19 *Manchester* YES (Basement)
20 *Glasgow* The Hug and Pint
22 *Leeds* Oporto
23 *Birmingham* The Victoria
24 *Sheffield* Yellow Arch Studios
26 *Truro* Old Bakery Studios
Words: *Narzra Ahmed*
Photo Credit: *Jodie Canwell*
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