HANNAH MERRICK & CRAIG WHITTLE OF KING HANNAH
Hi Hannah, Hi Craig thanks for taking the time to speak with us at Musicology and congratulations on the Tell Me Your Mind And I'll Tell You Mine EP. A recording can be a lifetime worth of experiences concentrated and refined into a body of work that encompasses many years and phases in life. Other times it is a snap shot, a brief period in time crystallized into a record covering a specific epoch. Was it a case of either / or for Tell Me Your Mind And I'll Tell You Mine?
Hannah - I totally believe that every single life choice thus far has led to this moment and from a personal perspective, I like to think that you can hear the past 15-20 years’ worth of non-stop graft and sheer determination to succeed at music (however you define that) in this EP. With regards to story-telling however, most of these songs are no more than a couple of years old and so centre around my recent years in Liverpool. I think you can hear Craig and I's musical relationship on the record for sure and I think the record would sound very different if we hadn't made it together. I hope these are things you can hear!
Craig - I suppose for me it’s a mixture of the two. Crème Brûlée was written years before we started making this record, but the other songs were written in a short space of time and are very much about that time, when Hannah and I were looking for a flat, etc. I think looking back on the record now I think of it as snapshot in time, the months we spent recording and mixing, all the different studios and bedrooms we used to lay tracks down, it’s all there in the songs. Crème Brûlée was the song that made it all possible, so it belongs in there as well.
There was a long musical courting before the two of you actually got together to write your own material. How crucial was that slow unfolding and confidence building process in providing a solid base from which the both of you could boldly leap into joint writing?
Hannah - So crucial! I believe it was the very beginnings of the band. Craig had so much patience with me at the very, very start and really helped me get back some of my confidence. We spent a lot of time in each other's company just showing each other songs and listening to music, and I honestly don't think that our relationship would have blossomed the way it has had we not put the time into it all those years ago.
Craig - I think was very important, necessary even. Hannah talks a lot about how she wasn’t confident singing in front of me for so long, but I was very insecure as a musician and guitarist as well. I had only ever really been in little local acoustic bands, I owned one guitar pedal which was a wah-wah pedal my uncle bought me when I was sixteen or so, so as Hannah and I started playing together we both grew as musicians and writers. You really can’t rush these things and there has to be something inside you to want to improve and learn to get to where you need to be.
The creative dynamism in a duo is perhaps more important than that of a collective band (to which you have both been a part) and in what ways do you each bring something to the table that you uniquely offer?
Hannah - Well I bring the body of a song to the table and Craig takes it from there. I always like to be able to 'hear' the song in its entirety before they reach Craig, it just makes the process so much easier and more fun. Also, I think you can hear the artists we separately listen to in our songs, which I really like. But collectively we support each other no matter what. We care about each other so much and always want the other to be happy, so we lead with that!
Craig - Hannah writes the words and the skeleton to the songs, and I try my best to build layers around that and hopefully not ruin her beautiful little song in the process. It works well because Hannah gets to write her songs and I get to think musically about textures and dynamics and structure, we both have our strengths and try to use them as best we can.
With such richly layered tracks and a masterful finesse in your compositional structures, by prising these layers apart can you elaborate on the technical nature of your production and piecemeal construction through the instrumentation and equipment you used on Tell Me Your Mind And I'll Tell You Mine?
Craig - First of all, thank you so much! That’s very kind, we are still learning and trying to improve so your words mean a lot. Ted White, our producer and synth player, is the one to talk to about this, but I’ll try my best. The EP was sort of pieced together in lots of different places. The drums and most of the bass were recorded in one day in The Cabin studio in Liverpool and the songs were then built on top of those tracks, which wasn’t our first choice but we were limited as Ted’s studio wasn’t big enough to record drums in. Guitars and vocals and everything else were mostly recorded in Ted’s studio, and when lockdown hit I recorded vocal and guitar and synth parts in my flat and we mixed them together with Ted over zoom. A lot of time was spent finding the right sounds to fit in with the raw, natural analogue sound we were chasing. Sending things through Ted’s modular synth, or sending a synth through my guitar pedals or through different amps. It was a learning curve and that for me is the most exciting part about music, those little accidents when you turn a knob and a sound comes out that you never expected. Ted’s modular synth unit is great for that. We now have a studio space which we can use to practice and record so hopefully the whole process will be simpler and quicker, having a space to experiment in and not being limited to the drum sound or take you recorded months earlier.
What were some of the challenges in putting this EP together and conversely what were some of the greatest surprises you experienced through the writing / recording process?
Hannah - Krista from City Slang got in touch having heard our then self-released Crème Brûlée and asked to hear more music. At the time, we had no songs that we loved enough to show her, so we decided to turn this hopeful opportunity into an EP and sent Krista the tracks one-by-one in hope that she and the label would love them enough to sign us - that was a challenge to say the least! I also re-wrote The Sea Has Stretch Marks countless times which was a huge challenge personally. Another personal challenge was writing Meal Deal. Just as this opportunity from the label came along, so did a letter through the door to let Craig and I know that the landlord of our then flat hadn't been paying the mortgage and so we had 'X' amount of time to vacate the property. Mornings when I would usually sit at my desk and work on a song were spent flat-hunting and afternoons were spent flat-viewing. I was fiercely determined to not let the landlord ruin an opportunity I'd personally worked so damn hard for my whole life and so put all my anger and energy into writing a song about moving house à la Meal Deal. I just remember thinking that I'd never forgive myself if I allow this horrible situation to ruin a potentially incredible one - I can remember my determination so clearly it's frightening, it's the most anger I've ever put into a song I think.
Craig - Personally one of the biggest challenges was trying to get the guitar sound I wanted, the sound that existed in my head. Sometimes when you’re jamming or playing live the actual sound and tone of the guitar gets lost. It’s interesting recording and listening back and thinking, ‘Wow, THAT’S what that sounds like?’ I’m very particular about what guitar sounds I like. Bill Tench was probably the most difficult as the song is a lot faster and different to the other tracks, and I wanted the guitar to really muddy the waters and take away some of the sparkle of the song. It needed to take you out of space and into the dirt. In the end, after a lot of experimenting and patience from Ted, I got an oil can delay pedal and that really was the answer to that song, and I think it ended up on almost all the tracks.
From the haunting opener of And Then Out Of Nowhere, It Rained through to the reverb soaked disintegration of Reprise (Moving Day), how considered was the track order in terms of its flow and narrative?
Craig - It was very considered, yes. Originally the EP started as three standalone tracks but as we were recording and building it we knew it needed to be more of a piece of work, and that's where the idea to have these two tracks bookmark the EP came from. And Then Out Of Nowhere, It Rained runs straight into Meal Deal so you hopefully get the sense that this isn’t just a few songs we have written, but a piece of work that all exists in the same space and landscape. The last track was also constructed using lots of different sounds and takes from the other songs on the EP, and by processing them differently or distorting them we sculpted this end track as a sort of celebration of the EP, the end of a journey that the previous tracks have just taken you on. I have no idea whether this comes across, but it was definitely a conscious thing we tried to do.
Hannah - Indeed! Speaking of the last track too, we leave the listener with 'moving day, wanna come a little closer, I got some moving for you', which I think is a nice closing to the EP as moving house became a huge, unexpected part of this record.
The wonderfully directed video clip for Meal Deal opens eerily in a vacant venue. Where precisely was it filmed and was there any special significance in choosing that particular place as the setting for the clip?
Hannah - This was filmed at The Playhouse Theatre in Liverpool, and I work on the bar at its sister theatre. Craig came up with the idea of using it in the video and so thankfully, my working there, gave us a foot in the door with regards to gaining access, which we are incredibly grateful for! It just happened to be mid-lockdown number one too, so the timing was perfect, as had it been any other time of year, the theatre and its stage would have been jam-packed and completely unusable... We were very lucky!
Craig - It’s such an atmospheric old building, with lots of strange corridors and empty rooms and odd lights and shadows, it was perfect for the song. We had a walk around the building the week before we were going to shoot and that’s when I started storyboarding the video and planning what rooms and corridors could be used in what order to create a narrative and visual story to the video.
The equally captivating monochrome clip for Crème Brûlée with its remote and desolate landscapes juxtaposed against mundane commercial stores, feels like a visual dichotomy of the subject mature you are addressing. Can you elaborate on the track, its inception and the storyboard you had for the clip?
Craig - This was the first bit of filming we had ever done, so it was all very new to us. Our plan was essentially to drive around, spot locations and then film us playing the song. I didn’t want to be too ambitious and I had no idea how to use editing software and honestly wasn’t sure how professional I could make the video look, so that was one of the reasons we kept the video quite simple in terms of story and why we went for a more homemade, documentary kind of feel. Hopefully it works well with the song, that sort of low-budget indie film, home-footage feel.
Hannah - The video went from being very planned to not planned at all, the field shots for example weren't on our location list, but they're my personal favourite! I just love the movement of the grass and sky and the telegraph poles and overhead cables and the freehand style that Craig shot in. Same for the car shots, completely unplanned movement that turned out to be a huge role to the video's overall story.
Lastly, on a personal level what does music give you that nothing else does?
Hannah - I think just ultimate happiness and it's the thing I always come back to. I associate music with singing and songwriting, which can be either super dis-heartening or super relaxing and fun (depending on whether you've had a good songwriting day or not!) but either way, it's addictive and makes you feel worthwhile. It's the best feeling in the world when you write something you like, it gives you the feeling of fulfilment that nothing else does. And then sharing them in hope that someone else likes them is a great feeling too, again it's addictive.
Craig - Music is an endless pit of experimentation. I love making noises and trying to piece things together, shoehorning sounds into tracks and making textures that make you feel something, something you can’t put into words but its there. Music gives me that freedom, that sense of discovery, the ability to use your intuition and follow your instinct that I’ve never had before.
