STUDIO 01: Ethel Cain Interview

hello welcome to studio one if you like what you see like and subscribe and comment everything's good yes okay i can hear you perfect um to start uh now my name is for elijah um it's really cool uh i discovered your music i swear on tuesday and so the fact that we're like talking like 72 hours later is so sick i know i was so happy when you emailed me i was like oh my gosh i haven't done a a zoom call like this in a minute i'm still trying to like get used to it yeah i feel like without me for such a loop i'm not used to doing things over the computer but it's efficient i will say that i mean because uh i'm like based out in toronto so we started kind of our lockdowns last march so i've essentially exclusively been doing zoom interviews and still you know even though it's been a year it's still like still weird oh yeah no i have a bunch of friends in toronto that i was supposed to go make music with over like last summer and then i couldn't go because of kobet and so i still have yet to get up there so i'm excited for like my first chance to really come visit toronto and see everybody um hopefully over the summer but we'll see how that goes yeah for sure but yeah so with studio one you know i've written for like clash in like other publications but i really wanted to build a platform where i get to speak to like artists that i really want to and to really highlight you know toronto artists as well so you know thank you so much for you know getting on um before before we get started can you briefly introduce yourself and then we'll get started um so i am ethel kane i am from florida i started making music i think probably 2017 um i was trying to get into film school and it was very difficult so i started making music in the meantime to kind of keep myself busy and i just brought up loving it and i started teaching myself how to produce on garageband and then moved up to logic and then eventually ableton um and i've just been kind of like having fun with it and just kind of accidentally fell into where i'm at now just kind of met people who introduced me to people who introduced me to people and you know it's just kind of been like a fun crazy little journey um that i'm enjoying the heck out of for sure and um you know before we begin you know how i know we've just a little briefly talked about you know covid how have you been like you know like where are you at right now how has quarantined been for you you know like outside of music how has it been for you um so i don't really do that much anyways so i quarantine didn't really affect me too bad you know most of the time i just like hang out with my roommates and go for walks in the woods so i don't i'm not really a proud person um but it definitely i didn't realize how much like covet had affected me until about six months and i realized i'm like it's so different like you can't just go to the store like you used to be able to or go to the movies or like so even if you don't do that much already it's like the ability to be able to do it if you want to do it is what you're really missing so it's been funny i am like i said i lived in florida which was like the coconut hot spot for a hot minute last summer um so i was excited to be able to move out i live in indiana currently um i live in a town with about 1500 people kobe barely even exists here like in the middle of nowhere yeah but i'm excited to move back down south now that i've been like we're almost a year into into quarantine and it's like okay i i already had coved didn't like it but i'd survive and i'm like okay i want to go back down south now that i'm not like fearing for my life anymore yeah i read uh you know after leaving florida you know you started to appreciate it a lot more talk about talk about growing up in you know florida and the small town things that and i love the fact that it's kind of like embedded in your music too yeah um so it was it was nice i feel like i had a pretty good childhood um you know definitely very simple you know you go to church on sunday mornings you hang out with like your friends you spent a lot of time playing outside you know my sister and i would play from like sun up to sun down outside just using our imagination you know when you grow up in small towns especially in the south i feel like everything is very like behind the times so like you know i was a kid in the 2000s but everything there was very like 90s like we did not have i grew up with vhs we didn't get the dvd player until i was like probably six or seven um so it's very it's just kind of like permanent nostalgia you know i i grew up half half of the time i grew up at my grandma's house um so i was i was constantly over there and it's just like back and forth between your parents house and your grandma's house you know we all lived in trailers it was just a very simple you know family oriented life summers were hot spend them with your family the holidays were nice you know like i said you're in church every sunday morning there's just this very strong sense of community yeah and family and so it's it's very it's very what's the word it's very social oriented um you know you look after each other um so i really liked it i definitely up until i probably hit my teen years it was it was a really good time i really you know we didn't have much but we had what we needed and it was enough enough you know it should just be to appreciate things so it was definitely nice i i do miss it i look back on my childhood finally and i know you have um like roots in the choir and things like that but for you personally you know i know you've even dabbled you know garage band at what point did you kind of reshift where you sort of felt like i can do music was it a song you kind of made early on or was it people listening to your music at what point did you kind of have like a breakthrough like this is more than a hobby like i can make it into a career at what point did you kind of see that um so i've like you said i've always been in and out of music you know and choir and theater i've i wrote an entire album in my bedroom and i was 15 because i wanted to be just like my idol florence welch i was like i wrote a whole album it never went anywhere i just wrote it on the piano and never recorded it um because you know even the most supportive of parents like um most people will tell you you should get a job doing something that will make you money that you can you know make a living off of so it's always kind of like that discouragement um of get a real job yeah and i kind of i toyed around with the idea of being a graphic designer with i wanted to go to film school all this different stuff um but when i was 19 i i told my best friend i said i'm going to be a musician i want to be famous for something i want to be a musician and she was like go make a song she's like shut up and go make a song so i opened garageband and i made a song and it was called the altar i recorded it all in one night it was on the first mixtape that i put out that i have long since washed off the internet but um it was after that that i was like i'm gonna be a musician i was like i'm going to be a musician i had probably a hundred followers on instagram i had no friends no connections no nothing it was literally just me in my bedroom i recorded my entire first mixtape using my apple earpod microphone like it was so booty but um but i did it because i was like this is what i want and i'm going to make it happen and i spend about two solid years working on music making music every day putting it out for an audience of like zero people i had like a couple of my friends who would support me um and listen to my music yeah it was about two years of making music to literally an empty room and i think it was like 50 perseverance 50 straight stubbornness that i just kept making music and i was like i'm gonna make it goddammit i was like i'm gonna be a musician i'm gonna like i'm gonna do something big with my life and i've always told myself i was like i'm gonna be famous not because i think that i'm just like all that i am gonna be famous because i'm not gonna stop until i like make a living out of music being a musician and um and somehow i just wound up here so i guess i guess it did something right yeah and you know through that entire process i know you had you know another project before that as you know with your different name things like that when did you decide on ethel kane and why did you think you know your song bruises why did that feel like the first song just kind of introduced uh yourself into this new uh person you know that's kind of a interesting level why that song um so my previous project white silas um it was kind of like an experimental period because i started off making music that was like heavily coral but then also kind of like electronic i was like i wanted to be an electronic producer which i thought was a lot more difficult than i expected so white stylus was kind of a weird transitional experimental phase where i was like going out of making electronic music into kind of making that grungier more lo-fi alternative kind of sound um and so it was it was kind of me just playing around with whatever yeah sound i was enjoying which is kind of where the name white sounds came from it was mental gymnastics but it was like i kind of like they have like white light which was my first single as white silas and i was like white light has all the colors of the rainbow in it so you can be whatever you want i don't know yeah but um but when i finally kind of like settled on a sound i um i put out my my first ep as white silas said music for side people and it was a much it was a further push into that alternative sound it was like guitars and it was kind of more alternative and so i kind of spent the next six months after i put out that ap just kind of like holding that sound really getting into the nitty-gritty of like the american gothic aesthetic and then i was like okay i feel like i have a better grip on what i want to do i have a better understanding of what i want from myself as an artist it's time to like rebrand and like really heavy hit this aesthetic now so i changed my name over the summer put out bruises um bruises i wrote all in one day i wrote and recorded it all in one day um i just kind of sat on it for a week and then i was like i wanted to put out something to go ahead and like claim my artist profile on spotify um as equal pain and just kind of get something established and i just liked the song and i was like it was it's just what it was like that week i was i was having a lot of fears about i was making plans at the time to move to new york city with my best friend um you know i was just like getting ready to leave florida a lot of stuff was happening i was just barely starting to get buzzed as an artist and i was like i was kind of transitioning out of being a nobody and being you know wanting my dreams to happen to starting to see them happening and it was very scary and yeah this kind of came out of that and i was like i like it it's sad it's cute people like the people that i kind of showed a preview to they really liked it so i put it out and wound up performing it a month later um at my very first show as ethel kane um i'm just kind of like snowballed from there yeah and with the two projects you you know you would release um with those two encompassing like all the imagery and all the art and things like that did you kind of feel like i'm kind of figuring it out because if all the things that you're doing work so perfectly together um did you sort of feel that way when you're releasing those eps like it's coming together most definitely i i try to bite off as much as i know i can chew and then a little bit more i try to just push myself a little bit as i go um and so with these projects it was kind of like what can i do right now i was like i'm still teaching myself how to produce i don't know much about videography even though i wanted to be a filmmaker so it was just kind of like what can i do right now with what i have with the knowledge i have the resources and so it's kind of like let me do just this little dream pop project with like these nostalgic visuals it was it was exceptionally hot florida summer that year and there was like carpet bed and then golden age you know the first eps as ethyl kane i was like let me just start building the basic foundation of ethyl cane which is the ethereal vocals the old kodak photos of me as a kid you know let me build up this this imagery as an all-american southern girl growing up you know nowhere near the lap of luxury you know kind of that that failed american dream aesthetic you know i got a lot of comparisons to lom del rey early on which i always thought was funny because i feel like lana del rey is very about the glamour and the glitz and the opulence of america yeah i was like i'm very much the opposite of that it's like broke and trailer parks but like for real um and but that's what i wanted i was like you know the majority of america is made up of like poor people and like that's what america is to me it's like that small sense of community and people taking care of each other and watching out for your own and so that was that was that was very clear to me that's what ethel kane was about from the very beginning and so i was like let me just go and start establish this and build on it from there yeah and there's so much like honesty to it too because you know when artists kind of start embodying you know like a character or like they start adding things that really hone on to the music for you it goes to the roots of you know earlier is with the church and things like that so it works perfectly but um yeah one of the things that really drew me to you was you know your vocals and i saw a video of you performing in golden age at uh i think chicago or one of those shows at what point you know i think somebody had to tell you at some point like what point did someone kind of tell you like your voice like there's something really strong with your voice because yeah for me that was like the hook i'm like this is like really like amazing so at what point you know i know there's kind of hard to humble that down a bit but like at what point did you start to feel like the strength of your voice um definitely when i was in choirs again like i was in choir as early as three and you know i definitely i wasn't great you know i wasn't like a child prodigy by any means but you know i liked it i enjoyed it and you know i was i was one of the few friends of mine in choir like the kid square who really took it seriously so we just enjoyed singing and you know all the old ladies in church would come up and tell my mom and be like oh my god she's such a good singer you know she's so she's just got the cutest little voice of an angel you know like yeah that your your mom and her friends will say to like hype you up and so i always just for me i i never thought that i was you know a good singer by any means i just enjoyed it it you know brings me joy to sing um and i i never really could sing the music that i liked growing up you know a lot of the vocalists i listened to growing up were like florence welch very strong powerful vocals and you know they um have a lot more strength than i do and that's why i kind of stick with that very ethereal style because that's kind of like all my voice is really meant for but i was noticing a lack of that kind of sound in music um you know i love enya and like those really me kind of sounding vocals and i feel like a lot of the musicians i was hearing was like very about like how like the runs you can hit the belts the powerhouse vocals and i was like why i can't do that so i'm gonna do what i know how to do um you know just kind of and as i progressed i just kind of like figured out my range and tried to stay within it um so i try to break out sometimes and do something a little bit outside my comfort zone there's a lot of more like rock vocals on this ep that i'm putting out soon but um it always comes back to like the choir buckle that's where i got my start that's what i feel most confident doing and it's definitely where i kind of was like okay this is my niche this is what i need to fill so it will always go back to the kids choir yeah and on that point you know when i heard golden age now for the first time which was like three days ago um you reminded me of enya and then i read your underdog underground underdog interview and you cited her and i was like yeah that's exactly because yeah you don't really hear the sound too often and what i love too about your music is like it's very minimalistic and like there's not a lot of lyrics but like when you listen to your music it's like kind of like an experience with you know how much i know i can i never got into the production credits but how important for you is production element i know a friend of yours wave i think helps do a bit like that and as well you said when you connected with him that's kind of i think you're about to almost give up and you sort of kind of you guys coming together kind of help for you how much you know production has to be so important to your music because it really sounds like an experience oh yes so um i produce everything myself because i am very nitpicky um every occasion i will have um a song that i do with another artist like knuckle velvet on golden age um doll wave produced and then like michelle pfeiffer aaron produced but for the most part um everything else i do i i write it i record it i mix it i produce it i do everything um because my philosophy is if you want something right do it your if you want something done right do it yourself and um you know like with anything it's like i there's a very certain niche a very specific intersection of music that i wanted to hear that nobody else was creating and i was i didn't know any producers when i first started making music so i was like if i want this sound i'm gonna have to do it myself yeah so that's kind of how i got started with it and then you know my production has definitely evolved which is another reason i love doing it all myself because when i look back at my discography it's a very clear-cut progression of my skills and my techniques as a producer you know i go back and listen i'm like i remember when i used to use this reverb plugin i remember when i used to use this program like i can listen to the song and be like i remember when i used to make music like this i remember the thought process that went into it it's like a scrapbook um but i would definitely think the production is pretty important but i like to keep it minimalistic and raw i feel like a lot of the music i grew up listening to was it was not heavily pop inspired it was not you know all the little the beep boops and the this and that i i don't i don't really have that kind of an ear it's just like you record the guitar you record the piano you record the vocals it's all very simple i like it to sound like it's recorded just in a room like as though you were performing it live um golden age was a bit more experimental i definitely incorporated some like kind of like trap elements because through working with yahweh you know he made kind of more of that like kind of soundcloud rap music at the time yeah something completely different now but um i just kind of like to incorporate little elements of things that i like and put it all together so that's why you know when i try to describe my record which is the big project i've been working on since 2018 it's like it's got like big live drums and there's like country inspired vocals but the vocals are also ethereal and then you have like old country inspired lyrics but then there's like almost an r b element to the to the beats but then they're like live drums instead of you know studio it's like all this whole big ordeal but it's just like i feel like everything fits at the end of the day you know i just i take my favorite aspects from all these different genres and mash it together and i feel like that is essentially what creates the ethel game sound yeah um so i totally am bullshitting everything i don't know what i'm doing i'm just throwing at the wall and hoping that something will stick but it is fun i do enjoy myself and i love producing and doing everything the wrong way because then it just teaches me what i like what i don't like yeah no you definitely definitely cracked it and i and i feel like a lot of people that like are familiar with the kind of the soundscapes will really get drawn into it because i definitely was now i know you recently recently dropped michelle pfeiffer i read that um being in l.a and being at the studio you finally felt like you're kind of being seen as an artist uh can you talk about that like how did that feel i guess um so it's i have to like preface it by saying it's funny one of the first songs yahweh that i ever made is called florida heat and the opening line is i never wanted to go to california and it was funny because i never wanted to go to california i don't really like la i'm not a huge fan of it i have a lot of good friends there but it just doesn't really do it for me yeah but even despite that the first time in l.a was downright magical i was like oh my god that's the hollywood sign i was like i'm on hollywood boulevard i'm like in it was crazy it was it was loud you know the first la experience and i you know i was i was broke of i literally got off the plane off my spirit flight that my friend paid for had to fly me out i slept on her couch i was like i was like at the end of my rope as an artist i was like about to lose my job because kobe was happening i was like i i'm in l.a i've got to make something work because i'm about to like i like can't do this anymore i'm like on my last legs and so i went there as like this like starving artist wearing a pair of jeans that i found on the floor of an abandoned house like like held together by like scotch tape and i'm like at this like rooftop five-star restaurant meeting with this label executive who's like i love your stuff yeah here's your deal and i it was just like the weirdest favorite dream where i was like is this really happening it was so unreal and they were like okay well yeah um here's breakfast it's on us we want to sign you and give you all this money and you know you know here's an uber go to the studio go hang out with aaron and i was like okay and i pull up to the studio and aaron and his brother crank out some guitar work and we're like hop in the booth do something and i was like okay and i just wrote michelle pfeiffer and it was just like all of a sudden it just kind of like came out and i was like it was the weirdest situation of my life it was so crazy and i think that's why michelle pfeiffer's so unique to my discography because it was it was a weirdo situation that spawned it um and i loved it i i you know it kind of was just like a little fun we're in the studio together let's just do something but i listened to the demo for 12 hours straight on the plane ride home like from the time i left the hotel in la to the time that my friend picked me up in jacksonville i listened to that song on repeat and i was like wow this is it i was like i feel seen i feel like i'm no longer an artist trying to be validated in the sea of other online artists just trying to make it i feel like i am seen as ethel came i feel like people are treating me with like respect i feel like i'm being seen as an artist and so i asked aaron i was like yo can i put this on the ep it's a really special song to me and he was like go for it so it really did shape the rest of the ep and it it was my first opportunity to feel like i could just sit back and make music that i wanted to make instead of feeling like okay this ep is like the make or break between people looking at me and being like okay yeah she knows what she's doing or oh she just wants to be a musician and so i feel a bit more secure now and michelle pfeiffer was definitely the turning point for it so and i know you probably don't want to give too much away with the ep but one of the names that really stuck out for me you know who kind of also has this like haunting voice and haunting soundscapes you know with wikiface springs eternal um you know this record suffer on ridiculous how good that is how i don't want to give too much away but how was it kind of collaborating with him because i know his voice kind of similar as yours is so special and unique oh yeah he um he's so cool i love him i met him by chance through another friend my friend nicole dolan ginger who's also from toronto um she um i met her through instagram and then through her met wicca and um how did i get there oh i flew i flew to chicago um to see him in concert um after golden age dropped like literally two weeks after golden age came out i um you know we connected on twitter and i was like hey i'm coming up to see my friends i'm coming to your show he was like oh sick so we hung out in the green room um i like stood backstage and like while he was performing and he shouted out golden age while he was on stage so he was just like super friendly super sweet like just so willing to like promote me and kind of put my name out there which i'm like still so grateful for it was through wicca that i met aaron which is the whole reason i even have a label now so i kind of like oh wiga the fact that i'm wearing that right now but um but he's just like super sweet super down to earth um one of the realest people i've met in the industry so far and so when i was working on the ep i kind of wanted to like say thank you so i sent him that demo for god's country super bare bones at the time and i was like hey do you want to get on this and he was like of course um and so he just sent me back some vocals i kind of let him have that and write it and i told him i was like i don't want you to just like do a verse like i want you to record like your verse and then some harmonies and then record some chorus focus like i want you to be throughout the whole song i want your vocal and i want it to be like a duet i don't just want like a feature and so it was it was really cool and he was like this is kind of an interesting opportunity for me to do something i don't usually do so i feel like it was kind of like a funny like meet-in-the-middle situation where we were both kind of like doing something new um yeah he's so good his verse so good um also really excited that he's on my very first 10 minute long track ever um because the song is 10 minutes and it's just it's just this big sub like american gothic like ballad and he sounds so great on it and it was it was really fun you know working with him back and forth on it and i'm super glad he's on the project like i i knew i only really wanted one feature on the ep and i knew i wanted it to be him so i'm so glad that he agreed to it um but yeah he's super cool i adore him that's the cool thing too uh golden age i think is a six minute track and it doesn't feel like it so that's a you know it's really special even the when you know i hear this 10-minute one it probably won't feel like that's how special it probably will be but um you know near the end of interviews i usually would ask like an artist you know oh you have tour dates coming up things are coming up but with go video things have changed so for you you know i know um the ep comes out april so since we're kind of talking before it comes out you know what's how do you feel right now about it and what's it gonna feel like when it's finally released um i'm not happy with it i am like the most last minute worker ever so i'm literally thinning finishing up the mixes this weekend um so still not quite at the end like almost there but i feel good about it i feel like you know my my debut record is my uh passion project is what i've been working on all this time but i like inbred i'm i'm proud of it i'm excited about what it's turned into it's it's another weird little kind of experimental step out of my comfort zone um trying out kind of a new sound so i'm happy with that i think people will like it um and i'm excited to kind of see where it takes me you know over the next year before the record comes out so i'm excited to see kind of like what doors it opens up who who all it reaches um and i'm just overall excited to see or excited like for it to come out i love release night i can't wait for everybody to hear it um it's been about a year working on it now and scrapping songs over and over and over and over and writing new ones like so it's been a journey and i can't wait for it to be out finally and for everybody to hear it i'm excited yeah um just on a final note like there are like a few times where i'll like discover an artist and immediately i'll be so like entranced and like listen to music and like wow this is so special so the fact that you know we've connected so quickly uh on this like musical journey because you know the end of the day like we're all kind of fans of music right so like just to connect you know uh i wish you all the best your music is amazing and i cannot wait to hear this uh this ep um yeah i can't wait to interview again and kind of watch you know you progress as an artist because yeah you know i think with the whole like anya niche thing eventually people will kind of flock to it but you know i think the specialty of it is like you kind of get it early on it's kind of like oh this is really really special so i'm really glad i'm among like the few that are seeing it early on well thank you very much i appreciate you reaching out to me i appreciate the chance to come on and talk about the project um and yeah i also am excited to see where it goes and i hope to connect with you again in the future for sure until next time for sure absolutely bye take care studio one

Channel: STUDIO 01

Views: 87,698

Keywords: Ethel Cain interview, ethel can interview, ethel cain golden age, ethel cain lil aaron, ethel cain michelle pfeiffer, ethel cain inbred ep, ethel cain studio 01 interview, ethel cain wicca phase springs eternal

Id: J7JiSGSP9YY

Length: 32min 16sec (1936 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2021