Part 1

Name: Chelcee Grimes
Nationality: British
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, presenter, soccer player
Current release: Chelcee Grimes's new feature, a collaboration with Krystal Roxx, "Girl," is out via Ultra.
Recommendations: I love photography, there’s a great photography channel I watch called Pauli B walkie talkie sessions on YouTube. He’s a NYC street photographer and he does walks and talks with New York based Photographers and it’s AMAZING! I’m completely inspired every day just with the characters they photograph and also just how each individual photographer sees the world, it’s phenomenal and my favorite thing to do on a weekend with a coffee before I start my actual life and head into the world.

And a book would be any photography book, for me, there’s too many to list but sometimes, with no words and just phenomenal photos you get to create your own story and I’m always so inspired.

If you enjoyed this Chelcee Grimes interview and would like to know more about her activities and music, visit her on Instagram, tiktok, and Facebook.
 


Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

Writing for me is usually always real, it’s not made up, I would usually not even embellish a scenario. The truth usually always hides behind a metaphor or a trapped door in the story.

I regularly have ideas right before that time where you’re about to fall asleep - you know when sometimes you remember “AH the bins” and you say you’ll do it early the next morning and forget - well it’s annoying but I have to fight the urge to say I’ll remember and my bedtimes usually require me to battle with myself to open my eyes, turn the bedside lamp on and get the voice recorder out at midnight just in case that’s my next big idea.

I don’t take chances anymore - I learned the hard way.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

No, I never hear the finished song until I’m finished. I couldn’t ever have the end goal in what it sounds like because I’m just in the process.

I work very fast. I can have a record written within 20 minutes on a good day and I look back and think “how the hell did that happen?” It’s like driving, you know when you get to the destination and forget how you even got there and don’t remember the drive? Yeh. That happens all the time.

Lately however I do love to start with a concept, a title, something strong to start - then I work backwards, I try to dig and see what’s the best possible story I could give that title to do it justice.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

No, no preparation, apart from having all my attention on what I’m doing is needed. I never want to feel like I need certain conditions to write well.

It reminds me of some people who have lucky boots to play football or underpants, because if you ever find yourself without them, what then? Your powers are gone? It’s all in your mind, I get it, but for me I feel like I would really hang on to that, so I have made a conscious effort to know that wherever I am in the world - if it’s just me, I can always at least give it my best shot to write something I like, without the need for anything else.

I have adhd and it’s actually helped me so much, to create. However, I can sometimes forget I’m missing a verse and start layering 100 BV’s on a pre chorus or the bridge, then I’ll go to listen to the song back and realize it’s actually not finished at all.

This happens when my mind isn’t straight. It can still spark great ideas for me to completely lose myself, but when my head is 100% focused and my life feels balanced, I do feel like it gives me that extra 10% to free flow through creating a song.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I can’t even THINK about starting without a coffee! I know, I know … 1st world problems.

But when I mean starting, I don’t mean starting a song, I mean starting my DAY! Coffee is my kryptonite.

What do you start with? And, to quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

There is no right way to start. Sometimes, I hear a chord progression and I start there, or sometimes, like I said, a title or concept, sometimes it’s a hook or musical motif that starts the ball rolling for me.

It’s funny because you think how does someone write a song? Where do you start, but it’s just taste ... if I like something, I move forward with it, whether that be a lyric, a word, a sound, a drum beat etc. Then if I don’t like it, I experiment until I do. But really, it’s just all about taste at the end of the day.

Kinda like fashion, how you choose how you want to present yourself to the world on any given day - what socks you wear, what coat you’ll wear, do you need accessories? That’s how I see a song sometimes.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

I am someone who doesn’t spend too much time on lyrics. I’m led by melody, and a great story.

Sometimes I’ll work with people and they say “How can we say that same line, but in another way?’ I’m thinking - “Why? We’ve said that, that makes sense, I like it.”

I hate trying to approach a song as a songwriter and saying things more cleverly or going around the houses. I write quite honestly, and honestly, the first thing that comes out usually stays ... 99% of the time.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

Honesty. One of my favourite songs in the world is “I can’t make you love me”



And that lyric of “I can’t make you love me if you don’t, You can’t make your heart feel something that it won’t” - I mean, come on!!!! What a song, what a lyric, and it’s not said in a metaphoric way, they’ve not been clever about it. It’s truthful and it smacks you right in the gut!

I love storytelling with no bells and whistles. Just a straight knockout lyric that hits you, matched perfectly with a great melody and a top vocal. To me, that just can’t be beat.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

For sure it’s a process where you’re flowing into every line, every change of tempo in the way a song feels. I just roll with it until I hit on something that doesn’t fit or rubs me up the wrong way.

Sometimes you get to the end and think, wow I love it. Sometimes I click delete or save - but never listen to it again ...

It’s fun though, all of it, it’s expressive and emotive and no matter if it’s my biggest selling song or nobody hears it outside of my 4 walls, I do the same thing again and again. You just don’t know what’s going to happen when you start and that’s why I’m still hooked and find the whole thing so exciting.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I don’t fight anything.

Recently I haven’t written anything for about 6 weeks. I just didn’t feel like it. I know some people get anxiety about not writing like they might forget how to do it, or they won’t be as impressive if they aren’t working the muscle so to speak. But I don’t deep it that much. If I don’t feel like it, I won’t force anything, and if I do, I’m all in and I will be on a new idea everyday for 6 weeks.

It comes in waves, but I’m never at a battle with myself. I just go day by day with how I feel and let it all just flow through as and when, but there’s never any pressure in anything I do.