Empress Of FaceTimes Matt Wilkinson on Apple Music to discuss her new album, her mum featuring on the record, how she’s coping during quarantine and more.
On the meaning behind her song ‘Love Is A Drug’…
[Love Is A Drug] is just about shamelessly wanting affection and to be touched and it's just saying that. It's like the post-breakup hookup song.
On her mum being on the record…
She's the voice of reason on the record. She comes in and out and she just says these really poignant things that when I recorded her I was like, "Ooh, I'm going to put that on that track. Oh I'm going to put that on that track." I don't know. She just sums up the record in a really good way and it's crazy because she hadn't heard it when I recorded her. I feel like that was the first time she had a microphone in front of her. She had bars. She had serious bars. On track three she goes, "Woman is a word, but you make yourself the woman you want to be." And I was like, "Okay.”
On struggling to be creative during the outbreak…
Everyone's like, "Oh, you got to write your Great Gatsby. You got to write your big opus." I mean, I'm making beats, but I don't know if I'm in the head space to write songs right now because it's a lot. It's a lot on everyone. Like tours getting canceled, not knowing what the rest of the year is going to look like. I also think spending lots of time alone is going to impact how people write music, you know?
On when she wrote the album and how “it’s one of the best albums” she’s made…
I made the record in two months in between touring the entire world, you know? And really intense touring from North America, Europe, Australia, Mexico City, and then opening for Lizzo and Maggie Rogers. It's just a lot. And so in between that touring, I wrote this record. I don't know how. It just came out. I mean this whole record, I would describe it as very immediate, urgent, kind of desperate. And I really love it. I think it's one of the best albums I've made.
