Published
Name: Grace Cummings
Nationality: Australian
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, actor
Current release: Grace Cummings's new album Bloodhorse! is out via ATO.
Current event: Catch Grace play live at one of her current European tour dates:
17.-29.11. Geneva, Les Créatives Festival
20.11. Offenbach, Hafen 2
23.11. Hamburg, Nachtasyl
24.11. Berlin, Neue Zukunft
Hometown Recommendations: Point Addis.
Things I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I am very passionate about advocating for and working with people with disabilities in the arts and in the world really, in general. Every single person on this planet has a magnificent self to contribute to the world. Every single person is capable of being understood and to be able to express themselves through music and art and in any way suits them. Every single person. No matter what. It’s the people who don’t believe that that gets in the way.
If you enjoyed this Grace Cummings interview and would like to know more about her music and upcoming concerts, visit her on Instagram, Facebook, and bandcamp.
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?
Well I think that’s just it … impulses come from everywhere like dreams and what another piece of art makes me feel or questions I have about others and the world that I can’t or am trying to understand.
I don’t know what it is a lot of the time and there’s not really any rhyme or reason to any of it, Something one day will just grab you and be so meaningful, even if it’s the smallest of things …
It’ll trigger a thought or a feeling and then it just goes from there.
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?
I have absolutely no idea. That’s not me trying to be funny or mysterious … I just absolutely do not know.
So I suppose my answer is a big big soup of chance with some attached insight sprinkled around.
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?
Nah, I wish I was like that. A lot of the time I think perhaps I’d be much more of a calm person …
But I’m quite messy and chaotic and the process just kind of starts when it does and ends at some point and it’s like a thousand tiny ants are running around in my bloodstream and then I think that it’ll never happen again.
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 more-so have rituals to try and calm myself from those sort of heightened moments.
I like to be in the dark, to look at the sky, to listen to tracks of thunderstorms on the speakers and the birds out my window. I like to notice colour and tiny non stop daily sounds and try to keep a hold of my breath.
What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?
I’m not really sure. I think what makes anything “good” is if I believe it. If I see somebody on stage playing, another matter what kind of genre or whatever it is … do I believe it?
There’s no rules and if there were I think I’d be shutting myself off from a lot of beauty in the world and a lot of personal growth. You either believe something or you don’t.
Birds are always in my lyrics … Gods and animals and the weather …
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?
Not out of strict control. People have pointed it out and I’ve realised that it’s true.
I suppose those things are understood by me in a certain way.
There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?
I think that there is an element of spirituality to me at all times.
The creative state I suppose is something that happens to me sometimes and that I wish that it would happen more often … and it could! With more discipline!
I should get a lot more discipline.
How do you think the meaning, or effect of an individual piece is enhanced, clarified or possibly contrasted by the EPs, or albums it is part of? Does each piece, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?
I like to think of albums as whole a lot, and take a lot of time to consider the tracking order, the way different songs make a nod to each other.
This one in particular I kind of like to think as two acts, a curtain is drawn and opened again when you flip the record to the other side.
After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?
There certainly are senses of emptiness everywhere. After releasing something, after coming home from a long tour … It’s very real.
It lasts for a long time and you really really don’t think that it will happen every single time. But it does come, and then it passes, just like everything else.
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn’t or wouldn’t in more mundane tasks?
I think it’s the same as making a great cup of coffee. If you love coffee.
That coffee can make you feel like you’re at home, could smell like your grandparents’ house when you were a child. The cup of coffee could warm your hands when it’s icy cold outside and be the only company that you have in the morning as you start a ritual.
It’s the same as eating a really ripe plum, and the same as the smell of petrichor.
