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 August 22 saw the US release of “MIND HOW YOU GO,” the solo debut from former Morcheeba vocalist Skye Edwards. To coincide with the release, Skye embarked on a short series of live performances. We were able to speak with her in the New York office of her label. Cordless Recordings. The following is part one of the interview. Be sure to check back soon to read the rest!
Are these shows the first time you’ve performed your solo material live?
Skye:“No, these aren’t the first shows that I’ve done. My album came out in February in Europe. So I’ve been touring since May all around Europe and went to places like Russia and Slovakia. Doing my own shows, and festivals as well. So these are the first shows that I’ve done with the new record in America.”
How would you compare your live sound to what we hear on the CD?
Skye:“Well, for these American shows it’s very different than what we’ve been doing in the UK and European gigs. There, we are a five-piece band and we’ve taken a lot of the sounds from the record, and the drummer and the keyboardist are triggering a lot of samples. Whereas these shows are much more stripped down, with just guitar, bass, piano, and me singing. So it’s more acoustic.”
Why did you choose to do these American shows in that format? Was it to keep costs down?
Skye:“Yeah. I did a small show at this music conference in France called MIDEM that Jac Holzman, the head of Cordless, saw. He really like the stripped down intimate presentation, so he asked if we’d be interested in doing it like that for the first time coming to America. It’s just three shows, and then as the profile builds we’d like to come back and do it as a band, more like how it sounds on the record.”
Are there any tracks that you think sound particularly different when performed with this instrumentation?
Skye:“Certainly songs like ‘What’s Wrong With Me,’ for instance, because it’s one of the most electronic sounding songs on the record. We’ve had to approach it in a completely different way. But it’s actually quite refreshing to get into a rehearsal room and try things differently. Just a couple of weeks ago we were invited to play at a private party in Spain, so we did it in this unplugged way [for the first time] and it was really lovely. For me, it was just really nice to sing it in a more relaxed way.”
How would you say your solo material evolved from the initial songwriting to what we hear on the CD?
Skye:“It’s way better than I could have imagined. I was listening to artists like Chantal Kreviazuk and Edie Brickell and I kind of had the idea that it would be more acoustic with the odd electronica element, but it turned out more electronic with the odd bit of acoustic stuff in there. I feel that I’m a better songwriter than when I was starting out writing songs just by myself. It’s really great to get together with someone like Pat Leonard or Daniel Lanois. There are really way up there in terms of talent and experience, and you can really learn from that. ”
In terms of selecting a producer, what was the process like?
Skye:” “The first factor was that I really just wanted to work with one person, and I wanted that person to be a writer/producer. I didn’t want to just go in and work with a writer on a bunch of songs, then with another writer and then go and work with a producer. I wanted it to be just one person, but obviously it had to be a right person. You can’t really decide if it’s going to work out over coffee, so you need to go in the studio and see what the chemistry and dynamics are like. I met a couple of people in London initially and then it took me out to LA. Particularly with Pat, he was saying that he really wanted to work on a whole album rather than doing a little bit, or doing the single. That’s really what I was excited by. Though I’d had material from before, Pat said ‘let’s forget everything that you’ve written and start from the beginning.’ And that’s what we did. And then some songs that I’d written before, we produced those as well. Like ‘Calling,’ I’d written that beforehand, and the track ‘No Other’ I’d written with Pascal Gabriel”
• For more info, be sure to visit the Official Skye Edwards website
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